by Annie Seaton
Heat rushed up Gia’s neck when she caught Nic staring at her. She looked at the colorful ice creams on display before turning back to him. Tipping her head to the side, she tapped her chin with one finger. “Hmm. Let me guess. You’ll choose the chocolate flavor?”
“Uh-uh. Hate the stuff.” Nic’s eyes crinkled as he smiled down at her.
She chuckled. “How can anyone hate chocolate? My stash of chocolate means I don’t have to cook.”
“You don’t like to cook?”
Gia shook her head. “Waste of time. Takes up time when I could be painting. What about you?”
Those sexy eyes crinkled again. “I love to cook.”
She pondered what she knew of this man, his penchant for both the sophisticated and simple, as he ordered their gelato, hers, the recommended fig and ginger, while he opted for the strawberry. Nic insisted upon paying after she pulled money from her pocket. She appreciated his offer, but she was accustomed to taking care of herself.
“The invitation was mine,” he said. “Allow me to pay. It’s my pleasure.” He reached down and pulled a dark burgundy wallet from his jeans pocket.
Something in the way he said “pleasure” had her thinking things that would’ve melted the cone in her hand. Covering her reaction, she nodded and whispered, “Grazie.” She stared at his wallet. It was almost her signature color. “What a beautiful color that leather is. My sister has nothing so vibrant in her store. May I?” After he had pulled out a bill, she held out her fingers and smoothed the soft leather of his wallet. It was soft and pliant, and his initials were cut into the leather in a graceful swirl. She realized she didn’t even know his full name. “What does the B stand for, Nic?”
He handed the money over to the young girl behind the counter before he answered her. He took her arm and they stepped back to wait as she filled the order.
“Er…ah, my name… ah, you mean my last name? Yes. Battistoni. Nic Battistoni.” He looked away from her and reached for a wad of napkins from the dispenser on the counter. “We might need these.”
The ice creams were handed over, and they stepped past the queue to the door that opened to the narrow street. They strolled back across the road with their ice creams, laughing as their conversation turned into a guessing game.
“So you hate chocolate. What’s your choice? Coke or Pepsi?” she asked as she bit into the ice cream.
“Coke,” Nic said and Gia pulled a face at him.
“Horror or comedy?” he said.
“Comedy, of course.” She laughed and led him over to a park bounded by a low stone fence at the edge of the hill. A vista of farmhouse lights spread across the valley in front of them.
He shook his head sadly at her answer. “Batman or Superman?”
“Neither. Hate superheroes.”
“There’s no hope for you then, if you ever need rescuing.”
A tremor ran through Gia as she imagined being a damsel in distress rescued by Nic. She hated superhero movies, but she’d loved all those fairy stories when she was little. Just like he’d tugged her into his arms on the road this afternoon. Being swept into his arms again, her head tilting back as she stared into his eyes and her neck exposed to his lips as he lowered his head…closer, closer. Her eyes closed as the flavor of the ice cream burst on her tongue as sweet as she knew his kiss would be.
The laughter of the women walking up the road ahead of them broke into her thoughts. She ignored the heat that crept through her body as she imagined Nic’s lips on hers. Fairy tales didn’t happen in real life. You had to work to achieve what you wanted. And that was what she had to focus on.
The women’s voices grew fainter, and the evening air was still as they both focused on eating the ice cream before it melted. Eventually, the group disappeared over the crest of the hill and all was quiet.
Nic lifted his ice cream to his mouth, and Gia resisted the urge to reach up and wipe away the spot of strawberry she could just see on his top lip after he lowered the cone. She wasn’t going to touch him. Although she wanted to. Badly.
Gia pushed the thought aside and tipped her cone up and bit the bottom off.
Nic stared at her lips and that shivery feeling engulfed her again, but this time it traveled down to the warm juncture between her thighs.
“What are you doing?” His voice was full of laughter, but his eyes were fixed on her lips.
“It’s the only way to experience gelato. Before the ice cream melts and the cone goes all soggy.”
“Ah, an expert. Local knowledge.”
“I do sound like a guide. Anyone would think I loved this place.”
“Don’t you?”
“Not really. I can’t wait to escape if the truth be known.”
“Away from the restaurant?”
Gia licked the last remnants of the ice cream from her lips, aware that Nic’s eyes were still fixed on her mouth as he handed her a napkin. Slowly, she moved the tip of her tongue over her top lip before she sighed.
“The restaurant. My life here. My family. They don’t get what drives me. They don’t get what’s inside me. I’m just Gia to them. The baby of the family who needs looking after. I can wear boring clothes, leave my hair untidy, and wear my ugly glasses, and they don’t see anything.”
Nic reached out and touched her arm. His fingers were sticky with ice cream as they lingered on her wrist.
“I sometimes think I could walk into the restaurant stark naked and they still wouldn’t notice me.”
A blush warmed her cheeks when she saw the little smile play around Nic’s lips. The air was humming with expectation, and she felt like she had entered fairy tale land. She knew exactly what he was thinking, and she held his gaze as he spoke, but his words surprised her.
“If it’s any consolation, my father doesn’t trust me to know what I want out of life, either.”
She swallowed and dropped her gaze. She wasn’t used to this intensity of feeling when she was with another person. These were the feelings that filled her when she was painting. The warm glow, the keen anticipation, the wonder of how it would turn out.
She licked her top lip again and caught Nick’s gaze as he followed the movement. He lifted his own napkin.
“May I?” His head was close enough to her now, and she could focus on that dimple that was imprinted on her memory. She nodded and he dabbed at her lip. When he had finished, she rushed into conversation, filling the tense silence that had hovered between them after he had lowered the napkin.
“It’s okay, I suppose. It’s where I was born, and where I grew up. My family has been here for many generations.” Gia stared out over the quiet valley. “But I want to live life. I want to paint more. I want to learn all there is to be learned out there in the world.”
She twisted her hands together. God, she was telling her life story to a stranger. But a stranger who made her come alive, just like when she was painting. In a way, she was pleased he had almost run into her this afternoon. It was the first real conversation with anyone apart from her family and customers she’d had in weeks.
As though he was reading her thoughts, Nic turned to her and pointed to the old stone bench at the edge of the park. “Come and sit down with me. You can tell me all about you. I know some…” He counted off on his fingers as he led her to the sitting area. “Loves chocolate, doesn’t cook, loves to paint, hates superheroes—“
Gia cut him off with a laugh. “Me? It’s a boring story. There’s not much to tell. In fact, I think you know it all already. Like I said, I’ve lived here all my life. I work in the family restaurant. My parents want me to get married, settle down, and provide them with many grandchildren.” She brushed the crumbs from the cone off her fingers before she lifted her head and held his gaze. “I want to move to Florence and paint. A short and not very interesting life story.”
Nic moved closer to her on the seat, and she finally leaned in closer. She lifted her finger and dabbed the pink spot of strawberry on his lip. She couldn’
t help herself as she put her finger in her mouth and licked the tangy sweetness. He looked down at her and smiled, and she fought the little shiver that shimmied down her spine.
“Thanks. I love the way you concentrate so hard on everything you do. It must translate to your art. That must be how you get that magnificent detail into your work.”
Gia couldn’t help letting out the laughter that bubbled in her chest. “Do you want the truth?”
“The truth?”
“Yep. The vain truth. I didn’t wear my glasses…so”—her laugh tinkled away over the valley in front of them—“I am squinting so I can see your face more clearly.”
Nic’s rumble of laughter touched Gia somewhere deep, and the cold block of nothingness inside of her began to splinter. It had been a very long time since she had enjoyed someone’s company so much and been her true self. She’d almost forgotten who she was. She’d become so used to pretending to be the person her family wanted; she’d almost morphed into the drab, meek waitress that they expected her to be. It was fun to laugh with somebody.
“I don’t know everything about you.” Nic reached across and put his arm along the back of the bench. “So tell me, do you always go to the restaurant with paint on your fingers?”
Gia leaned against his arm. His grin was a tiny bit blurry, but Gia could see the amusement on his face the closer she got. “Most days. That is me. I’m not a very clean artist. And I am always running late.” She shrugged. “So you get me. You get the paint. My family is critical enough of me. I don’t care what anyone else thinks.”
Nic’s arm brushed her shoulder as he stretched out more comfortably. “Well, I think you are a very beautiful woman, paint and all. When I almost ran into you as I came over the hill, I thought you might have been a gypsy. You reminded me of someone I met when I was a teenager.”
“No gypsies in the village anymore. They’re all in the cities now.” Gia rested her elbows on her knees and cupped her chin on her hands. “Okay, let me try to explain. I guess dressing like that started off as my way to rebel.”
“Rebel?”
“Against my family. They see what they want to see. I’m the youngest of three, and the other two are both hugely successful, and my parents are very proud of their achievements. Papa has always sheltered me. He thinks I’m the quiet one. He wants me to stay here.”
“So you fulfill his expectations?”
“I guess it’s like a reverse rebellion. They think I’m the quiet mouse in a loud family, so I decided it was easier to be what they wanted. Saves a lot of disagreements.” She sighed. “Papa believes that staying in the village is for my own good. He honestly believes I wouldn’t survive in a city only forty miles away. I suppose if he tells me often enough, he thinks I’ll give up the idea of moving away.”
“If you’re really sure that’s what you want, what your dream is”—Nic reached out and took her hand—“I may be able to help.”
…
Nic was surprised at the genuine honesty that Gia was showing him by sharing her feelings. Discomfort rippled through him as he thought of the white lie he had told her. Well, it wasn’t too bad a lie. Battistoni had been his mother’s family name. He sent a little apology skyward. Sorry, Mamma. His mother would have been fascinated with Gia; she’d always loved uncovering the layers that a person hid behind, and Nic had a feeling that if he peeled away Gia’s layers, he would find one very strong and determined woman.
They had hit it off as soon as they had met—well, almost— if you discounted the incident on the road. Maybe it was the moonlight lighting up the valley in front of them; maybe it was that they were both relaxed. The whole scene was impossibly romantic. She intrigued him with her lack of artifice. He smothered a grin as he thought of the baggy clothes she deliberately hid behind in the restaurant and the paint on her fingers—what he was looking at tonight was a real woman. A much stronger woman than he had first thought. Not the designer clothes, the dripping jewels, and the heady perfumes he was used to. She was fresh and natural—sweet was the word that came to mind. The strawberry scent reinforced that freshness, and her laughter when they’d discovered they were opposites in just about everything had made him laugh. He was having fun, too—for the first time in a long time. It was her scent that had prompted him to order the strawberry gelato. He imagined tasting her as the ice cream melted on his tongue, and the thought was just as delicious as the ice cream.
He let go of her hand and moved away. He wanted to see more of her work, and he knew he was going to have to tell her a little about himself, but he couldn’t be Nic Baldini, millionaire businessman; he just wanted to be another artist who recognized talent. He’d heard what her father had thought of his family. Another ripple of guilt ran through Nic and he pushed it away. Maybe he should have employed some local tradesmen. He didn’t want her to label him as a rich guy or simply a guy on the make. And he was wary, too. His wealth had been taken advantage of too many times before, and for that reason, he wasn’t going to make the Baldini connection known. Not yet…he wanted—no, he needed to see more of her work. The landscapes he had seen had fired his interest.
“So you want to move to Florence? You are sure that’s where you want to be?”
“Yes, it is. But want do you mean ‘you can help me’?” Gia frowned and her voice was tinged with something akin to suspicion.
Nic hurried on and chose his words carefully. “I’d love to see some more of your work before I tell you what I am thinking.” He turned to face her, and the moonlight outlined her profile as she looked down at the valley. “If your other work is half as good as the landscapes… I need to see more. Will you show me some others?”
“Tell me why first? Tell me more about you.” Her eyes were narrowed and her voice careful, as though she was wondering why a chance-met stranger would want to help her. Sort of a reverse “come up and see my etchings.” “And not just what sort of movies you like. Tell me about you.”
Maybe she did think he was trying to get her into bed—not that he’d mind that one little bit—but he wanted her to know that he was genuinely interested in what he’d seen of her work.
Nic leaned back on the seat and folded his arms. He wanted her to like him for himself and not for what he could do to help her. It had been a long time since he had had such a deep response to a woman, and he wanted to explore that feeling.
“I’m here on vacation. I am staying in a villa along the way, and I am going to paint.”
“Which villa?” Gia turned her head to the side and Nic swallowed. It wasn’t a lie; it just wasn’t the exact truth.
“The company I work for owns Casa Marmo, not far along the road from your cottage.”
“You work for the Baldinis? The Carrara marble family?”
Shit. Of course she would know who owned the villa. He was not used to small village life. Just as well, he’d never spent much time in Castellina. The caretaker had made sure the kitchen was stocked on the couple visits he’d made before. He waited, wondering if she’d realize he was a Baldini. His family had some celebrity, not that he paid any attention to such frivolous things. They weren’t so famous to be hounded by paparazzi or plastered among society pages, but he’d been featured in multiple newspaper articles, especially for his contributions to the children’s hospital in Florence. And his face had graced the covers of many business magazines.
“I don’t sculpt, but it must be wonderful to work amid so much beautiful stone.” Gia’s voice was full of awe, and guilt settled in Nic’s stomach like…a stone. But at least she didn’t have the same attitude as her father. And, even more of a blessing, there was no recognition in her expression and no censure in her voice.
“Er…yes. I work in the quarries.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. It was close to the truth. He didn’t have to say he ran the whole operation.
“I would so love to go there one day. My favorite man”—Gia grinned at him and Nic’s heart did a funny little jump—“is made of Carrara marbl
e.”
“Ah, the wonderful statue of David.” Nic swallowed, pushing away the need that coursed through his body as her strawberry fragrance enveloped him. At the same time, relief settled over him like a soft blanket. He could be himself here. The heat in his blood cooled a little when Gia changed the subject away from the Baldinis to his art. “So tell me about how you got into art. What do you paint?”
“Well, to be truthful”—Nic swallowed, truthful was not the best choice of words—“you and I have very similar backgrounds. I’ve always painted—ever since I was a teenager, but my father has always dismissed it as a waste of time. ‘Not a real job,’ he always said. He refused to let me go to the Art Academy, and then he forced me to go to work as soon as I left school. I started off working in the hills of Carrara.”
“And now?” Her gaze was intense and his guilt doubled.
“Now I work in an office all day.”
“So you are from Carrara?”
“I was born in Florence, but I’ve travelled a bit.” That was true enough. Nic pointed to the fountain in the courtyard beside them. “I love to paint when I get time but, as you know, it is necessary to work.”
Gia’s narrowed eyes—or it could be the fact that she couldn’t see him properly—appeared to be assessing him.
“So what do you paint?”
“Still-life compositions—but in a natural setting. It’s not just a hobby— it’s my passion, and I do it well enough. My main problem is finding the time.” He turned his hands over and held out his palms. “I promised my mother before she died that I wouldn’t let my art go. So here I am…a vacation down here with no interruptions.”
Gia was staring at him and taking in every word he said. She was certainly a pleasant interruption, and he didn’t want her to think otherwise.
Settling back against the stone seat, he took care in choosing the right words. “You rebel by pretending to be the person your parents want you to be. I accepted what was expected of me, and that makes me admire your passion even more.”