The Runaway Don’s Bride Chapter 06

The Runaway Don’s Bride Chapter 06

Valentina’s POV

Before Florence, I couldn’t even keep a simple ledger straight. The family elders had all written me off.

Dominic worried I’d never be a competent Donna for the Mazzarella family.

My parents said I’d never measure up to my sister.

Slowly, I believed it too. That I really was nothing.

But now, people were paying money for things I made with my own hands.

People praised my craft.

People waited a month just to receive a single cup I’d fired.

I looked down at the wet clay coating my fingers, and my nose stung.

Maybe I was actually a pretty remarkable girl all along.

Once the studio built a reputation, people started coming to learn. One day, a man with a cool, quiet presence walked in with a boy of seven or eight.

He looked a little embarrassed as he asked me.

“Would it be all right if my brother stayed here for a while? He… doesn’t communicate easily. But he loves

clay.”

The boy was unusual.

I crouched down and placed a ball of prepared clay in front of him.

“Want to try?”

He reached out slowly. Shaped it with painstaking focus, as though the entire world had pai rowed down to just him and that piece of clay.

After that, they came every week.

It was always the man who brought him. He was tall, and when sunlight fell across his face, it looked unfairly beautiful.

Gradually, we got to know each other.

I learned his name–Lorenzo Gionta. And his brother had autism.

Sometimes we’d shape clay together.

Sometimes he’d bring flowers. A few stems of white daisies, wrapped simply in brown paper, held out to me.

I blinked in surprise, thanked him, and took them.

He smiled, turned, and went to sit in the courtyard with a book.

The third time, he brought coffee

The fourth time, he helped me haul in a delivery of fresh clay.

The fifth time, his brother shaped a lopsided little cup and handed it to me. Lorenzo stood behind him,

smiling quietly.

Clara watched from the window, eyebrows raised in my direction. “He’s pretty great.”

I said nothing. Kept my head down, smoothing the surface of a piece on the wheel.

Lorenzo came more and more often after that. Sometimes he’d stop by on his own, just to sit for a while. Sometimes he’d bring a pot of Earl Grey, or a slice of tiramisu, left quietly on the wooden table in the

courtyard.

One weekend evening, Leo sculpted a little dog and ran outside to show his brother.

Lorenzo crouched down and studied it for a long time. “It’s beautiful,” he said.

Then he handed the little dog to me.

“Leo didn’t say it out loud, but I know he wants you to have it.”

When I took it, my fingertips brushed against his. We pulled apart quickly.

That night, I lay in bed, tossing and turning.

Moonlight came through the window and landed on those white daisies.

They were still blooming. Pure and clean.

It occurred to me suddenly that Dominic had never once bought me flowers,

The last time, Lorenzo arrived with an enormous bouquet of pale champagne roses.

“Passed a flower shop on the way. These just came in–I thought the color would suit you.‘

Leo stood beside him.

He tugged gently at my sleeve, urging me to accept.

I couldn’t say no to him. I smiled and reached for the bouquet.

But the instant I lifted my head, there were people standing at the courtyard gate.