Our Little Secret Rachael Stewart (best novels to read in english .TXT) 📖

head. ‘You’re all right! I prefer grapes in my glass, not between my toes.’

‘Spoil sport.’ Dani looks to Faye. ‘You’re going to come in, aren’t you?’

My eyes follow Dani’s to Faye. Her smile lights up her face and takes my breath away. Beautiful. Così bella.

‘Absolutely!’

‘Just make sure you tuck your... Yes, you’ve got it.’

I watch as Faye raises the skirt of her dress, hooking it into the line of her underwear, and I feel the heat of the sun inside and out.

Then her eyes lift to mine, her face flushed with colour. ‘Would you mind giving me a hand?’

And in that moment I know, if I were that way inclined, if I were to be all pazzo d’amore, she would be ‘The One’.

‘Si.’ My reply is gruff and my stride rigid as I approach her. I sense Dani watching. I also sense Dani wondering at her friend’s choice of aid. Me rather than Dante. But it’s too late to stop myself, and I don’t want to.

Faye climbs onto the bottom rung of the ladder that leads into the wooden vat, but my hands are already on her hips, and I feel her little gasp through my fingers. She turns in my hold to look down at me, her eyes glowing, her fingers soft as her hands fall to my wrists. A moment passes between us, a moment that feels far more intimate because the audience around us has no idea what we’ve shared. It’s our little secret. Our little bit of fun...

‘Ready?’ I ignore the way my head is travelling, my heart with it, and she gives a breathless nod.

I swing her round, her scent washing over me, invading me and making me crave. Crave more than I ever have before.

And crave what, exactly? More fun, more sex?

I lift her over the edge, letting my hands ease up her sides as she lowers herself into the grapes.

‘Dante, come on, this is a blast!’ Dani comes stomping up behind her, her presence forcing me to release Faye before I’m ready...before she’s ready too, judging by the look in her eye. ‘Tell him, Faye!’

‘Dani won’t be happy until you do, Dante.’ Her smile is one-sided as she looks to my cousin and I sense her attention is still very much on me.

‘I’m quite all right spectating, grazie.’

She looks at me, her smile turning soft. ‘Are you not coming in?’

Dani laughs. ‘As if...’

Her light-hearted tease cuts deeper than it should. She’s right, this isn’t me. I don’t get involved in silly pursuits that serve no purpose. Just as I didn’t get involved at the pool...

‘It is kinda fun,’ Faye says, not ready to give up. She looks down at her feet and I imagine her toes curling into the grapes as she tests out the sensation. Her nose wrinkles. ‘A bit icky, but fun.’

‘A bit icky?’

Amusement bubbles up inside my chest. Amusement and something else. The same flicker that came to life when I cleaned the trail of wine on her skin, when I held her seconds ago. It’s there beneath the desire, the lust that I know of old...

‘You sell it so well.’

Her laugh is enough to see off my hesitation and I’m already bending forward to strip off my footwear and roll back my chinos.

‘He’s not...’ I hear Dani say.

‘He is.’

I shake my head at their little interchange and straighten up. Ignoring the inner voice telling me I won’t be wearing these chinos again, I vault over the edge of the vat, and my feet slide as they hit the mix at its base, launching me towards Faye.

She palms my chest to steady me, her eyes dancing into mine. ‘Too macho to use the ladder?’

I straighten. ‘Of course.’

She only laughs harder and shakes her head at me.

Dani whoops. ‘Let’s dance!’

The accordionist starts to play a fresh tune that has the spectators clapping along. Dani directs Leo and Isabella to hook arms in the middle of the vat and dance as the adults hold hands in a circle around them.

‘We’re going to can-can!’ Dani declares, taking up Tyler’s hand and turning to offer me the other. She grins up at me and I know she’s as surprised as I am that I’m doing this. I take her hand and give my other to Faye. The circle is complete and we’re off, our feet squelching through the grapes, the sensation between my toes the strangest I’ve ever experienced.

Not as strange as the lightness in my chest, though...

The tempo picks up, the noise, the laughter, the fun, and it’s not just in the air now. It’s rising up inside me, taking over, and I feel almost drunk with it.

‘Brother!’

‘Si?’ I call down to my sister.

‘Grazie mille!’

I give her a nod, my grin too big for my face, and lose myself in the music. The more we dance, the faster the tempo, the further the grapes fly, until we are all covered, head to toe. Even the spectators take a showering...including my mother. There’s a second’s displeasure on her face and then Giovanni is there, wiping it from her dress and from her cheek, and even with the chaos going on around me I see the expression in his eyes, the softness. I see the exact same look in my mother’s face too.

What the...?

I look to Aunt Netta and she too is watching. Not with surprise, but with pleasure, as if it was meant to be. And then Giovanni takes my mother’s hand and draws her towards the vat... She won’t... She wouldn’t...

She is.

They’re climbing in and Dani is breaking away from me to make space for them. My mother laughs as her feet hit the grapes, her eyes lifting to find mine. Tentatively, she offers out her hand and I take it. Take it and feel my head shake.

‘Couldn’t leave all the fun to you,’ she says, but I hear the emotion that catches in her voice, that shows in her over-bright eyes, and then we’re moving again. Giovanni is in between her and