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“All right,” she says after a moment.
“Great.” I grab her hand and take her away. Emilia watches us go but doesn’t say anything.
Francesca looks relieved when we leave the party behind and head up to the suite I booked for the night. She’s so quiet; it’s almost easy to forget she’s standing next to me. That relieved look on her face disappears once we enter the room, worry replacing it.
This is it. The time to make Francesca mine. But even marriage isn’t enough unless she comes to me willingly.
Francesca turns away from the king-sized bed, her face flushed. “So …”
“So …” I go over to her, taking her hand in mine. “Ready for tonight?” God, I am.
She nods hesitantly, and my hope rises until she quickly shakes her head, dashing them. “I know it’s my duty to do this. We’re married after all. But … I still don’t really know you that well. I don’t feel comfortable having sex. But if you want to, I … I guess I’ll do it.”
And there it is again. That damn guilt.
I sigh. “No. We don’t have to do it. if you’re not ready, then … that’s it.” And the bet will have to wait another day to be completed.
She lets out a rough breath, giving me a smile. “Thank you, Leo. That means a lot.” She looks back at the bed. “So … what are we going to do, then?”
“Talk?”
She laughs. “You sound like you don’t know what to do. You don’t talk to women much, do you?”
“No. I normally prefer kissing to talking.” And other things, but I’m not about to freak Francesca out.
Fran flushes and pulls away from me, going over to the bed and sitting down tentatively. “What do we want to talk about?”
I take off my jacket and sit down next to her. “Honestly? I have no idea.”
She grabs my hand. “I guess we’ll figure it out together.”
And that’s exactly what we do for the rest of the night.
CHAPTER12
Francesca
“Wait. That really happened?” I ask Leo.
He shifts on the bed, his suit wrinkled. “It did. I peed in front of the entire class. I was so embarrassed. And Mr. Karn didn’t let me forget it. Every time I asked to go to the bathroom after that, he’d say, ‘Why not just go in your pants? That’s what you did last time’.” Leo says it in a stuffy, old man’s voice. “I never lived it down. The rest of the year, I was known as Pee Pants.”
“An original nickname.”
He slants his eyes at me, a smile on his lips. “To a class full of ten-year-olds? Yes, it was.” He rubs a hand over his face. “God, it killed me. I told my mom I couldn’t ever go back to school again.”
I scoot closer to him. My wedding dress is digging into my back, but I don’t care. Leo and are actually talking with each other, and it’s so much better than I thought it could be. “What did she say?”
“She took pity on me and let me have a sick day … until my dad found out and forced me to go to school.”
“That’s no fun.”
“Yeah, it wasn’t. Remind me to never give a presentation on the geography of Europe ever again.”
I laugh softly as I lean back against the pillows. “What was it about the geography of Europe that made you so nervous?”
“There was so much to remember!” He shakes his head and smiles ruefully. “It haunted me throughout the rest of elementary school. When middle school came around, I was determined to be a new man.”
“A twelve-year-old man,” I tease.
