CHAPTER 20
Edoardo
Fuck.
Fuck my life.
I dodged. I argued. I laid it all out, every word bitten off, every ounce of my anger bare and unfiltered. And still, my parents went behind my back. They smiled, nodded, pretended to listen… and then pulled this shit anyway.
So here I am. Candlelight. Linen napkins. Soft music that’s trying way too hard.
And across from me sits Isabella. Just the two of us.
This was supposed to be a family-and-friends dinner, a loud, chaotic, and fun dinner. Instead, it’s an unmistakably romantic setup, as if wax and wine could undo a breakup.
I broke Isabella’s heart. That’s on me, entirely. I own that. But why is she here? We were together for two years, two real years. She knew me. She understood that when I say I’m out, I mean it.
Unless, of course, her parents teamed up with mine. That might explain everything.
So, I play nice. I stay calm. We order. We talk like two people who used to share a life and now share polite memories.
She tells me about new restaurants popping up around town, about their signature dishes and impossible reservations.
She laughs about white truffles at the farmers’ market, priced like the Eiffel Tower, she says, but somehow still selling out because people are idiots for exclusivity.
I ask about her ballet, if she still dances when she manages to steal time away from running her family’s business.
She’s still stunning, effortlessly so, not a hair out of place. That familiar grace in the way she moves, the way she tilts her chin when she explains something, slipping between English and Italian without even noticing. Those small, lethal details I used to drown in.
I loved her once. And God, it hurt like hell after we broke up. Weeks of wanting - wanting to call, wanting to show up at her door. I broke it off because I couldn’t see a life ahead of us. But that didn’t stop me from thinking about her.
Now?
Now it’s strange. It’s just hollow. The conversation flows, technically. Smooth, polite, and vanilla in the worst way. I respond, I nod, I ask the right questions. But nothing sparks, nothing grabs. I can’t focus, can’t latch onto anything that feels real or exciting or alive.
Dinner ends. I walk her to her car.
She hugs me, then leans in to kiss me like muscle memory alone is enough to carry us there.
It startles me. I straighten, gently but firmly stopping her. I tell her it’s better for both of us this way. I watch the understanding and the hurt flicker across her face before she nods.
Her car pulls away.
I don’t go back to my parents’ house. I walk instead, letting the cold bite into my skin, trying to burn the anger out of my chest. I FaceTime my little sister.
“Hi,” Elena answers instantly on the first ring.
“Were you waiting for me to call?” I ask.
“Nope,” she says easily. “On a call with Gigi, Stefano, and a few American coworkers. Absolute chaos.” I hear the smile in her voice. “Muted them for you though. What’s wrong, brother?”
“Do you know anything about dinner tonight?”
“What dinner?” She pauses. “I’m literally trapped on this call. Who would even invite me out tonight?” One eyebrow lifts.
She has no idea.
I tell her, briefly, because if I say too much, I might start yelling at pedestrians.
“Oh God,” Elena says softly. “I’m really sorry. That’s… not okay.” She exhales. “I feel for Isabella too. You’re both kind of pawns in this mess.”
“I know.” I drag a hand over my face. “From now on, do not, I repeat, do not tell our parents anything about my schedule. Or my life. Especially anything involving Caroline. Please.”
“You don’t even have to ask,” she says immediately. “They’re on a mission to marry you off this year. Which means I’m next in line for the firing squad.”
“Then we team up,” I say. “No surrender. I don’t want that pressure and I sure as hell don’t want it for you.”
“Deal.” She brightens. “So, tomorrow, Christmas market and lunch? Order negotiable.”
“I’m flexible. Are you packed for Lake Como the day after?”
“Yes,” she says proudly. “Mostly.”
“Then eleven. Coffee, lunch, market.”
“Perfect. Love you,” she says.
“Love you too, sis.”
The call ends and the silence presses in, again.
What my parents did tonight wasn’t hope. It wasn’t concern. It was manipulation, plain and deliberate. Dragging two exes into a carefully staged ambush doesn’t mend fractures. It crosses a line. It violates something private.
Tomorrow, I’ll speak to them, really speak. Before we leave for our family time in Lake Como. No euphemisms. No evasions. Just truth. Direct, uncomfortable, but absolutely necessary. This cannot happen again, ever.
I make it back to my apartment. It’s barely nine in Milan. Noon in San Francisco.
“Hello from Milan,” I text Caroline.
“Hello from Sonoma County,” she replies.
“Come to Tuscany next. I’d love to host you there.”
“Oh, Tuscany,” she writes. “Cypress-lined roads. Rolling hills. Mountains. Copper work. Leather. Yes, please.”
I can feel her sunlit smile despite thousands of miles apart.
It’s the one I miss most. Caroline doesn’t ration herself around the people she trusts.
Not her laughter. Not her joy. Certainly not with me.
When she smiles like that, it reaches somewhere deep.
Somewhere dangerous. I don’t understand why it affects me so profoundly. It just does.
“Copper work and leather?” I tease.
“Copper to impress you. But leather is the real thing. I love the smell.”
“Maybe we get a pair of leather handcuffs?”
I grin, already picturing her - how expressive she is in bed, how beautifully unguarded. She tells me exactly what she wants, how she wants it. No coyness. No retreat. Those four nights were explosive and wild and tender and unforgettable.
Emojis appear. But not the ones I expect. Sad faces. Grimaces. Why?
I call but she declines, then texts. “Can’t talk now. Call you in an hour.”
I crank up the music, jump into the shower, sing whatever Spotify throws at me like a lunatic. By the time I’m dry and ready for bed, my phone lights up.
Caroline. FaceTime.
“Hello,” I answer.
“Oh, did I wake you?” she asks.
“Not at all. I was waiting.” I smile. “How’s your break?”
“I traded one headache for another,” she says. “Work for my parents. But at least the weather’s better than London. No rain.”
“I don’t mind rain,” I say softly. “It gave me two extra days with you.”
Her flight had been grounded in Luton, two stolen days gifted by a storm. After her so-called girly obligations with Michael, I claimed whatever time remained. Evenings stretching into late mornings, as if the weather itself had conspired to carve out a private world for us.
“A gift,” I’d murmured against her ear, her breath warm at my neck as I kept her awake long past reason, long past restraint.
Nights blurred into unhurried mornings. We stopped checking clocks.
We forgot the world entirely and remembered only heat, closeness, the slow, delicious unraveling of control between us.
“Well,” she says. Just that.
“And thirty extra minutes in the foyer,” I add.
Color blooms across her cheeks. “Hmm.”
I love making this woman speechless.
Michael had called her for brunch while she was still with me. We’d spent the night tangled together, slow and reluctant as we made our way from the sheets to downstairs. When I opened the door, rain poured from the sky, lavish and unrepentant.
And it bought me time. I pulled her back into me right there in the foyer, bent her to my will, and stole her breath and her composure before finally letting her go. I sent her off flushed and undone first to brunch, then across the Atlantic for three long weeks.
So yes, the rain kept giving. From the moment she arrived soaked through that evening, unraveling me completely, to that morning a few days ago.
“So,” I say lightly, “what was with the grimacing emojis? Not a fan of leather handcuffs?”
She winces. “I got that text at lunch with my parents. I laughed and nearly choked on champagne.”
“Oh God,” I laugh. “You okay? So, no objection to the idea?”
“No objection,” she says, laughing with me. “Just that you made me very un-ladylike.”
“I’ll make it up to you,” I promise. “When we see each other.”
“You better.” She winks.
“What are you doing in Sonoma?”
“Entertaining my parents,” she says. “And going on blind dates like a good daughter.”
Something ugly twists in my chest.
“Family pressure, I feel you.” I sigh. “But don’t go on dates.”
She rolls her eyes. “Do I look like I’m enjoying this?”
“No,” I smile. “But tell me if you meet someone as cocky and persuasive as me.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She makes a face.
“Back to leather,” I say. “Like it or love it?”
“I’m obsessed.”
“But I’ve never seen you wear it,” I note. “Clothes or scent.”
“My London closet is all work,” she says. “Do you even know my scent?”
“Rose,” I answer. “And something warm. Sandalwood?”
“Half right,” she says, smiling. “Rose and suede. So yes, leather.”
“Is that a London thing?” I ask. “Or everywhere?”
“I don’t wear much floral,” she explains. “Rose is very London. I usually mix woody-leather with creamy undertones.”
“Oh,” I grin. “I feel special now. Rose, London, and me.”
Then, my voice drops on its own, unguarded. “I want your scent on me, Caroline. Right now.”
She doesn’t answer, just gives me that knowing smirk.
God. What a woman. All confidence, ninety-nine percent of it unapologetic and self-possessed with that remaining one percent of shyness you have to look closely to catch.
And when it comes to me, there’s always that hint of arrogance she wears like a challenge that consumes me, consumes my thoughts.
I miss her. Truly miss her. Probably the wrong feeling after less than a week apart.
Then again, since when has anything about her ever followed the rules?