She turns to the bed like a dare. “Out. I’m done for tonight.”
I step into the doorway and place my hand flat on the jamb, because if I touch her, we’ll end the fight the way we always end things and nothing gets said that should.
“This is the last time you sleep alone, Naomi. Upset, happy, sad, incensed, or drunk, you sleep in my bed from tomorrow.”
Her eyes flash. “And I’ll be counting every single day until I leave it.”
I stiffen.
Fury climbs my spine like a fuse lighting. “Keep telling yourself that bullshit,” I say, letting the promise ride my voice, “and I’ll make it my goal to make you beg to stay.”
I turn, walk out, and let the corridor take the brunt of my furious, impotent growl.
11
NAOMI
Iwatch fluffy clouds fold into one another like cotton candy around a stick and tell myself to think about anything except last night. The jet hums a smooth, expensive lullaby; Rhode Island dwindled into a pinpoint landscape hours ago, and Tuscany is a promise stamped on the horizon and a calendar invite I didn’t accept so much as get swept into.
Vasso’s jet is a study in sinful understatement: cream leather, dark wood, a table that turns from a desk into banquet table at the touch of a button. And a bedroom at the back I am absolutely not thinking about. It’s not the first private jet I’ve been on, but it’s definitely the most statement-making.
Like the man himself.
He sits across from me, sleeves already rolled up his brawny arms and tie discarded. He bristles with effortless power, the kind of man private equity funds take meetings for—jaw you could level masonry with and eyes that look like they were taught patience and then taught how to weaponize it.
He sets an iPad on the table between us. “Itinerary,” he says, as if that word hasn’t become a synonym fortrapin our shared vocabulary. “We should familiarize ourselves with it.”
I tip it toward me. His assistant has been…thorough.
Afternoon vineyard tourwithIl Vecchiohimself—our octogenarian funder and host for the next three interminable days—ending in a barrel room blessing and “symbolic locking of a cask” with our initials. Photos provided to trade press.
Couples’ cooking classwith renowned Chef Nonna Rosaria; feeding each other pici while she clucks over “honeymoon appetite.”
Hand-in-hand stroll through the Montalcino market, sampling cheeses and olives while a “friend with a Leica” happens to be there for candid shots.
Vespa ride through the countryside, scarves and sunglasses, a drone shot over the cypress lanes.
Sunset truffle huntwith the estate’s dogs, followed by a private dinner for two in the old man’s west vineyard pergola. “Lean into besotted.”
I inhale, trying not to choke on the wordbesottedin a bulleted list. “This is… a lot of interacting.”
He lounges back, satisfied. “That’s the point. Let him see it. Let the world see it. We give them a love story and they give us latitude.”
“I didn’t realize ‘latitude’ came with truffle dogs and Vespa helmet hair.”
His mouth curves. “We’ve proved we’re more than capable of a real performance. As per last night.”
Heat scalds my cheeks so fast I want to fan them with the iPad. My mind flashes treacherously to candlelight and glass and the feel of his hands where I needed them most. Betrayer, I tell my skin. Traitor, I tell my breath.
He watches the color bloom and, God help me, actually looks pleased. “I love that,” he says, low and sincere in a way that makes my pulse pound. “More of that.”
I glare at him because it’s either that or climb across the table. He smiles, wolfish, warm, a little bit ruined from lack of sleep, and something in my chest trips. My lips part before I can stop them. It feels like standing too close to a bonfire and deciding the singe is part of the pleasure.
“Focus,” I tell myself more than him, and tap the screen. “The last one.”
He leans in, shoulder brushing mine as if accidentally on purpose, heat bleeding into my bare arm. “Private dinner for two beneath the pergola,” he reads, voice amused. “‘To impress upon them how desperate we are to spend time alone. Natural for newlyweds, no?’”
I arch a brow. “Natural?”
