“What I meant was…why are you working at Reed’s?”
“The same reason everyone works. To make money.”
Alex frowned. Artists, real artists, artists the caliber of a Dominick Anselmo, didn’t take odd jobs for money. They painted because they had a fire in their souls. That’s what Professore Anselmo had taught her. And now the very same professor was admitting he was a sellout. He was taking this starving-artist routine a little too far.
“You’re a great painter. What could you possibly be thinking, wasting your talent as a lawn man?”
“I have my reasons.”
Alex stared at him again, studying the man he had become. He had certainly changed dramatically. He was still ruggedly handsome, his face all perfect planes and angles, but it was lost in a beard that was untrimmed and ragged. Just like the rest of him.
Although he was well preserved and fit for his age—he must be at least fifty—he looked like a common street vagrant, someone you’d pass in an alleyway and turn away from, in disgust or for fear that some of what he was might contaminate you. His clothes were rumpled. He had definitely slept in them, most likely in her bushes. His eyes were still the same blue she remembered, but they had lost much of their flash and fire.
Her Professore—he’d insisted that his students use the Italian pronunciation—would never have apologized to anyone. He had been brash and sexy and wickedly funny. This man’s spirit was broken. He appeared haggard and gaunt and, well, infinitely sad.
She was dying to ask about Samantha Bennett, anxious to solve the mystery of his disappearance from the art scene and their sudden departure from the university.
Alex had been fiercely jealous of the graduate assistant her Professore had allegedly slept with—and later, rumor had it, married.
“What have you been doing all these years since you left the university?” Alex asked.
“Getting by.”
“Do you still paint?”
“I’ve been known to paint the occasional house.”
“That’s not what I meant.” At least he hadn’t lost his sense of humor.
Nick raised his head and fixed her with his compelling eyes. Her usually glib Professore was having difficulty speaking. She detected his emotions were close to the surface.
“The answer is no, not since Sam—” he said, hesitating. “Even if I did want to paint, I don’t have a place. I’ve been drifting. I’ve got a nice spot now at the homeless shelter in Jacksonville. It keeps me off the streets.”
It was inconceivable that such a proud man and celebrated artist as Professore Anselmo had no place to go and no one to come home to.
“What were you going to say about Samantha?” Alex asked.
He pursed his lips, pointedly ignoring her question.
Maybe he sensed the pity in her eyes because he started to turn away, then looked back at her.
“Still tenderhearted, I see, bella. That soft spot could get you into all kinds of trouble. I’m grateful to have this part-time job with Reed’s, so you don’t have to worry about me. I’m fine.”
“But you’re homeless.”
“Right now, the simpler life suits me. No ties. No demands. I come and go as I please. Where I live is not important. The things I once valued are meaningless. The life I used to live is over. It wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Well, I’d better get going on your lawn before it gets too hot. Sorry about this. It won’t happen again.”
“That’s all you’re going to say?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t know. I guess I want to know what happened to my brilliant professore?”
“They’re not paying me to talk. I get paid to work.”
The lawn man lifted his power edger from its place against her wall and walked away.
Chapter Two
It all Started with a Canvas and a Kiss
While the lawn man set about edging her property with a vengeance, no doubt trying to finish the job in record time so he could flee the scene, Alex stumbled into the house. Still shaken by the close encounter with Nick Anselmo, she needed time to collect her thoughts.
Her first instinct was to hide out in the house until he was gone. But if he wasn’t too embarrassed, then why should she be? It was her house, after all. She hadn’t done anything wrong. He had a job to do, and she had a landscape to start before the twins got up. Both girls were late sleepers, although it would be a miracle if they weren’t already awake, with all the racket the man was making with his infernal lawn equipment. Joplin was shaking and cowering in a corner under the table.
She swooped down to pick up the rabbit and cradled him in her arms.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of, Joplin,” Alex cooed. “It’s just the lawn man making all that dreadful noise.” She wondered if the rabbit knew she was lying. Nick Anselmo was anything but just the lawn man. She lowered the rabbit carefully onto the rug and moved to the staircase.
Placing her palm on the stair rail, Alex paused to listen for the sounds of doors slamming or water running in the girls’ bathroom. She heard nothing.
Purposefully, she walked out the back door to set up her paints and took out her stretched heavy linen canvas on a portable work table next to her easel. Too agitated to start a major project that day, she decided to focus on some studies of the foliage in her lushly landscaped backyard. Her short-term game plan? Ignore the lawn man and the lawnmower he rode in on.
Squeezing out bits of paint onto her palette, Alex found it increasingly difficult to focus on the task at hand as the hum of a leaf blower, moving from the front yard to the side yard, grew louder. The closer it came, the closer he came, the more her thoughts turned to Nick Anselmo and the last time she’d been alone with him.
Hard to believe it had really been twenty years. It had all started in the classroom with a canvas and a kiss.
Alex had worshipped the refined package that was Professore Anselmo, complete with his European pedigree and his charming Italian accent that brought Botticelli, Leonardo, and Michelangelo to life in lectures, as the names of the Masters of the Renaissance tripped off his honeyed tongue. She could listen to her professore for hours as he summoned visions of the red-tiled roofs of Florence and the canals that wound languidly through the island city of Venice. She could almost picture the glint and shimmer of gold and silver in shops that lined the Ponte Vecchio. Taste the flavor of rich gelato. Soak up the romance as the turquoise water lapped against the sides of the sleek gondolas on a quiet moonlit night.
Alex was nearing the end of the first semester in her senior year of college. She’d spent extra time trying to get the color right on her latest portrait, and she’d been slow packing up her paints. All the other students had left the building, yet she had lingered in the classroom. Was she encouraging her professore’s special attention? Definitely. Today was the day she was going to put her plan into action and make her move.
She’d been flirting shamelessly with Professore Anselmo all semester. Of course, so had all the other girls, who were just as smitten with him. So far, he had resisted her advances, but something in his eyes had betrayed him—a thinly disguised hunger, an awareness, a longing, an almost electric connection that passed between them whenever he was near, trapping them in a force field that held them both captive.
He treated her like she was special, like he really cared for her. He must admire her work or he wouldn’t spend so much time around her easel, offering advice, leaning in to caress her arm, her shoulder, guiding her brush from behind, standing uncomfortably close. It was probably just the European way. Professore Anselmo was very demonstrative. Always gesturing or touching. And today she was determined to touch back.
“You’re really very good, Alexandra. You know that, don’t you?”
How was she supposed to answer that question? If she said “Yes,” he’d peg her as conceited. If she said “No,” he might accuse her of false modesty. He could simply be testing her. She wanted
to make an impression, not a mistake. She was intensely infatuated with the man. She thought she might even be in love with him. She needed him to view her not simply as his student but as a sophisticated woman who could match him passion for passion. Noncommittal had always seemed the safest way to go, but she was tired of playing it safe.
“I’m glad you think so. Do you like what you see?”
“Very much.”
“On the canvas or off?”
The professore hesitated, seeming to sense a trap.
“Both,” he admitted warily, his emotions, at war, flitting across his face.
Her instincts were right. He was interested. It wouldn’t take much to push him over the edge.
“Am I beautiful enough to paint, Professore? Would you like me to pose for you?”
The professore shook his head and sighed like he was about to scold a naughty child.
“I imagine many young men have told you that you are beautiful. So many you are probably tired of hearing it. I would go a step further and say you are a painter’s dream. You have the look of an angel. Your scent is like the heavenly fragrance of the lemon tree. Your skin is as smooth as alabaster. The blue of your eyes mirrors the waters off the Gulf of Amalfi. Of course, bella, I would like to paint you. Perhaps someday I will.”
Alex turned away from her canvas and stared deeply into her professore’s eyes, almost bumping up against him.
“You could give me private lessons,” she suggested, leaving the offer open to interpretation.
“I’m afraid that would be a very bad idea,” countered the professore, wearing a strained expression. “I’m a decade older than you. It would be a very costly lesson for both of us.”
“But a worthwhile one,” Alex persisted.
“That’s a very tempting offer, one I’ll probably regret not taking. You’re playing a very dangerous game, bella. How do they say it in America, ‘Be careful what you ask for’?”
“Wish for,” Alex corrected. “Are you asking for permission?”
“Are you trying to agitate me, Alexandra?”
She laughed. “Yes. Is it working?”
He took a step back. She closed the distance smoothly. He hadn’t misinterpreted that move.
“You’re not afraid of me, are you, Professore?” she challenged.
He didn’t answer.
This was the now or never moment she’d been waiting for. It was up to her. With a little encouragement, she could make all her dreams come true.
She rubbed her bare arms gently and shivered, cursing herself for not wearing a sweater in a classroom that felt frigid even in the Florida heat. She wanted to feel his arms around her, to taste him. She yearned for his touch. He had probably noticed, since she wasn’t wearing a bra.
“Your work shows a great deal of promise,” said the professore in a gravelly voice. That delicious Italian accent made her insides melt. Not to mention the man had the body of a Donatello sculpture, a work of art in itself.
She wondered if he knew what kind of effect he had on her. Looking at him made it hard to concentrate, on anything.
“Just my work?” Alex answered softly.
Her lips were parched, and she purposely moistened them with her tongue. Taking that as a sign to proceed, he responded in a flash, uncontrollably, igniting a flame, stepping in until their bodies were touching, until she could feel his trembling heartbeat against her breast.
“Alexandra,” he groaned.
He reached down and caressed her face, tipping her chin up with his fingers, leaning in ever so slightly for a kiss. A kiss she wanted desperately. A kiss she’d dreamed about more than once. A heart-pounding kiss. A kiss that quickened her pulse and made her feel like she was going to faint on the spot.
His lips brushed hers in a way that seemed very practiced, a way that made her want him even more. She leaned her body in to his to give him better access and wrapped her arms around his neck involuntarily as he deepened the kiss.
The Gates of Heaven opened, complete with the blinding light and magnificent chorus of angels. And still he held her lips. She opened her mouth for the professor’s hungry tongue, and he teased and tormented her, continuing to stroke her expertly. Then he tentatively trailed his calloused fingers, his rough artist’s hands, underneath her tight tank top.
“You’re driving me crazy, bella,” he murmured against her lips. “I think I’m in love with you. Do you feel the same way?”
She couldn’t answer, but she didn’t have to. He loved her. She’d never felt so glorious in her life.
He smiled, a wide, self-satisfied grin, and kept up the torture.
“Do you want me to stop, Alexandra? If you do, tell me now.”
She loved the way he said her name.
“D-don’t,” she gasped, leaving both of them to wonder whether she meant, “Don’t stop,” or if she was warding him away with an admonition. But she made no attempt to pull away.
Then he focused all his white-hot energy on her eyes, holding her captive in his strong arms. She had always harbored fantasies about her professore, but they were just that—vague, big-picture longings, in league with the fantasies she’d had about distant movie stars. The dreams never went beyond the moment she actually connected with the object of her affection.
She could feel his desire and no longer wondered what was coming next. The professore was in complete control. But she had unleashed the monster. Did he realize how inexperienced she was at this game? He had a lot to teach her, inside and outside the classroom, and she was ready to get carried away.
She felt his hot breath linger over one of her breasts, his tongue tantalizingly close to her nipple, and, just as he leaned in to taste her, he pulled up abruptly.
“Oh, God,” he moaned.
Alarmed, she asked, “Why did you pull away?”
“Because this is wrong in so many ways, Alexandra. Surely you can see that. I am your professore, your much older professore. I let things get out of hand, let them move too far and too fast in the wrong direction. I should have resisted my feelings. My behavior was reckless. Some lines should never be crossed. Please forgive me. It won’t happen again.”
Alex tensed, jerking down her tank top. He was rejecting her, using their ten-year age difference as an insurmountable barrier. She was a grown woman, not a child. A woman who knew her own mind and knew what she wanted. He may have been her professore, but he was also a man. She wondered why he thought what they had been about to do was so unthinkable. She had offered herself to him, and he had carelessly tossed her aside like a piece of drawing paper he’d balled up and thrown in the trash. An unfinished sketch that wasn’t quite up to his standards. She could hardly bear the embarrassment. She didn’t understand how he could claim to love her in one breath and turn off his feelings so abruptly with the next.
“I-I have to go,” she said curtly. “I forgot I’m meeting someone, and I’m late.”
At that moment, the classroom door burst open, and Alex froze. Mark Newborn, a boy she’d been dating on and off for the last few months, swept in like a summer rainstorm and shook her out of her stupor.
“Alex? Where have you been? I’ve been looking all over for you. We’ve got that thing, remember?”
Mark was a funny and charming boy her own age, with movie star looks. A boy who liked her. A down-to-earth boy, not an unattainable older man. But, for the life of her, she couldn’t remember what “that thing” was.
Professore Anselmo recovered first and introduced himself.
“Hello, I’m Professore Dominick Anselmo, Alexandra’s art teacher. And you are…?”
“Mark Newborn, Alex’s boyfriend. I hope I wasn’t interrupting anything.”
Boyfriend? Mark had never put a label on their relationship before, but he’d never had his territory invaded. It didn’t seem the time to dispute Mark’s claim. Right now she was grateful for the interruption.
Professore Anselmo narrowed his eyes in Alex’s direction.
“No. We were just finishing up our lesson,” the professore murmured, his mouth a disapproving frown, his eyes signaling sincere regret. “I was just giving Alexandra a few pointers, but I see she really doesn’t need my help.”
The professore extended his hand, the same hand that had just been engaged in giving her so much pleasure, and Mark shook it.
He was probably enjoying her discomfort. He was nothing but a player, feeding her a line about love he probably used on all the naïve coeds. She had totally misread his intentions. She was in love with her professore and she’d gambled that those feelings were reciprocated. She realized now she had been hoping for the impossible.
“Alexandra, I will see you in class tomorrow. We’ll continue our lesson then.”
Alex muttered something, grabbed Mark’s hand, and practically pulled him out the door.
****
She didn’t go to class the next day, or the day after that or the day after that. She dropped Professore Anselmo’s class, a class she needed to graduate and would need to make up with another, less brilliant professor. But she couldn’t face him after what he’d done. She’d practically thrown herself at him, and he had made it quite clear he wanted nothing to do with her.
Sometimes, when she looked back on that day, she thought she had only imagined their interlude. She had painted him as the aggressor, convinced herself he was a lecherous professor who had come on to her. In reality, she had been the instigator. Ultimately, he had refused her advances and made a fool of her.
It wasn’t until months later that she’d learned Professore Anselmo had started an affair with his graduate assistant. In Alex’s mind, Samantha Bennett was nothing special. Alex wondered if the professore had given her private lessons and praised her talent. And she wondered what would have happened had Mark not burst into the studio at the exact moment he did.
She could have convinced Professore Anselmo to stay with her, perhaps moving their “private lesson” to a more private place. He would have gone along with the seduction. She knew he would have. She’d never felt so alive, so satisfied, so sexy.
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