18. Paolo

CHAPTER 18

PAOLO

I stay in my bed until lunchtime, relishing the familiar feel of my own pillows. Even though I’ve been sleeping in this bed again for two months now, I’m still grateful for the warm embrace of memory foam after a year of horrible hotel pillows.

Has it been a coward move to hide myself away?

Maybe. But I didn’t want to bump into anyone who would talk to me, and I definitely didn’t want to face my brothers. I had way too much of them yesterday.

It would be so easy to lie here until the sun sets, letting people bring food to me and shutting the world away. But I have things to do, and I shouldn’t abandon Chloe all day.

If I’m not careful, Maria will start telling her stories about me, and then Chloe will hate me more than she already does. At least I know Maria will look after her.

It makes me feel better to know that Chloe will be in safe hands.

Eventually, the bell for lunch rings, and I force myself up. I have to face this day eventually.

After all, I only have a few days left to try and convince Chloe not to leave me forever.

There’s a lot of work to do.

I jump quickly in the shower, then trim my beard before I head down to the dining room. There, I find Chloe sitting alone, eating one of the dishes the chef has prepared for us.

“Morning,” I say.

She starts and turns to look at me, her face immediately softening into a smile when she realizes who I am, before hardening again into a practiced neutral. I swallow my own smile, not wanting her to think I’m smug about having noticed the cracks in her facade. “It’s more afternoon now, isn’t it?” she says.

“Maybe.” I shrug. “Whatever. I’m hungry. What’s for lunch?”

“Not sure,” she says, her mouth full. “Some sort of chicken salad, I think.”

I look at the table and smile. “You know what? That is pretty much how I would translate it. This is one of Bellamare’s best dishes.”

“It’s pretty good,” she agrees.

I take a seat next to her and scoop food onto my own plate. The thing about skipping breakfast is I’m absolutely ravenous now.

We sit in silence as we eat, and out of the corner of my eye I keep catching glimpses of her. I’m trying not to appear like I’m looking, but I can’t help stealing glances every few seconds.

More than anything, I can’t help but notice how sad she looks.

In the handful of days that I knew her in the US, Chloe always had this glimmer of joy on her face. Now, looking at her, it’s like that spark has been extinguished. “Let’s go for a walk.” I say. “After lunch. Let me show you the palace grounds.”

“Okay,” she agrees more quickly than I expected. “That sounds nice, actually. It’d be good to get out of the house. Have you got a lot of land here?”

I shrug. “We have a big garden here in the summer palace, but we have a bigger one in the spring palace. But this one’s nice because we have our own beach that you can go to.”

“I haven’t brought any beach clothes,” Chloe says, her face falling again.

I wave my hand. “Don’t worry about that. If you want to go to the beach, we can get you anything you need.”

“I don’t want you to buy me a new wardrobe!” she snaps, and I recoil like an elastic band has smacked me in the face. I’m not used to people declining my generosity.

“Okay… well, maybe we can go to the beach another day,” I say, backpedaling. “Let’s just walk today.”

“Okay,” she says quietly, not looking at me, as if she feels bad for her outburst. I want to reach out for her hand to tell her that it’s okay. She has nothing to apologize for.

I want to tell her how much she has changed my world. How much she means to me. But as I look at her, she looks away from me.

My tongue seizes up in my mouth, and I can’t form any words at all.

We eat the rest of our lunch in silence, and when we’re done, we both stand at the same time.

“Meet me back here in twenty minutes?” I say. “Wear whatever you like. I’ll show you everything you need to see.”

She smiles thinly and leaves without another word.

The second she’s gone, I slam my hand down on the table.

Am I really getting this all so wrong?

Are my brothers actually right?

Maybe I shouldn’t do this. Maybe I’m not cut out for having a wife. Maybe I’m not even cut out for having friends.

Caring only about myself was so much easier than this. But Chloe has done something irreversible to my brain. Because of her, I can barely think straight. Every single day since we’ve met, she has been making me dizzy.

And the worst part is, I don’t want the dizziness to end. I want her to keep making me feel butterflies in my stomach. I want her to keep making me feel like I’m becoming a better man.

I’ve never felt that before.

It’s a change I don’t think I’m doing a great job of.

I’m almost surprised when, twenty minutes later exactly, Chloe appears again in the dining room. “Ready to go?” she asks.

I jump to my feet. “Yeah. Follow me.”

We head through the house together, weaving through the corridors until we reach the back door. I hold it open for her, then follow her out into the bright sunlight.

The gardeners are out in force, filling the air with a background hum of grass-cutting. They’ve been out for the last few days, working with the landscapers to prepare for the public opening of the land. All the trees are neatly trimmed, and the flowerbeds are weed-free and color-coordinated.

Chloe blinks as she steps out, taking it all in. She smiles. I guess all this is so normal to me that I barely think about it. But she’ll be noticing the perfectly clear waters of the fountain, the mountains in the distance, the cobbled paths that were built with stones designed to complement the grass and flowers perfectly.

“This is gorgeous,” she says, eyes wide.

“It’s pretty good, isn’t it?” I agree. “This house is actually one of the newer ones that my family owns. It was built in 1873, shortly after a period of economic downturn. As the economy started to get better, my family built this place as a way of giving something back to the people. I know what you’re thinking — how on earth does building a new house do anything for the people? — but for most of the year, we open it up for the public to come and walk in the grounds. It’s a free park for everyone to come into and roam around.”

“That’s a nice idea,” Chloe says, still looking around in awe. “I would like walking here.”

“You could come anytime you wanted,” I say, and she gives me a weird kind of look.

And then all the tension in her shoulders falls away and I can’t decode what she’s feeling at all.

“Come on. Let’s keep going.”

We wander around the fountain, and I tell her a little more about the house, about how it was built from Bellamari stone and how we had some of the finest architects of the age design it.

“How do you know about all this stuff?” she asks.

Smiling with faint embarrassment, I bring my hand to the back of my neck and rub my shoulders. “Well, you know how I just told you we open this place up for the public?”

She nods, and I sigh, knowing she’s going to judge me for this. “When I was a young teenager, my parents thought it might be nice if I offered some exclusive tours. They made me take members of the public around all day long, answering all their questions. I knew the basics, but I learned most from the history buffs who would try and trick me with questions they knew I wouldn’t know how to answer. I did that for a couple of years and learned a whole lot that I’ve never quite forgotten. It’s pretty useless knowledge really.”

“That’s cute,” she says, looking at me with a smile that seems to be trying to tell me something. I can’t decide what, so I don’t comment on it.

“Yeah, I guess,” I say. “It was definitely one of the better things my parents made me do. You should be glad you’ve never had to do royal duties before. Some of them really suck.”

“Am I going to have to start doing them now?” she asks, “You know, because…” She trails off, but I know the end of that sentence is because we’re married.

“Honestly, I don’t know. I don’t know where all this is going. But if you stick around with me, then yeah, probably you’ll have to. But if none of this is real, then you don’t really have the obligation to.”

We walk around the fountain, looking back at the house. Chloe doesn’t say anything, digesting what I’ve just told her.

This must be so much for her to take in.

Is it good or bad that she isn’t saying anything?

Does she want to stick around or not?

And then the day gets worse. Because Chloe isn’t saying anything, I let my mind and gaze wander. For a while, I linger on her. She’s wearing a light blue sundress, one that shows off her freckled shoulders and swirls around her legs. The breeze catches her hair and sometimes blows it so that it frames her face so perfectly, like something out of a movie.

She takes my breath away with how beautiful she is.

Not wanting to be caught staring at her, I look away, my eyes drifting back to the house. It always looks so lovely in the sun.

And then I spot Luca staring at us from one of the windows. He’s peeking out from behind the curtains, and there’s a shadow behind him that I can only assume is Miguel.

“Chloe,” I hiss, panicking. “Kiss me.”

“What?” she splutters, raising both eyebrows as high as they’ll go.

“My brothers are watching. Please, just kiss me. It doesn’t have to be anything deep. Just pretend. Please. It won’t mean anything.”

I’m ready to start trying to persuade her more, but before I can say anything else, she steps towards me, grabs the front of my shirt, and pulls me down for a kiss.

I flail for a second, and then my arms wrap around her, holding her as her magical lips press against mine. Inside my chest, my heart bursts like a firework all over again.

In reality, it doesn’t last for more than a couple of seconds at most. But in that moment, time seems to freeze altogether, shattering around us as if nothing else in the world matters. Nothing but me and Chloe, there and then.

Nothing else does matter except us.

Right now, I need her more than ever.

Then she lets go, and it’s over.

I’m reluctant to move back, but I do. Even though my body is crying out for her, aching, I don’t want to seem pushy. I glance back up to the window, and I breathe out when I see Luca and Miguel are gone.

Maybe they weren’t spying on us after all. Maybe I was seeing phantoms in my mind. But I doubt it. They have both been trying to catch me off guard for years, and this is a fresh target for them to aim at.

At least we’ve won this time.

We turn towards the garden again, and I clench my fists to stop myself from reaching for Chloe’s hand. “Thank you,” I say. “And sorry. But the less suspicious we can make my brothers of us, the less likely they’re going to be to pull some prank on you.”

“I know. I get it,” she says, avoiding my eyes.

I don’t know what else to say to her after that.

So, we just keep walking as if nothing happened.

It’s awkward for a moment, but then we relax again, exploring and enjoying a nice day, making jokes and laughing like old friends. When we stop thinking, we fall into such an easy friendship that it’s hard to believe I haven’t known her all my life.

It’s doing nothing to help the confusion inside my heart.