Page 62 of Falling for Mr. October

“All right.” He takes a step toward the door but hesitates and glances back at me. “Look, thank you for coming with me. It’ll be easier tomorrow, but today…I’m glad you’re going to be there.”

I watch as he leaves the room, my mouth still dry, my feelings all over the place.

I think I have a serious crush on Giovanni Cafiero…along with every other woman on the eastern seaboard.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

BIANCA

It’s a gorgeous, jaw-dropping day. The trees’ canopies are more vibrant after the cold snap last night, the mountains already donning their coats of many colors.

This has always been my favorite time of year—crisp as the inside of the perfect apple and full of color. Even the air carries a scent that I can only describe as fall, the sweet perfidy of decaying apples and leaves, seasoned with fir from our Christmas forest.

But I don’t have time to sit around and appreciate Apple Ridge at its peak. We’ve got too much to do.

First, Giovanni and I drop the baked goods off with Isabella and greet her guests at the B&B. To my surprise, I actually know two of them—the bass player from Garbage Fire and his girlfriend. My former patient doesn’t recognize Giovanni, but his girlfriend certainly does. It seems to put Giovanni on edge.

Afterward, we head to the apple barn, and as Theo warned us, dozens of people are already there for Giovanni.

They came for him, and he puts on a playful show of greeting them—as if he wanted to be ambushed. He promises no less than six people that he was not kidnapped, and when Eva St. Claire herself shows up, her phone already out and recording, he gives her a hug like they’re old friends.

“Thank you for pushing me to be an honest man,” he says ironically as he releases her and wraps an arm around me. “We’re grateful to have our love out in the open.”

She looks as sour as a Granny Smith apple as she observes the easy way he’s embracing me. “And how can your fans be sure you don’t have Stockholm syndrome?”

“Oh, I definitely do.” He winks at me. “When I came here, I thought I’d only stay a week, maybe two, but Bianca changed all that. If she’s my prison guard, I want to be locked up forever.”

Eva looks unamused, but after she lingers awhile and buys nothing, she eventually leaves.

The other fans seem to eat up our story, and some of them stick around for a long time. They buy apples, the nonnas’ baked treats, and Great-Uncle Theo’s pumpkins. All of them ask Giovanni to sign their pumpkins, and he does so with an obliging smile. He also poses for dozens of photographs.

I’ll admit, I’m probably a little too invested in my role as fake girlfriend. When a woman grabs his ass during a photo opp, I chase her out of the pumpkin tent, telling her she’d better run. Another woman tries to slip her number to him, but I grab it from her instead, tear it into confetti, and throw it at her.

Giovanni grins as he watched me deal with his stalkers, and after the second woman stalks out, muttering angrily but not daring to call me all the names she’d like to, he pulls me to him for a kiss.

It doesn’t feel like the one we shared outside last night—that kiss was for us, and this one is for an audience. But I’d be lying if I said I felt nothing. Hell, the brush of his lips seems to light a fire in me that I thought was snuffed out forever.

Giovanni’s fans aren’t the only ones who show up. Several people I know stop by to meet him too. It turns out Rhett wasted no time announcing that Giovanni has been crowned our town’s first ever Mr. October.

People want to know what it means, of course, and Giovanni obliges their requests, telling them the story of finding Sir Gala-Head in entertaining detail.

I watch him in amazement, marveling at the way he makes each person he greets feel heard and special.

He’d be a good boyfriend, a voice in my head whispers.

For someone other than me.

Not only is he much too beautiful for me to want to date, but he’s also not staying. Apple Ridge will only be a blip in his life, and it’s the entirety of mine.

Fiona, Giovanni, and I keep the pumpkin patch and apple barn open longer than usual, because Giovanni doesn’t want to turn anyone away, not when many of them have traveled for hours to see him. After we close up, Fiona counts the money in the register with an expression of disbelief.

“It’s more than we’ve made in the last two weeks combined,” she finally says.

I wrap my arms around Giovanni, laughing, and he whirls me around with a grin on his face. For a moment, the energy between us crackles like it did last night. But the moment ends, we go home, and it’s as if a shutter has closed within him.

We eat with the nonnas and Theo, but Giovanni barely says a word, and after dinner he goes straight up to his room and shuts himself in.

I’d hoped to talk to him more about his future as the Shirtless Chef—like dozens of other people—and ask about that interview he agreed to do, but he obviously needs space.