isn’t he?’
‘I’m sure he can reheat the food,’ Vito pronounced impatiently.
‘But we haven’t finished talking yet,’ Holly protested, all her expectations thrown by Vito’s eminently down-to-earth explanation of that photo and its meaning.
‘Why are you dressed as though you’re about to attend a costume ball?’ Vito shot at her.
Holly went red. ‘I wanted to show you that if I made the effort I could polish up and look all glam like Marzia.’
Vito groaned out loud. ‘You look amazing but I don’t want you to look all glam like Marzia.’
‘But you bought me all those fancy clothes...’
‘Only to cover every possible occasion. And when would you have bothered going shopping?’ Vito enquired drily. ‘You hate shopping for clothes.’
Holly compressed her lips. ‘You don’t like me glammed up? Or you don’t want me copying Marzia?’
‘Both,’ Vito told her levelly as he signalled Silvestro and rose from his chair again. ‘I like you just to be yourself. You’re never fake. I hate fake. But why did you think I would be out dancing any place with Marzia?’
‘What are you doing?’ Holly gasped as he scooped her bodily out of her seat.
‘I’m going for my after-work shower and you’re either coming in with me, which would sacrifice all the effort you have gone to, or you’re waiting in bed for me,’ Vito informed her cheerfully.
‘I thought you still cared for Marzia,’ Holly finally confessed on the way up the stairs. ‘I thought you might still love her.’
Vito grunted with effort as he reached the landing. ‘I can carry you upstairs but I can’t talk while I’m doing it,’ he confided. ‘I never loved Marzia.’
‘But you got engaged to her... You lived with her!’
‘Yes, and what an eye-opening experience that was!’ Vito admitted, thrusting wide the door of their bedroom. ‘I asked her to marry me in the first place because she was everything my grandfather told me I should look for in a wife. I wasn’t in love with her and when we lived together I discovered that we had nothing in common. I don’t want to dance the night away as if I’m still in my twenties but Marzia does. She has to have other people around all the time. She likes to shop every day and will avoid any activity that wrecks her hair...up to and including a walk on a windy day and sex.’
‘Oh...’ Open-mouthed and taken aback by that information, Holly fell very still as Vito ran down the zip on her dress.
‘I was relieved when she ditched me. Not very gallant but it’s the truth. We weren’t suited.’
‘Was my ring...? I’ve always wanted to ask,’ Holly interrupted, extending her ring finger. ‘Was it Marzia’s before you gave it to me?’
An ebony brow shot up. ‘Are you joking? Marzia didn’t return her engagement ring and even if she had I hope I would’ve had more class than to ask you to wear it.’
‘You never loved her?’ Holly was challenged to credit that fact because it ran contrary to everything she had assumed about his engagement.
‘When I met Marzia, I had never been in love in my life,’ Vito admitted ruefully. ‘I got burned young watching my mother trying to persuade my father to love her. I spent my twenties waiting to fall in love, convinced someone special would eventually appear. But it didn’t happen and I was convinced it never would. I decided I was probably too practical to fall in love. That’s why I got engaged to Marzia the week after my thirtieth birthday. At the time she looked like the best bet I had. Similar banking family and background.’
‘My word...that sounds almost...almost callous,’ Holly murmured in shock. ‘Like choosing the best offer at the supermarket.’
‘If it’s any consolation I’m pretty sure Marzia settled for me because I’m extremely wealthy.’
Vito yanked loose his tie and shed his jacket. Holly’s dress slid down her shoulders and for an instant she stopped its downward progress and then she let it go and shimmied out of it. In many ways she was still in shock from Vito’s honesty. He had never fallen in love? Not even with the gorgeous Marzia, who by all accounts had irritated him in spite of her pedigreed background and family. She swallowed hard, trying not to wonder how much she irritated him.
‘You’re definitely not joining me in the shower,’ Vito breathed in a roughened undertone as he took in the coffee-coloured silk lingerie she sported below the dress that had tumbled round her feet. ‘You can’t deprive me of the fun of taking those off.’
His shirt fell on the floor and she lifted it and the trousers that were abandoned just as untidily to drape them on a chair along with her dress. Sharing a bedroom with a male as organised as Vito had made her clean up her bad habits. Vito had paused to rifle through his jacket and he strode back to her to stuff a jewellery case unceremoniously into her hand. ‘I saw it online, thought you’d like it.’
‘Oh...’ Holly flipped open the case on a diamond-studded bracelet with a delicate little Christmas tree charm attached. ‘Oh, that’s very pretty.’
‘It’s very you, isn’t it?’ Vito remarked smugly.
‘Why didn’t you give it to me downstairs over dinner?’ Holly exclaimed, struggling to attach it to her wrist until he stepped forward to clasp it for her.
‘I forgot about it. You swanning down to greet me dressed like Marie Antoinette put it right out of my mind.’
‘And then you just virtually threw it at me,’ Holly lamented. ‘There’s a more personal way of giving a gift.’
‘You mean romantic.’ Vito sighed as he strode into the en-suite bathroom, still characteristically set on having his shower. ‘Shouldn’t the thought behind the gift count more?’
Holly thought about that and then walked to the bathroom doorway to sigh. ‘You’re right. I’m sorry. It’s a cute, thoughtful present and I love it. Thank you.’
‘My thank you was your face. It lit up like a child’s when you saw the Christmas tree,’ Vito confided with amusement before he turned the water on.
Holly kicked off her shoes, stared down appreciatively at the bracelet encircling her wrist and lay down on the bed. He had never loved Marzia. Marzia was wiped from Holly’s standard stock of worries for ever. Marzia was the past—a past Vito neither missed nor wanted to revisit. That, she decided, was a very encouraging discovery.
All of a sudden hiding her love, being so painfully careful not to let those words escape in moments of joy, seemed almost mean and dishonest. Vito loved Angelo so freely. She witnessed that every day. Her husband hadn’t even had to try to love his son and Angelo loved his father back. Perhaps in time Vito could come to love her too, she reflected hopefully. When he had told her that he much preferred her to just be herself around him without the fancy clothes or any airs her heart had taken wings. He liked her as she was. Wasn’t that wonderful?
Vito strode out of the en suite, still towelling dry his hair. ‘We’ll have a very special Christmas
