Page 76 of The Fall Affair

I did a quick recap on how much time Matteo and I had been spending together before our trip, including the kisses we’d shared and the night at the club. “That brings me to the trip to Amalfi. When I decided to go see my sister, he offered to come with me.”

Cassie interrupted. “Hang on. Go see who?”

“Oh my God.” I laughed. “It really has been a busy week. I haven’t even told you about Camilla yet.”

It took another fifteen minutes to catch Cassie up on that calamity before I moved on to the actual trip down to Positano.

“Thankfully, Matteo drove because the road was insane. I swear, I’ve never held on to the oh-shit bar that tightly in my life. The highway winds around a mountain, high above the Mediterranean. You’re literally looking straight down a cliff on a narrow, two-lane road that huge tour buses swing around like they have a death wish. But the view was incredible.”

“View shmoo,” she countered. “I’ll Google it. Get to the good stuff.”

I smiled. “Basically, I got really upset after seeing my sister, and Matteo let me cry my eyes out in the car. He pulled me over the center console onto his lap and held me for the longest time.”

“Awww… I like him already.”

My smile faded into something softer, sadder. “Me too. He’s a really good guy. Has these old-school Italian values you don’t find in guys back in New York. Like he helps the older people in his community and just has a protective way about him. Sitting on his lap in the car, the only reason I stopped crying was because I believed him when he told me everything would be okay. I want to believe in him. I want to lean on him and let him lean on me.”

“Wow. You really like this guy.”

“I do.”

“Let me guess, you self-sabotaged because you got scared?”

“Maybe…” I sighed. “I had too much to drink and came on to him that night. He turned me down, which I actually appreciated the next morning. But when I was thinking about it all, I realized that even sober, I wanted to be with him. So over breakfast, I proposed a no-strings-attached fling.”

“Why would you do that if you’re into—” She stopped short. “Oh, because you’re scared.”

Scared. I hated that word. I associated it with weakness, with people who froze. The kind that let life happen to them instead of taking it by the throat. But deep down, I knew she was right.

“How did he respond to your proposal?” she asked.

“I think I offended him. He told me he wanted more from me.”

“Then what happened?”

“Nothing.” I shook my head. “We drove home for hours in uncomfortable silence. That was four days ago. I haven’t heard from him since, and I’ve been avoiding going left out of the driveway so I don’t have to pass his house.”

“Oh, honey,” she said in that soft, sympathetic tone. “It sounds like you really like him?”

“I do. I can’t remember the last time I felt this way about a guy.” I hesitated, then admitted quietly, “Maybe never.”

“Then you’ve got to figure out your shit. You can’t let all the men who disappointed you in the past convince you every future relationship will end the same way. That’s not fair to put on this guy—or to put on you. If you want something real, you can’t run away because it scares you.”

Her words stirred something inside me, leaving me unsettled. “What if it doesn’t work out?”

“What if it does and he’s the love of your life?”

“How would we even make it work? He lives here, and I live in New York.”

“Stop making excuses. You’ll figure it out.”

“That’s what he said.” I stayed silent for a minute, thinking. “It’s killing me not seeing him. I’ve been so down the last few days. My brain is so focused on what I should do about Matteo that I haven’t even thought much about my newfound sister.”

“I know you, Allegra. You didn’t need four days to figure out what you should do. You had the answer before you even got out of the man’s car. You needed some time to make peace with it. And you only called me because you needed a good kick in the ass to make it happen.”

I smiled. She was right. But I also knew her. “When we hang up, you’re going to research the reciprocity of my law license in Italy, aren’t you?”

She chuckled. “I already typed it into Westlaw while you were talking.”