Love to the End: Luck and Love trilogy (book 3)

By Anaïs Wilde

This is the third and last installment of the trilogy that started with A Stroke of Luck and S*** Luck.
Rose never thought that getting into the Vitti family was so complicated. When her life seems to be on its way, fate surprises her. Will she ever enjoy love?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ediciones Fortuna
• Release date: Jun 20, 2020
• ISBN: 9781071553121

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Am I really so bad? I ask.

Worse. You´re ... Anyway.

Mario is studying my reaction. He falls silent and turns his head toward the window. We are in his Trastevere apartment, that wonderful neighborhood on the other side of the Tiber River, which was a real discovery for me. A place that reflects the bohemian character that my lover keeps hidden behind his facade as a serious businessman. Shortly after Rodolfo left for Sicily to stay at his mother's house, Mario and I decided that it was not a good idea to stay in the apartment in Piazza del Popolo. More than anything because we can´t keep our hands off each other when we are together. Our hands are drawn to each other, we always want to kiss, really, it is enough to be in our presence for anyone to realize how we feel about each other. It´s difficult to hide the fact that we are in love. So, to not put Silvana and her nephew in an uncomfortable position, we moved to the apartment that Mario had bought years ago, the one where he had been planning to live one day with the woman of his life ... Ahem, present! Yes, it seems that woman is me.

The huge old Venetian bed that Mario bought at auction takes up most of the center of the bedroom. Behind us is the window through which we can hear the birds trill, the noise of the Porta Portese flea market, and the music of a man who has been humming all morning. I give Mario a kiss intending it to be something quick, light, just something that encourages him to finish the sentence he has left unfinished. But my hand goes south - as always with him - and the kiss becomes endless. Mario puts his hand behind my head. He pushes me gently until I am lying on the mattress once more.

Do you think that today we could manage to spend a little more than two hours out of bed? I ask coquettishly, pretending I'm complaining about what the past few days have been all about.

Hmmm, he replies. I doubt it, two hours is a lot to ask for.

Hey, listen I try to stop kissing him. I´m not letting you get away with that. Finish telling me what your mother said about me.

Mario lifts his face and purses his lips.

She hates me, I say.

Well, not exactly, admits Mario. But she did call you a witch several times. When he sees my sad face, he adds. Come on now, we must understand that she only knows what Rodolfo has told her and what she has seen in magazines about you. Those photos of you in Bora Bora would have been enough ...

Mario frowns and I see a shadow cross his face. What bothers him are not the nude photos in the sea, but rather the ones in which I appear leaving the nightclub under the protection of Étienne.

Again? I ask. How many times do I have to tell you that Étienne is just a friend. I have never felt the slightest attraction to him.

But he does for you. I haven´t forgotten those yellow roses.

Mario is referring to the large bouquet that Étienne so confidently sent me when we had been in Rome for just a couple of days. Those that Silvana put in a vase on the grand piano in the living room, believing that some admirer of Rodolfo had sent them. Everything had been fine, Rodolfo had not even bothered to check the card because he is like that, he is so convinced that the whole world adores him. But then Anna came, went straight to Étienne's card and her face said it all. I still don't understand how Rodolfo didn't kill me for that. Every day it becomes clearer to me that he did not love me at all, that he never loved me. Although, to tell the truth, I don't think about him anymore. I don't care why he married me or what reasons he might have had to have us photographed nude by the paparazzi. If I have Mario by my side nothing else matters. Well, almost nothing else. It hurts me to think that he or his mother might believe the lies in that dirty magazine.

Mario, look at me, I hold his face in my hands. Look me in the eyes. I don't want you or your mother to be upset with me, or to have an impression of me that is not true. I'm not going around being unfaithful.

Mario looks down at my naked body and clears his throat, then emits a charming laugh. I take the pillow and throw it at him. It is evident that yes, at this very moment I am being unfaithful, although not strictly speaking. Not at least when it comes to my moral code. Mario is the man I love. Rodolfo, on the other hand, is the one who married me while I was so drunk that I can't even remember the wedding.

Ouch, Mario complains. Why are you hitting me? I didn´t say anything!

But you implied it. That giggle ...

Are you being unfaithful or not? He asks cheekily.

I cover my face with both hands and feel myself blush.

I love you, whispers Mario in my ear, with so much sweetness and in such a sexy tone, that I think I could die right now.

I withdraw my hands slowly to tell him that I love him too, with all my soul, with all my heart. But when I find myself before those deep eyes ...

What´s wrong?

You intimidate me, I complain. How can I tell you that I adore you if you look at me like that? With those blue eyes that pierce my soul so I cannot say that I am madly in love with you.

I see him smile.

Don't say it then, he says, holding me in his arms.

We kiss again and I feel how the temperature rises - once again - between the two of us.

Mario, I think we should get up, I gasp.

Sex standing up?

No, I mean showering, getting dressed, behaving like normal people.

Who wants to be normal! I can´t. I don't want to now that I've found you. Do you know how many years I have been looking for a woman like you? I was starting to think that you didn´t exist.

I understand that feeling because at the same time I had been looking for a man like him. Wait, that is not totally correct. I was not looking for someone like Mario because I couldn´t even imagine that someone this wonderful could exist.

I insist, I say and look away from him to strengthen my resolve. We should go out and get some air.

Okay.

The way Mario gives in to my requests as if he were a child drives me crazy. Especially because alongside that sweet boy who lives inside, there is a man who makes me feel that nothing bad can happen to him while I´m by his side.

We dress. Well, actually, we got dressed two hours later, but at least we did it. Mario puts on those worn jeans that make him irresistible to me, a T-shirt, and his cologne... OMG, his cologne. Can you die from an odour? I suspect so. I avoid looking at him, because I know that if I do before we leave the house we will end up again on the mattress or on the sofa or in any of the corners of this apartment that we have already christened. I put on a dress with a tiny flower print, a light knit jacket and ballerina shoes. After my experience with the pretty but impractical heels in Frascati I know that the best thing when you want to walk through a cobbled city is to wear comfortable shoes.

We go down the stairs hand in hand. The building in which Mario has his apartment does not have an elevator. It is one of those that on the outside is –or rather, it was– painted in brick color. Italians definitely have an inimitable art when it comes to letting the paint on their buildings wear off. They keep it at the right point where one cannot help but admire every corner, every street. In Trastevere, moreover, almost all the buildings have ivy and bougainvillea that alternate with clothes hanging from one building to another. I look up at the crystalline sky and I know that I could easily spend the rest of my life here, in these streets without cars (although with many Vespas), where people take the time to walk, to chat, to live. I had never realized how little life is appreciated in other parts of the world. Here, especially in Trastevere, everything slows down. We sit on one of the many terraces in the narrow streets. Mario asks for two cappuccinos and two cornetti caldi, another of the pleasures that this man has introduced me to. Anyone would say that it is just croissants, but anyone who says that has not tried these, warm, filled with jam.

I needed this coffee, I say, and Mario looks at me devilishly. Don't start, I complain, although he knows how happy I have been these days.

I have good news and bad news, says Mario.

I look at him to find out if he's serious, you never know with him. I didn´t know that he had such a joking and light character. Even before passion erupted between us, I had only seen him as a ruthless negotiator. He had been a good brother-in-law to me, it's true, but it wasn't until now that I discovered how much he likes to tease me. I see that this time he is serious, and, from his face, I am afraid that the bad news is quite bad indeed.

Give me the good new first or no, wait, I need more coffee.

When they bring us two another cappuccinos, I tell him that I am ready to listen to what he has to tell me.

The good news is that I have spoken to my mother.

And the most beautiful thing that she managed to call me was a witch.

Exactly, that was the most beautiful thing she said about you.

But despite her opinion of her daughter-in-law, she has guaranteed that she will keep Rodolfo busy until he has no choice but to return to work. Which brings me to the bad news.

There´s a movie... I guess begging the heavens for it no to be true.

Mario shakes his head but adds immediately.

It´s an advertising campaign.

Rodolfo doesn´t do advertisements.

He never wanted to do it before, admits Mario, but they made him an offer that he couldn't refuse.

Underpants with Richard Claine?

Mario frowns, it seems that he has not even heard of such a possibility.

No, he says in a tone that reveals how absurd it seems to him that his brother would be doing a campaign for underwear. It is for Cinzano.

Not even the jam inside my croissant can sweeten the idea of ​​Rodolfo returning to Rome.

Hey, Mario lifts my face to look at me. Hey. He looks at me. Nothing will change between us.

I would like to believe you, but I'm afraid everything will change.

CHAPTER 2

It was something we had avoided talking about. Neither Mario nor I had mentioned what would happen when Rodolfo returned. We had just been enjoying our love as if there was no tomorrow, knowing in our hearts that unfortunately said tomorrow not only exists, but also hangs over us like an executioner´s axe.

The rest of the day is