Not in the storm of sex or the intensity of desire. Not that those things were absent in this moment. He knew they were never far.
But right now, in the sea air, it was as simple as the ringing of a bell tower calling out the hour.
It wasn’t a feeling. It was a fact.
For the first time in his entire life, the most infamous despoiler of women in Europe was in love.
Head over heels, impossibly, and probably irreversibly in love.
That fact settled in him, and he let it.
When they finished their meal and headed back down the ancient streets toward his car, he took her hand and guided her into the moonlight, away from the shadows.
They were there another week before the call came.
Another week of shadowless, impossible joy.
Then his mobile buzzed early one morning. Giaco almost pretended he didn’t hear it—and that told him things he wasn’t sure he wanted to know about himself. How much these weeks had changed him. How muchshehad changed him.
But the only way out was through. He had always known that. Really, that had been the point. Giaco had never anticipated meeting someone who would make him regret all these choices he’d made and committed to, long ago.
Or, if not regret them, understand that once he went through with this thing that he had been working toward for so long, it would change them, too. He could not see how it could not. For one thing, it would fundamentally disrupt the agreement that he and Ivy had made. He hadn’t considered that a factor when he’d agreed to their marriage. He hadn’t expected tocare.
And little as he wanted to risk this now, he knew there was no choice.
He’d made this decision long ago.
It defined him.
Giaco rolled out of bed and he took his mobile outside, out onto one of the terraces that looked down at the sea that seemed to have become part of him now. Much like this island that didn’t feel to him like a means to an end. Not any longer.
Nothing felt that way, and that was a problem, because the end was nigh.
He picked up the call and asked one question. “Is it ready?”
The voice on the other end of the call sounded as dark as Giaco felt. “It is.”
Giaco rang off and stayed where he was, his hands braced on the rail before him.
He could see the hint of dawn, those bright summer colors streaking over the horizon, as if he was watching a painting in real time. Behind him, he knew that Ivy, his wife—his wife, and that mattered more than it should—was warm in their bed, that lush body of hers always willing, always ready, always somehow new.
But he had always known that this would end. He had always known that this day would come.
So he went back inside and he scribbled a note to her, then left it by the bed. When he was done he leaned over and smoothed her hair back from her face. She murmured something in her sleep, and then quieted when he kissed her on one flushed cheek.
Then he walked away, made a few terse phone calls to make arrangements, and drove away from the villa before the sun fully made it over the horizon.
Even when he was in the helicopter, flying high on his way back to the mainland, he was fully aware that he had left his heart behind.
Giaco would have sworn he didn’t have one.
And now it didn’t matter, because it was hers.
Chapter Ten
IVY DISCOVERED VERYquickly that Capri was not the magic.
Capri was lovely. Possibly one of the loveliest places she’d ever been, and she’d been lucky enough to see a great many spots on this planet that anyone with eyes would find stunning. But even so, it was just an island.
