Chapter 21
Matteo
THE CAR DOOR opened and closed.
“How’d it—” Oh shit. Allegra was crying. My heart stopped. “What happened?”
“She…” Sniff sniff. “She knew who I was, and…” Her words caught in her throat and gurgled before she let out a loud sob. Without thinking, I reached over to the passenger seat, scooped her into my arms, and settled her on my lap. I held her close, tightening my arms around her. “Shhh… It’s okay.”
I’d meant to give comfort, but holding her only made her sob harder. Tears spilled down her face, making my stomach twist.
“I found out…everything,” she stuttered. “Every last horrible detail.” Allegra wiped her cheeks and tried to swallow her emotions, but they weren’t going anywhere.
“We don’t have to talk,” I said softly. “You can just let it out.”
Allegra threw her arms around my neck and did just that—crying and crying until all the weight she’d been carrying poured out. I held her tight, one hand tangled in her hair, the other across her back. Eventually, her sobs slowed, and her shoulders slumped.
I stroked her hair, waiting until she was ready.
“Thank you,” she whispered, lifting her face. Her eyes were red and swollen, yet they somehow smiled at me. “For letting me use your shirt as a tissue.”
I glanced down. Sure enough, the entire front of my shirt was damp and wrinkled. I pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead. “Anytime.”
She took a few shaky breaths before pulling back. “I decided to stick with my cover, pretend I was there for a business consultation. But she knew.”
“She knew who you were when you walked in?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t think so, not right at first. She sort of looked at me like maybe I was familiar, but then we went on with the meeting.
At one point, she asked me what village the winery was in, and then later she asked for the address.
I drew a blank on anywhere other than my grandmother’s, so I said Montepulciano and gave her the street address.
I’m pretty sure that’s when she put the pieces together.
” She shook her head. “But she let me keep going and finish up the meeting. I was at the door, about to leave, when she finally called me out.”
“Why do you think she waited?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe she didn’t know how to handle it either.”
I nodded.
“I asked her how she knew who I was, and she said she’d stalked me on social media a lot over the years. Apparently, she has always known of my existence.” Allegra looked down at her twisting hands and took a deep breath. “She didn’t hold back any details. They were together for six years.”
“Your father and her mother?”
She nodded. “They met in college and spent a semester together. I knew my dad did a study abroad and lived in Florence for a time. It was before my parents met. According to Camilla, they fell in love, and her mother had been planning to move to the U.S. after she graduated, but then he met someone else—my mom.”
“Did you know about that?”
“No, but I wouldn’t have expected to. I don’t know who my mom dated before my dad either.”
I nodded. “So things continued even after he met your mother?”
“No, not according to Camilla. She said it wasn’t until ten years later that they reconnected. Her mother was working in Florence and ran into my father on the street one night.”
“They just happened to run into each other?”
Allegra shrugged. “That’s what she said.
And honestly, she was so brutally honest about everything else, I’m not sure she would’ve held back if there was more to it.
” She stared out the car window before shaking her head.
“They were together for six years after that. She told me about all the times he lied to my mother, all the hidden trips, the gifts he would bring to her and her mom.”
“If they were only together for six years, she couldn’t have been more than six when they split up. How would a child remember all that?”
“She said she didn’t know any of it until she got older and asked her mother for the truth about her father.
She’d only remembered that he would come and stay for a while and then disappear for a long time again.
” Allegra shook her head. “I’m four years older, so I do remember some of the trips he used to take.
She said my dad told my mom his firm had opened an office in California, and I remember that.
He used to go there all the time, on long trips.
But apparently, there was never a West Coast office at all. ”
I raked a hand through my hair. “Jesus, Allegra. You didn’t need to know all that.”
“Probably not. But I do anyway.” Tears welled in her eyes again.
“I never imagined he’d had a six-year affair.
I figured it was a one-night stand or something short-lived.
A mistake. It’s so much worse that it was someone he cared for.
He lived a dual life for years without my mother or me ever suspecting a thing.
It makes me feel like I never knew my own family. ”
Anger flared in my chest, aimed at her father and the betrayal he’d caused his incredible daughter to feel. Yet I kept my voice calm as I reached out and took her hand. “You don’t need to figure it out alone. I’m here.”
She looked over at me. “You have a way of knowing exactly what I need, like holding me tight when I cry or letting me talk your ear off. If you tell most people your problems, they want to give you advice. But you let me get it out, and you really listen.”
I smiled. “Do you remember when I told you that your grandmother always made me dinner on my birthday and gifted me with her wisdom?”
“Yeah?”
“The advice she gave me on my last birthday was, Smart men know that sometimes da best words to give an upset woman are no words at all.” Thinking back to that night under the loggia, I smiled.
“I believe that sentence was followed with Why can’t men just shut da fuck up and listen once in a while? ”
“She really was wise.” Allegra rested her head against my chest. “Thank you, Matteo. I don’t know what I would’ve done if I’d come here alone today.”
“No problem, bellissima. I’m here as long as you need me.”
***
“I should move here,” Allegra said.
She and I were sitting on the balcony at my cousin’s apartment later that night, watching the sunset.
I knew it was the alcohol talking. This was her third glass of wine since we’d gotten home, and she’d had a very stiff martini at the restaurant with lunch.
Still, I went along for the ride, feeling like she had more emotions to let out.
“You think you’d be happy living in Italy? ”
“I didn’t even know,” she said, swirling her wine around and staring at it, “until I got here that I wasn’t happy.
I thought my work made me happy, but I think maybe it just kept me occupied so I didn’t have time to realize I was miserable.
” She went quiet for a while, staring out at the sea.
Eventually she lifted her eyes to me. “Are you happy, Matteo?”
I leaned back in my chair and filled my lungs with fresh air, buying some time. “Most days,” I said. “I have work that I enjoy, people who count on me, friends I should probably make more time for but who I know would be there if I needed them, a family that shows up, and my health.”
“God…” Allegra laughed, but there was no joy in it. “I don’t have any of that except my health—and Cassie. She’s a good friend even if our relationship started with her having to be nice to me because I was her boss.”
“It’s not the quantity of things that makes you happy in life. It’s the quality. And there’s happiness in little things, too—good coffee in da morning, making your grandmother’s ricotta-and-spinach pie, Lupo howling when I get home, having a hundred and six wool caps for when it gets cold out.”
Allegra smiled sadly. “I didn’t have time for the little things back in New York. I was too busy trying to climb to the top because that’s where I thought I was supposed to be.”
“You seem to have found small things here, yes? I’ve seen you sitting on your grandmother’s swing at night. I didn’t break out the binoculars, but you looked pretty happy from a distance.”
She nodded. “I do feel happier here in Italy. At least more than I have been in a long time—minus the surprise sister who’s put a damper on things.”
I winked. “Maybe it has something to do with the company you’ve been keeping.”
She smiled—a real smile, the first I’d seen since before her appointment today, and I liked being the one to put it on her face. “I think it might.”
Allegra finished her wine and asked if there was any more.
“You sure you want another? There’s a fine line between feeling good and your head hanging over the porcelain.”
She gave a soft, tired laugh. “When I mentioned my surprise sister just now, I realized for the first time…I kind of liked her. She’s smart and direct and didn’t sugarcoat things.
But she also came and sat next to me, and there was this…
warmth about her. Realizing that stirs up a lot inside me.
Turmoil, mostly. So for tonight, I don’t want to think about any of it. ”
I nodded and took her glass inside for a refill.
Still, I knew drinking had a tipping point, and halfway through the glass I’d poured, Allegra wound up on the drunk side of the seesaw.
“We should go—” She hiccuped. “—skinny dipping.”
While swimming in the ocean naked with her sounded like the best idea I’d heard in a long damn time, I wanted to be the kind of man she could trust. I wasn’t going to let her strip down in her current state. “Maybe another night.”
She pouted, and my eyes betrayed my thoughts, slipping down to study the soft bow of her lips. The urge to close the distance was strong, but not this way. When I kissed her, I wanted her sober and needy. I wanted her to remember every moment so she could yearn for it to happen again.
Allegra slid out of her chair and took the three steps separating us. She looped her arms around my neck and parked her ass on my lap, causing my resistance to wobble.
“This is how we were earlier today, in the car.” She leaned close, her breath hot against my ear. “I liked it.”
I like it, too. Liked it more than I’d let myself admit. But I wanted to be good, and her sitting this close to my dick had me seeing an imaginary devil on my shoulder. I looked to my right, where he was berating me.
“Stop being a hump.” He slammed his pitchfork to the ground. “She wants you.”
I laughed, low and uncomfortable, and shifted so my hands were at her waist and no longer on the curve of her ass. Allegra countered my backstep by scraping her nails along my neck. My eyes closed. It felt so damn good. I wanted her to dig her claws into my back, pierce the skin if the mood struck.
“Kiss me, Matteo.” Allegra’s mouth was so close to mine, I felt the vibration of her words as her lips moved.
“I want to. So fucking badly.” I pulled back and shook my head. “But not tonight. Not like this.”
“Please?”
I hated saying no. And not just because I wanted to kiss her until her mouth was bruised, but because I wanted to give this woman everything and anything she wanted. I never wanted to deny her. But I had to.
I shook my head again. “I’m sorry.”
She pushed off my chest and stood, wobbling as she got to her feet. “Fine.”
Somehow I managed to keep my hands at my sides and not reach for her as she walked away. Allegra disappeared into the apartment, and thirty seconds later, I heard the door to her bedroom close.
I let out a string of curses before swallowing the rest of my wine. The sound of the ocean lapping against the sand in the near distance did nothing to help me relax, so I sat on the balcony for a long time before finally picking up her abandoned glass and carrying it in with me.
Inside, I stopped at Allegra’s door and pressed my ear against it, listening for any signs that she might be awake.
When I heard nothing, I gently turned the handle.
Allegra was curled up in the middle of the bed, knees drawn up, still wearing her clothes.
The bedside lamp was on, so I stepped inside to turn it off, but first grabbed the blanket folded at the foot of the bed.
Standing over her, I looked down and smiled at how peaceful she seemed.
Her lips were slightly parted in sleep, and my gaze lingered longer than it should’ve.
I did the right thing tonight.
But I was drawn to this woman in a way that wasn’t easy to resist. There was a pull, an ache, something quiet but insistent that had been there from the start.
She made me feel like something unfinished was trying to right itself.
And maybe that’s why, as I stood there watching the rise and fall of her breath, another night rose up in me—uninvited but as vivid as ever.
A different girl. But the same strong pull.
And I didn’t want to make the same mistakes.