Total pages in book: 35
Estimated words: 33292 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 166(@200wpm)___ 133(@250wpm)___ 111(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 33292 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 166(@200wpm)___ 133(@250wpm)___ 111(@300wpm)
“But, aren’t you worried what other people might say?”
“Do I look like the kind of guy who gives a fuck what other people will say?”
She opened her mouth and closed it. “I don’t know.”
“You were the prettiest bride, Clarissa, and we both know you made that dress.” He winked at her. “Come on, live dangerously. How long has it been since you went shopping like you did today?” he asked.
“Five years ago. My grandma took me on my sixteenth birthday before she passed away.”
Shit, fuck, he was not expecting that as an answer.
“You’ve not been since?”
She shook her head.
He didn’t want to lose their momentum. “Your grandmother was a good woman. Feisty, and she was so used to having her own way.”
Clarissa started to laugh and nodded her head. “Oh my, yes, she did. I can’t believe, yeah, wow. All the time. I’m sure everyone was afraid of her, because she would get this look in her eye that just ... yeah, you either did as you were told, or you were in trouble. She was a fiery one.”
He smiled toward her. “You miss her?”
“So much.”
He reached across the table, holding her hand. “I’m glad I was able to get to know her, and that she refused to let me just wing it with your sewing room.”
Clarissa laughed. “I still can’t believe she came to you with that and told you what to do.” She chuckled. “That must have been a request you were not expecting.”
“It wasn’t. There was no way I was going to deny her, though. You meant a great deal to her.”
Clarissa nodded.
Silence fell between them, but it was interrupted quite quickly with the waiter bringing their food. There was candlelight, and it cast a soft glow between them.
“They’re the only ones who were willing to be patient with me after it happened,” she said, looking up. “My parents wanted to send me to some kind of hospital, and it was my grandma who said I didn’t need a hospital. I just needed some patience.”
“Did you ever talk to them about what happened?” Lorenzo asked.
“No. I’ve not talked to anyone, just mentioned it to the girls,” Clarissa said.
He reached across the table, and part of him expected her to pull away, but she didn’t, she held onto him. It wasn’t much, but it was a start.
Chapter Five
“We need a lot more bunting,” Clarissa said, laughing as the one Lorenzo had created only went up half the staircase, and it looked incredibly silly.
They were both laughing and attempting to decorate for Halloween. Lorenzo had insisted. She had never really loved Halloween. Technically, that was a lie; she had loved Halloween for a long time, but after her sister’s death, it was something she hadn’t delved into. It was something she and her sister had done together, and with her gone, she just couldn’t bring herself to do it.
Usually, Mia had some Halloween party planned, but this year, it wasn’t happening. There had been one time that Giovanni attempted to host the Halloween party, which she knew Mia had wanted to enjoy but refused to. She figured it was because of her pregnancy. She was so happy for her friend, and one day, she hoped to be a mother herself, which took her by surprise. Clarissa had never imagined herself as a mother. Even though her grandmother had told her many times she would make an amazing mother. She didn’t know why she had thought that. It wasn’t like she had the best role models.
Pushing all of that to the back of her mind, she focused on Lorenzo. They’d had an amazing couple of days. Not just because he took her shopping, but everything that had happened since then. Of course, once he finished business with Diego and the others, they came back home, and he helped her wash, dry, and even iron her fabric. He’d even assisted her in putting her fabric in color codes, which had been fun. Lorenzo was a lot of fun to have in the sewing room, and she never in a million years thought she would say that about him.
Of course, once he saw some of her Halloween fabric, he literally kept her up most of the night, creating bunting for the house. It was a little early to be decorating, but it was just so much fun, and she didn’t want this bubble to burst between them.
It was the first time in their marriage that they were actually getting along. It was kind of surreal. There was often an awkwardness between them, but at the moment, that didn’t seem to be present.
They didn’t opt to put the bunting along the stairs, and instead tried it in his office and finally agreed to hang it across the mantel. Decoration one had a place. They’d also made little fabric pumpkins, which they placed around the house.