Sam looked out the large windows, out into the dark night beyond. “Now?”
“Sì.”
Frowning, Sam got off the bed and followed him into his cavernous closet. Even the sight of her clothes neatly hanging by his didn’t throw her anymore.
“I have to go to Florence,” he said softly, throwing a change of clothes into a small bag.
“Are you running away from me?” she whispered, giving voice to the crows pecking at her. In the flash of a second, it was as if the intimate world between them had fractured, thrusting him back into a reality she couldn’t join.
He stilled. “I’m not a coward,bella.”
“No, but you do like to control yourself, Alessandro.” A long breath shuddered out of her as she claimed her power herself. “And I have challenged it from day one, no?”
Dropping the bag, he covered the distance between them to clasp her cheeks. “I have to visit a friend, an old woman in distress. And I can’t abandon that responsibility because I’m desperate to fuck you.” He pressed a quick kiss to her temple, then grabbed the bag. “If I get inside you, I won’t want to leave.”
Hurt found a tender spot in her. But she had power too in this relationship, whatever else he called it. She couldn’t forget that.
“Are you saying that for my benefit or yours, Alessandro?”
Shock danced in his eyes before he left the bedroom, leaving her alone again.
Chapter Nine
SAM STEPPED OUTof the small, stuffy examination room and into the bright July afternoon. She smiled wide, loving the sunshine on her face. The cardiologist’s office was located in a colorful piazza in the city of Como, a myriad of its intriguing lanes leading to grand galleries and beautiful churches.
Hitching her crossbody bag over her shoulder, she crossed the side street into the main thoroughfare and stilled.
Alessandro stood across the street, in his usual white dress shirt and dark trousers, leaning against a tinted Maserati and looking at his phone.
Even from the distance, the force of his presence hit her straight. Had he come to see her straight from the airport?
It had been two days since he’d left in the middle of the night. The next morning, Antonio had informed her that he’d gone straight to Tokyo.
He didn’t owe her anything, she reminded herself again.
There was no future for them.
And yet, her belly knotted painfully every time she thought of returning home, of never being regarded again with that intense gaze, of never touching him again.
As if he felt her gaze on him, Alessandro looked up. Heat arched between them like a live wire. Her heart kicked against her rib cage. If it weren’t for the fact that the cardiologist had told her she was perfectly fine, she’d have gone back in.
He crossed the street in long strides. But he didn’t haul her into his arms or kiss her cheek or even pat her shoulder, as horrifically platonic as that sounded. In fact, he left at least a foot between them. Something told Sam it was a conscious decision, to stop himself. And just like that, her entire mood took a downswing.
She couldn’t believe it was the same man who had gone down on her as if she were a feast he was starved for.
“What’s wrong?” he had the gall to ask.
“Nothing. When did you get back?”
He jerked his chin at the building behind her. “How did your appointment go?”
“How did you know I’d be here?” she countered.
“Your phone was off, and no one at the villa knew where you were.” An edge crept into his words. “Angelina told me.”
“It’s on Airplane mode. The roaming charges will be astronomical,” she said, waving her phone. “I don’t want to send my parents into debt again. When I’m at the villa, I connect to Wi-Fi.” She sensed his hesitation—no, frustration. How were they starting off on such a wrong note? “Don’t freeze me out. Just say what you want to.”
“I have a phone and a chauffeured car I want you to use.”
