‘The brownies I brought were baked by a local farmer who had never cooked as much as pasta in his life. And now he’s turning out the most amazing baking there’s a good chance he’s going to win all the prizes at this year’s village show. Come and see for yourself. Please?’ She’d raised imploring eyes up to him and he was helpless to say no.
Two days later they’d fallen into bed, a breathless tangle of desire and kisses; a week later he’d known he was falling in love. Less than two months later he’d proposed and they’d planned their wedding for three weeks’ time. The earliest they could manage it. ‘Why wait?’ she’d laughed. It was the end of the school year, the perfect time to hand in her notice; her cousin could take over her dance classes. He could see no reason to delay.
It was as if colour had come whirling into his life, lighting up every dark corner and warming him through, and for once he didn’t care about his grandfather’s warnings, or the slightly amused expressions on his friends’ faces as Charlie swept into the room in yet another gaudy vintage outfit, her hair barely the same colour or style twice, with no knowledge of social protocols. No, that wasn’t true; she was a diplomat’s daughter. She knew the rules perfectly well. She just didn’t care and that, to Matteo, was one of the most attractive things of all. To him image and responsibility were everything. She showed him another way and it was intoxicating, living for the moment.
It was still hard to get his head around the knowledge that he was actually married to Charlie, that they’d been living together for a year. What was it like, waking up next to her every day? Had they settled into little routines? The problem with a whirlwind romance and a three-week engagement was that it gave him no benchmark. He had never spent more than a night at a time with her, not experienced normal life. It was supposed to be all to come.
For him it was all to come—he pushed the unwanted doubts to one side. He was married to the woman of his dreams and he couldn’t wait to find out just what that meant.
CHAPTER THREE
SHE MIGHT HAVE spent years studying dance and drama but Charlie realised that, embarrassingly, she was terrible at improvisation, at least when it really mattered. Every time Matteo made a comment or asked her an innocuous question she prickled with defensiveness, as if he were trying to catch her out, not show genuine interest about his missing months. Interest in her. The kind of interest she’d stopped hoping for months ago.
To be fair, her hair was a sore subject. After all, he was the one who had asked her to look more grown-up and professional and not so much like a children’s TV presenter. The words still hurt. Yet here was the proof that she hadn’t imagined it; he had loved her hair, once. She tugged at a strand, inwardly wincing at the expensively, subtly blended colours. She’d meant to change it back weeks ago, had bought the dye and yet somehow had kept putting it off, hating the unwanted doubt he’d planted in her mind.
No, she reminded herself, thinking this way was unfair; her feelings were not the issue. Matteo had no clue about the last year, about all that had gone wrong, and so if she was going to be here she needed to act as if she was equally clueless.
Turning and looking out of the window, Charlie felt some of the tension ease from her tired body. The scenery was utterly glorious, the car smoothly negotiating hairpin bends above an impossibly blue sea stretching out to the sun-filled horizon, picturesque villages clinging to the cliffside below. She inhaled, taking it all in properly for the first time. She was going to be spending at least the next few days in this beautiful place so why not enjoy it? After all, it was only for a finite time. Once Matteo had the all-clear his memory would return—or she’d have to find a way to tell him the truth. Either way, she’d be heading back home. Who knew if she’d get the chance to travel here again? She needed to chill a little, be her normal live-for-the-moment self, not this uncharacteristically nervy person.
Mind made up, Charlie slipped her phone back into her bag and turned to Matteo, her smile genuine, not plastered on. ‘How gorgeous is this? I can’t wait to explore. Your maternal grandfather left you the villa, have I got that right?’
Matteo nodded, also visibly relaxing as he took in her enthusiasm. ‘Yes, it’s been in the family for generations. A bolthole and retreat long before this area became so fashionable.’
‘It must be old then; wasn’t this an upmarket Roman destination?’ she teased and he laughed.
‘It was. We must take a trip to Pompeii so you can see that for yourself. Maybe not that old, but we have owned land here for generations. To be honest, I was surprised when he left the villa to me and not one of my half-siblings or cousins; we weren’t close. Maybe it was a way of binding me to here. My Italian grandparents, especially my grandfather, always felt that I was too English.’
‘In what way?’ She shifted round to look fully at him and, despite herself, she couldn’t help hungrily taking in every inch of him. He was still uncharacteristically pale, the olive skin sallow, not glowing, his hair tousled, not ruthlessly tamed, shadows accenting his hazel eyes. All she wanted to do was reach out and hold him, run her hands through his hair, along the sharp defined lines of his jaw, touch her mouth to the pulse in his neck. She pressed her nails into her palm, the sharp
