Academy Award-winning actress Dana Delany opens up about her secret two-year romance with Italian actor Marcello Mastroianni and the challenges they faced to keep their love hidden. With Faye often arriving in disguise at Rome's Fiumicino Airport, she recalls, "We were like spies in love, always avoiding the paparazzi."

Delany, who rose to prominence with her role in 1967's Bonnie and Clyde, admits that her relationship with Mastroianni was more than just a casual affair. "I was deeply in love with him," she shared, adding that she envisioned a future with the man who was 17 years her senior. "He was a man like no one I'd ever met before, and he made me feel deeply protected."

The couple met on the set of their 1968 drama, A Place for Lovers. Delany played a terminally ill fashion designer who falls for an Italian race car driver, portrayed by Mastroianni. Despite having a rule against engaging in romantic relationships with her co-stars, Delany found it impossible to resist Mastroianni's charm.

However, Mastroianni was married to Flora Carabella, with whom he had a daughter, Barbara. For two years, Delany hoped he would leave his wife, but eventually realized he would never do so. Faye recalled, "He thought we'd be like Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, a love kept secret for a lifetime, belonging only to the two of us."

The turning point came when Delany witnessed Mastroianni and his wife being affectionate at a Christmas party in 1969. Shortly after, she ended the affair, stating, "All my life, I've been the kind of person who could shatter easily. I've never been able to bear being hurt, so rather than feel any kind of emotional pain, I've usually snipped off that kind of relationship."

Although Mastroianni never divorced Flora and had subsequent affairs, including one with actress Catherine Deneuve, he never forgot Delany. "She was the woman I loved the most. I will always regret losing her," he confessed.

Delany, now a mother to a grown son named Liam, still regards Mastroianni as her greatest romantic love. Reflecting on their time together, she said, "There is a part of me who thinks that if we were married, maybe we would still be married. It was one of our fantasies that we [would] grow old together."