tucked a wisp of hair that wasn’t in the way, and he knew she was going to lie. “I was fine. I just had a brutal week.”
“Did Mario say anything about my visits?”
“We had a few meetings scheduled but he... Damn it, I’m nervous. About this whole evening.”
He frowned. “Why?”
“I just... I wish we hadn’t decided to make this whole thing public today. Although that’s probably just me wanting to delay the inevitable.” She laughed at herself, turning the glass in her hand around and around. “Now you think I’m a little cuckoo.”
“No. But I’m definitely beginning to believe that saying you’re stressed is an understatement. Are you having second thoughts about this whole thing?” He carefully controlled his voice, loath to betray the pang in his chest that she might have changed her mind.
This had to be about her, always.
“Of course not!” Her chest rose and fell, the thin chain at her neck glinting under the light of the chandelier. “Not at all.” When he just stared at her, she sighed. “If you must know, I mostly avoided Mario this past week. I stayed at my flat the whole week, which I never do because I like to see Mum at least every other day—running away when I knew he might be looking for me, canceling on a one-on-one lunch saying I had a checkup, that sort of thing.”
Anger flared in Leo’s gut. He took her hand and was startled to feel her long fingers tremble. “Neha, are you scared of him? Has he caused you physical harm?”
“God, no. I’d like to think if he’d ever raised his hand to me, at least then my...” She cringed and snatched her hand back. And he wondered at how much she kept to herself, how little she showed of her true feelings. “If he had, I’d have knocked him down in return,” she said fiercely. “Mario thinks too much of himself to stoop to what he’d call vulgar behavior. His tactics are more...insidious. I didn’t tell you this, but I had an argument with him before I came to see you about this new book deal we’re signing and it just blew up.
“I’m sure he thought I ran to you to complain about it. After leaving it like that, you showing up at work in the last week and me avoiding him, he’ll be bursting to have a go at me.”
“Then why avoid him? Why not face him today when I’m here, too?”
“It’s just that...every time he and I get into it, it’s Mum who suffers. It’s Papa’s birthday next week and she’s always extra fragile on that day.
“Usually she and I spend the day together, donate a week’s worth of meals at this shelter Papa used to volunteer at...help out the whole day. And then we have dinner with a lot of his friends and family, just remembering him. I prep for it for days, take the entire day off, and it almost feels like...she and I never drifted apart.” The wistfulness in her eyes tugged at him before she blinked it away. “If I have a massive row with Mario now, it’ll bleed through to her. She’ll worry that the both of us are fighting and I don’t want to make Papa’s birthday extra hard for her.”
Leo voiced the question that came to him instantly, his tone a little bit sharp. “And in all this, who looks after you? Even I know that you still miss your papa.”
She frowned. “I look after myself. My mother has always been emotionally delicate—I don’t think she ever recovered from Papa’s death, and yes, sometimes I wish...” Guilt shone in her eyes before she sighed. She fiddled with a ring she wore on her right hand. “I don’t like talking about all this with you.”
“Why not?”
“I feel guilty for talking about her. And I definitely don’t want to lose your respect. I know you abhor emotional drama of this sort.”
“Because you have a complex relationship with your mother?” he said, swallowing away the stinging words he wanted to use. Like toxic and harmful and soul-sucking.
“I think you have made a lot of extrapolations from whatever the media reports about my relationships with women.” For some reason he couldn’t fathom, every time Neha made even a fairly reasonable assumption about him, it riled him. He wanted to be...the perfect man in her eyes.
Cristo! Where was this coming from?
“What did you think raising a child together was going to entail? Whether we like it or not, whether we want or not, our families and our history are going to feature in our child’s life.”
“And it doesn’t bother you?” she said, searching his gaze.
“I forgot extremely stubborn in the list of adjectives earlier,” he said, taking her hand in his. “Believe me, bella. We’re in this together. There’s nothing you need to hide from me.
“In the meantime, I’m more than happy to play your hero.”
She rolled her eyes and laughed. “I don’t need a hero, Leo. I just want you to pretend to be one.” Her fingers dusted at some imaginary speck on his jacket and his heart thundered under the casual touch. Her gaze ate him up. “But yeah, I’m glad you’re on my side.”
TWO AND A HALF hours into the party, Neha was glad she’d let Leo convince her to stick to his side.
There was a power high in being the woman that Leonardo Brunetti couldn’t keep his hands off. Oh, she knew that all the long, lingering looks and touches—she loved the feel of his palm against her lower back—were for the benefit of the couple of journalists he’d told her were present through the crowd.
It was about making a public statement without actually standing in front of a high-focus lens and admitting that yes, after years of platonic relationship, they were taking their relationship to the next level. But she couldn’t stop herself from enjoying the thrill of the moment.
The warm, male scent of him was both familiar and exciting. Every time he wrapped his arm around her waist, or squeezed her shoulders, or pulled her to his side, she felt a little tingle pulse up her spine, filling her veins with electric charge.
She loved hearing her name on his lips as he introduced her around to the extended Brunetti family, to the powerful board members of BFI. Clung to his every word, loved the secretive smile he sent her way when someone commented that the most untouchable bachelor had been finally caught.
But it wasn’t just the electricity arcing between them.
There was a sense of strength in his mere presence at her side. She’d been self-sufficient, emotionally and mentally, for so long that to have him at her back felt like a luxury. An echo of a need that had gone unanswered. She had someone in her corner finally to face Mario.
Even the sight of Mario’s scowl when his gaze landed on Leo’s arm around her waist, the way his sharp gaze followed them around, couldn’t dilute her enjoyment of the party.
The entire grounds around the villa had been lit up until it was reflected on the waters of the lake. Pristine white marquees caught the overflow of guests from the villa. Cream-colored circular lanterns hung from the
