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I waved back, then turned to my sisters.
“Ooooh, Francesca,” they tittered at each other. “Fancy!”
“Do you mind?” I snapped. The two of them really were as bratty at twenty-four and twenty-five as they had been as toddlers. “This is kind of important. Take the peanut gallery somewhere else.”
Joni gave me a quick salute and then somehow managed, with Marie’s help, to skitter back to the party on crutches.
I needed to get out of here. The festivities were slightly derailed by more than a few cousins whispering about “Frankie’s man.” I could already see Kate talking to Lea and Lea pointing my way. Sofia was with her cousins, all of them dancing around Matthew and Nina while they were still wrapped in each other’s arms. But that wouldn’t last long.
Then I caught Xavier’s hypnotically blue gaze fixed squarely on me and nearly forgot to breathe. I had to admit, Joni was right. Six weeks apart hadn’t exactly dimmed Xavier’s inherent shine, which would only make him that much more attractive to the gossip fiends around us.
“Ces,” he said, reaching out as I exited the cordoned-off wedding area. “I found you.”
How could three simple words speak so deeply? Even his frank, open expression made me stumble. It had been so long since I’d seen that expression. Well before all the drama with his family, before he’d transformed from a charming, tattooed chef into the Duke of Kendal.
My heart squeezed at the thought. Lord, I missed that Xavier. I wasn’t necessarily looking for the carefree twenty-something cook I’d met five and a half years ago, but the man who’d welcomed me to London in July would do just fine. He was still richer than Croesus, but that Xavier loved jeans better than suits. His idea of a perfect evening was dinner with his family, snuggling on the couch while he watched a soccer match, then sweeping me off to bed to score a goal of his own. He was a far cry from the besuited aristocrat I’d left in August, who was more concerned with wealth and politics than the mental health of his own family. Who went around kissing the local viscount’s daughter when he was sad.
The familiar knot of anger and nausea tightened in my belly again atthatparticular memory. I grabbed it like an apple and held fast. Yes, that was what I needed to remember here. Not the way I wanted to swim in those deep blue eyes or how that growl turned me into a different kind of animal.
I needed to remember that Xavier Parker was a liar. A cheat. A complete and utter thief of my heart. And no matter how charmingly bereft he looked, how long he searched for me, how many times he found me, he couldn’t have it back again. Ever.
“Here I am,” I said shortly. “What are you doing here?”
“Well, I got your email.”
When I didn’t respond, he gave me a look, which I didn’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to decipher. It was a very clear “What the fuck, Frankie?” kind of expression. I got it a lot from my siblings.
I sighed, then glanced behind me, where even more people were taking note of the appearance of a six-five, half-Japanese Englishman glowering at me. My audience now included Nonna and the rest of my siblings on the far side of the piazza, and even Matthew and Nina had stopped dancing to look our way. Sofia had yet to stop playing ring-around-the-rosy with a bunch of other children, but when she saw her daddy again, it would all be over.
We needed to have this conversation in a private place, or this wedding was going to turn into the “Frankie and the Duke” show real quick.
“Come with me,” I said, grabbing Xavier’s hand, ignoring the little pricks of electricity that flew through my skin at his warm, solid touch. The black tattoo that wound around his torso, shoulder, and left arm was peeking over his wrist, threatening to lick my fingers.
No. I wasn’t going to think of that now.
His fingers curled around mine and squeezed, and I ignored the way my heart seemed to do the same in response.
I pulled him through the smaller crowds of tourists at a few other restaurants until we reached the road traversing the other side of the harbor. Xavier followed my brisk steps downVia Viscontiuntil we had passed the village and were striding by boats tied to the jetty. When we could walk no farther and were primarily surrounded by the winds and water of the Mediterranean, I turned to face the shadow who had come to call at last.
“So,” I said.
But Xavier did not speak, simply folded his arms across his broad chest and waited.
I pressed my lips together. “I know you didn’t stalk me all the way to Italy just to stare at me, Xavi.”
The divot between his brows grew deeper. “I didn’t stalk you. You and Sof both told me about the trip last week when she and I FaceTimed. And you sent me a note about the time change too.”
I opened my mouth to argue but found I couldn’t. “Fine. Okay. But you didn’t want to have whatever conversation this is by phone? You had to come here and disrupt my brother’s wedding? Put on a show for the whole family? You’re not exactly someone who blends in, and now there is an entire piazza full of Zolas ready to eat up this gossip like it’s the world’s best tiramisu.”
He tipped his head like a raven. “It seemed…important to do it in person.”
For a moment, I imagined this wasn’t about the bomb I’d dropped on him via email only three days earlier. I imagined he was here for a completely different reason. That maybe he was about to beg for my forgiveness, declare his undying love, maybe even get down on one knee under this starry sky with the music playing in the distance…
I shook my head violently. No. Those fantasies were silly girlish ideas that had earned me this broken heart and dashed dreams in the first place.
No more silly fantasies for this girl. No more unreasonable expectations.
It was time for me to come to terms with who Xavier Parker really was. A cad. A rake. My children’s father, yes, but never again would he be the master of my heart.
