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And she loved him more.
Julienne wished that she could go back in time and tell that terrified sixteen-year-old how it would all turn out. That Cristiano would save her from the Boucher women’s fate. That she would love him. That they would make a son together.
And then he would become her husband, and a father, and if there was a happier version of ever after, Julienne knew that neither she nor the teenage version of herself could possibly imagine it.
He led her over to the table she hadn’t even seen, so lost was she in him. In this. He sat her down so she could look out at the vineyard, and the hills that rolled into forever, as the sun finally inched its way below the horizon.
This is everything you ever wanted,she kept telling herself, waiting for it to feel believable. Or real.
Beside her, Cristiano kept touching her belly, and even began speaking sternly to her bump, man to man.
She was so full to bursting, that it wasn’t until later, when they’d eaten their dinner, and were sitting, enjoying the mild evening, that she realized one crucial thing was missing.
Cristiano had talked of parenting, and of marrying. He’d told her his plans of how it would be between them, and Julienne had agreed, but he had never once mentioned the most important thing of all.
Love.
CHAPTER TEN
“WEWILLMARRYat once,” Cristiano announced the following morning, watching Julienne as she settled herself across from him, wearing nothing but the sheet they’d kicked off the bed early. His wife, he thought, with a stamp of possessive fire. The mother of the son he nearly hadn’t gone to see—and had, in the end, because of that tenderness that only she brought out in him. It only made him more determined to move quickly now—before the realities of life as a Cassara set in, as he knew they would. They always did. And before that tender thing he could not put into words curdled and died like everything else he touched. “I will have a special license and priest here by nightfall.”
“How romantic,” she said dryly, and there was a flicker of something he couldn’t say he liked in her toffee-colored eyes.
He studied her a moment, telling himself he was imagining things. This was the woman who had cried, she was so happy. And then cried for entirely different reasons in his bed all night.
“These are practicalities, Julienne,” he said, aware that there were landmines here, though he couldn’t understand why. “The sooner they are dealt with, the less we need speak of them.”
“And, naturally, our only purpose here is to be practical.” She shifted the sheet she’d wrapped around her, hiking it higher over her breasts. Cristiano wondered if she knew how very much she looked like a Roman goddess, toga and all. “While also having sex.”
“Is that a complaint?”
She was looking out at the scenery, the rolling hills and the thicket of rosebushes. “I wouldn’t dream of lodging a complaint. Besides, you don’t care for my methods. Too scandalous.”
“I thought we were in agreement,” he said, mildly enough.
She looked different this morning, though he couldn’t have said why. It wasn’t the sheet or the fact she was sitting here on his private terrace, though that was certainly new and different. She had her hair up again, but in haphazard sort of pile instead of the sleek chignon that he recalled from the office. Maybe that was it. Maybe she no longer bothered with sleekness, which made him wonder why any woman did. When the other side of it was this—all soft woman, rosy cheeks and clear toffee eyes.
“I said I would marry you, yes,” she said, and he realized after a beat that she was mimicking his own excessively mild tone. Exactly. “But there’s no rush, surely. The world will not be ending at nightfall.”
“I see no reason to wait.”
“I cannot marry without my sister present.” She shook her head at him, but at least that meant she was looking at him instead of out into the distance. “And don’t you have a grandmother? Right here in Tuscany?”
Cristiano did not frown. Because he ordered himself not to frown. “Technically. But my grandmother would have no interest in attending my wedding. I’m not sure she would bother to attend my funeral, and of the two, it would likely bring her far greater joy.”
Julienne laughed, but when he didn’t join in—and, in fact, only stared at her implacably—she sobered. “You can’t be serious.”
“I know you have decided she is a sympathetic figure, Julienne, but my grandmother is an unpleasant woman. She takes pride in it. When I was a child, I was convinced that every fairy tale involving a witch and the forest was about her.”
Julienne’s gaze cooled, and too late, he remembered what she’d told him about the way the women in her family had been treated in France. And the way she had already come to his grandmother’s defense. “You will forgive me, but can you really trust any stories you heard about her? Your grandfather was hardly an objective source.”
Cristiano felt he should have received commendations for remaining calm in the face of such provocation. Medals, at the very least. But none appeared forthcoming, so he pinched his nose and wished for strength. “You are basing this on the letters you read, is that it?”
“The letters, yes, and the long-term marital affair that was celebrated in each and every one of those letters.” Julienne’s brows rose. “As the person you decided should marry youtonight,you should perhaps take note. I don’t like cheaters or liars. And if my husband treated me the way your grandfather treated your grandmother, I would not waft off into the nearest forest and make myself into a fairy tale. I would burn him down.”
He felt his gaze narrow. “Noted. But has it occurred to you that my grandfather was not the villain of this tale?”
“I understand why you want to believe that.” Her throat worked, but it took her a moment to speak. “Then again, this is how men tell stories about women they can’t control, isn’t it? Whores. Witches.”
