Our Little Secret by Rachael Stewart (free ebook novel txt) 📕

glasses, a movement on our stool or a graze of the knee. Every slight contact sets my body alight, making me want, making me need, making me wish we were anywhere but here.

And alone. Very much alone.

CHAPTER NINE

‘SIGNOR PEREZ, are you joining us?’

I turn from the view to see Diego looking at me, his eyes narrowed. And I can’t blame him. It seems I’ve zoned out long enough for the rest of the party to be halfway across the courtyard on their way to the rear of the castle where there is to be a hands-on, or rather feet-on, demonstration of the traditional grape-stomping. Something Dani insisted she wanted to experience, and the team were more than happy to oblige in their desire to please me, their new employer.

I know I look less than pleased now and, though my scowl is directed wholly at myself, poor Diego won’t know that.

‘Si.’ I force a grin as I gesture for him to lead the way.

I should be happy. Dani is happy. My mother and aunt are getting along well—a miracle in itself—and Giovanni, technically Aunt Netta’s plus-one, seems to be more than happy entertaining the two of them. Everyone’s smiling and laughing and I want to be too. I want to feel at ease but, every time I’ve felt at ease this week, I’ve let Faye in or exposed a part of me I’ve long kept buried...

Up ahead, Dante trails behind the rest of the group, and as I near he turns to me, his grin alive with teasing.

‘So, come on, tell me all...’ he urges, his swift Italian for my ears only.

I look back to the wedding party, to my niece and nephew chattering excitedly as they race through the vineyard, their faces aglow with the bronze of the sun bouncing off the vines and the earth.

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘No?’ He tosses his jacket over his shoulder, the same jacket that warmed Faye’s shoulders in the wine cellar, and I feel the same weirdly possessive surge. It’s ridiculous, but my body doesn’t seem to care. I wanted to be the one to warm her, to caress her gooseflesh until it returned to silk, to murmur all the things I wanted to do when that wine trailed down her chin.

‘Anyone ever tell you you’re a rubbish liar, cousin?’

My laugh is tight. ‘Si. You. Just now.’

‘If you’re trying to keep it subtle you need to rethink all this...’

He waves a hand up and down my length and I frown. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

He cocks his head to the side and bats his lashes. ‘This.’

Heat courses through me. Another damn blush! ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Dante.’

‘Hey, don’t get worked up about it. It’s obvious she feels the same way.’

‘You don’t...’

His raised brows cut me off.

‘Be careful, though.’ He turns all serious on me. ‘Dani is all for encouraging me to show her friend a good time off the back of her failed marriage, but I’m not so sure she’d take too kindly to it being you Faye has her rebound fun with.’

Wait, what? Rebound? Marriage?

‘You didn’t know,’ he says, spying my confusion. ‘She hasn’t mentioned it?’

I think over our conversations, but I know she hasn’t. I’d remember something as big as that.

‘No.’

‘Yeah, well, it seems Dani feels she needs a bit of fun before she finds “The One”.’ He rolls his eyes at the label. ‘Why does there have to be a “One”? Why can’t there just be many and many?’

My laugh is more of a grunt. ‘I think you’re missing the point if you have to ask.’

‘Not at all.’ He shudders. ‘I don’t ever plan on being all pazzo d’amore.’

Crazy in love... Diavolo, no.

‘You and me both.’

We join the guests just as the folk accordionist I hired as a surprise appears, his traditional music piping through the air, and Dani gives out an excited whoop, her beaming face finding me across the cobbled ground.

‘Thank you,’ she mouths, and I acknowledge it with a nod.

Tyler scoops her up into a jig on the spot and they laugh, carefree and happy.

‘I have to say, though,’ Dante murmurs around the wine glass he’s managed to bring with him, ‘being all pazzo d’amore sure suits them.’

Another nod. I can’t deny it. We watch as Tyler swings Dani in the air and places her down in the giant wooden container which houses the pressing floor, covered in grapes. She gives a squeal as her feet sink into the fruit and Tyler’s grin widens. His eyes are fixed on his wife-to-be, alive with his love for her. I feel a strange pang deep inside, a confused mass that I don’t understand or want to examine.

‘They’re happy enough,’ I murmur, ‘for now.’

I pick up my stride as the memories threaten, memories from before my father died and after. When my parents couldn’t live together, and couldn’t live without each other, and then the choice was taken away. His death changed everything. My mother...

I remember how she looked last night at dinner, talking of him for the first time in so long, and the chill sets in.

It’s not to say it will happen to Dani and Tyler, I try to reason. God willing, they’ll live a long and happy life together.

God willing? Now I sound like Nonna.

I watch the pleasure building through the group, watch Dani and Tyler and feel their happiness permeating the air, and it eases some of the chill.

Yes, I can be happy for my sister, for them both.

But I can never go there.

‘Come on, Dante, come and join in!’ Dani beckons as Tyler climbs in, his parents too.

Harry and Lisa scoot off to the sidelines as she pulls a face at the very idea of crushing grapes with her feet. Lorenzo and Sienna help their kids in and back away to join Nonna, who is happy watching with Marianna and Antonietta at her side, each with a glass of a wine in hand, content to drink and spectate. Giovanni too.

Dante shakes his