“This is what I do not understand,” he said, almost as if he was musing aloud to himself. They were both speaking in quiet tones while the little boy sang songs to himself and played between them, though he doubted very much that either he or Hannah were fooled by the kind, polite tones. Not when they could see each other. “On the one hand, you’re woman of great indiscretion, a liar and a betrayer. And yet, on the other hand, your work at the hotel speaks for itself. You have an unparalleled gift.”
He expected her to throw something back at him, but all she did was glare.
“Can you explain this?” he asked.
Her gaze did not waver from his. “Can you explain the contradiction of having an aversion to both children and the preventative measures to avoid having them?”
“It is not a problem I have had with anyone but you,” he heard himself growl at her. When he was certain he had not meant to say a thing.
When he was even more certain that he kept revealing himself here.
Hannah only shrugged. “Same.”
And again, as usual, he felt thatpullto her. It wasn’t new. He had felt it that night in the restaurant in New York. He had felt it in the library when he’d thought his dreams were coming true in front of him.
If he was honest, he had felt it every moment since.
What intrigued him in this moment was that he watched her wary eyes change, shifting shades of green to the spark of emerald fire he saw now.
As if she was remembering last night the way he did.
Less a blast of temper and more…a reckoning. A remembering.
A reconnection every bit as cataclysmic as that first night in New York.
Because what they both knew now is that there was no pretending any longer. All truths were told and there was still all that wildfire between them, all that glory and need—
And he didn’t know what might have happened then, but the front door of the cottage was thrown open without warning and an older woman Antonluca thought looked vaguely familiar—in the way all Italian women of a certain age did, though to be fair, all of the residents of the village here did, too—came bustling through.
“I am so sorry I am late,” the old woman began cheerfully, “but I had to sing a whole song to the plants in my greenhouse and—” She stopped dead at the sight of Antonluca, there on the woven rug in the center of the floor. “What are you—?”
Hannah flushed. “Cinzia. I—”
But the old woman looked from Antonluca to the boy, then back again, her gaze a canny sort of thing. “Oh,” she said, and she drew the syllable out and out and out. “I see.Capisco.”
Antonluca found himself standing then, as if he had to prove himself to this woman. Or, more alarming, as if he wanted to make a good impression, a notion that was so absurd he nearly laughed at it then and there. “I am—”
“I can see who you are,” the old woman replied, with far too muchunderstandingin her voice. So much so that Hannah flushed yet again. “But in addition to more personal connections in this cottage, I think you are also the new owner of the hotel, are you not?”
What was there to say to that?
Antonluca inclined his head. “I am.”
The old woman turned her gaze on Hannah, who flushed even redder.
“Interesting,” was all she said. Then she bustled in farther to sweep up a squealing, giddy Dominic in her arms, and carried him off into the back room.
“That is my neighbor and landlady,” Hannah told him when they were alone again. “Cinzia Pisanelli. She’s a godsend. And a good friend. And as far as Dominic is concerned, she’s his grandmother.”
“What of his actual grandparents?”
Hannah smiled, though he thought it seemed a bit tight. Forced. “He’s never met them. They’re in Nebraska, after all.”
And before he could reply to that, she was on her feet, and then moving around the room, picking up toys, and neatening things. When there was nothing left to sort out, she turned back to him, her hands on her hips.
“Am I fired?” she demanded, with that directness that made so many people claim they disliked Americans. But Antonluca prized straightforwardness in most circumstances. Even if hers was…bracing. “Or are we going into work today?”
“You are thinking about work at a time like this?”
