MATTEO
I don’t believe in fate, but when I see her walk into the hotel bar, I can’t help but think something more than coincidence is at play.
She looks angry. Angry, fierce, and beautiful, like a vengeful goddess. All that black hair I’d like to wrap around my wrist spills over her shoulders in tangles. Her cheeks are red. Her eyes are wild. She exudes a dangerous, frantic energy, as if she recently escaped from prison.
“Matteo? Are you listening?”
“Excuse me for a moment, Antonio.”
Without another word, I rise from the table—the one I always sit at, the best one, in the back of the room—and stroll toward the bar.
She’s taken a seat at the end. Her back is to me. She drags her hands through her hair, props her elbows on the bar, then drops her head into her hands.
I stop beside her, admiring the way the lights glint blue in her hair. “You’re upset.”
She jerks her head up. When she sees me, her eyes widen. She stares at me with her lips parted and a look of disbelief on her face.
“You,” she says, as if it’s a curse.
I smile down at her, enjoying everything about this moment, including how much she’d obviously like to stab me in the eye with a cocktail fork. “Buonasera, Miss Bobbitt. Cut off anyone’s cock since I last saw you?”
She narrows her gorgeous green eyes at me. “The night’s still young.”
Stifling my laughter, I take the seat next to hers.
“What’re you doing here?”
“I live here.”
“In this bar?”
“In this city. But I do come here often for drinks.”
She exhales slowly, then says with quiet sarcasm, “Get a little lonely up in your castle, do you?”
“I’m never lonely,” I lie, holding her fierce gaze.
It’s unsettling how easily she pegged that, and how uncomfortable I am that she might think me weak. I can’t remember the last time I gave a damn about what someone else thought.
Until right now.
Moistening her lips, she looks me over like a warlord might look over a kingdom he’s about to invade. It’s electrifying.
“I want my sketch pad back.”
I smile at her. “Too bad you already traded it for a plane ticket.” Then I remember why she was so desperate to get on that flight. “How is your father?”
All the color drains from her face. She winces and turns away.
“I’m so sorry.” Moved by her pain, I’m overwhelmed by the sudden urge to take her in my arms. I have to fight to keep my hands by my sides. “If there’s anything I can do—”
She whips her head around. “You can give me back my damn sketch pad!” she says loudly, causing the bartender to turn and squint at us. When he sees it’s me she’s shouting at, he smiles, nods, and turns away.
“What will you give me in return?” I smile. “Since you enjoy bartering so much.”
Through gritted teeth, she says, “You know what—never mind.” She folds her arms over her chest and shakes her head, muttering darkly about people with stupid titles and men with oversize egos and various other things until I interrupt her.
“How long will you be in Florence?”
“None of your business.”
Dio mio, this attitude makes me hard. “I want to take you to dinner.”
She snorts. Somehow it sounds elegant. “No.”
That shocks me. Not only the finality of it, but the word itself: no.
Women don’t say no to me.
Ever.
My dick throbs and lengthens, straining to get free from my trousers.
“Breakfast?”
“No.”
“Hmm. I suppose lunch is also out of the question?”
“I’m not interested in eating food with you, Count Egotistico.”
“I’ve already told you I’m not a count.”
“Yeah, I heard. Whoop-dee-do.”
I drop my voice and lean toward her. “So if you’re not interested in eating food with me, bella, what are you interested in doing with me?”
When she snaps her head around and glares at me, I look directly into her eyes. “Because we both know you’re interested in something. And so am I.”
A flush darkens her cheeks. She chews the inside of her lip. Something crackles in the air, as sharp as danger.
“I don’t do one-night stands.”
“How many nights will you be here?”
Our gazes hold. A vein throbs in the hollow of her throat. Her breath quickens, and my erection is so hard there must be no blood left anywhere else in my body.
As if she’s not sure she should be answering, she says, “Five. Maybe six.”
The heat that flashes over me is intense. I can’t remember the last time I’ve wanted a woman so much. “Plenty of time to show me exactly how much you dislike men with oversize . . . egos.”
Silence stretches between us, not long but cavernously wide, filled with tension and unspoken need. Then, in a throaty voice, she says, “I dislike them a lot.”
It’s so blatantly sexual I almost groan. I lean closer, so close I can smell her skin. She smells like sunshine. Like the outdoors. Like honeysuckle and citrus and something else indefinable I want very badly to eat. Into her ear, I say, “Then you’re really going to hate me. You’ll hate me over and over and over. I’ll make sure, bella, that you’ll hate me more than any other man you’ll ever meet.”
She inhales against my throat. Resting on my arm, her fingers tremble. She takes a breath, then slowly blows it out. “Okay, fancypants, you’re on. I’m in room four-twelve. Give me ten minutes.”
She pulls away and meets my eyes. In the candlelight, her skin is flushed and rosy, her eyes shine, and her lips are darkest red against that pale skin.
I’ve never seen anything so lovely.
When I nod, she rises and walks away without looking back. It isn’t until she’s gone that I realize I still don’t know her name.
I take a moment to gather myself, then head back to my table. Antonio has obviously been watching our interaction, because he asks, “Someone you know?”
I smile, thinking of all the ways I’m about to get to know that gorgeous creature. All the delicious, dirty ways. “Let’s call it a night. Something came up.”
Antonio looks at the bulge straining the front of my trousers and lifts his brows. “Evidently.”
Without another word, I pull money from my wallet, leave it on the table, nod a farewell to Antonio, then head to the lobby, because even though she said ten minutes, that’s nine-and-a-half minutes too long to wait.