“I must go,” he told his friend abruptly. Then he left Pau staring after him as he stood up and left the office. He had already called for his plane before he got on the elevator. The flight was interminable, and his people were waiting on the ground.
It was not until he was being driven back into the Eternal City that it occurred to him to wonder if she would even be there. He had left her, after all. Given her no instruction or invitations to do anything. For all he knew she could be…anywhere.
The notion did not sit well with him.
He stormed into his house and glared at Gabriele, who always endeavored to meet him when he returned. And Gabriele, who was well used to Giaco’s moods, stared right back.
“Where is my wife?” Giaco demanded.
“She’s here, of course,” Gabriele said, with exaggerated and rather pointed calmness. “She got back yesterday.”
“Got back from where? Capri?” Something in him turned over uncomfortably at the thought of her on that island.Theirisland, as far as he was concerned, but by herself.
He didn’t like that, either.
“My understanding is that she was in London and then sojourned a while in France,” Gabriele said lazily. Then he lifted a brow. “But you will have to ask her yourself.”
Giaco laughed, and clapped his assistant on the shoulder. “I believe I’ll do that. Why don’t you take the week off. Or the rest of the month.”
“Is that a possibility?” Gabriele asked dryly. “Will your antics permit me to take a holiday of even the next quarter of an hour?”
“I suppose we’ll find out,” Giaco tossed back at him.
He started to walk past his assistant, but Gabriele stopped him. “Incidentally,” the other man said, “the housekeeper wanted me to inform you that Saint Ivy has moved all of her things into your room. Herself.”
The two men gazed at each other, and Giaco reminded himself that Pau was not his only friend. Gabriele was, too. And the approval in his friend’s gaze meant more to him than he could express—particularly as Gabriele’s blessing on anything at all was hard to come by.
But clearly his best and most trusted assistant—and friend—was delighted at Ivy’s return, too. And Ivy herself, it seemed.
It wasn’t that Giaconeededapproval, but the truth was, he had lived a long time with only its opposite. Tonight he took it in and let it seem to fill him up, like a tuning fork deep inside.
He didn’t say another word. He inclined his head at his friend, then he simply turned and headed for his bedroom.
For Ivy, at last.
He bounded up the stairs and took the long hallway that led to the suite of rooms that sprawled over the back of the house. The suite that he’d had built for himself, never imagining that he would share that space with anyone. Now he couldn’t think of anything he’d like more.
There were already fantasies drip-feeding into his head. Ivy waking up with him every morning. Ivy coming out of the shower. Ivy reading her books and taking her calls and leaving that scent of hers everywhere. Always.
He was so hard it hurt.
He charged into the suite and threw open the bedroom door, and there she was.
At last,there she was.
That joy he’d been chasing flooded him then, vast and hot.
Ivy sat up quickly when he threw open that door, her blond hair cascading all around her and drawing his attention to the silken chemise she liked to sleep in—a detail that had plagued him this last two weeks—and then they were staring at each other.
He looked deep into all of that impossible blue, and now he had something to compare it to. The beautiful blue waters off Capri, turquoise and green, and still her eyes were more beautiful.
There was no contest.
“Ivy—” he began.
“I figured it all out,” she said quickly. Ivy moved in the bed, kneeling up as if she wanted to run to him but didn’t dare. He couldn’t quite process that. “I don’t think that Capri has to be a dream we had. I don’t think things have to change.”
“They absolutely have to change,” he thundered at her. “You have no idea—”
