“I did not.” She smiled. “You stepped on mine.”
“Did not.” He returned her smile.
“Did, too.”
“Either way, I knew in that moment that my life would never be the same. But the question is, what do you want?”
She couldn’t believe he was saying everything she wanted to hear. “I want you, too. I think I fell for you back at Gianna and Dario’s wedding, but I was too stubborn to acknowledge it to myself or anyone.”
“Ah, see...it was my dance moves.” He smiled proudly. “They won you over.”
She let out a little laugh. “Is that what you call what you do on the dance floor?”
“Hey, be nice.” He continued to smile at her.
Her laughter bubbled over into a full belly laugh with happy tears in her eyes. It wasn’t the thought of him dancing, but rather a release of her pent-up worries. Her father had been right—Franco loved her. Her heart swelled with joy.
Then Franco moved to kneel down on one knee. He took her hand in his.
“Franco, what are you doing?” Heat warmed in her chest and rushed to her cheeks.
“Something that I should have done months ago. I’m properly proposing to you.”
“Oh.” Her heart fluttered in her chest as her lips bowed in a smile.
“Carla Falco Marchello, I fell for you the first time we met in Lake Como. Your bright smile and sparkling eyes drew me in. But it was your caring heart and generous spirit that completely put me under your spell. I couldn’t imagine living my life without you. You are my sunshine in the morning and my twinkling star at night. Please say that you’ll marry me.”
“But...but we are married.”
“Will you marry me again?”
She knelt down in front of him and threw her arms around his neck. “Of course I will. I’ll marry you over and over again. I love you.”
“I love you, too.” He leaned forward and claimed her lips with a kiss that promised love forever.
EPILOGUE
Five months later,
a small chapel in Lake Como
IT WAS A wedding do-over.
Carla never would have imagined that six months after saying I do to Franco, she’d be saying those words again and meaning them. This time it all felt right. Her father was there to walk her down the aisle, and she felt her mother’s love shining down upon her.
Carla’s hand moved to her expanding midsection. “I love you, little one. And so does your daddy—”
Knock. Knock.
“Unless you’re Franco, you can come in.” Carla turned back to the mirror.
She turned this way and that way in the same wedding gown. It had to be let out a little bit for her baby bump. There was something missing, but she couldn’t put her finger on what it was.
Gianna poked her head inside the door. “It’s just me. Is it all right if I come in?”
“Of course it is. You’re my matron of honor.” She glanced past her cousin. “Where’s your husband?”
“He’s changing Georgia’s diaper.”
“Wow. Impressive.” She couldn’t help but wonder if Franco would be that involved with their baby. If his current actions of attending all her doctors’ appointment and helping to decorate the nursery in their new house were any indication, he was going to be an amazing father.
“I’m so happy for you.” Gianna hugged her.
When they parted, Carla swiped at the tears of joy tracking down her freshly made-up face. “Everything is working out for the both of us. We’ve both found the men of our dreams. And we’re sisters-in-law, cousins and best friends.”
Gianna smiled brightly. “I don’t think we could be closer if we were sisters.”
“You are like a sister to me.”
They hugged again. But Gianna quickly pulled back. “As much as I want to stand here celebrating all that is good in our lives, you have an anxious bridegroom waiting for you. We better get you down that aisle.”
“I’m ready.” She’d been ready for a while now. She’d been so anxious to say I do again and this time mean it with all her heart.
Gianna frowned at her.
“What did I forget? I keep feeling like I’ve forgotten something.”
“First, we have to fix your makeup. Have a seat.”
Carla did as told and Gianna set to work covering the trail of her happy tears, but Carla was quite certain there would be many more of those happy tears spilled today. A little cover-up and powder fixed things.
Gianna stepped back to admire her work. “You’re frowning. Don’t you like what I did?”
“It’s not that. You did a great job. I just can’t shake the feeling I’m forgetting something important.”
“Oh, that reminds me. Your father gave me something to pass on to you.” Gianna rushed over to the chair where she’d placed her beaded purse. When she turned around, she had a string of pearls in her hand. “Your father said you wanted something of your mother’s to wear when you walked down the aisle. He said your mother wore this necklace on their wedding day.”
Again the tears rushed to her eyes. Carla blinked and fanned her face, trying to keep her emotions under control so she didn’t mess up her makeup again.
“Can you put them on me?” Carla turned around. After her cousin hooked the clasp, Carla fingered the pearls as her heart filled with love for those who’d passed through her life, those who were in it and, as her hand lowered to her slightly round abdomen, those who would soon enter her life. “Now I’m ready.”
With her father at her side, they set off down the aisle. Whereas the first time Carla had married Franco, her knees had felt like gelatin, this time her legs felt sturdy and she had to restrain herself from rushing down the aisle.
This time when she met Franco’s steady gaze, she smiled—a big, sunny, full-of-love smile. This time they were getting married for all the right reasons.
And their families were with them. His grandfather and her father were in the chapel without any arguments. Miracles really did happen.
And though their respective businesses were both important to them, they were no longer the center of their world. Their love and their growing family would be their focus. The rest of it would fall into place.
And when she finally stopped next to Franco, she turned to her father, who kissed her cheek. And then she turned back to Franco.
She couldn’t help herself. She whispered, “I love you.”
He whispered back, “I love you, too. Let’s get married. Again.”
* * *
If you missed the previous story in the Wedding Bells at Lake Como duet, then check out
Bound by a Ring and a Secret
And if you enjoyed this story, check out these other great reads from Jennifer Faye
Fairytale Christmas with the Millionaire
The Italian’s Unexpected Heir
The CEO, the Puppy and Me
All available now!
Keep reading for an excerpt from The Millionaire’s Melbourne Proposal by Ally Blake.
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The Millionaire’s Melbourne Proposal
by Ally Blake
CHAPTER ONE
FACE TILTED TO the bright spring sky, Nora Letterman absorbed her daily dose of Melbourne sunshine as she moseyed her way along the beaten-up Fitzroy footpath.
A tram rattled past, rails screeching, sparks shooting skyward from the wires overhead, drowning out the music playing through Nora’s earbuds. She danced out of the way of a smiling couple as they all squeezed between a lamppost and a young girl wa
lking four small fluffy dogs.
As moments went, it was pretty perfect, actually; one of a zillion lovely mental keepsakes she’d tuck away for when she left this little pocket of wonderfulness behind.
Which she would do. Any day now.
The eighteen months she’d spent there were the longest she’d stayed in one place. Ever. And she loved it dearly. But at her core, Nora was footloose and fancy-free. It even said so, in faded, scrawling script on the inside of her right arm, alongside a delicate dandelion, petals breaking away and drifting with the breeze.
“Nora!”
Nora looked back over her shoulder as Christos the fruiterer threw her a mandarin, which she swiped out of the air. Spinning to walk backwards, she put a hand over her heart.
Christos called, “The Tutti Fruiti website is such a hit, Nora. Lots of compliments from customers, which I accept on your behalf. Are you sure I can’t pay you in fruit?”
“Not unless the phone company accept payment in kind,” Nora called back.
Christos grinned. Then he shot her a salute before turning to flirt with the next customer.
Cheeks full with smiling, Nora meandered on, absorbing the cacophony of sensory delights that made this patch of Fitzroy infamous: incense and coffee, flowers and pre-loved clothes, street art and graffiti, multicultural foods and the lingering scent of smoked herbs that might or might not be legal.
Sure, there was a chain chemist or two along the strip, an American burger behemoth on the corner, but for the most part the shopfronts were generational, mum and dad stores, or young entrepreneurs stepping out into the fray. People having a go. Which was why she’d fitted in so quickly.
The fact that so many of them had readily snapped up the services of The Girl Upstairs—Nora’s fledgling online creative business—for a website dust-off, virtual assistance, or a vibrant social-media overhaul was yet another reason her time in this place had been so golden.
Gait loose, mind warm and fuzzy, her time her own, Nora slowed outside Vintage Vamp.
Misty, the elegantly boho business owner who’d refused to hire Nora as she believed the internet would cause the downfall of civilisation, mumbled under her breath as she reworked a clothing rail full of brightly coloured kaftans flapping in a sudden waft of breeze.
“Hey, Misty!” Nora sing-songed.
Misty turned, her eyes lit with genuine fondness, before she remembered herself and frowned. “Thought you’d have left us in your dust by now.”
Nora rolled her eyes. “Do you really think I’d go without saying goodbye?”
“Good point, Little Miss Sunshine. Not a chance of that. Now, help me. Do I retire these things?” Misty waved a hand over the colourful kaftans. “Or leave them here, in memory of our Clancy?”
As one, both women blinked, breathed out hard sighs, then looked across the road, to the row of terrace houses on the far corner.
Some facades were overgrown with weeds, paint peeling, fretwork rusting; the tenants mostly students and artists who had gravitated to the area. Other properties had been meticulously renovated till they were worth an utter mint. But Nora’s and Misty’s gazes were caught on the cream-and-copper-hued terrace house right in the middle.
Neither dilapidated, nor pristine, Thornfield Hall—as it had been lovingly dubbed by its long-time owner—was tidy and appealing. It was also the house in which Nora had been lucky enough to live as the single upstairs tenant for the past year and a half.
Its downstairs sitting room was well known around the area as a safe, warm space for book clubs, widows’ groups, and a widows’ book club. Always open for a quick coffee, a listening ear, a place to grieve, to vent, to go for laughter and company.
Though it had gone quiet in the days since Clancy Finlayson—eighty-something, raucous, divine, and the owner of Thornfield Hall—had fallen ill. She had passed away before any of them had had the chance to ready themselves for the possibility.
“Any news?” Misty asked. “About the new owner?”
Nora shook her head. “Still no word.”
It was all anyone had asked since Clancy had passed.
Knowing Clancy as she had, the house might have been left to some distant relative, or the local puppy shelter.
While Nora had kept Clancy company during her final days at home, she had no more of a clue than anyone else. She’d focussed, as she always did, on the good not the bad, the happiness not the suffering: reading Jane Eyre aloud, telling funny stories she’d picked up in the neighbourhood, playing Clancy’s favourite records, and making sure Clancy’s hair and nails were en pointe.
After Clancy had passed, the lawyers had been frustratingly tight-lipped about it all, citing privacy laws, and Nora didn’t know where else to turn.
Which was how she’d found herself in her current state of limbo, ready to move on but unwilling to walk away and leave the beautiful old house untended, abandoned to fate, local squatters or graffiti gangs.
There was also the fact that she’d promised Clancy as much.
In those quiet, final hours, with Nora no longer able to hold back the ache that had been building inside her from the moment Clancy had announced she was sick—her insides crazing faster than she could mentally patch up the damage—in a rare fit of poignancy she’d promised Clancy that she’d take care of her beloved house till the new owner took over.
Clancy might not have been lucid, might not have heard a word, but Nora had been on the receiving end of enough broken promises in her life, a promise from her was as good as placing her beating heart in someone’s open hands.
So she would stay. Bags packed. Money put aside to cover her interim rent. Ready to hand the house keys to the new owner the moment they showed their face. And only then would she move on, leaving behind nothing but warm feelings and pleasant memories.
After all Clancy had done for her, it was the very least she could do.
Misty cleared her throat and shook herself all over. Pathos was not her natural state of being. “Loved the woman to bits, but I’m never going to move these damn things without her.”
Nora dragged her gaze and thoughts back to the rack of floaty, wildly coloured garments now flapping in a growing breeze, the Melbourne weather having turned on a dime as it tended to do.
“May I?” Nora asked, bringing out her phone to take a photo.
Misty waved a whatever hand Nora’s way.
Nora stood back, found the best angles and took a slew of photos, which she’d edit, filter, tag and post later on her The Girl Upstairs pages, which had gathered followers like lint on felt from near the moment she’d set them up as a showcase for her clients. If a half-dozen kaftans weren’t snapped up within the day she’d eat her shoes.
Thus distracted, she was too slow to move when Misty grabbed a moss-green kaftan with hot pink embroidery and purple fringing and thrust it up against Nora’s person. “You must have it. And when you wear it, you’ll think of Clancy.”
Beneath the sway of the lurid pattern, Nora’s hemp platforms poked out from under her frayed denim flares. If she ever wore such a thing, she’d more likely be thinking she looked like a seventies boudoir lamp.
Nora caught Misty’s eye, and the gleam of commerce within, then handed over the twenty bucks anyway. It was Nora’s mission in life to leave any place, conversation, and moment brighter than when she entered it and if selling a kaftan made Misty feel a little happier, then so be it.
Kaftan draped over her arm, Nora backed away. “Friday night drinks?”
“If you’re still here.”
“If I’m still here.”
With that, Nora waited for a break in the meandering traffic and jogged across the road.
When she reached the front gate of Clancy’s old house, she ambled up the front path; past the Japanese myrtle, to the front patio, its fretwork dripping with jasmine, pale green
buds just now starting to show. The elegant facade was a little worn around the edges, but still strong and purposeful, like a royal family who could no longer afford servants, but still wore tiaras to dinner.
Using her key, she jiggled the old lock till it jerked open, then stepped inside.
Dust motes danced in the muted afternoon sunshine pouring through the glass panels in the front door. In the quiet it was easy to imagine Clancy’s Chloé perfume on the air, Barry Manilow crooning from the kitchen speaker, the scent of Clancy reheating something Nora had cooked on the beautiful old Aga.
A slice of sadness, of loss, whipped across her belly, so sudden, so sharp she let out a sound. Her hand lifted to cover the spot but it took its sweet time to ebb.
This... This was the biggest reason why she had to get the house sorted and move on as soon as possible. As strongly as Nora believed in the deliberate collection of happy moments, she’d made a concerted effort in her adult life not to put herself in situations that might bring on sadness, emotional pain, the sense of missing something, or someone.
Connections, friendships, and traditions felt nice, superficially, but they were so dangerous. They made a person feel as if such things might actually last. Shuffled from foster home to foster home as a kid, promises had been made to Nora, hopes raised, then summarily dashed, again and again.
There was no room for hope, or guilt, or expectations, or regret; not if she wanted a happy life. That lesson had been learned, until it was as indelible as any tattoo. And Nora really, truly, deeply wanted a happy life.
And so she woke up smiling, worked hard, kept little in the way of possessions, was nice to people and expected nothing in return, so that when she moved on, no part of her was left behind. Only a fond lustre, like the kiss of the first cool breeze of autumn at the end of a long summer.
The sudden clackety-clack of toenails on the hardwood floor split the silence, then stilled, snapping Nora back to the present.
“Magpie?” she called, her voice wavering just a smidge. “Pie?”
Falling for Her Convenient Groom Page 17