CHAPTER EIGHT
FRANCESCAWOKEUP the next morning with plans upon plans. Some of them were very honorable. Arrange a few charitable excursions for her and Aristide in between the events he had planned throughout the glittering cities of Europe.
They could forgo the photo op since he was so against it, but they still needed to do the charitable activities and make sure the stories got around. See? She could compromise. On that anyway.
Some of her plans were of a more...questionable nature, she supposed. And did not involve compromise.
Because she was going to seduce her own husband when she knew very little about seduction. When he thought it was “mixing business with pleasure” and that was very bad.
Which was just so ludicrous. Their business was marriage, and making it look like they were in love so everyone thought Aristide a changed man.
It made absolutely no sense to keep their hands off each other when they both clearly wanted to know what it would be like, and it would only aid in their ruse.
When he had quite obviously had an alarming number of women in his bed before this moment. What was one more? Was he really going to have the only woman he didn’t sleep with be his wife?
She understood his reticence, when his mother essentially worked for his father, even after having a son and all these years later. What a disturbing situation.
But she had met Milo Bonaparte, and Aristide was nothing like him.
Which made her realize, somewhat belatedly, that the woman who had served her and Vale tea with Milo when they announced their engagement had likely...been Aristide’s mother.
She’d thought about that as they traveled from Rome to Milan, and there for a few days she played the role of a picture-perfect wife always looking adoringly at her husband. They appeared arm in arm, they danced, they charmed. And Francesca did not push. She let him put that distance between them, as if they were nothing more than coworkers while she watched him. Learned him.
She had not pressed him for any more kissing photo ops. She had dressed more on the side of that old modesty, as if that might lend Aristide some aura of sainthood.
It had not worked, and the stories about them had cooled. More interested in the fate of Vale and his princess—which no one could quite agree on.
“A picnic?” Aristide looked up at her from where he was reading a newspaper in a language she hadn’t known he was fluent in. Because he liked to hide that part of himself. That he was smart. That he worked hard.
Thatat least she understood. His attempt to be the antithesis of his brother so it wasn’t competition. She wondered if that was because he was afraid he’d lose, or if he did not want to be in competition with Vale.
While Vale’s feelings on Aristide had always been centered in anger, Francesca had to surmise Aristide’s stemmed from hurt. An interesting contrast.
But that was neither here nor there. She held the picnic basket she had put together herself. “We’ve done all the glittering parties. All the glamour. I think now is the time for someone to look at us in a...quieter moment. What better place than Lake Como?”
“We have a dinner to attend tonight.”
“Yes. We do. Don’t we want to prove to people we spend every waking moment together?”
He sighed, a bit heavily for someone this was all benefitting. She didn’t care which reputation he wanted to trot out. As far as she was concerned, a good reputation never did anything for her. No more than a bad one would have.
But he got out of the chair and took her to the picnic place she’d chosen. She marched ahead, the scene already formed in her head.
She would lay out the picnic, they would talk, eat, flirt—hopefully. The photographer she’d tipped off via her assistant would come, snap a few candid photographs, and then leave.
She found her spot and spread out the pretty blanket and then set the basket in the middle. It was beautiful, and the pictures would be absolutely idyllic.
Then she looked back at the man who would complete the picture. He was dressed casually, as was she, and as she’d instructed. And still, the stiff posture, the suspicious expression made it seem like he was standing at the head of a meeting table rather than a cozy picnic with his new bride.
She smiled brightly at him and took him by the arm and tugged him into a sitting position on the blanket. She pulled the food out of the basket, handed him his share of things. There was nothing too fancy, both because she’d done it herself and by design. She wanted it to look rustic and homey to the outside world, as much as to Aristide she wanted it to look like...she’d put some heart into it.
Because Aristide might be determined there were lines and separations and realities and fictions, but Francesca wanted to try out what it would feel like for everything to be a reality.
She settled herself next to him, so their shoulders were pressed together and they could both lean back against the tree shading them, though sunlight dappled through like little stars.
The only way she knew how to make things happen for the better was to plan them out. To march forward, step by step, until the goal was reached.
And somehow her goal had become her husband.
She looked up at him. He was not scowling exactly, but he was looking straight ahead. It wouldn’t do for a picture. Or for what she wanted.
There was one thing she knew got through that little wall he put up. She wasn’t proud of using her trauma to get through it, to get to him, but right now she was determined to use any and all tools at her disposal.
Aristide knew he was too stiff. Her proximity did that to him more and more. Because she became more and more casual with it. A touch, a brush, her body next to his.
She acted all the time as if this were somehow real. She made this all feel real, when they weren’t doing anything different than that honeymoon week. She baked him things, told him about the books she was reading, insisted he be there while she swam.
But something had shifted. From a simple kind of enjoyment to...understanding.
He knew her father had harmed her. She knew that Valentino had been the one to turn his back on Aristide. He thought he could see under almost all her masks now, though she trotted them out less and less.
He was terrified she could see under his—as he trotted them out more and more.
But worst of all, she seemed to enjoy his company, as no one he could recall ever had. Not just his charm, or his money, or his physical appeal. Not just...as part of their deal, but actually seek it out. She seemed to enjoy just being together.
Like they were friends.
Like they were more.
Sitting there in a pretty little sundress that she’d somehow made up to look casual. He supposed it was modest, but any millimeter of olive skin exposed made him want to see more. Made him desperate to touch, to taste, when he could never remember an ensemble any woman had ever worn to entice him having the same effect.
“I’ve never had company on a picnic before,” she announced, out of the blue and with a kind of cheerfulness the words didn’t match.
She was forever announcing these sad little tidbits of her life that made it feel like she’d turned his heart into a pincushion.
“You had solitary picnics?” he returned, hoping he was misunderstanding.
“There was a little place on my father’s estate where no one could find me. I didn’t go there often because I’d usually be punished upon return. But if I knew my father would be gone for a while, I would smuggle out little snacks and go there and pretend I was having a picnic in some beautiful park somewhere.” She gestured at the beauty around them. As though she’d made her dream come true.
“Francesca. How did you turn out?” Because he had figured his way out of the slings and arrows of manipulation and meanness and rejection, but her childhood made what he’d always viewed as great trauma seem like a joke.
She looked down at her sandwich—one she’d no doubt made, as it wasn’t neat or tidy like anyone he paid to feed them would have accomplished. “I decided to,” she said, her voice small but firm.
“You are impressive, mio angioletta.” She never balked at that name anymore. She beamed when he called her that. As she did now. Which meant he should stop, and yet...
He kept meaning to separate himself more and more from her, but watching her bloom in this new life of theirs was irresistible. Her palpable joy. Her confidence and determination. And what was the harm in watching if he knew what the lines were?
But every day she brought him closer to dangerous ground. Something bigger and bigger swelling inside of him. And he knew it could not take root or it would be a disaster for both of them.
He knew what it was to think so highly of someone. To feel those flickers of enjoyment and affinity and need. He had been very careful not to let these things into his life again, but she was changing everything.
He knew where that led. There was nothing he had to offer anyone that didn’t cause harm. He had learned this at a young age and it had been reinforced later, so he’d grown into an adult, who made sure not to form attachments. It had been years since he’d felt this way.
And he couldn’t escape it, because he’d married her. Because he could hardly turn her loose to fend for herself, and he still wanted the reputation she was crafting for him.
She looked up from her sandwich, offered him a smile, but her gaze dropped to his mouth.
Need slammed through him. No. Not need. Want. Because you could resist a want. You did not hurt people over a want. A want was a choice. And he did not have to choose her.
He told himself this. Over and over. Even as she seemed to make it harder to breathe. Harder to exist anywhere without putting his hands on her. His mouth on her.
“The photographer is here,” she whispered, her eyes now searching his. Like looking for an answer.
He knew better than to think he was anyone’s answer.
“Excellent,” he replied, but he didn’t move. Didn’t look for where the photographer might be discreetly stationed. He couldn’t give a damn about a photographer when she was this close, her eyes that dark, and everything about her simply beautiful.
To kiss her would be to give in. Cross a line. When he didn’t cross those lines. He didn’t.
But she tilted her mouth toward his, and she must be magnetic. The pull of her was too much. Something had happened in their time together, and she had upended something inside of him so none of the gravity that used to hold him center existed.
There was only her, and then the taste of her. Her mouth on his, gentle and sweet. Her arms sliding around his neck, melting into him. As though she was his. Some great karmic gift when he’d done nothing to deserve it. Her.
She was soft, safe and so damn strong it should humble anyone who came into her orbit. She set some hideous, needy, uncontrollable wildfire inside of him, and then soothed it with the brush of her hand over his hair.
It shuddered through him, and only the knowledge someone watched, someone took photographs had him easing back.
She fluttered her eyes open and looked so pleased with herself, and he wanted to be pleased too, but it soured in his gut as her arms slid off his shoulders and went back to her food.
He couldn’t force himself to do the same. Lines kept getting crossed. Emotions kept swirling out of control. Something too close to need was taking hold when he knew it to be the enemy right along with expectation. Hope. Love.
But he didn’t know what to do about it.