Need to believe
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
LINNEA
The rush of seeing Aiden standing there across the stone courtyard almost floors me.
Why does he get to look so fucking good when I resemble a pile of dirt?
Literally. I’ve been working on hands and knees in the garden, taking on all kinds of wedding preparation tasks to avoid my mind racing.
And he’s there in a crisp white t-shirt. Like a modern Italian god.
I can’t make out the expression on his face, but his gaze is on me. I can feel it.
Amara says something to him, tugging his arm.
I’m a deer in the headlights, struggling to take a full breath.
Then he strides towards me, his long legs carrying him across the courtyard faster than I can think. I finally inhale properly just when he reaches me, and the waft of his warm, familiar spicy-sweet scent hits me right in the throat.
“Linnea.” His voice is that low rumble I know would vibrate through me if he was holding me close the way he would if we weren’t where we are now.
“Aiden,” I manage, it comes out as a whisper and I clear my throat. “I thought you’d arrive tomorrow.”
“I could say the same.”
“I couldn’t go back on my word to Amara.”
“Can we talk?” he asks, moving his hands up but then letting them fall, although in my mind they keep moving up and brush down my upper arms the way that he does.
I nod. “We can talk,” I say and then remember I have at least six things left on my list of things to do for the wedding. “Give me an hour to finish what I was doing? It’s nearly done.”
“Okay,” Aiden says, sticking his hands in his jeans pockets.
The hour passes, and I’m grateful for my well-practised compartmentalisation skills, as I managed to focus and got the garden ready for tomorrow. I even checked the dining hall, before the emotion of seeing Aiden again came crashing down on me and I had to give in.
Now, I stand in the room after my shower, wondering what to wear to a pivotal relationship conversation. I’m paralysed staring at the clothes I’ve flung out over the small settee and the two chairs across from it.
What is he going to tell me that could make me trust him with my heart again?
There’s a knock on the door, and I’m rushed into action.
“One minute,” I call out and throw on underwear and the green summer dress that’s on top of the pile.
Bunching all the clothes together I fling them onto the vintage, wooden four-poster bed I’ve had zero time or brain space to marvel at so far.
My hair is still a damp mess, but so be it.
I tie it up in a bun and step to the door.
This is it.
I considered myself ready because I’d already seen him once before today without spontaneously combusting, but Aiden standing there in my doorway like that makes me feel too much, too fast. My body aches for him to touch me.
To have his arms around me. But I need to stay strong for myself.
Don’t let him charm me. I need to be certain it’s my own decision, whatever it is.
“Come in,” I say, leaving the door open for him and sit down on one of the chairs instead of the settee so he can’t sit next to me. He perches on the settee across from me, and leans his elbows onto his knees.
“I have a lot I need to tell you and I hope it’ll make sense,” he starts. “My therapist gave me the advice to let you know when something is hard to say, because I’ll need some time to get it out.”
“Okay?”
“Some of what I’ll tell you today, I’ve never said out loud before and I’m not sure how it’ll sound. It’s quite messy in my head.”
I nod, picking at a cuticle, but force myself to keep my gaze on his face. His steel-blue eyes are on me, open and honest.
“Do you remember what you read on the plaque in Florence that I said I’d tell you about later?”
“Partly, it said he’d renounced his inheritance and ran away, but something about a reconciliation?”
Aiden nods and looks down at his hands, his fingers intertwined between his knees.
“My dad’s name was Giorgio Aurato. He was apparently the sole heir to the Aurato fortune and the Casa Aurato conglomerate, and he lived his life as such.
” He clears his throat. “I found a bundle of letters from his family wrapped in a scarf in a box of my dad’s old stuff.
And I learned that he was a … hmm … a notorious player back in Florence.
I gather that the family wanted him to settle down and stop bringing shame on their name, so they made his inheritance dependent on him marrying and producing an heir. ”
I huff.
“Yes, it’s archaic but it happens. So these letters I found, one of them was them ranting to him how he’d torn the two families apart, they’d arranged this marriage and he ran away. Because he met Mum on his bachelor trip before the wedding.”
“He fell in love with her.”
Aiden sighs. “That’s what he always told me, so I’ve clung to that part.
I need to believe that the way he loved my mum was genuine.
That it was real.” Aiden lets out a huff-laugh.
“He told me how he’d seen her, she was wearing vibrant clashing colours, breaking all the rules, but looking fabulous.
Very stylish, he said. When he’d asked her about it, he fell for her attitude.
She said she wears what makes her happy, and she teased him for being square and traditional.
He said that with her feisty nature, and that laugh of hers, he knew she was the one for him and he’d never felt that way about anyone. ”
“That’s beautiful.”
“Yeah…” Aiden pauses and clears his throat. I wait, as he said to do.
“Do you want something to drink?” I ask, when he’s quiet for longer than I’m comfortable with. “Will made a little mini-bar for me so I wouldn’t have to go through the whole house for a treat.”
“Okay, yes, please, that’d be good.”
I stand up and Aiden’s hand moves out as I pass, his fingers grazing my knee, leaving a trail of heat on my skin. I choose the small bottle with something amber in it. Cognac. Sure, that’ll do.
It’s just enough for two neat drinks. To take the edge off this heavy conversation.
“Here,” I say, and allow my fingers to touch his as he grabs it from me. His breath hitches and he tilts his face up towards me. We’re frozen like that for a moment, both hands on the same glass.
“Thank you,” he says.
I shake my head and blink, and he clears his throat, taking the glass as I release it. I sit back down and cradle the drink in my hands, letting it be my focal point for a moment.
“So Dad met Mum…” Aiden continues. “He took her back to Florence and told his parents he wanted to marry her instead. This part Mum told me, actually. The family didn’t accept her.
A poor fisherman’s daughter from the south of Italy, marrying into a centuries-old North Italian aristocrat family?
Unheard of. And they said she was too dark, so there’s some good-old-fashioned in-country racism for you. ”
Aiden exhales and straightens up. “Dad took a bunch of cash from the family and they ran away to England. Apparently he used the travelling name the Aurato family used to avoid attention. Aurellan.”
“Oh.”
He shrugs. “It’s his middle name, and he got away with it. Gave it to me on my birth certificate, so it’s my legal surname. Anyway, getting to the crux of it here… Dad never married Mum.”
“Hmm, Will said something about it, but I didn’t want to ask you until you brought it up yourself.”
Our eyes lock and Aiden blinks.
“Oh. Thank you.” He looks down again. “I didn’t know anything growing up. Mum used his name, but I guess it’s not really hers, and I never realised. She has her reasons for not sharing that with me, I guess. As far as I understand, she accepted the relationship as it was.”
“I’m sure she trusted his love.”
Aiden shrugs, staring at his hands.
“I learned from the letters that he stayed in touch with his family. They kept trying to get him to come back, and from what I understand he chose not to marry Mum because it kept the opportunity for him returning to Florence open. It seems he wanted me to legally be their grandson, but they said if he chooses her, it’s all over.
The door would firmly shut if he married the Sicilian woman who tore the family apart, as one of the letters stated. ”
“The letters didn’t share his view, though, did they?”
“No. That’s the hard part. I will simply never know how he felt. Except… They want to see me now. I could find out from them.”
I gasp, putting the pieces together. “The delivery guy? Your comment to him.”
Aiden sighs and takes a sip of his cognac.
“Yeah. Seems the lady at the shop told the family about me, she had my name and address, so they got the message to me directly. Come to Florence, reunite with the family.” He shakes his head. “I’m not ready for that.”
“That’s okay, sorry I interrupted you. You were telling me about your mum and dad.” I put the glass to my lips, breathing in the strong alcoholic fumes before taking a sip, letting the drink burn through my mouth.
“Yeah… I grew up with the best father in the world. He was so attentive. So caring. And I thought my parents had this grand love story. But then, at twenty-three, I found out he had lied regularly. He kept secrets. He didn’t fully choose to be with Mum, despite making it sound like he did.
He was there in London, but he … hedged his bets, as you called it.
“So, I read these letters from the family… One of them was truly scathing. A proper telling-off. It described my dad as a man who slept around and was a selfish arsehole—I’m paraphrasing—who didn’t care about the Aurato name, and that he had kept all these secrets from Mum, and built his life outside her, around her, but not with her. It was a mind-fuck.
“I pushed it all down. Didn’t talk to anyone about it. About him. Just … pretended I’d never seen it. Decided to focus on being the man my mother raised me to be. To find the kind of love that I used to be convinced they had.”