Dani fractures the moment completely and I’ve never been more grateful.
‘Coming!’
I feel his palm press softly into my back, sending far too thrilling a shiver up my spine as he encourages me on. ‘I’m ready.’
And then it hits me, really hits me: I’m
falling for Dani’s commitment-phobic brother and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it. Nothing at all.
I practically run up the path ahead of him, my smile all about masking my panic, but I’m hoping she’ll take it as reassurance that her brother is okay...not that she was the one worrying in the first place.
‘So, what are we playing?’
‘How about strip poker?’
I’m so off the beat that I merely stare at her in stunned silence.
‘Dio, Faye. I’m just kidding!’ She rolls her eyes theatrically. ‘Do you really think I’d play strip poker with my brother, let alone my mother and Tyler’s mother?’
My laugh is high-pitched and as ridiculous as I feel. ‘I forgot myself for a second.’
She sends a curious look past me to Rafael and I don’t want to second-guess what it means. She hooks her arm through mine and starts marching us back to the castle. ‘Yeah, you sure did.’
In more ways than you can ever possibly imagine, Dani, my brain unhelpfully adds.
I raise my chin and focus, matching her stride for stride.
You’re having fun. For the first time in a long while, you’re having real, honest-to-God fun. Don’t ruin it by getting all serious now.
I start to question whether it’s the afternoon drinking at the ‘dive and dine’ on top of the wine consumed at the bridal party dinner that has me acting like some over-concerned, smitten hussy. Yes, all of those things. But one look back at Rafael and the way our eyes meet, the way the fire in his eyes connects with the very heart of me, tells me I’d feel this way regardless.
I go back to looking straight ahead, to the softly lit castle, beautiful even at night, and try to ignore the panicked little flutter deep inside.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Danielle and Tyler’s Wedding Week
Tuesday: Wine Making and Tasting.
Two p.m. NB Dress to get your feet wet!
I CHECK THE time and fight back a grimace. Aunt Netta is due any minute, along with my cousin Sienna, her husband Lorenzo and their kids, Isabella and Leo. It’s not their presence that worries me; it’s the effect it will have on my mother. I’ve avoided being alone with her since her surprisingly sentimental outburst at dinner last night.
I feel a conversation brewing and it’s not one I’m ready for, not this side of the wedding, in spite of Faye’s encouragement to think otherwise. It’s waited all these years; it can at least wait another week or two, or more.
It was hard enough being cracked open for all to see at the dinner table. Losing my composure, this week of all weeks, and in such spectacular fashion...
No. I will deal with it later.
Much later.
As for Faye...she’s the perfect distraction from it all and one that I’m more than willing to entertain if it will keep my mind from veering into the past and whatever pain I glimpsed in Marianna.
I understand why Faye is encouraging me to talk to her. Her relationship with her own mother had been a good one, a healthy one, and one that she still so clearly mourns. The pain I glimpsed in her, the anguish still swimming in those pale blues, chips away at something buried deep inside. I rake my fingers through my hair, take a breath and force the image out.
Dio. Since when have I cared so much for the personal baggage of a woman I sleep with?
Sleep with?