Page 254 of Modern Romance January 2025 5-8

‘Oh, I couldn’t.’

‘Please?’

With a motherly sigh and smile, Isabella said, ‘Fine. Maybe just a coffee.’

Charlotte reached for acornettoand was pleased to see Isabella sit down and do the same.

‘I’m afraid Leoncino has already left. He said to inform you that he would return later.’

So Charlotte was in the clear for now. ‘Was that all he said?’

‘He also said you could work from the downstairs office. It used to be where his mother worked.’

Two offices. Maybe she could avoid her boss for a little while longer.

But avoiding Enzo didn’t mean that Charlotte wasn’t still curious. He had been different since they arrived: driving himself, teasing, talking—not to mention the wine. On the terrace she’d wanted to uncover more about Enzo, and to her surprise, despite her mortification about the almost-kiss, that desire hadn’t gone away. It would be a mistake to act on it. A very bad idea. She had worked so hard all this time to keep him at a distance. To remain safe. So even though she was curious, and even though she was so starved for company, she needed to bury the curiosity. Bury it with all the other pieces of herself that she had to hide.

‘Leoncino is—’

‘Why do you call him Leoncino?’ she blurted.

You complete idiot! What did we just decide, Charlotte?

Damn this sudden inability to control herself when it came to her boss!

Isabella chuckled, her face lighting up. ‘Because he is my little lion. When he was young, he would walk around here like a little master. He was always so brave. From the youngest age, he was staring down an impossible path, but he always took it on. Nothing was too big for our Enzo. He thought he could protect everyone.’

Charlotte could see it. He still acted like the master of the universe. She ate thinking about the change in him in this place. Would he be back to normal once they were in Sydney again?

Thinking of the office had her looking at the time. She had wasted so much of it avoiding Enzo, she really needed to get a start on her day even if it meant leaving Isabella’s company. It had been so long since she’d shared a meal with someone, chatted like this. Charlotte kept telling herself there was a reason why she lived the way she did—it was better than being dragged back to a place where she was just her father’s pawn—but it was lonely.

She drained her cup and asked Isabella to show her to the office.

It was lovely. Books lined two walls, and beside the door on either side were large paintings of the estate and its grounds. Large glass doors opened onto the very same terrace Charlotte had shared with Enzo the night before, with a view straight to the fountain.

‘Enzo’s office is directly above you, but if you need anything, I am here,’ Isabella said before leaving, closing the door behind her.

Charlotte’s computer bag was already placed on the large desk. Beside it sat her glasses.

Her hands immediately went to her face. Sure enough, she wasn’t wearing them. She cursed loudly and grabbed them, jamming them onto her face, her heart racing. Sweat beaded on her brow, and her palms became clammy as panic consumed her.

How could she have been so careless? What had Enzo noticed?

A voice at the back of her mind told her to calm down. People forgot or lost their glasses all the time.

‘But I don’t!’ she yelled at herself, just as pain erupted in her stomach. She reached into her bag for one of her trusty antacids, chewing on it as she thought. What had she done after she took them off? Charlotte couldn’t remember. Most importantly, she didn’t remember doing anything to raise suspicions about who she was. It was impossible to forget the almost-kiss, but apart from that she could think of nothing that would have made Enzo distrust her. She had been flustered. He would chalk forgetting her glasses up to that, surely.

She threw the doors to the terrace open and took a deep breath. All was not lost. She just had to put the wall between her and Enzo back up, and there would be no more catastrophes.

It had taken all of Charlotte’s willpower to concentrate on the work she had to do. She was grateful that Enzo wasn’t around as a distraction because her mind already wanted to go constantly back to the night before. She had been working for hours, and her neck ached. Still, she concentrated until footsteps outside the office alerted her to Enzo’s arrival. He marched towards her with a scowl on his face.

Instantly she was on her feet.

‘Mr De Luca, what’s—?’

‘Get ready, we’re going to the vineyards.’

‘Yes, sir.’