19. Alex
Alex
Things at the villa were tenuous at best. The early morning revelation between Leo and I was, like a fresh coat of paint, too fresh to rest anything upon yet.
However, we weren’t quite walking on eggshells around one another either.
There was enough understanding there to move forward, but not much else for the moment.
The rest of the day passed in a strange sort of limbo.
Leo moved through the villa with his characteristic ease, humming while he unpacked his market goods and began preliminary preparations for dinner.
I found myself gravitating toward the kitchen, ostensibly to help, but mostly just to be near him without the weight of needing to say anything or figure anything out.
By late afternoon, I was perched on one of the kitchen stools, nursing a glass of wine, watching him work.
He moved with a fluid efficiency that I’d never really noticed before.
Or maybe I had, and I’d just been too busy fighting against noticing it.
The way his hands moved when he was chopping vegetables.
The concentration on his face. The small smile that played at his mouth when he thought no one was looking.
“Stop staring,” he said, not looking up from the pasta he was working with.
“I’m not staring.”
“You absolutely are.”
I took another drink of wine. “Can’t help it.”
He glanced at me then, and there was something both pleased and uncertain in that glance, like he wasn’t quite sure if I was joking. I wasn’t entirely sure either.
“How much wine have you had?” he asked.
“Not enough to use it as an excuse for what I just said.”
He laughed, a real laugh, and the sound of it did something to my stomach that I was still getting used to. I watched him return his attention to the pasta, and I realized I was doing it again. I was staring. But this time I didn’t even try to stop.
Around six o’clock, Leo suggested we eat on the terrace.
The weather had been exceptionally good since the storm, and the evening was the kind of perfect that felt like it belonged in a painting.
The sky was turning shades of pink and gold, the sea was visible in the distance, calm and glittering.
And the lemon trees cast long shadows across the stone.
I helped him carry things outside. There was the fresh pasta, the cheese, the new bread that hadn’t been soaked by rain, and fresh vegetables dressed in that dark preserve he’d become obsessed with.
He had to open the second bottle of wine since we’d polished off the first while he was cooking.
That, of course, made him smile because it proved his point. Buying two was a good idea.
We sat at the small wrought-iron table, and for a while, we just ate.
The silence between us was different now.
Not the heavy, loaded silence of the past few days.
This was something easier, though we were both still conscious of the newness of our situation.
However, we didn’t rush it or try to dissect it. Instead, we just tried to enjoy it.
“This is good,” I said, gesturing vaguely at the food.
“You sound surprised.”
“I’m not surprised. I’m...” I paused, searching for the word. “Grateful, maybe. That you did this.”
He looked at me across the table, the last of the sunset caught in his eyes. “It’s just dinner, Alex.”
“It’s not, though. Is it?”
He paused for a moment before he set his fork down. “No,” he said quietly. “I suppose it isn’t.”
I reached across the table without planning to and found his hand. It was warm, and slightly sticky from the olive oil, and I didn’t care. I held it there in the fading light while the world turned colors around us.
“I’m still terrified,” I said.
“I know.”
“But I’m a little less terrified than I was this morning.”
“That’s progress,” he said.
I thought about that. About how a week ago I would have said there was no such thing as progress, only the careful management of inevitable failure when it came to relationships.
But now, in just a few short days, I was starting to feel like happiness was possible again.
It was still far off, don’t get me wrong, but at least it was visible on the horizon once more.
A loud knock from the house made us both look up, breaking the moment. I pulled my hand away from Leo’s, my brows knitted together. Then, just as Leo was about to get up, a head popped over the garden wall and I sucked in a breath.
It was Matteo.
“Buonasera!” he called, letting himself into the garden before anyone responded.
He was holding a small wooden box in his hands, and he was grinning like he’d just won the lottery. Behind him, I could see his truck parked haphazardly on the lane, one wheel up on the grass verge.
“Matteo,” Leo said, and there was surprise in his voice, but not displeasure. He started to stand. “What are you doing here?”
“I was in the area,” Matteo said, making his way across the terrace with that easy confidence of his. “And I realized I left my level here when I fixed the skylight. I thought perhaps I could pick it up before it got too late.”
He was lying. I could tell because his eyes kept darting between Leo and me, cataloging the wine glasses, the intimate arrangement of the table, the fact that Leo’s hand had been in mine approximately three seconds ago. The level was just an excuse.
I felt my jaw tighten.
“Of course,” Leo said, gesturing toward the house. “It’s inside. I’ll grab it for you.”
“Actually,” Matteo said, and now he was looking directly at me with an expression I couldn’t quite read. “I was hoping perhaps we could talk. The three of us.”
My stomach dropped.
“I don’t think that’s necessary,” I said, my voice coming out flat in a way I hadn’t intended.
“Perhaps not,” Matteo agreed. He set the wooden box down on the edge of the table with deliberate care. “But I think it is. Because I am not stupid, and I think there are things that should be said.”
Leo looked between us, his expression shifting to something more guarded. I could see him trying to figure out what was happening, what Matteo had pieced together.
“Matteo,” Leo started.
“Let me speak,” Matteo said, not unkindly.
He pulled out the third chair and sat down, uninvited, like he had every right to be part of this moment.
“I went out with you, Leo. I thought perhaps something might develop between us. You are kind, you are beautiful, and you are clearly a man who has been hurt and is trying to heal.” He paused, looking at Leo with genuine affection.
“But you were not present that night. Not really. Your mind was here. On this villa. On him.”
He turned to look at me then, and there was no anger in his gaze. Just clarity.
“And now I understand why,” Matteo continued. “Because he looks at you the way I was hoping you would look at me. Like you cannot believe you are allowed to.”
I didn’t know what to say. I opened my mouth and closed it again. My heart raced and fear flooded my system. This was exactly that last thing I wanted to talk to anyone about, much less fucking Matteo.
“I came back not just for the skylight,” Matteo said. “I came back because I wanted to see if I was right. And I was.” He smiled, sad and genuine. “So I am wishing you both luck.”
Leo’s hand found mine again under the table.
“Matteo—” Leo began.
“No,” Matteo held up a hand. “I do not need apologies. Sometimes love finds you in unexpected places. Even stepbrothers.” He gave Leo a wink.
“And sometimes it doesn’t go the way we want.
” He stood up with a sigh, retrieving his wooden box.
“I will find my level tomorrow. Tonight, you should finish your dinner and enjoy your new home together.”
Leo’s fingers suddenly clenched around mine and I heard him gasp. But he didn’t say anything as we watched Matteo walk back toward the gate, pausing only to lift a hand in a small wave.
And then he was gone, leaving Leo and me sitting in the fading light with the pasta cooling on our plates and the second bottle of wine nearly empty between us.
I turned to look at Leo, and he was already pulling his hand away, trying to rearrange his face into something less full of surprise and worry.
“Well,” he said shakily. “That was unexpected.”
“Leo… What’s going on?”
“What do you mean?” he asked too quickly. He was already picking up his fork, his eyes anywhere but on me. “Nothing’s going on. Eat your pasta.”
“No. You’re being weird.” I stared at him for a long moment, picking over Matteo’s words. My heart skipped as realization struck like a bolt of lightning. “Leo. Why did Matteo call this your new home?”
Leo shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “It’s probably just a… uh… language barrier thing.”
But I didn’t believe him. His voice was too high, too shaky, and he was avoiding my gaze at all costs.
“Leo,” I said, my voice dropping lower. “What aren’t you telling me?”
He set his fork down with deliberate care, the metal clinking against the plate. For a long moment he didn’t say anything. He just sat there, his jaw working slightly, like he was chewing on words he couldn’t quite bring himself to speak.
“It’s not a big deal,” he said finally.
“It’s clearly a big deal if Matteo knows about it and you’re sitting here lying to my face.”
Leo’s hands tightened on the edge of the table. I watched the color drain from his face in the fading light, watched him struggle with whatever was happening behind those amber eyes. The easy comfort we’d built over the past few hours evaporated like water on hot stone.
“I… I bought the villa,” he said quietly.
The words didn’t make sense at first. They landed in the space between us and just sat there, inert and impossible.
“What?” I heard myself say.
“I bought it,” he repeated, still not looking at me. “Not rented. Bought. The deed is upstairs in an envelope in my room. This… this isn’t a vacation for me.”
I stared at him. The sunset continued its work in the sky above us, indifferent to the fact that everything had just shifted once again. The wine in my glass caught the light, casting refractions over the table. My pasta was definitely cold now.
“Why would you do that?” I asked.
“I bought it almost two months ago,” Leo said, and now there was an edge to his voice, a melancholy anger creeping in.
“It was for Ben. For both of us. It was…” He paused, clenching his eyes shut as he took a deep breath.
“It was supposed to be an engagement gift for him. But when I came home with a ring in my pocket, and he told me he was done, I figured that maybe… I could start a new life here. Make a good situation out of something bad.”
Shock was the only real way to describe how I felt.
The ground was shifting beneath me, or maybe it was just the wine and the shock of it all catching up at once.
Leo had bought this villa. Not rented it for three weeks as a vacation escape like he said.
He’d purchased it. Months ago. Before I’d even agreed to come here with him.
“You bought it for Ben,” I said slowly, trying to work through the implications. “And then Ben ended things, so you decided to… what? Drag me here as a consolation prize?”
“That’s not what this is,” Leo said, and now he was looking at me, his eyes sharp with frustration. “And you know it isn’t.”
“How much?” I heard myself ask.
“That’s not—”
“How much, Leo?”
He finally looked at me, and I could see the answer in his eyes before he even spoke. Whatever number he was about to say was going to be significant enough that he’d been hiding it from me this entire time.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said quietly.
“It matters to me.” My voice had gone cold. I could feel it happening, that familiar shutdown, the walls sliding back into place. “How much did you spend on this place?”
“Alex—”
“Tell me.”
He pushed back from the table and stood, running both hands through his hair in that gesture of frustration I’d come to recognize. “One point five million Euros,” he said. “Every single penny I had and then some. Are you happy now?”
I couldn’t breathe. I stood up too, my chair scraping against the stone with a sound like a scream. One point five million Euros wasn’t just a vacation home for Leo. Not on his salary. This house was everything he owned now.
He really wasn’t planning on going back home.
I blinked a few times, letting the information settle back in. “Do our parents know?”
He shook his head. “No. I couldn’t bring myself to tell them.”
That conversation probably wasn’t going to go well. “And when were you going to tell me?”
“I…” He paused, looking up at me. “I don’t know.
I just… I didn’t want you to feel bad for me or to lecture me or tell me how stupid I was for buying a house for a man who didn’t give a shit about me.
” Tears gathered in the corners of his eyes and rolled down his cheeks.
“I just wanted to enjoy my time here and help you get back on your feet and reconnect a little bit before I…”
“Moved to another country forever?” I finished for him, heat building in the pit of my stomach.
“I… I guess so.”
“I need to think,” I said finally, gritting my teeth as I moved toward the door. “This is a lot to process.”
“Alex—”
“You asked me to feel things for you Leo!” I shouted before I could stop myself. “To let myself explore! And now, in two weeks, I’m never going to fucking see you again? Doesn’t that seem a little cruel to you?”
Leo flinched like I’d struck him, and the anger that had been building in my chest suddenly deflated into something worse.
Guilt. Shame. The ugly realization that I’d just shouted at him for making a decision about his own life, when what I was really angry about was the fact that I couldn’t control what happened next.
“You’re right,” he said quietly, hanging is head. “It was cruel. I’m sorry.” He sniffled, his shoulders quaking. “I just… I never thought it was all going to fall apart like this…”
He wasn’t talking about me then. He was talking about Ben, about his failed relationship that I’d been too busy wallowing in my own misery to think about.
The truth was, Leo was just as hurt as I was, and I’d done nothing to comfort him.
In fact, so far, I’d probably only made things more difficult.
Without thinking, I walked over to him and wrapped him up in my arms. His body shook against mine as he cried. Weeks and months of grief rushed out of him as the dam finally broke. But I held him tight, unable to tear myself away despite my irritation.
Nobody, not even Amanda, had gotten this kind of care from me. That, more than anything, told me that this entire situation was a lot more serious than I’d been leading myself to believe.
But what was I supposed to do next?