Chapter Ten
The pool house looked to have been built more recently than the main villa, which had the markers of being genuinely old.
Whereas this might have been added some time in the last few decades, she guessed, going by the finishings.
However, it had been constructed in a style that was faithful to the period of the main house, with walls that matched and the same terracotta tiles.
The gardens surrounding the pool house were established, filled with lush trees and hedges, giving it even more of the eden-esque feeling that shrouded the whole estate.
But at the front, near the door, was the pool.
Not like a normal suburban pool, this had more the feel of a lake, except she could see it was man-made.
The shape was irregular, designed to look like it had been formed by the earth, and it was large enough to easily swim proper laps.
She moved towards the water, absentmindedly crouching down to feel the water with her fingertips.
The sun was dropping lower in the sky. Charlotte glanced towards the main house—part of which was just visible from where she was—and contemplated the aperitivo hour Allegra had nominated. What exactly would she say if Dante still hadn’t reappeared?
The whole point of this trip was to convince his grandmother that they were in love so she’d stop worrying about him.
Well, Charlotte thought they’d done a pretty good job of that so far, but Dante had totally flipped out.
She replayed the afternoon in her mind, trying to pinpoint the precise moment it had all become too much for him, and drew a blank.
The best she could guess was that it had been Allegra’s parting remark about having children.
So what?
It was just an old lady’s wishful thinking—and there was nothing surprising in the sentiment. Dante himself had told Charlotte how much family meant to Allegra. Naturally, she’d like to see her grandson creating more of that very same thing—family.
It didn’t matter that he didn’t share those aspirations. He’d told Charlotte he never wanted children. Fine. But why let his grandmother’s comment get so far under his skin?
Unless it hadn’t specifically been that comment. Allegra had also waxed lyrical about how happy Dante seemed, how she wasn’t sure she’d seen him happier. For a man who was clearly still hung up on his ex, maybe that had been too much?
I just need a breather from all that fakery.
Fakery.
Charlotte’s frown deepened as she made her way back into the house and into the bedroom, where someone had unpacked her suitcase already. She removed a chic emerald-green dress from the wardrobe and held it against herself.
Armour.
Protection.
It was a stunning, simple dress in which she always felt her best. And she needed that tonight, because Dante’s comment had hurt her.
It had cut her to the core. In a moment of warmth, when she’d expected at least gratitude and relief, and at most triumph, he’d belittled their accomplishments. No. He’d belittled them. She pulled her hair over one shoulder as she contemplated that.
There was no ‘them’ and yet there was. Even though they weren’t a couple, in the traditional sense, they’d been sleeping together, casually, for months.
That, in and of itself, required mutual respect.
In that moment, he’d disrespected her. After all, their ‘fakery’ for Allegra wasn’t Charlotte’s idea, it was Dante’s.
Dante who wanted to assuage his grandmother’s concerns and set her mind at ease for the final chapter of her life.
Dante who wanted the fakery. Who’d insisted it needed to be done well.
Charlotte swallowed past an odd lump that had formed in her throat.
In the bathroom, she undressed and took a quick shower, running the loofah over her body until it was sudsy and soft, trying to push his comment to the back of her mind. Trying to partition it off, as she had so many other hurts in her life.
But none like this.
None of the men she’d casually dated before Dante had ever hurt her.
Charlotte had never put herself in the position where they might.
It had been the very definition of casual.
Fun and easy, but the moment it had stopped being either of those things, she’d ended it and gotten on with her life.
Charlotte was not someone who required the company of a man—she would always have preferred to be single than feel that she needed to have someone else in her life.
In any event, she had Jane and her work, and the people she helped through that work.
That had always been enough for Charlotte.
It had had to be. There was no way she’d ever allow herself to be weak like her mother.
To be hurt and discarded as her mother had been.
No, when it came to men, Charlotte called the shots. She took what she wanted for just as long as it suited her and then she walked away.
She supposed she should also thank her birth father for that.
After all, if he hadn’t treated her mother so badly, and his wife come to think of it, perhaps Charlotte wouldn’t have developed such a tough outer shell.
If he hadn’t spent a lifetime ignoring her, financially compelling her to stay hidden, to conceal her true identity from the entire world, maybe she would have believed in the possibility of love and happily ever after.
Charlotte was glad that wasn’t the case though.
It was so much easier this way. So much better.
The problem was she couldn’t walk away from Dante.
Even though this didn’t feel casual, easy or fun now.
Even though this was the exact moment she might ordinarily choose to paste a smile on her face and say something like, ‘Great knowing you, see you later!’ She couldn’t do that and keep the company.
Charlotte groaned, dropping her head forward and pressing it against the cool tiles, blindly reaching out and turning off the water.
This had been a stupid idea. A very, very stupid idea. Asking Dante to be her fake husband had seemed like the right choice, at the time. But they had too much other stuff going on, even when it was just physical, to make it easy to keep things light.
She should have found someone new, offered them money in exchange for marriage, and had them sign a watertight non-disclosure agreement.
Not that it would have mattered, anyway.
The lawyers hadn’t stipulated that the marriage had to be a love match.
Just a marriage, in the legal sense of the word.
She could have married any guy off the street to meet the terms.
Another groan, as she pushed the shower screen open and reached for a large, fluffy white towel, wrapping it around herself and patting her skin dry.
She glanced at her reflection in the mirror, amazed when the face that stared back at her looked so completely like herself. There was no hint of her remorse and inner turmoil on the familiar arrangement of her features. Outwardly, she just looked like Charlotte Shaw.
Fakery indeed.
She pushed open the door that joined the ensuite bathroom and the bedroom and startled because Dante was sitting on the edge of the bed, legs spread wide, elbows pressed into his thighs.
She made a sound of genuine surprise and he looked up, but slowly. Or maybe it was that everything was moving in slow motion, all of a sudden?
A gentle breeze brushed over her skin, courtesy of one of the open windows.
He looked at her with those dark eyes that saw too much, but Charlotte wasn’t really sure he was seeing anything.
‘Good,’ she said, brightly, with more of that perfect fakery. ‘We need to get to your grandmother’s.’
‘Yes,’ he said, nodding once. ‘But first, we should talk.’
Her stomach dropped to her feet.
Talk.
Fear gripped her heart; ice flooded her veins.
This was all getting too complicated. Too hard.
Too...real. She didn’t want him to bare his soul to her, even when a part of her did want precisely that.
And she sure as heck didn’t want him to say he was sick of the ‘fakery’ and that they should end this.
Either way, talking was bad. It was everything she avoided. And him, too, she wanted to remind him.
She swallowed quickly. ‘That’s not necessary,’ she assured him, looking around for the dress she’d discarded earlier. Dante had moved it, from the bed to the back of a nearby chair. ‘There’s nothing to talk about.’
He frowned, but she turned away at that moment, dropping her towel and reaching for some underwear from the drawers.
She felt his eyes on her but more than that, she felt the pull of his doubts. She felt the part of him that wanted to explain why he’d snapped like that, and she felt the part of him that just wanted to accept her easy rationale.
Her dress was next. She slipped it over her body, then turned to face him. He was sitting right where he’d been a moment earlier, but his head had angled to follow her. Only when he looked at her, Charlotte had the feeling he was hardly seeing her at all.
‘Dante, do you still want to go through with this?’ She asked the question with a tummy ache of doubt and worry. If he said no, she’d have to fly straight back to London, to start husband hunting. She could find someone else. She would have to.
So why did the very idea leave her ice cold? Was it because Allegra had been so warm and welcoming, and Charlotte hated the idea of the older woman learning that it had all been a deception? Or did it have more to do with Dante and the idea of never seeing him again?
He dragged a hand through his hair and stood, walking towards her then. She was reminded, powerfully and overwhelmingly, of their size difference.
He pressed his palm to her cheek, cupping it, angling her face to his, so their eyes met, and the breath in her lungs seemed suddenly too hot. ‘I gave you my word,’ he said, simply.