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‘With?’ he asked again.
‘Chi-Chi and Antonietta.’
‘And your firefighter?’
‘He wants me. You don’t.’
‘So why are you here?’
‘I don’t want him. I want you.’
Nico could hear her despair and he took her hand, pulled her a little towards him, indicating for her to sit down.
‘Aurora,’ he said. ‘Me not wanting to marry has nothing to do with you.’
‘I would say it has everything to do with me, given our fathers agreed—’
‘Since when did I ever do as my father wished?’ Nico interrupted.
‘You rejected me.’
‘You were sixteen—and if you want to take offence that I was not attracted to some teenager who I looked at as a sister, then that is your choice.’
Aurora swallowed. She had never thought of it like that.
‘You think of me as a sister?’
‘I did.’
And now he did not.
‘Do you think of me the same way now? Or as a friend?’ she asked.
‘We can never be friends Aurora.’
Some might take that as an insult, Aurora thought, but it was true. She did not want to do the things she wanted to do to Nico with her friends.
‘What have you been doing?’ he asked again.
‘Trying to fit in—but as always I didn’t.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Chi-Chi is desperate to marry and Antonietta…’ She hesitated, and then told Nico what he might not know, as it was very recent news. ‘She is soon to be engaged to Sylvester.’
‘But isn’t he her cousin?’
‘Second cousin, I think,’ Aurora said, and watched as Nico pulled a slight face. ‘I don’t think she’s happy about it.’
‘I can’t say I blame her.’
Nico sighed. If Aurora was fire, then Antonietta was ice, and did not show her feelings. If Aurora thought Antonietta unhappy, then she was.
‘So,’ Aurora continued. ‘There is Chi-Chi wanting a husband, Antonietta not wanting one, and as for me…’ She took a breath and told him, ‘I am twenty and only last week had my first kiss.’
‘Just a kiss?’ Nico asked, and she nodded.
‘I hated it,’ she admitted.
