by Holly Rayner
“Do you not have somewhere like that?” he asked, feeling his heart beat faster and not sure why.
She shook her head slowly. “Not really. Not anymore. These days, even when I’m alone it feels like I’m posing—or practicing posing at least. Everything these last few years has been all about my career. And I’m not complaining about that—it’s what I want. And I’ve already done better for myself than any number of people back home expected me to. But sometimes…what you do becomes who you are, eventually. And what I do is pretend.”
She seemed so sad as she said it, and Matteo felt an instinctive urge to allay that sadness, even though he didn’t know how.
“Everyone pretends,” he said. “I know that more than most.”
She fixed him with her intense gaze, with just a trace of wry amusement. “Yes, I guess you would, wouldn’t you? Building what you’ve built…”
He nodded without taking his eyes off her. “I guess so,” he said. “But I wasn’t really talking about that.”
“What were you talking about?” She knew the answer but was waiting for him to say it.
“Myself, I suppose. You know, sometimes I miss it. Before all of this.”
Josie didn’t ask him what. “You wouldn’t say that if you’d ever struggled,” she said instead, then took a sip of her champagne.
He found himself stung more than he wanted to admit. “You think I haven’t struggled?”
Josie backtracked. He was sensitive there.
“I guess I assumed,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s all right. Most people assume that even self-made billionaires had a head start. And honestly, most of the time they’re right. Most of the people that are in my position haven’t even temporarily struggled. They genuinely don’t know what it’s like, and that’s not really their fault. But it’s also probably why it’s so easy for them, not to have to worry about going back.”
She pondered that for a moment. “So which is it? You miss the old times, or you’re worried about going back to them?”
He smiled. She seemed so strong right now, untouchable. How much of what she did on a daily basis was display that strength, in one way or another? In pictures and on stage?
“I miss not having to worry about it,” he said after a pause. “Before the social network exploded, I could make mistakes. Everything in life wasn’t about making sure I gave the right impression and making sure I never did anything that would negatively affect my brand. I failed plenty of times before I succeeded, and now I can’t fail at all. Trying is easy—success is delicate.”
“So you take all that success, and the worst parts of it, and decide to pursue an app entirely based on your image? Your brand?”
“I decided to steer into it,” he said. The words felt hollow as he spoke them. It all made sense at the time, but explaining his choices to Josie and seeing her skeptical look made him feel less sure.
“Business is about leverage,” he went on, trying not to sound defensive. “You need to leverage your assets in order to move forward. And yes, I have money. But money isn’t unique. Beyond money, I have a reputation. It would be a waste if I didn’t take advantage of it.”
“The same way this boat is a waste, not using it to impress women?”
He laughed. “You got me there. But there are big wastes and small wastes.”
Josie had no immediate rejoinder for that. She just sat, sipping her champagne, and looked off into the waning afternoon. He liked that she didn’t feel the need to fill the silence with words. That on its own would have told him that she was finally at ease.
“It’s hard to imagine you struggling,” she said after a while. “But then, I don’t really have any context of where to picture you.”
“In Italy,” he teased.
She shot him a glance. “Oh really? I never would’ve guessed.”
He smiled warmly, relieved that they’d moved on to lighter topics.
“It would be fair if you hadn’t,” he said. “I’m only half Italian. My mother was an American—came to Rome for a semester of study abroad way back when, stayed when my father stole her heart. But my father died when I was twelve, and even after all those years, her Italian wasn’t great. But she didn’t want to move us back to the States, where it would be easier for her to get a higher paying job. I asked her why, some years later. She told me that whenever she thought of it, it always felt like she would be taking me further away from my father.”
He’d told the story to women, from time to time. But usually when he told it, he told it differently. He played up the hard times and didn’t really talk about his mother much. Certainly never about his mother’s grief. The point was to make him seem more noble. Not to make him seem more like himself.
“I hope she’s doing better now,” Josie said sympathetically.
Matteo responded with mock shock. “I’m an Italian self-made billionaire,” he said. “You really think the first thing I did the day my company went public wasn’t buy my mama a house?”
Josie laughed, and Matteo felt like he was sitting in a scene from one of her magazine shoots. She was the star of the show, vibrant and beautiful. He was the set dressing—just there to show her off. There were any number of people who would tell him how ridiculous the thought was, considering who he was. A week ago he would have said the same. But sitting here, with this woman, his perspective had shifted.
“Do you see that little platform up on the mast?” he asked.
He saw her scan up the mast. Her eyes widen slightly when she got to the platform he meant. He grinned.
“It is a little precarious, yes,” he said, anticipating her words. “But it’s a great place to watch the sunset from. I’d love to show it to you.”
Was he testing her? It was a pretty big ask, considering he didn’t even know if she was afraid of heights. But, to his surprise and delight, she was game.
She stood, shed her towel, and headed for the mast.
“Just because you’ve finished eating doesn’t mean I have,” he called from behind her.
He could hear the smirk in her voice as she replied, though she didn’t turn her head.
“If you wanted to sit around stuffing your face, you shouldn’t have told me about the sunset.”
The words pulled him to his feet as though he were on strings and she had control of them. He followed along behind her and quite literally showed her the ropes, and how not to get tangled up in them as her feet found the little steps either side of the mast. He moved closely behind her, ostensibly so that he could catch her if she fell, though there were other benefits. She made quick work of it, even exhausted as she must’ve still been from swimming with the dolphins. Even with the wind off the water, it was still warm enough here that she didn’t seem cold. If she was, it didn’t slow her down.
They made it up onto the platform just in advance of the sunset. Josie watched the sun sink into the ocean—the color subtly shifting and growing and shrinking across the sky—and he watched her.
How many times had he done this, and thought that it was a private pleasure he would never share? How many times had this been his private oasis, away from anyone whose opinion he might value? And here he was, standing in this place that had been his sanctuary, with a woman whose opinion he was already starting to value above all others.
Only when the sun was most of the way down did Josie turn and look at him. There it was, that same intensity—that same warmth. Why would she ever hide it? Why would she ever pretend to be anything less than she was, just to be accepted in an industry that wasn’t worth her?
He opened his mouth to say these words, though he wasn’t sure how well they would come out. He hoped she would understand. But he didn’t get the chance to find out, for before he spoke he felt her lips suddenly on his, her hands on either side of his face.
She wasn’t holding onto anything—just to him. The trust she placed in him felt almost as good as the passion in her kiss. Matteo wrapped
one arm around the mast and he kept his other where it belonged, around her waist. He had to keep them from falling. He couldn’t help that he was already falling for her.
Chapter 13
Josie
The rest of the evening passed in a happy, excited blur. Josie had some vague sense of Matteo helping her back down the mast, difficult as it was to navigate the small steps in the darkness. She put back on her sundress as the wind began to blow a little bit cooler in the dark. She watched him, still loving to see him focus himself so entirely on a task. He seemed to be focusing harder now. Coming back into a port after the sun had set couldn’t be as easy as leaving it when everything was bright and visible.
She didn’t distract him. She didn’t need his attention right now. Just being here and watching him was everything she could ask for.
When they disembarked at the marina, there were two cars waiting for them—one for him, one for her. Josie almost wondered why he didn’t invite her back to his place, but she felt oddly reassured that he didn’t. He wasn’t going to force her toward anything. He wasn’t going to push the issue. The car, even though it would separate them, was a sweet gesture.
He opened the door for the car intended for her and waited. She drew close to him, intending a kiss. But he spoke before she could.
“I won’t be able to see you for a couple of days.”
Her heart sank. “Too many meetings you’ve been skipping on my account?”
She meant it to come out flirty and lighthearted, but the sadness she felt at having to go without him somehow slipped through.
“No, if I had the choice I would just keep skipping them all. But I have to go on a trip overseas. Back to Italy. We’ve arranged to open in these two countries first, and I need to make sure everything is on track there. The only time I’d be able to call would be in the middle of the night here.”
She shook her head, sadly. “I have shoots. I have to sleep.”
“I would text, but…”
She smiled and delivered the goodnight kiss that she had intended to before he delivered his sad news.
“It’s all right,” she said when their lips had parted, but she still lingered close to his face. “I’ll wait until I can have your full attention.”
She slid into her car, leaving him with the kiss to think on while he was away. It would be a good memory; she knew it would.
And, over the next few days, it was a good memory for her. The entire two days they had spent together had been intense, and wonderful, and disorienting. Though nothing in her life was substantively different than it had been before she had met Matteo, everything felt strange to go back to, now that she had.
She did her best to sleep, although that was a tall order. Sometimes she wished she had told Matteo just to go ahead and call her anyway, since she wasn’t going to be getting a lot of sleep at night anyway.
Josie had never been one to spend hours and days fantasizing about a man. Even at school, when girls had gone crazy about this movie star or that one, she had never really understood the draw. What was the point? But for the second time since meeting Matteo, she understood. She wanted to be with him—and in the absence of that, she would take anything she could get. Even if that meant sacrificing the present as it was, to live in the present how it ought to be.
It made her feel disconnected from the world around her. She had a sense that would be harmful if she let it go on too long, but any worry over that she easily set aside by reminding herself that Matteo would be back in a few days, and all this fantasy could make way for reality once again. So she let herself indulge—sweet and painful and frustrating and wonderful as it was.
But there was also a shadow, for all the light. Sometimes, she found herself thinking back to the things that worried her—to the strangely stubborn habit he had of refusing to text. The way he hadn’t told her immediately that he knew who she was. She had let herself search his name online, which turned out to be a massive mistake. She may have done a little bit of research beforehand, after she had met him at the bar, but it was nothing compared to what she was finding now. She had learned the basics before—where he was from, where he got his money, things like that. But now she saw all the things the press had to say about him.
For all Matteo and her had talked about what they felt compelled to do for the sake of their reputations, she’d never quite let it sink in exactly what his reputation was. She thought of him as a businessman—thought he needed to be competent and confident. But in picture after picture that she saw online, he had his arms draped around the waists of beautiful women. Just the way he had draped his arm around her.
It planted a seed of doubt in her mind. She tried to shrug it off—tried to remind herself that she only thought this because of knowing men who were not like him. She had gotten to know the real Matteo, hadn’t she? She believed she had. And yet it seemed so easy, as she looked at the way he seemed to be equally affectionate with all the other women who looked more or less like she did, to start believing that he was just an extremely talented actor with a very particular genre preference.
But that wasn’t most of the time. Most of the time was sweet. Most of the time she wondered where he was, and wished him luck, and wished him back home. Most of the time she began to rearrange her thoughts, one by one, toward him. She began to think about her future, and wonder how and when and how quickly he would weave himself into it.
And the day that he was set to return was the sweetest of them all. She’d gone back and forth on what to wear, eventually deciding to go all out with a dress she had been given by a designer who had particularly appreciated her performance at his show. It was a little much for casual meetings, even at the exclusive restaurant where George had told her she was to meet Matteo. But a little bit much still wasn’t nearly enough, and it was very much the least she could do.
She had finished getting ready an hour ahead of time—not that she much minded. It gave her time to sit and bathe in the excitement of what she hoped the night would bring.
When the phone rang, she jumped up to answer it. She didn’t think that Matteo’s flight had even landed yet, but she couldn’t be sure how close he cut it. Her excitement at the thought that it might be him faded quickly when she realized what the ringtone was; before her phone was even in her hand, she realized it was Lewis.
Josie had barely thought of Lewis at all since meeting Matteo—even then only in passing moments of comparison, and in those Lewis always lost miserably. And those comparisons darkened her memories of him in her mind. She had been friendly with him before—why not? But her attitude toward Lewis was only one of the thousand things that getting to know Matteo had changed.
She picked up the phone and took a calming, steadying breath. For all she didn’t want to have to deal with him anymore, Lewis was still an influential producer, and ignoring him would do her no good.
“Hello?”
“Josie.”
His voice sounded strange. Strained. Worried. Gone was the breezy guy that she had gotten to know.
“Is everything all right? I’m sorry I didn’t call after the show got canceled. I figured you had your hands full.” He gave a little laugh, but there was no mirth in it.
“I don’t think that’s why,” Josie said coolly.
He knew she’d been seeing Matteo. She wasn’t sure how, exactly, but she figured that had to be the reason for this call.
At the same time, though, even if Lewis did know, the way he was sounding and acting made no sense. Even on the off chance that he had been harboring any feelings for her whatsoever over the last year, the Lewis she knew wouldn’t show them like this. He wouldn’t call her up with disgruntled sighs because she was seeing someone else. The Lewis she knew would play it off, bide his time, and find his opportunity if he wanted one. Not that she was even convinced that he did want one.
“Can I ask why you’re calling?” Josie asked. She might have sounded harsh, but she wanted him off the phone. She didn�
��t want any distractions—especially not tonight.
“Look, there’s no easy way to say this.” His worried tone continued.” But I know you’ve been seeing Matteo Bonnuci, and there’s something you need to know about him.”
Josie’s blood froze. All the little doubts and accusations that had been whispering in the back of her mind over the past few days whispered a little louder now that they’d been given outside encouragement. Josie tried to quiet them down, but it wasn’t an easy task.
“What is it?” she heard herself ask.
“It’s not the kind of thing I can just tell you…”
“Lewis, I really don’t have time for this. If you have something to tell me, I would appreciate if you just came out with it.”
He sighed. “Look, Josie, it’s really something I have to show you. It’s something you have to see, and I can’t let it leave the apartment. It’s confidential.”
The hairs on Josie’s arms stood up. If Lewis was really this concerned, maybe it really was as bad as he said. The doubts whispered louder. The doubts began to shout.
Chapter 14
Matteo
Matteo stepped off the private plane. The flight had been a breeze, and he felt refreshed, excited, and ready for tonight. He couldn’t wait to see Josie again.
All throughout his time in Italy, he had been distracted. He had thought of her constantly, as much as he kept chiding himself for doing so. The meetings he had, and the people he met—all of them were important. All of them were worth his attention. But his attention was here, in Miami, where he belonged as long as she did.
He laughed to himself quietly as he walked toward the town car. He barely recognized himself like this. And, as much as a week ago he would have made fun of any man who was thinking and acting the way he was now; he was amazed at how little he cared. The potential criticism just didn’t matter.
