Take Me

Travis shifted uncomfortably, sensing something ominous and murky in his future, but Lily simply gave a quick sidelong glance in Travis’s direction and snorted.

“I can sure as hell resist it,” she muttered none too quietly.

“We have been preparing for the festival for many months, and now it is nearly upon us.”

Glad that the ball was firmly back in his own court, Travis said, “Looks like we’re going to be sharing a room after all,” not bothering to keep the sound of victory hidden from his voice.

Lily grabbed the key off the counter and spun around to face Travis. “Fine,” she said, “but if you think this changes one single thing about the strictly professional terms of our trip, you are dead wrong.” Poking a finger into his chest, she repeated, “Dead wrong.”

With that she grabbed the key off the counter and stalked up the granite stairs toward their room.

Travis smiled. “Women always get so cranky after long flights. Send up a bottle of your best champagne.”

The man looked at Travis with a mixture of commiseration and envy before switching back to a professionally bland manner. “You are in Room 305, signor. Top of the stairs to the right. I will send the champagne right up.”

Lily fumed all the way up the stairs. So much for her long hot shower. So much for her perfect nap. So much for making it through the trip in one piece. She wouldn’t be able to get away from Travis for one minute, not even to hide out in her room.

Because it was his room, the stinking pig! She sincerely doubted that he would have made the “mistake”

of booking only one room if she were a middle-aged g*y male interior decorator. She laughed at the image of Travis being chased around a hotel room by another man who couldn’t wait to have his way with him.

But her smile quickly fell away as she wondered why she was even the least bit surprised by Travis’s dastardly behavior. One room with one bed “made for lovers” for both of them for five whole days.

Travis was the most infuriating man she had ever known, she thought, as she fought with the ancient key in the old wood door. “Stupid door,” she said, but when it finally swung open the only thing Lily could do was gape in wonderment.

She and Travis were going to be sharing the most romantic hotel room in the entire world. Not to mention the biggest. The suite had to be twice the size of her Noe Valley apartment. She was standing in an enormous sitting room, the bathroom and bedroom a long way off. White marble gleamed as late afternoon sun came pouring in through the floor-to-ceiling windows. The sofas were covered in beautiful muted blue-and-green fabric so plush she wanted to take off all her clothes and rub herself against them like a kitten. A balcony outside the windows beckoned her as views of rolling hills captured her imagination.

Forgetting all about her anger, she moved toward the balcony as if in a dream. The vista before her was more beautiful than any picture could be.

She tried to describe it in her head, tried to put words to the view before her so that she could call Janica and explain the wonder of Tuscany, but undulating hills covered in vineyards, old cobblestone streets, a sky so blue it seemed to have invented the color, none of that even scratched at the surface.

A sound from inside the room startled her, and suddenly she remembered: She was in Tuscany with Travis, and she was going to have to share a king-size bed with him while holding firm to her no-sex rule for five days. Scratch that. Since she was utterly certain that Travis wouldn’t agree to sleep on the couch, Lily decided that she would have to be the one to suffer, even though she was desperate for a real bed.

She groaned and turned around, surprised to see that the sitting room was empty.

Leaving the balcony, she saw that Travis had opened his suitcase on one of the couches in the sitting room then disappeared, probably taking his medicine bag into the bathroom to clean up. Still craving a long, hot bath, she decided she would treat herself after she kicked Travis out for a while to give her some privacy.

His bag cried out for her to snoop through it, and Lily couldn’t resist. To her surprise, it looked like he had women’s clothes in it. Feeling a little bad about snooping, but not that bad after the way he had tricked her into sharing a room and a bed, she realized his bag was full of one neatly folded, gorgeous dress after another. There were no tags on the dresses, nothing to indicate size, or designer, or where they had come from. The fabric on the dresses was so soft, so colorful, she was tempted to try one of them on, even though she was certain they would be too small for her. Besides, he’d know that she’d been snooping through his bag if she pulled the clothes out of their neat pile. And the last thing Lily wanted was for Travis to think that she actually cared if he had plans to meet another woman while they were in Tuscany.

Oh God. It was so obvious. Why wouldn’t he have a lover in every town he visited, Lily asked herself.

He was gorgeous and rich, and when he touched a woman she melted with need.

She couldn’t fight back the jealousy when it reared its ugly head, laughing at her and taunting her for thinking Travis would ever choose to spend time with her when he could get a pretty, thin, perfect woman in his bed inside of thirty seconds.

She dropped the garments like hot coals, not wanting to know anything else about Travis’s Italian lover.

Lily had seen the kind of skinny twits that Travis liked hanging off his arm, and she doubted their IQs were much higher than their dress sizes. Feeling nasty and spiteful, she picked up her suitcase and stomped into the bedroom, angry at Travis for being such a womanizer but even angrier at herself for caring.

He could have a hundred Italian lovers for all she cared.

Besides, she thought with a devious smile, she had brought The Dress with her. Travis wouldn’t be the only one with beautiful foreigners falling at his feet. Lily knew the power of The Dress could transcend anything.

On Saturday night hadn’t The Dress single-handedly gotten the lust-of-her-life into bed with her? No reason it couldn’t work its potent magic again. On anyone but Travis, she reminded herself.

She reached into her suitcase and unfolded the precious dress, smoothing out a few small wrinkles with her hands. She wasn’t going to be quiet, pathetic Lily for another minute longer. She was going to wear The Dress to find her own Italian lover. And any chance she got, she was going to torture Travis. She was going to make him so hot for her he was going to need an extinguisher by the time their stay was over.