“Fine. Then you will walk there, take an umbrella table, order espresso for me and a lemonade for you.”
Aimee shook her head. “I think I’ve just been had!”
Nicolo gave her the kind of grin that made her blush.
“As soon as we get home, cara,” he whispered, “I promise. For now, wait for me at the café.” He paused. “Please.”
How could she resist after that? Aimee rose on her toes and pressed a light kiss to her husband’s mouth.
The café was crowded but she found a table shaded by a bright yellow Cinzano umbrella, dutifully ordered Nicolo’s espresso and her cool drink, and waited.
Moments later, she saw him coming toward her. She began to smile—but the smile turned to astonishment.
“Nicolo! What are you doing?”
A silly question. He had dropped to his knees before her. That not only got her attention, but it got everyone else’s.
He took a small box from his pocket, opened it and revealed a ring that shone with all the fire an exquisitely set ten carat diamond could provide.
“Aimee,” he said softly, “I know I should have asked you this question yesterday but the old saying says it is never too late to do the right thing.” He took her hand and slipped the ring on her finger. “Will you be my wife?”
Tears filled Aimee’s eyes. “Yes,” she said, laughing and crying at the same time. “Oh, yes, Nico, yes, yes, yes—”
The café filled with cheers as she flung her arms around his neck and kissed him.
And, just that quickly, she knew the shocking truth.
She was deeply, passionately in love with her husband.
He had bought wedding bands, too, of course.
A wide one set with diamonds for her, a more austere version of the same ring for himself.
Still, even several weeks later, Aimee would catch sight of the solitaire and the wedding band glittering on her left hand and wonder how all this could have happened.
Didn’t it take time to fall in
love? Didn’t you have to get to know a person? His likes, his dislikes. His favorite foods, his favorite movies, all that and more.
She and Nicolo were still learning those things but none of them seemed terribly important.
One look into her husband’s eyes in that café and she’d tumbled straight off the edge of the earth.
Or maybe it had happened when they met. Maybe what she’d experienced in Nicolo’s arms that first night had been more than mind-blowing sex.
Maybe it had been love, even then.
What did it matter? She loved her husband. He was everything she’d wanted without ever knowing she’d wanted it.
There’d been a man, once, when she was in college. He’d talked of a future together. Of how he’d be there for her, supportive of her pursuing a career despite being married.
It had all sounded wonderful until it was time to apply to grad school and she told him about her grandfather, about how he thought her attending graduate school was foolish. About how hard she was going to have to work to change his mind about letting a woman inherit SCB.
You mean, you might not inherit the company? he’d said.
That night, he’d dropped her at the apartment she shared with three other women.
I’ll call you, he’d told her.