“Consider me on call,” I say, and she laughs, head tipping back, throat bared like a dare.
We put ourselves back together in the lazy, dopey way of people with nothing to prove for the next five minutes. I fix her strap; she smooths my collar and doesn’t fix the buttons I’ve let go crooked. I drag my teeth along the inside of my cheek and think about picking her up, carrying her to the suite, and making a bigger mess of both of us.
She reads the thought in my eyes and shakes her head with a warning I respect because I want to win more than I want to score.
We stroll back toward the villa in companionable silence, the light turned liquid gold, the vines throwing long blue shadows. The jealousy that flared and burned off leaves a cleaner heat behind it—something like possession, yes, but also that rarer thing I don’t name when I’m sober:belonging.
I let my mind run back over the last twenty-four hours like a hand over a smooth stone. The greenhouse row that should have broken us and didn’t. The way she walked into Enzo’s loggia and shifted the center of the conversation without posturing.
The pitch, all hers, about experiences and exchanges that turned the old man’s shrewd eyes bright. Something in me that has survived on control alone relaxes a fraction when I remember it.
I’d excused myself to the men’s room after the welcome drinks when she was in the shower, and called Mara Kincaid, my COO, from the tiled terrace. Told her to pencil a new box on the company’s chart and not name it yet. “Chief Experience Architect,” I’d said, and heard Mara go very still. “Hospitality and experiential design. Cross-function with hospitality, comms, and partnerships. We’ll anchor it on the island. And before you ask, yes—the role matches a particular candidate.”
“Is she as good as you sound?” Mara had asked, with that dry competence that keeps my life from turning into a bonfire.
“Better,” I’d said, surprising us both. “But she’s mine. And she’ll balk if I move too fast.”
“Well, just let me know when it’s official so we can make an announcement,” Mara had said, amused.
I’m not telling Naomi yet.
Pride is a country with strict border controls and I’ve smuggled enough in my life to know when to wait. But this afternoon I discovered an unexpected asset.
An asset thatbuildsthings: goodwill, experiences, the kind of loyalty you can’t quantify until it saves you. I’m not going to forget that again.
We climb the travertine stairs to our suite, the air cooling as the sun slides a degree lower. Inside, the lavender-scented stillness embraces us as Naomi goes to the window and touches the glass like she’s greeting the view.
“It’s beautiful here.”
I cross to her and kiss her because I can, because I want to, because I’m learning that some appetites are better fed than managed.
“Jet lag is going to flatten us at dinner,” she murmurs against my mouth, sounding equal parts amused and resigned.
“Then we fight it,” I say, stepping back. “I’ll get champagne.”
“Of course you will,” she says, indulgent, and sinks onto the edge of the bed to unbuckle her sandals.
I raid the silver bucket the staff left.
They know me, have anticipated my needs. And it’s far and satisfying cry from the boy who sneaked pastry from the back pantry. The boy who’s grown into the man capable of draping Naomi Dillinger in diamonds.
Temporarily.
I ignore the scathing reminder of my own ticking clock.
Two flutes, a twist, the practiced soft sigh of a cork that doesn’t make a scene.
I turn, ready to lean on the doorframe and tease her about tonight and Nonna Rosaria’s likely interrogation tactics.
She’s asleep.
And God, even in sleep she’s all class, not sprawled in some artful tangle. Just curled on her side on top of the coverlet, one hand tucked under her cheek, hair a silk mess she’d hate, mouth red and softened into an expression I want to imprint on my brain for eternity.
The sunset picks up the platinum necklace dotted with smaller diamonds she refused to remove and scatters them across her throat like fragments of a beautiful dream.
I stand there like a fool with champagne in my hand and feel my mouth tug upward without my permission. Once. Then again.
I don’t smile in empty rooms.
