Chapter 12
Allegra
KNOCK. KNOCK.
I looked out at the beautiful sunset while waiting for Matteo to answer the door.
Electronic dance music blasted from inside the house, and it was not what I’d expected to hear.
I would’ve taken him more for a classic rock fan, or maybe some Pavarotti.
After a minute of waiting, I knocked a second time, this time louder.
That did the trick. The door swung open.
Only it wasn’t Matteo who’d answered. It was a woman.
And she was absolutely stunning. Long shiny black hair, high cheekbones, full lips, and sparkling blue eyes.
She wore a short black silk robe that barely skimmed the top of her tanned thighs, and the longer I stared at her, the more familiar she looked.
I thought perhaps she might be famous? Maybe a model?
“Hi,” I finally managed. “Umm…is Matteo here?”
The woman’s deep, raspy voice and sexy Italian accent made me wish I’d brushed my hair before coming over. “Parli Italiano?”
I shook my head. “Not very well. I’m sorry.”
“It is okay.” She smiled. “I love speaking Inglese!” She looked down at my hands and licked her lips. “Is that pie? I haven’t had carbs in a week.”
Of course the gorgeous woman could speak perfect English, too. And apparently, I’d come at the perfect time—from the looks of things, to deliver Matteo and this bilingual beauty an after-sex pie. I forced a weak smile. “Matteo helped me out this morning, so I wanted to do something for him.”
“He’s in da shower.” She stepped aside with an animated wave. “Come in. Come in. He’ll be out soon.”
Shaking my head, I extended the pie. “Oh, no, I don’t want to interrupt.” I already felt awkward and couldn’t wait to get the heck out of there. “No, I need to—”
“Allegra?” Matteo’s deep voice rang out as he came up behind the woman. He was wearing only a towel wrapped around his waist. Damn. I really hated her right now.
“Hi. Uh…” I lifted the tin. “I wanted to say thank you for the lesson this morning, so I made you the pie you like from my grandmother’s recipe.”
“Damn.” He licked his lips. “That looks good.”
Not as good as you in that towel. I didn’t want to get caught ogling him in front of his date or whoever she was, so I forced my eyes elsewhere and waved awkwardly as I turned away. “Welp. Enjoy.”
“Allegra,” Matteo called. “Hang on a minute. Why don’t you come in and have a piece?”
The woman glanced between us and smirked. “Oh. This is her?”
I felt my brows pull tight. “Her who?”
Matteo rolled his eyes. “Ignore my sister, like I try to do when she drops in unannounced and informs me she’s staying for a full week.”
Oh! His sister! An unexpected flood of relief hit, and I felt my face flush.
“Now you must come in.” His sister took my elbow and steered me into the house. “I want to know the woman my brother has been talking about since I walked in.”
My eyes jumped to Matteo’s, and he shook his head.
“I mentioned you were staying at Sophia’s, and that turned into Luciana grilling me about you for an hour.
” He planted his hands on his hips. “I’m going to go put some clothes on.
” He yelled over his shoulder as he walked down the hall, “And turn this shitty music down, Luce!”
Luciana. Even her name was pretty. I followed Matteo’s sister into the kitchen, and she used her phone to lower the music volume before grabbing a bottle of wine. “Red?”
“Umm…sure.”
She handed me a glass and tilted the bottle for a generous pour. “Do you dance?”
“Umm, no. I’m a lawyer.”
She chuckled and lifted a glass of wine already sitting on the counter. “I meant at da nightclub. Do you like to go dancing?”
“Oh!” I laughed. “Duh. I think my answer tells you how long it’s been since I was at a nightclub. I wasn’t even sure what you were asking. But I used to like to go out dancing back in the day, when I had a life.”
She tilted her head. “You don’t have a life anymore?”
“Not much of one.” I sipped my wine. “I’ve worked a lot over the last few years. Though I’m currently unemployed, so I have no excuse for not having a life anymore.”
She smiled. “Good, then it’s settled. We’ll go to Tartana Discoteca Friday night.”
“Oh.” I shook my head and waved a hand. “I’m not sure about that.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t think I brought the right clothes to go clubbing.”
“I bring two suitcases for a week stay. I’ll dress you.”
I nibbled my lip. “I don’t know.”
“You just said you have no excuse for not having a life, so stop making them up.”
She was right. There really wasn’t any reason I couldn’t go to the club. It wasn’t like I had anything else to do. So I shrugged. “You know what? What the hell? Sure. Why not?”
She clapped her hands. “It’s a date.”
“Uh-oh.” Matteo walked back into the room, and the smell he brought with him did things to my pulse. “This doesn’t sound good.”
“We’re going to da club Friday night!” Luciana announced, raising her wine glass. “You should come.”
Matteo frowned. “No thanks.”
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t mind my brother.
He’s a stick in the mud. He didn’t even want to go out when we were in the womb together—the doctor had to force him to leave.
You should see the pictures…” She gestured to the top of her head.
“It looked like someone put a vacuum on da top of his head. Mine was perfect.”
Oh…that’s why she looks so familiar. They’re twins.
Matteo turned to me. “You don’t have to go to da club with her.”
“Of course I don’t,” I said. “I want to.”
Luciana preened, while it looked like someone had just peed in Matteo’s bowl of Cheerios. He lifted the wine bottle from the counter, and his frown deepened when he found it empty. “I guess I’ll go down to the cellar to get another.”
Luciana waited until he was out of the room, then looked at me and cracked up. “He likes you.”
“We got off to a rocky start, but I like him, too.”
“No…” She grinned. “He likes you, likes you.”
“I think it’s more that he’s grown to tolerate me.”
She sipped her wine, smiling. “You’re all he’s talked about since I got here a few hours ago.
I already know that you made him dinner, he taught you how to ride a Vespa, and you did a good job picking grapes.
” Luciana’s index finger lifted from her glass and pointed to me.
“I can’t usually get my brother to say more than three words. ”
The last thing I needed was to get involved with a man who lived four thousand miles away, yet my heart fluttered like I was in high school and my friend had just told me the boy I thought was cute had a crush on me.
I wasn’t sure how to respond to Luciana, so I was relieved when Matteo came back into the room, effectively ending the conversation about him.
“Do you come to Montepulciano often?” I asked Luciana.
“At least once a year.” Matteo’s eyes slid to meet his sister’s, and they exchanged a funny look, though neither of them said anything more.
Instead, she rested a hand on his shoulder and leaned toward me, grinning.
“Someone has to remind him that fun is a thing people have and not something they do to annoy him.”
I smiled. I liked Luciana. She was funny and outspoken, but I could tell by the way she looked at her brother that she was protective of him, too. The three of us stood around the kitchen talking for another ten minutes before Luciana stretched her arms over her head.
“I’m tired from the drive. Think I’m going to go to bed.”
Matteo’s face wrinkled. “It’s only seven thirty, and we didn’t even eat dinner yet.”
She shrugged. “Allegra can eat mine. Did you eat yet, dah-ling?”
“No, but I made two pies, so I was just going to have a piece of that at home.”
“Why cut open two pies when you can share one?” She walked over to her brother, kissed both his cheeks, and mussed his hair. “Be polite to da pretty girl, little brother.” She blew me a kiss. “I’ll pop over at eleven on Friday night to pick you up.”
“Eleven at night?”
She chuckled. “Nothing to tell your friends about happens at da club before midnight.”
Midnight had been my bedtime for the last six years, mostly because I’d usually worked until eleven. Yet I shrugged. “Okay.”
Luciana disappeared, but not before calling from somewhere upstairs, “I sleep with my AirPods in, so I won’t hear a ting!”
Matteo closed his eyes and shook his head. “Excuse my sister. She’s about as subtle as a marching band in a library.”
I smiled. “I like her.”
Matteo drank the rest of the wine in his glass while studying me over the brim. “You want something else with da pie? I could make a salad?”
“Oh. No, that’s okay. I brought that for you to say thank you for the riding lesson today. We don’t have to share it.”
He held my gaze. “We don’t. But I’d like to. How about you?”
The way he looked at me made me nervous, and it wasn’t only because he was alarmingly handsome. It was because of how much I liked it. I shrugged, trying to hide what I was feeling. “Well, sure.”
The corner of his lip twitched, and I got the feeling he knew exactly what was going on with me, though at least he didn’t call me out. “How long does it need to go in da oven for?”
“Twenty minutes at three fifty should do it.” I shook my head. “I mean one seventy-five. I keep forgetting the oven is Celsius.”
He nodded and pulled out a chair. “Have a seat. You want a refill?”
“Why not?”
I watched as Matteo refilled my wine, turned the oven on, and took vegetables from the fridge to make a salad. It was sexy to see a man who felt comfortable in the kitchen.
“Do you cook every night?” I asked.
“Only when I want to eat. There’s not a lot of quick takeout in the area. The closest restaurant is a fifteen-minute drive, and food is cold by da time you get it home.”
A man who looked like Matteo must have no problem getting dates, though. “What about eating out?”
He shrugged. “Once in a while.”