she inquires, clutching her espresso cup. She’s seated right beside me, curled into her chair with her legs tucked under her chin.
“With cannoli? Every bloody day of my life.” I take a bite, relishing in the light crunch of the pastry and the gooey sweet centre.
“Don’t avoid the question.” She pins me with a look. “You hit me with the deep questions before we’d even had starters.”
I grimace and sit back in my chair, turning in my stool so my legs are spread around her chair. “I can’t say that I have.”
“Not even when you were young?” She sets her mug down and props her chin on her hand. “Teenage love can be silly, but it’s still love.”
I shrug. “No, not even then.”
“How is that possible?” she asks me pointedly. “You told me you’ve been seriously dating women for a few years now. Are you saying none of them wormed their way into your dark Italian heart?”
“I don’t know what to tell you. I never felt it.”
“Did they feel it towards you?” Her brows knit together in curiosity.
“I don’t know. One or two maybe.” I ring the edge of my mug, avoiding her eyes.
She inhales sharply and touches my thigh. “They loved you, and you…what? Said nothing?”
“God, you won’t let this go, will you?” I laugh and comb my fingers through hers, holding her hand on my lap. “If they said it and I didn’t feel the same way, that was usually when I ended things. I didn’t want to lead anyone on.”
“Maybe you just weren’t patient enough?”
“If it was the right person, I would have known.” I squeeze her hand playfully and reach out to grab my mug. “The two-month chump label I have been stuck with is because I figured out that if I gave women two full months, I’d be able to walk away with certainty.”
“Interesting,” Tilly replies with a frown. “A bit clinical for love, I’d say.”
“I have no regrets, so it must have worked.”
She licks her lips, disbelief still painted all over her gorgeous face. “It’s just strange because you have great examples of love in front of you. Your grandparents seem very stable. Your mum and Bart look like they get on well. I’m just trying to figure out why you wouldn’t have fallen in love once by now?”
I exhale and then give her the only answer I can without unloading a lifetime’s worth of baggage on her. “Perhaps it’s because I never knew my own father so the thought of a man and a woman loving each other through anything just seemed like a load of bollocks.”
Her lower lip juts out. “That’s sad.”
I shrug. “I resented my mother for a long time for not telling me who my father was. It felt deceitful and wrong and like she was hiding something from me. A part of who I was. I think it caused me to struggle to ever trust women.”
“What caused you to open up your heart then?”
“Who says I’ve opened my heart?”
“Well, the laundry list of women you’ve been dating seems like change.”
“Yes, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I’ve fully given myself to anyone. I can connect with a woman but not fully trust in that connection enough to fall in love with them.”
Her eyes bend with sympathy. “So why bother even trying?”
“Because I want it all,” I reply firmly, tossing my arms out wide. “I used to just want to be successful in my career, but now I want more. I want what I didn’t have as a child, and I want to get to the point I can be my true self with someone.”
She smiles and sips her coffee thoughtfully. “This is fascinating.”
“Not that fascinating.” I laugh.
“It is.” She hits me with wide, excited eyes. “I have a feeling, Santino Rossi, that when you fall in love, it’s going to be fireworks.”
She stares at me, and I stare back at her, trying to decide if she’ll be the one who pushes me over the edge. It’s too soon to tell. Is my immediate interest in Tilly just because of our shared history? Or is it because of the situation that happened to her before she left? If either of those two instances wouldn’t have happened, would she have been the person I’d given my heart to? I just don’t know.
I shake that nerve-wracking thought away and squeeze her leg. “What about you?”
“What about me?” She takes a small bite of the dolce.
“Have you ever been in love?”
Her brows lift as