by Kyle, Regina
He turned her hands over in his, massaging her palms with his thumbs. “You’re in Italy for two more weeks, right?”
She nodded.
“Then it leaves us with two weeks to spend together. Wherever and however we like.” That was all he could give her. Nicole had taught him that love was temporary, so temporary was all he had to offer. Some fun and physical release until it was time for Zoe to return home. He only hoped it was enough.
She studied him for what seemed like an eternity while he held his breath, half anticipating her answer, half dreading it. Then she slowly backed away from him until her hands slipped from his. “I need to shower.”
Right. That was it, then. He watched as she continued on her way to the bathroom. She stopped at the open door to turn, untie the belt of her robe, and let it fall slowly, agonizingly to the floor. “Care to join me?”
He stalked toward her, loosening his own belt as he went.
Cappuccino and cornetti would have to wait.
…
Zoe knelt down on the cold kitchen tile and stared at her trainee, sitting on his haunches across the room. According to everything she’d read online—and there was a surprising amount of information available—the key to successful communication was to be on the same eye level and speak in a firm, authoritative voice. She held out a piece of popcorn and waved it temptingly. “Come.”
Houdini did the same thing he’d done the last ten times she called him, enticing him with a long string of his favorite treats—apple slices, halved grapes, Cheerios, and finally air-popped, non-salt, non-buttered popcorn.
Nothing.
“Come on, boy. You can do it. Come to Mama.” She needed him to master this basic command so they could move on to more advanced stuff, like sit and stay. It would make his eventual trip back to San Francisco much easier if he had at least a few skills under his figurative belt.
She ignored the pang in her chest at the thought of returning home and tried again, waggling the piece of popcorn.
“Smell that? Popcorn. Your favorite. All you have to do is come over here and get it.”
The pig made a snuffling sound and flopped onto his stomach.
Great. Now they were moving backward.
She scooted forward an inch, then another. “Pretty please? If you won’t do it for you, do it for me.”
“I’ll come for you, and you don’t have to beg. Or bribe me with treats.”
That voice. Deep. Husky. Dripping with sexual innuendo. It never failed to make her breath catch and the hairs at the back of her neck stand on end. She put a hand to the staccato pulse beating at her throat. Damn the man, sneaking up on her like that.
She turned her head to face him, taking a moment to drink in what she’d had the pleasure of exploring for the past week. Even with his body hidden by his button-down shirt and impeccably tailored khakis, her sense memory supplied every hard ridge, every smooth plane.
“How long have you been standing there?” she asked when her pulse had slowed and her mouth was able to form words.
He leaned against the wall, crossing his arms over his broad chest. “Long enough.”
“Long enough for what?”
“To know your pig is untrainable.”
“You could have said something.”
He gave her a sexy smirk that kicked her pulse back up a few notches. “About the pig?”
She returned the smirk with an are-you-kidding-me look. “About your eavesdropping. Or coughed discreetly to let me know you were there.”
“Then I wouldn’t be much of an eavesdropper.” He gestured to Houdini, who was scratching his back against a stool leg. “Ready to give up yet?”
She shook her head. “According to the AMPA, pigs are easy to train. Did you know they’re smarter than dogs?”
“The AMPA?”
“The American Mini Pig Association.”
Now the are-you-kidding-me face was his. “You’re making that up.”
“Nope.” She tossed the piece of popcorn still in her outstretched hand into her mouth and grabbed another one from the bowl on the floor behind her. “They’re a registered nonprofit. Their mission is to protect miniature pigs, improve breeding practices, and encourage responsible mini pig ownership.”
Dante crossed the room and stood next to her, staring down at the pig. “Maybe that’s the problem.”
She wrinkled her nose at him, confused. “Maybe what’s the problem?”
“Houdini’s not American. He’s Italian. Maybe he only understands commands in his native tongue.”
“He’s a pig. His native tongue is oink, oink.”
Dante crouched down, pried the popcorn from her fingers, and held it out to Houdini. “Vieni, maiale. Prendi i popcorn.”
The little turncoat trotted right over to him, practically inhaled the popcorn, and plopped down onto his round, pink, piggie bottom, looking up at Dante with Oliver Twist eyes that almost screamed, “Please, sir, may I have some more?”
“Traitor.” Zoe gave the pig’s head an affectionate scratch. “It’s not fair.”
“That your pig prefers Italian to English?”
“No, that he prefers you to me.”
Dante bristled, standing and brushing his hands off on his pants. “He does not.”
“Does, too,” she shot back. “He follows you everywhere. And you like him, too. Don’t even try to deny it. I saw you with him in the garden yesterday. You were cradling him in your arms like you were afraid he was going to break.”
“He was trampling Nonna’s lilies. I had to stop him.”
“If you say so.”
“I do.” Dante’s gaze landed on the bowl of popcorn, and he nudged it with his foot toward Houdini. “Here you go, pig. Knock yourself out.”
Zoe rolled her eyes. “Sucker. You’re just proving my point. And he’ll never learn anything if you indulge him like that.”
“I’m not worried about that right now.” He hauled her to her feet, running one hand down her back and undoing her ponytail with the other. Free from its elastic prison, her hair cascaded over her shoulders. “I have another, more pressing concern.”
She was pretty sure she could feel it, pressing against her thigh.
“What’s that?” Why did she sound so out of breath, like she’d run a marathon instead of spent the morning trying to train a pig?
“Keeping him occupied so I can kiss you.”
There went her pulse into orbit again.
“What if I said I don’t want to be kissed?” she teased.
His eyes skated south, stopping on the hard points of her aroused nipples, clearly visible through the thin cotton of her tank top, before returning to her face. “You’d be lying.”
His mouth came crashing down on hers. He kissed her with the fervor of a man who’d gone days or weeks without seeing her, and not the mere hours since they’d lain together in his enormous, four-poster bed. She kissed him back just as hungrily, her hands slipping under his shirt, her nails digging into his back as their lips locked and their tongues tangled.
He broke the connection far too soon, staring down at her through long-lashed, lust-drunk eyes, his chest rising and falling with each labored breath. “This wasn’t what I had in mind when I came looking for you. But I can’t seem to keep my hands off you.”
“What did you have in mind?” She stretched up to kiss his strong, stubbled jaw. “Not that I’m complaining about having your hands on me.”
“I wanted to ask you something.”
Her heart did a little somersault. Depending on the question, that could be very, very good. Or very, very bad.
And there was only one way to find out.
“It must be important if you were willing to tear yourself away from your work. I thought you said you had a lot of restaurant business to catch up on
.”
Not surprising. They’d been joined at the hip since Capri, and all that play hadn’t left much—if any—time for work. Spending their days swimming, sunning, or touring up and down the Amalfi Coast. Snorkeling in Sorrento. Viewing the erotic frescoes at Pompeii’s Lupanar—an ancient brothel. Relaxing in the thermal pools on Ischia.
And their nights sharing the aforementioned four-poster bed.
They’d learned a lot about each other. Not just their bodies. Their lives. Their likes. Their dislikes. Despite the whole opera/rock debate, they had more in common than not. Both from unconventional families. Both preferred the beach to the mountains. And sand to snow. And they both detested deviled eggs and store-bought pasta sauce.
No topic was off-limits. Well, almost none. The one thing they hadn’t talked about was their exes. And while part—a huge part—of Zoe wanted to ask about the woman in the photo in Dante’s study, she was happy not to discuss her own checkered romantic past. What was the point? Next week, they’d be on different continents.
Cue another sharp stab of angst. She brushed it aside, leaving it in the proverbial dust with the last one, and pretended like her insides weren’t twisting in the wind at the thought of being thousands of miles away from him.
“I do have business to catch up on,” he said. “And this is important.”
He tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear, letting his fingers linger on her cheek. “I have to go to Rome for a few days.”
“Oh.”
The happy bubble she’d been floating in burst. A few days? That was almost all the time all they had left. She was hoping they’d spend it together, but he obviously had other ideas.
“I want you to come with me.”
Just like that, the happy bubble was intact again.
“You do?”
His fingers curled to cup her face. “La Bohème is playing at the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma. I thought you might enjoy experiencing it firsthand. There’s nothing like live opera.”
“That sounds amazing.” And romantic. Like that scene in Pretty Woman where Richard Gere takes Julia Roberts to the opera for the first time and she gets all emotional watching the prima donna die of a broken heart. Except Zoe was no Julia Roberts, and she didn’t expect a fairy-tale ending, with Dante following her to San Francisco and climbing up her fire escape, blasting Puccini and bearing a bouquet of flowers. She wasn’t even sure her building had a fire escape.
“Are you scheduled to fly home out of Naples?” he asked, his thumb tracing a line from her ear to her jaw.
She nodded, the sting of yet another reminder that their relationship’s expiration date was fast approaching making the words stick in her throat.
“We’ll change it. You can leave from Rome.”
“That could work.” There was only one tiny, four-footed sticking point. “But what about Houdini? I’m still waiting to hear from the United States Department of Agriculture on my application for a live animal import permit.”
The process was way more complicated than she’d anticipated, but the man she’d spoken to in the Maryland office last week confirmed that her application was complete and she should hear back from them—in one to six weeks. Meaning it was possible she’d have an answer before she left for San Francisco—and just as possible she wouldn’t.
Stupid red tape.
Dante pressed a kiss to her forehead. “We’ll bring him with us. If your permit is approved in time, you can take him with you. If not—”
He paused and cleared his throat, like he was preparing to say something painful. “If not, I’ll take care of him until it is and make sure he gets safely to you.”
She looked at him in mock horror, tempered by the smile playing about her lips. “You’re volunteering to pig-sit?”
“Do I have a choice?” Dante asked, fending off Houdini, who had polished off the bowl of popcorn and was snuffling around their feet, trying to get in on the action. “Besides, you said George Clooney had one. If he can do it, so can I.”
“It’s settled, then. When do we leave?”
“This afternoon. Our flight leaves at two.”
“That soon?” She squirmed out of Dante’s arms and picked up Houdini, shoving him into Dante’s chest so he had no choice but to take him. “Then you can start practicing now.”
“Practicing?”
“Pig-sitting,” Zoe said over her shoulder, already halfway to the door. “You can watch him while I pack.”
Chapter Eleven
“When you said ‘our flight,’ I pictured something very different,” Zoe said, her eyes widening as they crossed the tarmac toward the sleek, silver Gulfstream G-IV.
Dante smiled, loving her wide-eyed wonder. He wasn’t the kind of guy who wore his wealth like a badge of honor. But, once in a while, it had its perks. Seeing Zoe’s reaction to his private jet was definitely one of them. “You approve?”
“I do.” She stopped at the bottom of the airstairs. “Is it yours?”
He nodded. “Makes business travel much more pleasurable.”
“Damn.” She let out a low whistle. “I knew you were loaded, but not this loaded.”
As much as they had shared in the past week since returning from Capri, there was still a lot she didn’t know about him and he about her. And even though his heart desperately wanted to change that, wanted to know everything about her and for her to know him fully, his head barraged him with constant reminders of how futile that would be. Their arrangement—he preferred that word to the relationship, with all its subtext and expectations—was temporary, nothing more. She’d be gone in a matter of days, back in her world, leaving him alone in his.
The way he liked it. Or so he told himself.
“So you’ll be after me for my money now?” He purposely kept his tone light, teasing, pushing down the bitterness that always threatened to overwhelm him when he thought of Zoe leaving. He put a hand at the small of her back as they ascended the stairs, balancing Houdini’s pet carrier in the other. She’d tried teaching the pig how to walk on a leash, but it was a work in progress, and she hadn’t wanted to risk him getting loose in a crowded airport.
“Hardly.” She gave him a sassy, side-eyed glance. “It’s your body I want.”
His lip curled into a naughty, knowing grin. “You won’t hear me complaining.”
They reached the top of the stairway, where his longtime pilot, Alessandro, a retired captain in the Italian Air Force, waited for them.
“Good afternoon, Signore Sabbatini. And Miss—”
“Ryan,” Zoe supplied.
“It’s been a long time since we’ve had a guest on board. Especially a female.”
Dante shot him a warning glare. No need for Zoe to find out that the last woman to fly with him was his fiancée. “Are we ready to take off?”
“Si, signore,” Alessandro answered with a curt nod. “Your luggage is below, we’re fully fueled, and all of our pre-flight preparations are complete. We’re just waiting for clearance from air traffic control. They’re a little backed up. It may be twenty to thirty minutes before we’re in the air.”
“That’s fine. Where’s Greta?” Like Alessandro, the flight attendant had been on staff for almost as long as Dante had owned the Gulfstream.
“In the galley, preparing a merenda.”
Zoe looked up at him, her forehead adorably creased in confusion. “Merenda?”
“Mid-afternoon snack,” Dante said.
The pig chose that moment to let out a loud squeal.
Alessandro glanced down at the source of the noise, his brows drawn together in a perplexed frown. “Is there, uh, anything else I can do for you, signore?”
“No, thank you. We can get ourselves settled.”
With another nod, the pilot disappeared into the cockpit. Dante steered Zoe toward the back of the plane, chu
ckling at the way her jaw dropped and her eyes got impossibly wider as she took in the luxurious interior. Leather-upholstered captain’s chairs, a full bar, top-of-the-line entertainment system. He didn’t usually get off on flaunting his wealth, but if it impressed Zoe, he was all for it. She deserved to be pampered. And he was more than up for the job.
She stopped in the middle of the aisle and turned to him, pointing at the giant television mounted between two windows. “I’m pretty sure that flatscreen is bigger than the one in my apartment.”
He set the pet carrier down on one of the cushions and bent down to peer inside. “Is he all right in there?”
“Aha.” Zoe snapped her fingers. “I knew it. You do like him.”
Truth: the stupid swine was starting to grow on him. But he wasn’t going to let the pig know that. Or her. And it stopped there. He wasn’t letting himself get too attached to the damn thing.
Or her, he reminded himself.
He poked a finger through the bars, which the pig promptly nibbled. “I don’t want to listen to him squealing the whole flight because he’s behind bars.”
“I could let him out. How much do you like this carpet?” His face must have registered his displeasure because she took one look at him and burst into laughter. “Just kidding. I brought his pee pads. He—and your carpet—should be fine.”
Dante didn’t want to know what a pee pad was, so he didn’t ask. He took a seat and watched as Zoe shrugged off her backpack and unlocked the pet carrier, taking the pig out and giving him a quick nuzzle before setting him down and letting him explore. When the animal was happily sniffing his new surroundings, Dante caught Zoe’s hand and tugged her down next to him. “Sit. Relax. Greta should be out any minute with our food.”
As if on cue, the stewardess appeared carrying a tray laden with breads, cheeses, fruits, and cured meats. Two champagne glasses and a bottle of Prosecco completed the spread. She barely batted an eye as she stepped around the pig. Then again, not much fazed Greta. No doubt she’d seen stranger things when Luca used the corporate jet.
She set the tray down on the mahogany coffee table bolted to the floor. “It’s good to see you again, Signore Sabbatini.”