by Lucy Leroux
He kept watching her with those intense gold eyes, the corners of his lips turned up.
She tugged on her collar to move a little air under her shirt, careful not to expose any additional skin. “Hot in here, isn’t it?”
His eyes warmed, flashing gold for an unnerving second. He opened his mouth to say something else, but the waiter arrived with their meals. After they dismissed him, she spooned a forkful of pasta into her mouth and promptly rolled her eyes heavenward.
“Oh, good God,” she whispered, almost reverently.
“Yes,” Gio said, hissing aloud after taking a bite.
Giggling, she took another sip of wine before digging in with relish. Across from her, gold eyes watched her approvingly, which was nice. Richard would have been hiding a disapproving frown if she ordered such a rich meal in his presence. Her ex was tall and naturally whip-thin. The fact he ate like an anorexic rabbit only added insult to injury. It was refreshing to eat dinner with a man who enjoyed food for a change.
Gio launched into a history of Florence, detailing the local attractions she couldn’t miss.
“I feel like I should be writing this down,” she said, her head whirling with the list of sights she had to make time for.
He leaned forward. “How much time do you have?”
“A little over two weeks.”
“And that’s for the whole country?”
“Minus Milan. I’ve done Milan,” she informed him.
“Lucky Milan,” he murmured softly, and her cheeks flamed.
She threw her napkin at him. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
Grinning, he waved the waiter over for the check. He ushered her out of the restaurant with a hand on the small of her back. The heat of his touch became the only thing she could feel, and she was glad the streets were darker now so the blush on her cheeks wouldn’t be as apparent.
The Carabe Gelateria had a line out the door. After waiting their turn, they walked along the bustling streets eating their gelato.
“All the flavors you could have chosen, and you went with chocolate and vanilla,” he teased as she spooned more of her dessert into her mouth.
She shrugged. “I’m a dessert purist. But I do plan on going back there and trying those different flavors of granite tomorrow,” she said, referring to the slushy-style drink that was popular in hot weather.
Gio glanced at her from under long black lashes. “Speaking of tomorrow, why don’t you let me take you around town? I can show you Firenze from a local’s perspective.”
Sophia frowned. “Don’t you need to work? Or can you do your act here?”
“No. I would have to ask for permission. Every town has its own rules. But I could use the time off. Even performers need a vacation,” he said, looking down at his feet. “I need to meet my aunt, which I can do over breakfast, and then I’m all yours. If you want company, that is.”
It sounded like a huge mistake. She was too attracted to him. Spending more time with him could be dangerous. And she always played it safe. It was one of Kelly’s biggest criticisms about her.
Aren’t you tired of safe?
Accepting his offer as tour guide didn’t mean she had to sleep with him. She was a grown woman with a considerable amount of discipline. It would have been impossible to reach the level of her career was at without it.
“I can show you where to find the best zepoli,” Gio said enticingly.
She laughed. “All right. Meet me outside of my hotel after your breakfast with your aunt.”
Those gold eyes gleamed in the night. “I’ll be there at ten.”
Chapter 4
Gio’s body was alternating between flashing hot and cold as he made his way to the penthouse suite he kept in Firenze. Why didn’t he tell her the truth? What the hell was wrong with him?
He’d kept going over it in his head—the perfect words to explain. But he chickened out each time. He let her keep thinking he was this other Gio, the street performer. It had felt so good to be out from under the cloud of suspicion following him that he hadn’t been able to go through with his confession.
That, and she thought he was poor. That had been obvious when she tried to treat him at dinner and offered to buy his train ticket. It was the first time in his life that he had the opportunity to get to know a woman without her being aware of his wealth and status. Even as a student abroad, he’d never considered hiding the fact he came from money.
Things were different now. Since his divorce, he was suspicious of women and their motives. But this was a novel situation. Sophia thought he was poor and she liked him, anyway. Or, at least she seemed to. She had even downplayed her efforts to pay his way in an effort to spare his masculinity.
The fact he insisted on paying had been suspicious. He had no idea what a street performer earned, but it couldn't be much. However, he couldn't let her spend her money on him. Thanks to his intimate knowledge of her lab’s finances, he knew what her salary was. In fact, in the near future, her salary was going to be paid by the Morgese Foundation grant. For someone in research it was above average, but nothing near what he earned. Her annual salary couldn’t touch what he made in a week. Maybe even a day, if he was being honest about the numbers.
He glanced down at the manila envelope she’d given him as he stepped in the elevator of his building. It had to be at least thirty pages of questions. No wonder the real Giovanni hadn’t touched it when it had been mailed to him. Whatever else this Kelly person was, she was too damn thorough. Enough to be shooting herself in the foot by making the survey so long.
He was going to have to track down this Giovanni and make sure the questionnaire was completed. It was the least he could do for his small deception.
Not small. Huge.
Releasing a pent up breath, he entered the luxury apartment his family kept in the city. He would tell Sophia the truth as soon as he saw her tomorrow morning. In the meantime, he had a few calls to make.
****
Breakfast with his aunt Perla had been a serious test of his endurance. His mother’s younger sister was sweet, but essentially a weak-willed person. She had been fortunate to marry a man of an equally amiable character, one who didn’t run roughshod over her. Unfortunately her good karma ended there. Her son, his cousin Lucca, had grown up to be a self-indulgent and selfish young man.
In her efforts to make up for the loss of his father, his aunt had spoiled Lucca, giving him anything he wanted and covering for him whenever he was into trouble. She was always there to bail him out and would continue to do so, even now as the youthful transgressions were escalating into actual crimes. The fight at the club would have landed a less connected man in jail.
Gio had explained the true circumstances of the bar brawl to Perla, but she would hear none of it. She bought Lucca’s story of being an innocent bystander who was dragged into a fight by circumstance. And she was unaware of Lucca’s damning contribution to his tabloid woes.
Determined to put a stop to his cousin’s downward slide, Gio was using the only weapon in his arsenal: money.
When his uncle Cosimo had died, he’d left his family deeply in debt. There had been nothing left, and his aunt was in danger of losing her townhouse and everything in it. Even her car had been repossessed.
Though he’d been a young man at the time, Gio had just been appointed CEO of the Morgese bank, replacing his father Salvatore. His father had been a decent, if somewhat middling manager, but the recession had hit all the financial institutions hard. The situation had been pretty grim until Salvatore had made the controversial decision to step aside and let his son take the helm.
Unlike his father, Gio was gifted at making money. His shrewd investment savvy, combined with a thorough restructuring of the bank’s assets, had put it back on sound financial footing. Since then it had thrived, and Gio had become renowned in financial circles. Not long after, he established a family trust for all his relatives, his aunt Perla and
Lucca included. They had all profited from his hard work, but the life of leisure he enabled for them had some drawbacks.
That was why he’d decided to act. From now on, Gio was taking over the management of Perla’s expenses, from rent to food shopping. She would have a small line of credit that would let her shop for herself or eat out whenever she wanted. The older woman normally lived frugally anyway, more than any of his other relatives. Lucca was the one serious drain on her finances.
Knowing his aunt, she would still give her wastrel son what cash she had. But it wouldn’t be enough for Lucca to run wild in the fast lane anymore. Gio could only hope losing his trust fund would be enough to shock some sense into his young cousin once and for all.
His head was full of these troubling thoughts, but they fell away when he reached Sophia’s hotel and saw her waiting for him outside. She was wearing yet another boxy t-shirt and shorts that fell above the knee. There was no hint of the outrageously curvy body underneath.
So the outfit from yesterday was not a fluke. His hot doctor was surprisingly modest. Or perhaps it was something more…
It seemed strange that someone as accomplished as Sophia Márquez might be self-conscious about her body, but that was what he was seeing signs of. All throughout dinner and on their walk yesterday, she had kept fiddling with her clothes, tugging her shorts down and adjusting the neckline of her t-shirt.
However, he didn’t mind the conservative clothing. If she wore something like the white dress out in the streets, she might cause a riot. His countrymen weren’t subtle when it came to beautiful women. And he didn’t want to spend the rest of the day fending off other men. As it was, Sophia was like a carefully concealed present, a gift just waiting to be unwrapped.
While he watched, she pulled out her phone. A flicker of annoyance crossed her lovely face before she pushed a button and shoved it back in her purse.
“Hi,” he called out, catching her attention.
She turned toward him, a bright smile lighting her face. It rivaled the sunshine. Suddenly acid pooled in his stomach, and he clenched his teeth behind his smiling lips.
He had promised himself so many times last night that the second he saw her this morning he would tell her the truth, but he couldn’t do it right now. He didn’t want that sunny smile to fade away yet. After lunch was a better time. Or even after dinner. There were so many things he wanted to show her first.
Definitely after dinner, he thought as they chatted aimlessly in front of the hotel.
“How did it go with your aunt?” she asked as he led her down the street, toward the center of the historic district.
He shrugged. “As well as can be expected.”
“What did you need to talk to her about? Or is that too intrusive?” she asked.
His shoulders dropped.
“Nevermind, you don’t have to tell me,” she said quickly, pulling the long strap of a travel purse over her head and across her shoulder.
“I don’t mind,” he assured her. “It had to do with her son. He’s been getting into trouble the last few years and it’s getting worse. Lucca is quite spoiled, but he’s starting to slide into criminal territory.” He kicked a stray piece of trash aside. “I’d rather not be involved, but in my family that’s not possible. Everybody is in everybody else’s business, and if you’re not they hunt you down and ask your opinion, anyway. Demand it, in some cases.”
Her head tilted to one side and gave him a sympathetic side glance. “I’m sorry. I understand if you’d rather not waste your time acting as tour guide today so you can attend to your family.”
“Are you kidding?” he laughed. “You’re saving me from them. Don’t ever doubt that.”
Her mouth pursed. “Only if you’re sure.”
“Oh, I’m certain,” he said, widening his eyes for emphasis before directing her up the Via dell’ Anguillara.
They walked a little further and he watched her carefully, gratified when her face lit up at the sight of the Basilica di Santa Croce.
“This was one of the places at the top of my list,” she said, beaming at him. Pleased, he started detailing the history of the church as the burial site of some of the most notable figures in Italian history.
The next few hours were some of the best of Gio’s life. He loved sharing this special place with Sophia. They saw the tombs Niccolò Machiavelli, Michelangelo, and Galileo as well as an altar monument to Dante Alighieri, which she assumed was his grave until he told her otherwise. He also showed her the tomb of Rossini, who had composed the famous opera, the Barber of Seville and the rows of inset chapels that lined the walls—including the Bardi chapel featuring the fresco of the death of Saint Francis by Giotto.
Eventually they wandered to the cloister and Pazzi chapel before rounding out their visit by exploring the adjoining museum.
After that, they were both starving, so he took her to a little out the way restaurant. He ordered a light veal dish and she ordered lasagna, self-consciously citing all of the walking they were doing as an excuse to splurge.
He was tempted to offer another form of calorie-burning exercise as a more pleasurable alternative to walking, but he bit his tongue. Instead, he suggested they spend the rest of the afternoon getting lost in the Uffizi, and was pleased when she agreed. He was able to show her his favorite paintings by Raphael, Titian, and Boticelli before she nudged him along to the neighboring science museum.
“I should have realized this would be a bigger draw for you than some old boring paintings,” he teased as she surreptitiously snapped a picture with her camera phone of Galileo’s finger on exhibit.
“I loved the art,” she assured him with her hand on his arm. “I just didn’t want to miss this. Galileo is one of my personal heroes.”
He wanted to ask for more details, but she wasn’t paying attention anymore. Her rapt attention was fixed on the dried and desiccated fingers, displayed behind glass like priceless treasures.
To each his own, he thought, taking advantage of her distraction to study the lines of her exquisite face.
Her fascination with the macabre display tickled him, particularly when he asked her what she was thinking about. She leaned toward him and whispered, “Cloning him,” before releasing a maniacal mad scientist cackle that drew a few stares.
The visit to the rest of the museum went by quickly, but he still had to hurry her out of there to a waiting car. It took them to the Piazzale Michelangelo so they could watch sunset from the peak. The plaza featured a bronze version of Michelangelo’s David overlooking the city and magnificent panoramic views. He took a dozen pictures of Sophia posing with the Duomo, the massive domed main cathedral of Florence, in the background. After they were driven back to town to enjoy dinner from another restaurant he loved, this one with a view of the Arno River and the Ponte Vecchio.
Exhausted, he and Sophia went their separate ways early, but not before he convinced her to spend the following day with him, as well. It wasn’t until he reached his penthouse apartment that he remembered he hadn’t told her who he was.
Merda. He had sworn to himself that he would come clean, but it had gotten lost in their easy conversation and light flirtation. Tomorrow, he would tell her the truth.
Chapter 5
It had been far too easy for Gio to talk Sophia into spending more time with him. Wondering idly where her suspicious nature had gone, she recognized she might be losing an uphill battle.
Her self-appointed tour guide was magnetic and articulate, with a breadth of knowledge that kept surprising her. From his choice of topics of conversation, it was clear that he was well read and spent a lot of time keeping up on current events. He knew more about the world than she did.
As a scientist, Sophia tended to isolate herself in the little bubble of like-minded academics that she spent time with. It wasn’t intentional, but happened as a matter of course. Scientists spent time with other scientists. Her friendship with Kelly and he
r former relationship with Richard were the exceptions to the rule, but both of them had entered her life because of their ties to her father. And both were academics, too, albeit in a different field.
Gio was her first experience of friendship outside the ivory tower, and it was remarkable how comfortable they were with each other. One conversation naturally evolved into another and another with an ease she wouldn’t have believed before meeting him. It felt effortless.
He was content to indulge her chosen activities, too. Their second day in Florence began by climbing to the top of the Duomo, the massive domed cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Gio asked.
The signs at the bottom warned the visitors that is was four hundred and sixty-three steps to the top. There was no elevator. Many tourists had to turn back, unable to handle the narrow winding stairs that led to the fenced-in balcony at the summit.
“I play soccer,” she replied. “Don’t worry. My legs won’t give out.”
He looked down. She was wearing shorter shorts today, and her muscular thighs were more visible than the day before.
Her father had hated her legs, along with the rest of her figure. Sophia favored her mother in appearance, a detail he would never let her forget.
“Must you run around chasing a ball all the time?” he would criticize, adding that it made her thighs too thick.
Which was true. She built muscle easily on her legs, and soccer made them grow wide, much to her father’s disgust. Richard wasn’t much better in his opinion of her body, and she couldn’t help but wonder why he had pursued her when she was so clearly not his type. But Gio looked at her legs with ill-concealed appreciation, and she couldn’t help basking in the warm glow of his interest.
All too soon, however, that warmth quickly turned to hot sweatiness as the two of them huffed and puffed their way up to the top of the dome. Once at the top, a hot dry wind whipped her hair as she squinted against the sunlight.