“Aha! You are without a doubt a hopeless romantic,” he said, tweaking her nose. “I bet you can even recite the dialogue, word for word.”
“They don’t say anything. They sing a song.”
He wagged his finger. “But before that, he tells her when he first fell in love with her.”
“—when she sat on the pinecone the children stuck on her chair.” She laughed. “And you knew that. So perhaps you’re really the hopeless romantic.”
He shrugged. “I’m not the one denying it. Yet here you are, wearing the tough outer shell of a hard-nosed reporter, but deep down inside—”
“I’m just someone who stayed home alone on Friday nights watching old movies.”
He turned to face her and took a step closer. He leaned his forehead to hers. “Then I’m glad to see you’re stepping outside of your comfort zone a little bit. How else will you ever end up with your very own gazebo scene?”
She stepped backward, disengaging their contact. “Maybe some of us just aren’t meant for that kind of charmed life.”
“Or maybe you just need to seek it out,” he said. “In the meantime, I think it’s time to unwind with a glass of wine. You see those grapes over there,” he said, pointing to distant vineyards, where really, it was just grapes, grapes, and more grapes. “My cousins’ grapes are known the world over as producing some of the best of the Super Tuscans.”
Larkin cocked her eyebrow, curious. “You had me at wine.”
What she didn’t know was that she had him at the very first glare she threw his way.
But how was he going to get that through her stubborn head?
Chapter Fourteen
Luca and Larkin sat side by side on chaise lounges overlooking the infinity pool and fields of ripened grapes as the sun sank low in the sky on the horizon. It was autumn, which meant spectacular sunsets painted in brilliant shades of melon, blushing rose, and violet. Sandro had apparently planted a few fields with a Sagrantino grape, unusual in Chianti as it was native to Umbria, southeast of Tuscany. In the fall, the leaves of this grape turned a fiery red, and they glowed as if kissed by a dragon’s breath beneath the burnished setting sun.
There likely could not be a more romantic setting on the face of the planet, and Larkin was mentally kicking herself for not having fled the place hours earlier when she had the chance. Nothing good could come from sticking around and exposing that little crack in her injury-protected heart even more. And with each sip of wine came remembrances of earlier in the day when they were alone in the office.
“Did you know Christopher Plummer hated The Sound of Music?” Lucca said, leaning over to refill their wineglasses.
Larkin shook her head from her thoughts and turned to him. She was a little reluctant to bring up that film again; the sense of intimacy that descended over them in the limonaia had rattled her a bit. Between the beautiful setting, the chirping birds, the romantic conversation, and well, him there, tempting her with his mere presence, she didn’t know how she was going to resist his many charms. But she had to. She simply couldn’t sleep with a source.
Not like he was a source, per se, like Deep Throat with Watergate. Nevertheless, he was the man she was assigned to interview. Interview, not intercourse. She kept repeating that in her head, a mantra that wasn’t particularly romantic but that was the whole point of it. Damn, at least with the Pope this would not have been an issue. She laughed to herself at that thought. Nope. No worries about that.
“I don’t believe that,” she said. In her mind, forever, Christopher Plummer was not actually Christopher Plummer, the actor, but rather Captain Von Trapp, the rather surly but sexy widower with a tough outer shell who finally succumbed to love.
Luca nodded. “It’s true,” he said. “I read somewhere that he detested the movie. Thought it was awful and sentimental and gooey.”
Larkin pressed her hands to her face, just as Julie Andrews did in the film each time “Maria” blushed at the thought that deep down, she’d fallen in love with Captain Von Trapp but didn’t want to admit it. “Bite your tongue,” she said. “Captain Von Trapp loved Maria. Period.”
“Worse still, he apparently drank and ate away his misery while filming,” he said. “So much so that they had to let out his costumes because he’d expanded so much.”
“La-la-la,” she said, covering her ears. “I can’t hear you. He was simply growing love handles for Maria to hold onto.”
“And he was drunk for the pinnacle music festival scene.”
Speaking of drunk, Larkin was feeling the effects of the three glasses of wine she’d had. And not in a good way. Well, maybe in a good way, but not in a be-responsible-and-get-in-your-car-and-drive-back-to-your-life way.
She yawned as she took a sip of wine, not an easy thing to do without dribbling it down your shirt.
“You sleepy?” he said. “Because you’re welcome to stay here.”
“Oh, God, no,” she said.
“I didn’t know that would be such a horrible-sounding option,” he said.
“I didn’t mean it to come out that way. I mean God, no, I couldn’t be an imposition. Besides, I have to get back to Florence so that I can return my car tomorrow morning.”
“In that case, please, do stay here,” he said. He reached out his arms to encompass the breadth of the palazzo. “As you can see, there’s plenty of room here.”
“No, really, it’s okay,” she said, getting up. But as she stood, she felt a little woozy and wobbled, reaching for Luca for stability.
“Larkin, don’t be a hero,” he said. “If the wine has gone to your head, do the right thing and stay the night.”
“I’m good,” she said, holding up her hands to say she was really being honest. “It’s just that I haven’t had much food in my stomach today. I know we shared the antipasti, but besides that, zilch.” She sliced her finger across her neck for effect.
“Then let’s get you some food and find a room for you to sleep in.”
Larkin wanted to continue to protest but frankly, he was wearing her down, perhaps because she knew better than to go driving after sunset on windy, dark Tuscan country roads. In a little death trap on wheels. With crazy-ass Italians driving like bats out of hell on their motocicletti. She’d had enough of them passing her in broad daylight, sober.
So did it come down to risking life and limb on the roads or risking her heart and dignity by sticking around here? Most likely her dignity—if she let anything progress in the direction momentum would take it, the reality was that she was Larkin, an average American-abroad working girl. And he was Luca, handsome and charming prince in a small European principality. What were the chances this would end well for her? If she’d have paid attention in her statistics class back in college, she’d probably be able to compute that (and realize they were pretty much zilch, just like her food intake today).
But something about getting a little liquored up...
“Come,” he said. “Let’s sneak into the kitchen and find some pasta. We’ll have dinner and get you tucked into bed.”
She lifted her eyebrow, not trusting his intentions.
He held up his hands in surrender. “All perfectly innocent,” he said. “Cross my heart. You are calling the shots, Larkin. If you want to go to bed, I’ll just make sure you have clean sheets and a soft pillow.”
What if what I really want is a hard man?
“Well...”
He pulled her up, grabbed their wineglasses, and led her along several corridors inside the main house till they got to the huge kitchen. The lights had been turned off for the night, but he was able to find the various switches, rifled around for ingredients and supplies, and got to work.
He motioned for Larkin to sit along the far end of the prep counter while he prepped the food.
“Sure I can’t do anything?” she said, twirling her wineglass on the countertop.
“Just sit there and look pretty,” he said.
She rolled her eyes.
He boiled water for the spaghetti then diced fresh garlic, chopped tomatoes and some parsley, and heated olive oil in a pan on the stove.
He went to work sautéing the garlic. After tossing in chili flakes, olives, capers, tomatoes, and oregano before adding salt and pepper, he let it cook down for a few minutes.
He strained the pasta, then divided it between two plates, pouring sauce over the spaghetti and sprinkling parsley atop it.
“Voila,” he said, handing her the piping-hot dish.
“And what do you call this masterpiece?”
“Pasta alla Puttanesca: whore’s pasta. It originated in Napoli, and why it got this name depends on who you talk to. One story has it that the aroma of it lured the men in off the streets and into the bordellos, where even greater temptations lay. I’ll go with that one.”
She breathed in the aromatic sauce. “I can see that doing the trick,” she said, thinking perhaps he was using this to lure her into further temptation. Her bigger worry was that it was working.
Chapter Fifteen
“That was just what the doctor ordered,” Larkin said, rubbing her belly.
“I’m so glad you enjoyed it.”
“I have to admit I was skeptical that you could even cook,” she said.
His eyes opened wide. “And why not?”
“Well, you live in a palace, for starters,” she said. “I can’t imagine you’ve been called up to KP duty much.”
“Meaning?”
“Kitchen patrol,” she said. “A term in the navy for the people stuck with the hard, hot job of cooking for everyone.”
“Nope, no KP, in that case,” he said. “But I loved to cook ever since I can remember. So my mother encouraged me to go into the kitchen and watch and learn. Eventually, I was encouraged to help out, first doing very basic things, chopping, prepping the mis en place for Chef in preparation for the night’s meal. Bit by bit, he let me try my hand at food preparation, and I took a shining to it. It’s unfortunate I don’t have enough opportunities to employ my skills.”
“Then lucky me that I was the recipient of all of that training,” she said. “If this prince thing doesn’t work out, you have a fine career ahead of you.”
They both laughed.
“The prince thing,” he said, “isn’t quite so relevant for me, though. I’m lowest of low men on the totem pole, I’m afraid. So I play the ceremonial prince and go on about my business.”
“Does that bother you?”
“Off the record?” he cocked his eyebrow. He hated to invoke that sacred phrase but you just never knew with a reporter, and sometimes it was for the best. In this case, he worried it would merely remind her of the gulch between the two of them, but he needed to say it.
“Trust me,” she said. “Unless I officially state that I’m interviewing you for something, this is just conversation between two friends.”
Conversation between two friends who were moments away from having sex, dammit, he thought with a grimace. Would that have made them friends with benefits? And what if he thought their friendship deserved more than just that? Although she thought it didn’t even get to go that far. Where was the justice in that?
“So with the pecking order in my family, I suppose it doesn’t bother me much because it’s all I’ve ever known,” he said. “Adrian would take over one day from our mother, and the rest of us would just sort of float around in the ether being somewhat useless appendages to the royal body. I liken myself to an appendix. Though that means if you make me too ornery, well, look out.”
“So your family better beware or the royals might have a bad case of peritonitis kick in?”
He shrugged and laughed. “Something like that. Though really, I have nothing to complain about. I have a supportive family, I’ve got no financial worries, I get to travel as much as I want, I get to do all sorts of lovely charitable things that help those who are less fortunate. My life is good, really.”
“But?”
“But what?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “It’s just that I detected a little hesitancy in your voice as if maybe you have some regrets.”
“Regrets? Nah.” He shook his head. “Though I suppose it would be nice to feel like I had some larger mandate for myself. But honestly, it’s up to me to figure that part out. If I wanted to be a dentist, for instance, no one’s stopping me. Except for I’m terrified of a dentist’s drill. So I really could do what I’d like.”
“I think it would be a little strange to have my dentist be a prince.”
“That does complicate things a bit,” he said. “What could I do that wouldn’t freak out whoever was my client or customer or whatever?”
“Could you go to work in a kitchen?”
He paused, bit his lip. “Could I go to work in a kitchen?” he asked. “That’s a good question. I don’t think technically it would not be allowed. But I guess it would be a bit of a departure from your usual royals-taking-a-job thing. More often, it’s more like go off and be an equestrian in the Olympics.” He laughed. “But considering I was kicked by a horse when I was five, I’ve never been too keen on anything that involves me and large animals with powerful haunches.”
“That rules out elephant tamer.”
He nodded. “Good thing I’m morally opposed to anyone trying to tame elephants, then.”
“We have that in common.”
He dipped his chin low and looked straight at her. “I’d say we have more than that in common.” He knew he shouldn’t kibosh their friendly banter, but it was too hard to resist.
“But we weren’t going there, remember?”
Luca frowned, disappointed. “A man can dream,” he said. “Speaking of dreams, let’s get you set up in something comfortable for the night.”
~*~
There was comfortable, and there was comfortable. Like camping in the woods? Not so comfortable. Fairy-tale princess Italian estate? Pretty much perfection at its finest.
Luca had given Larkin her choice of several rooms; she felt like Goldilocks as she made this all-important decision. The first room, well, the view wasn’t quite perfect. The second room, well, the bathroom didn’t have a heated towel holder. The third room, well, suffice it to say Larkin thought long and hard about never leaving once she stepped foot in the place, with soothing lavender walls and romantic soft curtains that draped to the ground, barely obscuring the most exquisite view of the sloping Chianti countryside. The king-sized bed was piled high with down pillows and a comforter that looked like Larkin might never be found once she crawled beneath it. How could she not sleep amazingly in that bed?
But now for the awkward part. “So, well, thank you for a lovely day,” she said, her subtle hint it was time for Luca to shuffle along. Not that she wasn’t tempted to invite him to stick around, but she’d already succumbed to her hormones once today, and she knew those things were lying bastards and she should never listen to a word they said.
Luca turned to face Larkin and reached for her hands. “I had one of the best days I’ve had in forever,” he said. “Thank you for that.”
One of the best days in forever? With me?
“Oh, geez,” she said. “You don’t have to lay it on so thick. I’m sure you’ve had some pretty spectacular days in your life. I doubt this even ranks among them.”
He leaned his head forward, resting his forehead on hers. “I wish you wouldn’t be so hard on yourself, Larkin,” he said. “It’s like you can’t believe that being in your presence could be the highlight of someone else’s day or week or year.”
Larkin mulled that one over. Because, no, in fact, she couldn’t believe that. No one had ever given her the indication that she featured in their fantasy dream day. And for it to be someone of Luca’s stature to say it, well, he must have hit his head when she wasn’t looking.
Luca reached up to clasp Larkin’s face with his hands. They felt warm and earnest against her. As if he
actually wanted them to be there. She’d never had anyone send that sort of vibe to her before.
“Can I ask you something?” he said to her, staring into her eyes, so close she couldn’t possibly look away and avert the message he was sending her.
Larkin was glad they were no longer holding hands because hers trembled. Unable to figure out what to do with them, she placed them on her waist. “Sure. Anything you want.”
He laughed softly. “I think I’d better hold off on that for another day. But would it be possible for one last kiss? To seal this near-perfect day?”
Larkin felt as if she was squirming in place but luckily she wasn’t. She was definitely feeling uncomfortable, though: torn between desire and obligation and wondering why those two couldn’t somehow be the same thing for once. But what could one little kiss hurt?
“I’d like that,” she said, which must have shocked Luca because his eyes opened wide as if someone had just handed him a surprise gift. And before she had a chance to object, he leaned forward, placing his lips on hers, opening his mouth to her, and well, of course she couldn’t refuse him, right? This kiss was soft, tender, so gentle, it was as if he was trying to calm a wild animal. He slowly stroked his tongue against hers, tangling ever-so-gently, as one hand rubbed her back while the other scraped fingers softly through her hair.
“If you change your mind, I’ll be right across the hallway from you,” he said as he finally released his hold on her, giving her a parting kiss on her forehead. “Sweet dreams, Larkin.” He took forever to let go of her hands even as he backed toward the doorway.
Larkin found herself holding her hands to her face, much like Julie Andrews did in The Sound of Music when she’d realized she was in and she was in deep.
Chapter Sixteen
Dammit, he grumbled the next morning when he opened his door only to see light streaming in from the room where Larkin had slept. She pulled a runner. I knew she would.
He should’ve put a lock on the damned door. And an armed guard. Maybe a ferocious dog. Christ, what would it take to persuade her to give them a try?
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