Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
GIOVANNI
No sooner has the door closed, then Theo turns on me. He’s no taller than me, but he’s looking down at me all the same.
“Are you fucking my sister?” he asks in a pissed-off undertone. “Is that why you came back here?”
“I wish.”
He doesn’t seem amused by my answer. To be fair, I wouldn’t be amused if I were in his shoes.
“No, it’s nothing like that,” I add quickly. Then I explain about the videos, Bianca’s request, and the whole Mr. October farce. I provide him with the same explanation for the kiss that I gave my nonna earlier.
He listens non-judgmentally, but when I finish, he says, “You told me what you think this can do for my family, but what’s your angle? How does it benefit you?”
I don’t blame him for asking. I’d do the same if I were in his shoes. “My grandmother’s happy here. Back home, we were about to hire a home helper for her. She wasn’t doing so good, but with your grandmother…. It’s like she’s five years younger. Plus, I had this situation at home.”
I tell him a little bit about Janine, keeping it vague since I don’t like bad-mouthing people.
Theo shrugs. “All right. This fake dating thing seems like a bunch of bullshit, but I won’t say we don’t need the help.
I appreciate that you’re willing. But keep your distance from Bianca when the cameras aren’t out.
She doesn’t need some fancy playboy fucking with her head, not after everything she’s been through. ”
I wonder again if she’s listening, but surely if she were, she’d have something to say about that. Bianca’s never been the type of person to let others speak for her.
“That’s the last thing I want to do,” I say honestly. “I respect the hell out of her. Your whole family. This farm is important to my family too. We all have good memories of coming here.”
He grunts and nods. “All right. So this is where I tell you that someone has draped an old sheet with ‘Free Giovanni’ scrawled on it in red paint over the chain-link barrier leading to the apple barn, and there’s already a line of cars waiting to be let inside.
When I told them to disperse, they threw apples at me. What are we going to do about that?”
My heart starts pounding. “Bianca and I have to issue some kind of statement, and I also told that dipshit Rhett I’d talk to the press.”
“The press is interested?” Theo asks incredulously, as if he can’t imagine why anyone would want to talk to a guy who walks around his kitchen half naked and records it. It makes me like him more, not less.
“I’ve gotten a few messages. Maybe this isn’t such a bad thing. I guess visibility is important for Bianca’s plan to work. I can work at the pumpkin patch or the apple barn until this is over.”
“So you won’t be tending the trees with me anymore?”
“Sorry, man,” I say, trying to sound regretful. “It’s peaceful out there. I’ll miss it.”
“No, you fucking won’t,” he says, his tone amused, and I suddenly realize that he quite intentionally bored the shit out of me.
I smile at him. “You were trying to drive me away, weren’t you?”
He shrugs, not denying it. “I’m not as trusting as my nonna, but if you’d like to know, I would have done the same with my little brother. You said you were here as his proxy, so I figured I got to be pissed at you too.”
“Fair enough.” I hesitate, then offer, “But look, Miles is really trying—”
He lifts a hand, palm outward, and nods. “Yeah, I know. Bianca told me.”
Of course, she did. It’s impossible to keep a secret if more than one person knows. But I can’t regret it. They won’t worry as much if they know he’s safe and doing the work he needs to do.
“I want him to come back, you know,” Theo continues. “Mostly. But I’m still upset with him.”
“I get that. My own brother came home to Maine recently, and it was the same way.” I grin. “Except he’s the one who has his shit together, and I’m the family fuckup.”
“Not such a fuckup,” he acknowledges. “I checked out your channel. It’s pretty cool that you built all of that on your own. I’m not saying I want to run around with my flannel open and film myself chopping wood, but I respect that you built a business out of it.”
“Thanks. I couldn’t do what you do either.” I hold up my forefinger and thumb a quarter of an inch apart. “I was this close to drawing a face on one of the trees so I could pretend it was talking back. I don’t do so great by myself.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t jump straight to drawing abs on it.” He reaches for my hand, and we shake just as a tinny alarm goes off from just beyond the sunroom door.
Half a second later, Bianca bursts into the room like an officer with an arrest warrant.
“Your time is up,” she tells her brother.
“Good. I’m going to go see about that coffee I smell.
By the way, Isabella has a wedding later.
She asked me to send you over with some baked goods for the B&B, but I don’t buy it.
She’s been best friends with that guy who runs the bakery since she was five.
She doesn’t need any baked goods. She wants the goods from you. ”
“Of course she does,” Bianca moans. “Suddenly all everyone wants to do is talk. I almost wish I were working today.”
It’s stupid, but the idea of her going back to work tomorrow makes me feel like my security blanket is being tugged from me.
“Maybe I could go to work with you,” I say before I can stop myself.
“You seriously want to go to The Rotten Apple?” she asks disbelievingly. “You’re terrified of old people.”
“I am not,” I sputter. “How could you say that? I love the nonnas.”
Theo lifts his eyebrows. “You don’t want to go to that place, man. I dropped off some apples there the other week, and this woman thought I was her son. It took me two hours to break away.”
“You were really sweet to Agnes,” Bianca says, “but yeah, she definitely didn’t think you were her son. She lures every hot young thing into her room. They don’t call her the Black Widow for nothing.”
“Aw, come on, Bianca,” he says, nudging her. “You could have warned me.”
“But then Luanne and I wouldn’t have had anything to laugh about.”
“Very funny. You two want any coffee?” he asks. “I’m going to follow that scent. If you tell Nonna Rose I said this, I will have your balls, but no one makes cappuccino like your grandmother, Giovanni.”
“Not right now,” Bianca says. “Giovanni and I have to talk. Alone. You’re not the only one who gets to be closed in with him.”
He gives us a look, like maybe he has thoughts about us being alone together, but then he walks away, giving us a two-finger wave.
“Sorry about that,” Bianca tells me. “He thinks he has to step up and be the big man of the family, now that Great-Uncle Ted and our granddad are both gone, but he’s wrong of course. This is a matriarchal family, and Nonna Rose is its undisputed leader.”
“Don’t you mean you’re the undisputed leader of this family?”
“We lead as a team,” she says with a small, satisfied smile.
“Of course you do. But look, I don’t mind that your brother’s protective. I like that you have someone who’ll stand up for you.”
She gives a long-suffering sigh. “Ah, yes, every woman needs a stable full of armed men to preserve her virtue.”
I laugh. “You’ve got virtue?”
She shoves my chest, her hand lingering, and I fight the instinct to layer mine on top of it.
I only feel this way about her because everything’s so uncertain, I tell myself. Bianca is steady and reliable, so it’s natural I want to hang onto her.
“I imagine you heard almost everything your brother said?” I ask.
Her smile says it all. “Maybe.”
“So you’re aware he knows everything. I’ll need to text my own family a warning, and then I think it’s time for us to share our fake dating story with the world. Are you ready to pretend you’re a woman in love?”
“All right.”
“How do you want to play this? Can I kiss you in front of them? Touch you?”
Something heated passes through her gaze. “Yeah, I think we’re pretty good at that.”
“It’s better when no one’s watching,” I say, feeling sorry for it. “But I don’t mind putting on a show.”