Unlike her sisters, she could never wear a garment straight off the runway.
Carlo hadn't seemed to mind though. He'd called her his pocket Venus and complimented her blue eyes, often saying they glowed like sapphires. When they'd had sex after her sister's wedding, he'd said he liked her natural blonde hair better than the lowlights too.
If only his appreciation for her body translated to him caring about and approving of the person she was. It didn't though.
And now she understood better where five years of silence had come from.
He had truly believed she would show up at the church. He'd trusted her to keep her promise to marry him and because she'd left telling people the wedding was off to her parents, no one had disabused him of that notion.
She'd literally left him standing at the altar and all her reasons for her behavior five years ago didn't change that. Not for the first time, she realized she owed him an apology. One without qualifiers or explanations.
She thought he should be sorry too, for the high-handed way he'd tried to dictate her life five years ago. However, if therapy had taught her anything, it was that Annette could not dictate the actions of others. She only had agency over her own, but she did have that agency and had to always remember that.
Needing to make sure things were okay between her and Joyce, or simply looking for a way to put off the upcoming discussion with Carlo, Annette went back inside the villa.
She found her sister sitting between their mother and their oldest sister, Lynette.
The look she gave Annette indicated that had not been happenstance on her part. Joyce didn't want another private tete-e-tete with Annette and she'd chosen the perfect avoidance.
Hurt, but unwilling to approach her younger sister when she'd placed herself between allies so hostile to Annette, she looked around the large drawing room for sign of either the baby, or Carlo.
She found them together with Fantino. Carlo was holding Jocinda oh so carefully, his expression one of wonder and unabashed affection as he looked down at the tiny infant.
Fantino was talking about some business deal and for once it was clear he only had half his brother's attention on the company matter. The way the young father kept reaching out to run a finger down his daughter's soft cheek, or touch her little foot showed that maybe his attention wasn't fully focused on what he was saying either.
The younger Messina looked up as Annette approached. "Ah, Annette. Joyce was hoping the two of you could spend some time together alone."
Not anymore, she wasn't. But Annette didn't say that. She simply gave Fantino what she thought of as herfamilysmile, the one that hid all real emotion. "That would be nice. I wouldn't mind some time with this beautiful little girl, either."
Carlo's head snapped up, like he'd just now realized Annette was there. For one second his grey gaze flashed with welcome and the heat that was always there, under the surface, between them. Then his face shuttered, and he looked to his brother. "Set up the meeting. I'll have my team put together the numbers and proposal you and I have discussed."
So much for him only listening with partial attention. She should have known better. Nothing got between Carlo and business. Not even their adorable new baby niece.
"Bonu,"Fantino said. "I appreciate—"
Carlo interrupted his brother's thanks, saying something like no problem, that's what brothers are for in Sicilian. Close enough to Italian, which she spoke fluently, for her to understand, Annette still wouldn't have tried to speak the native dialect of Sicily.
"May I hold her?" Annette asked Fantino, indicating Jocinda.
"If you can prise her away from my brother." Fantino laughed at his own joke, though Annette still thought he looked exhausted.
"Jocinda isn't sleeping through the night?" she asked.
She'd thought the baby was because of something Joyce had said on one of their video calls, but neither parent was rested enough for that to be true.
Something skittered across the younger brother's features, but he shrugged. "Jet lag."
Funny, she didn't believe him when he said it any more than she'd believed herself using the excuse earlier. "If I can help in any way…" She let her voice trail off, worried Fantino would throw her offer back in her face as Joyce had done.
He didn't, but his shrug said it all. How could she help?
"Tonight. I can stay with her and get up with her so you and Joyce can sleep the night through."
"Oh, would you?" The abject relief on Fantino's face was hard to bear.
"Why haven't you hired a nanny, or something?" she asked.
Fantino and Carlo shared a significant look. "Joyce and I are raising our daughter, not a nanny," Fantino said, sounding defensive.