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Winona’s face turned to his. “But you’re not sure?”
“We haven’t discussed it,” he said after a beat. “Prior to today, I believed we would be able to keep things between us casual. I was wrong.”
“You fell in love.” Winona slid the teacup across the counter to him, eyes meeting his probingly, happily, now.
Alessio hesitated. Not because he doubted the truth of his mother’s words, but because he hadn’t even admitted as much to Charlotte yet, he wasn’t sure it was right to speak that truth to his mother first.
“I have to speak to Charlotte,” he repeated. “But it felt important for you to know that this was more than just…”
“Convenient sex?” Winona supplied with arched brows.
“A casual relationship,” Alessio said with a small nod. “I appreciate that Caleb will find it hard to adjust, but I imagine the blow will be lessened by the knowledge that I’m not just…”
“Using Charlotte to hurt him,” Winona supplied once more.
“Or using her, at all,” Alessio finished. “I care about her, very much. I didn’t come here expecting to meet someone like her, nor to feel…” He tapered off, gesturing with his hand to his chest, so tears sparkled on Winona’s lashes.
“Love catches you by surprise sometimes, darling. I’m glad you acted on it. I’m glad you found her.”
Alessio didn’t smile. He couldn’t. Until he’d spoken to Charlotte, and learned how she felt, he simply couldn’t, wouldn’t, relax.
She was very temptedto ignore the knocking at her door.
After all, it was ten o’clock on Christmas night and she was bushed. But there were only three people on earth it could reasonably be, and Charlotte didn’t plan to ignore any of them. If Winona, Caleb or Melody had come to see her, then Charlotte would answer, even though she wasn’t ready to debrief with Caleb yet.
She placed her sherry glass on the corner of the table and brushed some errant fruit mince pie crumbs off her sweater as she walked to the door, pulling it inwards without checking to see who it was.
A gasp escaped her lips, because standing on the other side was the very last person she’d expected to see—now or ever.
“Alessio,” she said on a rough exhalation. “What are you doing here?”
She was too surprised to remember that she was angry with him, too glad to see him to immediately recall that he’d left without properly preparing her, that he’d dropped the bombshell about their relationship in Caleb and Winona’s laps then left her to clean up the pieces.
“You left. Didn’t you?” Maybe he hadn’t. Maybe he’d stayed in his room? But no. She’d gone down after dinner to check on the kitchen and seen his room keys—both sets—hanging in the lockbox. He’d checked out.
“I got halfway to Italy,” he confirmed with a nod, arms crossed over his broad chest, expression impossible to read. If she knew him less well, she might have found him intimidating, but this was Alessio, and for all his big, imposing frame, she’d never feel that way about him.
“And?” She prompted, belatedly recalling their parting, their argument, her broken heart. It was just what she needed: to summon anger rather than sadness. She stiffened her spine and stayed where she was, one hand on the door.
“And I realised I was flying in completely the wrong direction. I thought I was going home, but home isn’t really a place, it’s a feeling, and this last week, with you, I have felt truly at home, at peace, truly happy, for the first time in almost my whole life.” He moved then, surprising her with his words but also his hands, lifting to cup her face, to hold her right where she was. “I love you, Charlotte. The idea of going back to Italy, of leaving without telling you, of walking away without fighting for the future I now realise I want, with all of myself, was just another form of running away. I don’t want to run anymore; I want to live.” He cleared his throat. “I want to livewith you.”
Charlotte was glad she was holding the door because she truly felt as though she might drop to the floor. Her knees were too wobbly to support her properly.
“Did you…are you being serious?”
His lips flattened. “Of course.”
It was too much. Charlotte blinked up at him, the perfection of that moment impossible to ignore. But reality was right there, throwing every impediment possible in the way of true joy, because this surely had to be an impossible relationship, an impossible future.
“Alessio,” she said with a small shake of her head, dislodging his hands and putting a little space between them. “I’m…grateful you came back. I didn’t want things to end the way they did, after everything with us had been so, so indescribably wonderful.” She lifted a hand then, pressing it to his chest. “But how could this ever work?” Her features were pinched. “You’reyou, and I’mme,” she lifted her shoulders. “There’s a reason we set ground rules with this from the outset. To hope for more is…impossible.”
“Why?” He demanded, arrogance in the single syllable, determination in every etched line of his face. “Why would this be impossible?”
“I can give you a thousand reasons, but only one of them is truly insurmountable,” she said quietly. “When Michael and Maggie died, I swore Dash would always come first. He is my sun, my moon, my true north, my guiding light. I can never walk away from him, and what I owe him.”
“Do you think I would come here to tell you I love you and then ask you to abandon a boy you care for as if he were your own son?”
Charlotte bit down on her lip.
