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He spoke with a deep, confident voice, his Italian soothing to her ears Even though she only understood a few phrases, Pia heard his passion for his work, his affection for Gio in the way he relayed tidbits about people they both knew

She could just sit there and listen to his voice endlessly

Pretending that all the hours she spent in his cohts over him, while pretty much every woman snidely corated like salt on a wound As if she didn’t know that Raphael wouldn’t have looked at her twice if not for the fact that she was Gio’s granddaughter

On one such scheduled outing, she’d persuaded Raphael to bring Alyssa along She adored that little girl, and to her shame, Pia desperately needed a buffer—there was only so much one-on-one she could take with Raphael before she did so crazy

Raphael had returned after a week-long trip and any hopes she’d had that she would be over hi up the pathith a squir Alyssa on his shoulder and his hter

They spent the next two hours with Alyssa at a gelateria in Menaggio, another one of the picturesque villages lining up Lake Como Pia held a chubby, sticky and sleepy Alyssa in her arms while Raphael parked the car in front of his mother’s house

When he asked to take her back, Pia shook her head, loving the feel and weight of the little girl Despite herlittle girl that Pia couldn’t help but fall in love with her

And every tihtness of it Couldn’t fight the longing that drowned her As if she were the piece of the puzzle that he and the little girl were

But it was ridiculous Even if he asked her, she didn’t want to be with a id…

Raphael leveled the strangest look back at her

“Show me the way,” Pia said in a husky voice Only when she followed him down a quiet corridor did she realize that the house was ehtly

“I’ll get her into her pj’s,” she said to Raphael

Again, that intense, al look