Chapter 4
Chapter Four
L UNCH WAS NOT MUCH better than last night’s dinner had been. A stifling affair and a meal that was unapologetically rich and stodgy, with conversation that was directed by Meredith, interjected occasionally by Baxter, when he wasn’t glancing at the broadsheet newspaper to his right. The twins were silent, though Francesco suspected that was because one of them had a phone beneath the table and they were scrolling it with the volume down, somehow managing to avoid Meredith’s notice.
He suspected Willow would not have been so lucky, if she were to try the same.
“Now, we have guests arriving from five,” Meredith was saying. “Most are staying for the two nights. Would you care to see the guest list, Francesco? There might be some names on it you’re familiar with. Such a shame your family wasn’t able to make it.”
“Yes,” he agreed with a nod. “But I do not need to see the list.”
Meredith’s lips puckered a little and beside him, he was sure he felt Willow’s body shift ever so slightly, as though she were suppressing a laugh.
“The caterers will be setting up the ballroom—unfortunately, the marquee won’t work in this weather. Not for this evening, at least, though perhaps by tomorrow,” she murmured, glancing to the windows which showed a view of the softly falling rain and thunderously grey clouds. “But no matter, we always knew the weather would be risky at this time of year.” She threw a glance at Baxter that was almost accusatory, for having had the audacity to be born at the tail-end of winter.
“It will be lovely, Meredith,” Willow said, her tone genuinely kind. A kindness that Francesco wasn’t sure the other woman deserved at all.
“Hmmm,” Meredith said, reaching for her wine and taking a sip.
“Can we be excused?” Aria asked, looking at her mother.
“May we be excused,” Meredith repeated through gritted teeth. “And why?”
“We have hair appointments,” Kathryn replied.
“Ah, of course,” Meredith’s demeanor shifted completely to one of approval. She turned quickly though, rounding on Willow. “I presume you have someone arranged to take care of this?” she gestured towards Willow’s silky dark hair, tucked back neatly again into a low bun.
“I’ll do it myself,” Willow responded.
Meredith shook her head. “No, that won’t do. Go with the girls.”
“Really, that’s not necessary,” Willow smiled as she said it, to soften the words.
“I beg to differ.” Meredith’s lips compressed into a line of disapproval. “Francesco, take her to town, won’t you? Half of London is coming tonight—you have to look just right, Willow. You know that.”
Willow’s head dropped, her gaze landing on her knees, and something fired inside of him—a protective anger—that made him grind his teeth. He wondered why Willow didn’t remind this woman what she did for a living? The fact that her services were in high demand.
“Willow always looks just right,” Francesco heard himself say, tone banal. “But a trip to town sounds fun. Why don’t we go and play tourist?”
Meredith’s lips parted and Willow’s eyes glanced towards his.
“I meant—,” Meredith interjected.
“Oh, yes,” Willow spoke at the same time, perhaps not hearing Meredith because she went right over the top of her. “There’s a church there you’d love to see.”
“It is hardly the right weather to go galivanting around the countryside. I only meant that you should go the salon and get something done with your hair.”
“Merry,” Baxter’s voice cut across the table. “Let the young people do what they will.”
Meredith’s face pinched. At forty one years of age, she had every reason to still consider herself a young person.
With that, Willow was scraping back her chair and turning to Francesco, her eyes glittering. “Come on,” she held out her hand, in a gesture of trust and solidarity. “Let’s go.”
The rain didn’t ease up as his SUV drove through the gentle undulations of the Cotswolds, neatly cutting through narrow lanes lined with medieval stone houses and finally parking in a town square. They sat there in silence for a few moments, before Willow turned to Francesco.
“Would you like to see the church?”
He arched a thick dark brow, then looked around the square. “Let’s go for a drink,” he said, nodding towards a pub that was almost impossibly cosy, glowing a warm, golden colour from within, the planter boxes overflowing with brightly coloured flowers, the signage boasted, ‘best pie and gravy in the area’.
Willow nodded once.
“Wait there.”
Francesco stepped out of the car, and her eyes lingered a little on his strong legs in the few seconds she had a glimpse of them, before he closed the door and she heard the boot pop. A moment later, he was at her door, opening it, umbrella held aloft. She half-smiled at the chivalrous gesture—though of course, Francesco had had a lot of practice honing his shtick as the perfect boyfriend.
Then again, it wasn’t like he carried the act on beyond a few nights, right? So far as she knew, he’d never dated anyone seriously.
Halfway out of the car, she stilled, as that thought lodged in her brain with a big, bright question mark over it. Francesco had never had a serious girlfriend. She glanced across at him, confusion swamping her. Because why would this man not have properly dated anyone? Beyond a succession of two or three night stands…
But then, he put his hand on the small of her back, guiding her away from the car, and her insides lurched in recognition of the touch, so she had to focus on just putting one foot in front of the other and reminding herself that Francesco was a friend. Tom was the man she wanted to be with.
Inside, the pub was every bit as rustic and charming as outside had promised. Huge pine-scented garlands were strung across the door frames, beautiful artwork adorned the walls, large floral arrangements stood on tabletops, and there was a pleasing hum of chatter and laughter that promised anonymity. Willow wiped a hand over the front of her outfit, to remove any creases, an action she did out of habit, rather than necessity. Though even here, there was a risk of some tabloid photographer snapping an image—double the risk, when she was with a billionaire bachelor like Francesco.
At the bar, Francesco asked, “What would you like?”
She slid her gaze across the various taps promising locally made ciders and ales, then to the fridge, well stocked with wines and champagnes, and finally to the brass backed coffee machine at the end of the counter.
“Actually, I could murder a coffee.”
Francesco nodded, turning to the young woman behind the counter, who was busy looking at Francesco as though if she stared hard enough, he might lean forward and plant a kiss on her lips.
Willow could well understand. Francesco had that effect on pretty much everyone he met.
It wasn’t his fault. But between his height, breadth, strength, that chiseled face, caramel skin, and dark eyes that were rimmed in thick, black lashes, he was more fantasy creation than human.
“Two coffees, thanks.”
“Sure,” the woman nodded. “What kind of coffee?”
Francesco threw Willow a half-smile. “Are you persisting with that oat substance?”
Willow raised her brows, ignoring the fluttering in her chest because he remembered her milk choice from a couple of years back, when they’d caught up for coffee.
“If you have it,” she said to the woman, who gave a decidedly less warm look in Willow’s direction.
“Aye, we do. Oat milk for you,” her gaze slid back to Francesco. “And for you?”
Willow could practically feel the breeze from the other woman’s fluttering lashes.
“Just an espresso.”
Willow bit back a smile. She certainly remembered that about Francesco. Even in the mornings, he had his coffee short and black. She’d fixed it for him, after his father’s death, on the nights she’d stayed over, sleeping on his couch so she could be there if he needed her.
Francesco put his hand against her lower back once more, and Willow tried not to think about what a perfect groove it was for his hand to touch, because that kind of thought was the exact opposite of what a friend would contemplate.
They chose a table built into the bay window at the front of the pub. It was a small enough table that their knees brushed, but Willow didn’t suggest they find somewhere bigger. Neither did Francesco.
“Do you need me to fix your hair, while we are here?” he offered, grinning in a way that was objectively sexy.
Willow smiled back. “You think you could manage a nice up-do?”
“I’ve seen Sofia do her hair often enough,” he said, referring to the woman who’d been raised as one of the Santoros, and very recently become engaged to King Ares of Moricosia. “I think I can manage.”
She laughed then. “That’s just so like you. Confident to a fault.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“It’s a you thing.”
He shrugged. “How hard can it be?”
“To impress my stepmother?” she replied archly.
He grunted.
Willow turned, looking towards the view of the square they had through the window. The rain had eased, but it was still grey and gloomy.
“She’s harder on you than she is on the twins.”
Something familiar rolled through Willow’s gut. A cement boulder of remembered pain, the force of which had compelled her to grow a sort of armour out of nothing. “Yes.”
“That is to say, she’s not exactly pleasant to them, either. But with you, she is particularly…”
“She expects a lot,” Willow remarked, her voice flattened of emotions. Which was not the same as not feeling them. “And I suppose she’s never been able to shake the sense that she has a lot to prove.”
He sat silently, waiting for her to continue.
Willow toyed with the edges of the table before a voice in her head—unmistakably Meredith’s—told her to stop fidgeting and she shoved her hands beneath the tabletop, squared her shoulders and held Francesco’s gaze. “She was very young when she married my father. Younger than I am now, come to think of it,” Willow said, pulling a face. “And I guess my mother was a pretty intimidating person to try to replace.”
“I never met your mother.”
She tilted her head to the side. “I don’t really remember her,” Willow said, wistfully, ignoring the throb in her heart because the only position in her life that had been filled by a mother was that occupied by Meredith. “But I know what I’ve been told, by family, family friends.”
Once again, he waited in silence.
“She was very beautiful, and she came from one of those very wealthy, very old families from the north. My father apparently adored her,” she added. “That’s a tough act to follow, for someone like Meredith.”
His lips pulled to the side, as if deep in thought. “Meredith is, I suppose, beautiful. And I presume she is also of some kind of aristocratic background.”
“Ah, yes, but not like my mother’s,” Willow said with a lift of her shoulders. “She was hired to help care for me,” she said. “Meredith had taken a gap year from university, not sure if she wanted to finish her degree. Her parents mentioned it to Baxter, and then, there she was, in our house, looking after a four-year-old whose whole world had been plunged into grief by the sudden, inexplicable loss of her mother.”
Willow was glad for the interruption of the coffees arriving, because it gave her a chance to blink quickly, surreptitiously forcing away the unexpected—and unwanted—moisture that had built in her eyes.
“She’s hard on me,” Willow continued, “because she wants to show the world that she’s raised me as my mother would have wanted. I sort of understand it.”
His dark, moody eyes rested on her face, scanning her features for so long she forgot the thread of their conversation and lost herself in the depths of his gaze instead, in the flecked brown tones of his eyes, in the way they shifted and moved. Her hands trembled a little as she reached for her coffee, lifting it towards her lips and taking a quick sip.
“Good coffee,” she murmured, self-conscious because he was still staring at her in the way he had.
“Do you think this is how your mother would have wanted you to be raised?” he asked, finally.
Willow’s heart twisted. “Who can say?”
“Your father, for one.”
“You’ve met my father, haven’t you?” she joked. “I mean, I love him, but he’s pretty laid back. Meredith stepped into a role he needed filled—he wanted a wife and mother, and there she was. I don’t know if he even notices that she has a certain…quality to her.”
“Has she always been like this with you?”
Willow laughed then, a soft sound of incredulity. “I’m sorry, it’s just—yes, of course. It’s just who she is.”
“But not with the twins,” he reminded her.
She bit into her lower lip, the pain of that something she’d lived with for a long time. Knowing that she didn’t belong. That she wasn’t as highly valued. That she had to be utterly perfect, all the time, or she risked not being part of their family. Feeling that her connection was tenuous and transient.
“Do you mind if we change the subject?” she asked softly, taking another sip of her coffee.
Francesco’s eyes rested on her face for a beat and then dropped to her hands, which were still slightly unsteady, as they replaced the cup in the saucer.
“ Certamente. Tell me about your lover.”
It was such an unexpected statement that she almost spat her coffee. “My lover?”
“This man you’ve been dating.”
“Oh.” Her cheeks flushed bright pink at the vivid description of Tom as her lover. It was just so physical. So descriptive. Beneath the table, she shifted unconsciously, but the motion brushed their legs together in a different way, the friction sending little darts of heat and awareness through Willow’s whole body.
“Tom,” she said, slowly, thoughtfully, not sure if this conversation was any better.
Francesco raised a brow, almost skeptically, which made her lips twitch with a smile.
“He’s great,” she said, trying to think of ways to describe the other man. “Kind, and smart, and thoughtful. He’s a painter.”
“An artist?”
“No,” she shook her head a little. “A house painter. He took over from his father a few years ago,” she added, defensively, but Francesco only nodded, no hint of judgement in his expression.
“How did you meet?”
“In a bookstore,” she said. “He was buying a gift for his sister; I was knee deep in the romance section. I helped him find a book, he asked to buy me dinner to say thanks.”
Something sparked in Francesco’s eyes. “I see. And yet you are not currently together?”
She shook her head. “We broke up a few months ago.”
“For what reason?”
“That’s a little personal, isn’t it?”
“You are the only person, besides my brothers and cousins, who’s seen me so drunk I almost passed out. I trust you with my life. Is it wrong to ask a personal question?”
Her heart did a funny little skip. He raised a valid point—he’d well and truly let down his guard with her. And in a way, she’d done the same with him, by asking him to do this for her. While he knew her family, in that tenuous, family friend kind of way, he was really seeing behind the veil now, by being squarely placed beside her, as part of her experience of the whole messed up thing.
“There were…a few reasons, I suppose,” she said, a little unevenly, frowning as she tried to put into words what had led to their separation. “We have different friends, different lives, in many ways. Ultimately, he found it hard to get over our comparative financial circumstances.” Her gaze dropped to the table, because it was such a stupid reason to have argued. “He worked hard, but money was always tight. If we wanted to do something—go on a holiday, or out anywhere nice for a meal, I would want to pay. He hated that.” She massaged her lower lip with her teeth. “It’s infuriating.”
Francesco nodded slowly.
“For years, society has had this expectation that rich guys can marry whomever they want, regardless of finances or social status or whatever, why doesn’t that work in reverse?”
“I suppose it depends on the couple,” he said thoughtfully. “There are probably a lot of couples who would make it work regardless.”
It was like a hammer blow to her sense of reality, because that was such a simple thing to say, and worse, he was right. She focused her eyes on the view from the window, because it was too hard to look at Francesco, to feel his gaze on her, to have him see the recognition slowly unfolding through her. “You think we didn’t love each other enough?”
“I think it’s an insufficient reason to end a relationship, if it otherwise works.”
“But then, you’re no expert in this territory,” she said defensively, flitting a glance at him and quickly softening the words with a tight smile that hurt to paste across her face. “What’s the longest relationship you’ve ever had? A week?”
His gaze narrowed, his inspection of her all the more intense now. “I don’t need personal experience to see this situation clearly.”
Didn’t he understand what he was doing to her? What he was saying?
All her life, Willow had felt not good enough. Not good enough for anyone, not good enough to love. Every ounce of her self-esteem had been conditional—she’d sought Meredith’s impossible-to-get approval as though it were her source of oxygen. Deep down, Willow was still that same little girl who just desperately wanted to be loved.
And Tom had loved her.
At least, Willow had believed he loved her, and for the first time in her life, she’d felt…something different. Wanted. Valued. Needed.
Yet here was Francesco, sitting across from her and casually telling her that she’d imagined it all. That Tom hadn’t really loved her.
With another hammer blow of truth, she recognized that maybe her grief over losing Tom was less about the man and more about what she’d thought their relationship represented?
She finished her coffee and replaced the cup. “We should go,” she murmured, trying to catch the threads of their earlier, laid-back tone. “My hair isn’t going to do itself, you know.”