My Italian Heart

Chapter Twenty Nine

I couldn't believe he had come with Emily instead of staying behind. With a house full of people, I had no way of being able to speak to him. Not if we expected the conversation to stay private anyway. I didn't know what I was supposed to do as he continued to stare at me. I wanted to run at him, but I couldn't. I wanted to explain, but I couldn't.

I considered putting the necklace on to communicate my desire for him, but I still needed to know what it meant first. I had no way of knowing if he felt the same way about me, not after he had called it off so quickly. It could have just been jealousy over Adam, or it could mean nothing at all. I was just in a hurry to find out, but at the same time, I didn't want to know. At least at that moment I could pretend I had some sort of hope. I had tried too hard to convince myself that it was Adam I wanted. That I could love Adam. Even trying to convince myself that I didn't really love David. All I had wanted was to heal by any means necessary.

Except, seeing David, having that glimmer of hope, it was enough for me to understand that everything else had been denial. Self preservation even. I had just been trying to find a way to survive being without him, but that didn't mean I wanted a life without him. All I wanted was for him to walk over, lift me into his arms and be damned with what anyone else thought about it. I wanted to scream it from the roof tops.

Somehow, in all of the swirling thoughts, I had missed Rylie's present completely. I watched on as she looked around at us all full of thanks for the part we were playing in her present. "Aurora, David..." I snapped my head up to where Luca was standing. "Can you grab me some prosecco from the warehouse please, I think we need to celebrate." Luca knew better, we had at least five bottles in the kitchen already. He was giving me an opportunity to speak to David without anyone thinking anything about it. I couldn't find any words but I nodded. David followed me out through the kitchen and as he got closer I could smell his aftershave. It was too familiar. Suddenly, I was terrified that I might never be close enough to smell that sweat scent again.

As soon as we went through the kitchen door and he had closed it behind us, he fell into step beside me. "Merry Christmas, Aurora."

I tried to keep myself calm just in case anyone could see us out of the windows. I wanted to scream and shout at him that it wasn't a very merry Christmas given the circumstances, but I resisted. "I found the necklace."

"I hope you like it, I had hoped you would be wearing it." The idea of him hoping to see me locked into something that only he had a key to gave my stomach a flutter as we walked.

"I need to know what it means."

"Well, the official meaning is that you are mine. That a small piece of me is carried around with you every day, a piece you can't remove. A reminder that you are mine, every time you look down or in a mirror. Something you can never forget."

"But, I'm not yours, David. You broke it off." We were just reaching the warehouse and I clicked the shutter to open it. We both waited patiently while it opened, no longer having our backs to the house. I stepped inside, but found David's weight against me, a little too forceful as he pressed me into the wooden wall. His hand slid up my top and warmed my skin to boiling point as it moved. Such a simple movement and it had me gasping for air.

Then he was gone. I blinked at him as he stalked across the warehouse. "There's something you need to know. Before we can talk about us, before I can touch you and, believe me, it's killing me not being able to touch you. Last night, knowing you were naked so close to me, even if you were covered in bubbles, it was torture." He walked back and forth and mimicked how I had looked in the kitchen earlier on. "Adam isn't the man you think he is."

"How do you know what sort of man I think he is?"

"I just do. I know you. Aurora, I know what happened between you two yesterday." He started shaking his head instantly. "I don't want to talk about it, but I know. I know because he called the office after he dropped you off and gave me every little detail. The terrace, the slopes, the snow, you being half naked." The only way he could possibly know would be if Adam had told him, but I couldn't understand why he would do such a thing. "He's a jealous man, you need to be careful of him. I'll kill him if he ever steps foot here again for the way he has disrespected you and I told him as much on the phone."

"I'm sorry, David." It was all I could muster. I didn't know why Adam had done such a thing, but my instinct told me that David was right. He would rather hurt David than be respectful of me. I was too old for those sort of games for a start. Almost glad that I had put off messaging him back, but not being able to decide whether I was going to give him a piece of my mind or just ignore him completely.

"I didn't tell you so you would be sorry. You have nothing to be sorry for. It was all me. I was so f*****g stupid. Aurora, I love you so much and its terrifying, especially after everything. And everything I said was true. I can't give you what you deserve. But, I will die trying to give you everything I can. I want to go back to that night and shake myself, to make myself see how stupid and short-sighted I was being. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I had jumped the gun. If Cora gets herself sorted, then I would give anything to be your husband. Cora and I are just in name only, it's you I love, you I would die for."

"And kids?"

He spun away and snapped himself away from looking at me. "I can't. I'm too old to be bringing something so innocent and defenseless into this world. I couldn't be sure I would be there for the child when it needed me. There is a high chance I won't be. Not to mention I don't have the stamina to deal with a baby anymore."

"I understand, I do. However, I wish you would stop making out that you are at deaths door."

"Hey, I could have forty, fifty years left in me, but I've wasted half my life looking for you, I want to spend every second of it focused on you." I took the necklace out of my pocket and held it in the palm of my hand, holding it out to him, silently asking him to do the honor. He came back to me, pinning me again and kissing me, hard and deep. As though he had found the fountain of youth and it was somewhere down my throat. He pulled back just enough so he could stare into my eyes. "Are you sure? Because once this is on I am never taking it off. It makes you mine and me yours. This is as committed as it gets until I can get a ring on your finger."

I swept my hair to one side and held it in my hand, holding it up off my neck. "I've never been surer about anything in my life." He leant in and kissed me again, but it was much softer and shorter. Threading the chain around my neck and holding the ends together, he reached for the little heart-shaped padlock. I held my breath as he looped it though the ends of the chain and fastened it shut with a click.

"As much as I would love to stay here and seal the deal, we need to get back, we will be missed soon enough." I knew he was right but the idea of him taking me there against the warehouse wall just made me desperate for him.

"That's unfair, now I'm really horny."

"I want you to come away with me this week, like we planned before. You tell everyone you have to work away. I will tell them that I need to head back to England to deal with some business. No one will suspect a thing."

"Do you not think we should tell everyone?"

"I do actually, but given how things have been, I don't want to share you just yet. A couple of weeks just the two of us, then we will worry about making it more complicated by inviting everyone into our business." I nodded, grateful to have an end date in sight for the secrecy. Lacing my fingers through his as we headed to find the right crate of wine. Feeling like the world had righted itself again.