He lowered his head and his lips gently found hers, just pressing a little into the luscious flesh of her mouth, and he felt a flutter of something sweet and good and right settle.
Only their lips met, gently touching, barely moving, just tiny pulse-like kisses as they breathed each other’s air, and it was a kiss like no other, this rare, weary tenderness from Luca that made her feel beautiful and wanted and somehow sad too.
‘This is so much better with you here.’
There was a sting at the back of her throat and she couldn’t understand why something so nice should make her feel like crying.
‘It could always be.’ She’d crossed the line, she knew she had. She’d taken the present and hinted at a future—there was suddenly no breath on her cheek as Luca stilled, no acknowledgment as to what she had said, but it circled in the air between them.
‘We must go.’ He waited at the bedroom door as with shaking hands she reapplied her lip gloss, catching her eyes in the mirror and giving herself a stern reminder of the terms that she had agreed to.
* * *
It was the most gorgeous, moving wedding.
Even if she couldn’t understand much of what was said, even if she was here under false pretences and was supposed to be playing a part, the tears that filled her eyes weren’t manufactured as the proud, frail father of the bride walked his glowing daughter down the aisle.
There were only two dry eyes in the church and they both belonged to Luca.
He stood, taller than the rest, his back ramrod straight, and though he did all the right things, there was a remoteness to him—an irritable edge that Emma couldn’t quite define, an impatience perhaps for the service to be over. For the second it was, the first moment that he could, she felt his hand tighten around hers as he led her swiftly outside.
‘These two will be next!’ Mia teased, holding her husband’s hand, laughing and chatting with her relatives.
‘When?’ Rico’s eyes met his son’s.
‘Leave it, Pa,’ Luca said, but Rico could not.
‘What about the D’Amato name?’ he pressed.
‘Soon, Rico!’ Mia soothed. ‘I’m sure it will happen soon.’
There was an exquisitely uncomfortable moment, because it was clear soon was far too long for Rico, but his brother Rinaldo lightened things. ‘They leave things much longer now.’ He squeezed his young wife’s waist. ‘Not like me…’ He kissed her heavily made-up cheek then murmured, ‘I wasn’t going to let you slip away.’
As Rico greeted other guests and Rinaldo and his wife drifted off, Mia chided Luca for his stern expression, talking in Italian then giving a brief translation for Emma.
‘Luca was close to Zia Maria, Rinaldo’s first wife,’ she explained to Emma, then looked over at Luca. ‘You cannot expect him to be on his own.’
‘He didn’t even wait a year,’ Luca retorted, his voice ice-cold on this warm day.
‘Luca—not here,’ Mia pleaded, then turned to Emma. ‘Come, let me introduce you to my sister.’
Emma lost Luca along the way, chatting to aunts, congratulating Daniela—really, she was doing well. Through her work she knew enough about Luca to answer the most difficult questions, though it would have been far easier if he was by her side.
They were starting to call relatives for more photos now and she found him behind the church, walking between the tombstones, standing and pausing, his shoulders rigid, almost as if he were at a funeral rather than a wedding.
‘You’re wanted for the photos,’ she said softly, her eyes following his gaze to the tombstone he was reading.
‘My grandmother,’ Luca explained.
‘She was so young,’ Emma said, reading the inscription. His grandmother had been little older than her mother when she’d died.
‘I don’t remember her really—a little perhaps.’ He shrugged as if it didn’t matter, but clearly from his grim expression it did. ‘And this is Zia Maria. I do remember her…’
Emma licked dry lips as she saw the young age of his aunt too. ‘Rinaldo’s first wife…’
‘She was a lovely woman.’ His voice was tender in memory, and pensive too.
‘I know what you meant about Rinaldo…’ He closed his eyes on her as if she couldn’t possibly know, but Emma did. ‘About not even waiting a year to remarry. I hated how many girlfriends my dad had. I know now that Mum had left him and everything, but he started dating so soon after…’