"Olivia." His fingers tighten around the cup. "She’s in love with someone else."
"Ah, so you stayed back in the hospital until she woke up?"
He glances into the distance. "I was with her when she came to. I asked her to marry me."
"What? You just met her."
"You just met Jeanne, and yet, here you are, married to her," he points out.
"I only did it because I had to find a way to get Michael off my back."
He glares at me.
"It’s true. You know what a stickler for tradition he is. He wants us all to be married within the month."
"And she was the only one you could find?"
"I woke up in that cell where that bastard Freddie had thrown me, and there she was. It was like a sign from above."
"So, it had nothing to do with the fact that you love her?"
I glower at him. "Stocazzo, the fuck you talking about?"
His lips kick up. "Keep denying it. You were always good at deluding yourself."
"I’ve figured out my shit, man. I have my marriage of convenience in place. None of that messy falling in love shit for me. And I’ve still delivered on the promise made to Nonna."
"She turned me down." Massimo stares into his still full espresso cup. "Because she is in love with someone else."
"She just woke up from an injury, which is quite likely going to change her future... And you spring a proposal on her? Even I know it’s not great timing."
He shakes his head. "How could I have not known she had someone else in her life? I could have sworn she felt something for me. I thought—" His throat moves as he swallows. "I thought she was the one."
"But she isn’t." I reach over and grip his shoulder. "At least she told you now. It would have been far worse if you’d married her, only to find out she had someone else on her mind."
"If I’d married her, I’d have made sure she thought of no one else but me," he says in a hard voice.
I peer into his features. "Che cazzo, you have feelings for her."
"Of course I do, youcoglione. Why else would I ask her to marry me? Unlike you and the rest of my dumb ass brothers, I know when I’m falling for someone, and I’m man enough to own up to the truth."
"Are you questioning my manhood?" I growl.
"You said it; not me." He wrenches his shoulder out of my grasp, then tosses back his espresso. "I could have sworn she had feelings for me." He shakes his head. "My instinct is never wrong."
"You’re talking like the two of you have known each other longer."
His gaze narrows.
"So, you two knew each other from earlier? No wonder the two of you were eye fucking each other at my wedding."
"We weren’t eye fucking each other." He raises both his shoulders. "Okay, maybe we were."
"No wonder when I asked you to accompany the two of them over to Malta for my wedding, you agreed so quickly."
His features don’t change expression, but something in his eyes gives him away.
"I assume you made full use of the plane journey?"