Michele had been slow to retreat, his stubble scraping my cheek and warm breath gracing my lips. Inches soon separated us, though not many.

  Heat pulsed in my veins, a tingle radiating down my spine. The want that’d become common on The Silver Wind had sparked to life, returning with a vengeance as though we’d spent months apart versus the hours it’d been.

  Swallowing the desire that continued to build, I forced myself to speak.

  “Where are we going to eat?” I asked with a whisper.

  The darkness that’d seeped into his eyes faded a little, but not completely.

  “I have a home-cooked meal planned,” he said, standing at arm’s length again.

  “Sounds delicious.”

  When he offered me his arm, I accepted and together we walked toward the docks.

  Fear licked at my insides, a shallow dread of what I was afraid would happen. I didn’t want to go to the ship, to eat among the people I worked with alongside one of the clients we’d spent over a week tending to. There was no doubt in my mind that rumors had likely spread to a few of the crewmembers, if not all of them, and I didn’t want to confirm their suspicions.

  Anxiety climbed with each yard traveled. I fought the urge to speak up, to voice my apprehension, but the need never arose. Rather than turn toward the left when we reached the docks, we turned right. Every step took us farther and farther from the yachts and with it returned my ability to breathe.

  Michele led me to a speedboat that’d been tied up, and he leaped into it first then held up his arms to help me. My dress was too tight for me to try stepping down, which he seemed to sense.

  With me gripping his shoulders, he tenderly held my waist and lifted me onto the boat. I clung to him for a moment, even after he’d set me down.

  “We should sit,” he said.

  Keeping his hand on my waist, he brought me to the long bench seat that stretched across the back of the boat. We sat side by side, his arm around my back.

  After a few words spoken to the captain in Italian, we exited the harbor.

  The wind whipped by the moment we were free of the no wake area. The nose of the boat rose above the surf, allowing us to slice through the black water.

  Distant lights danced across the surface, glittering stars in the starless sky. I held him tight, desperate for the heat of his body while we traversed the choppy sea.

  He leaned into me, his cheek against mine and blocking the wind in the process.

  “I’m happy you agreed to see me tonight,” he said just loud enough for me to hear over the outside world.

  I reached for him, sliding my hand beneath his open coat and around the thick muscle of his back. He sighed in response, tensing his fingers on my back.

  “So am I,” I replied.

  He dropped his free hand to my thigh, drawing my legs closer to him.

  Michele encompassed me with nothing more than his being, the powerful aura that the man emanated. It was enough to brush away the chill that the ocean struggled to force on us and to make me forget how long had passed before the boat slowed.

  The wind became less aggressive and the engine quieter. No longer pushed against the back of the seat, we drew back from one another. My gaze lingered on him, his face cast almost completely in shadow.

  “We’re here,” he said.

  “Where?”

  He guided my gaze to the distance.

  An island sat not far from us, one of the few that dotted the coast of Italy. Some of them were privately owned and some property of the government, much like it was in the States. Given the context and what lay before me, I could only assume that whatever we were motoring toward must have been the former.

  Trees and other greenery, not unlike the sort that plenty used to landscape throughout the country, lined the island’s shore and through which I spotted an estate.

  “Welcome to Cancello del Paradiso,” he said as the boat pulled into a slip with expert precision. “Or, The Gateway to Heaven.”

  The captain leaped out to tie us off and lowered a very stiff plank with textured indentions from the dock. He held it in place with his toe while Michele did the same in the boat.

  With my hand clasped tight in his, I ascended, trading off with the captain when I neared the top. I hadn’t taken a breath until I stood on the dock itself, so certain that I was going to plummet into the sea the second the speedboat shifted.

  He joined me a second later with much more grace than I’d managed.

  After speaking to the captain, he turned his attention to me.

  “Come along, cara mia,” he said, touching the small of my back. “Dinner awaits.”

  He said home-cooked meal, right?

  Does he own a fucking island, too?

  Chapter Twenty

  A large villa sat at the top of the island, overlooking the small spit of land. Every inch of the property had been landscaped, consisting of layered patios, terraces and verandas. Stone paths sliced through beds of flowers, sculpted bushes and fruit trees. Each had been lined with lit torches, the flames dancing in the soft sea breeze.

  The villa itself must have been more than a century old with marble arches, open walkways and windows that would allow every hint of sun in. It stood as a large monument, a focal point amid the beauty of the greenery.

  There was so much for me to see and no chance for it to happen so late at night. Hell, I wouldn’t have been able to manage during the day, either. It would take days for me to discover all the secrets that surrounded me.

  Michele kept me close to his side while he guided me through the walking paths, whiffs of something floral mixing with the salty air. Somewhere in the distance the water churned, crashing against the rocks as it lapped at the island.

  I was surrounded by something otherworldly, a hypnotic beauty that many never would’ve had the chance to witness.

  We descended a small set of stairs that leveled out on another veranda. Unlike the others, it’d been laid with a design not unlike the Roman mosaics I’d seen in ancient artwork, in the center of which sat a table.

  Candles lined the design, flickered with life on the tabletop and ran the length of the short stone wall that separated us from the landscaping.

  He brought me to the table and pulled my chair out for me in the process.

  “Thank you,” I said, taking my seat. He soon joined me at the table. “This is beautiful.”

  He smiled. “I’m happy you like it.”

  “You didn’t have to do this, though. You didn’t have to go out of the way like this.”

  “I assure you, I did very little,” he said. “My family has homes all over the world, many of which are in Italy, including Venice.”

  “So, you do own the island.”

  He seemed to weigh whether or not to reply, but as he had with every previous question I’d ever had before, he nodded.

  “Does that bother you?”

  I searched for the words, called on my average vocabulary for the appropriate things to say to express the strangeness that came from knowing he owned an actual island.

  How much money do these people have? Is it even possible to be that rich? Jesus.

  The thought was more unsettling than exciting. If my assumptions were even remotely close, within the same hemisphere of the truth, the Sacchi family had their fingers in many different businesses, and there was no way they were all above board.

  A shadow appeared at my side, a sudden figure that’d come from the darkness and caused me to jump. It was a middle-aged man wearing a perfectly pressed tuxedo. He clutched a bottle of wine in his hands, a white cloth wrapped around the thick body of it.

  He smiled at me and spoke, but I had no idea what’d he’d said and felt foolish for it immediately.

  “I’m… I’m sorry, I don’t…”

  I looked to Michele for help. He’d taken to leaning forward with his elbows on the table, fingers interlaced.

  “He’s asking if you would like a glass of wine,” he said with an airy tone that I couldn’t identify.

  “Oh.” I turned my attention to the man in the tux. “Yes, please. Um, si.”

  “Ah,” he said with a smile. “Perfetto, signora.”

  With the grace of a man who’d poured a thousand glasses, the gentleman filled my glass, then moved to Michele and did the same. He vanished a second later.

  I reached for my drink and took a sip, not much of a wine person, though willing to give it a try. To my surprise, it was fruitier than I’d expected, the taste of peach the first thing to touch my tongue.

  “Tell me, Basil,” he said, drawing my eye. Michele held his glass near his mouth when he asked, “Are you still singing?”

  “No, not as much as I’d like. I used to sing on the weekends, but it doesn’t help pay the bills.” I hated myself for the awkward smile I punctuated the statement with. “I actually work at my uncle’s hardware store back home. That’s how I was able to drop everything to steward.”

  Why are you spilling your guts? Stop talking so much.

  When nervous, I had trouble keeping my mouth shut. It was an issue I needed to work on more.

  “Where is home?”

  “Arizona. You?”

  “Sicily,” he said, keeping his gaze locked and engaged with me, and giving the feeling that he cared about what I had to say. It was a foreign concept.

  “Is…is that all?”

  He shrugged. An uncertain smile touched my lips.

  “Usually people have more to say.”

  “My life isn’t that interesting,” he said. “I was born, grew up, attended school and university, and now I work for my family.”

  “You don’t read? Listen to music?”

  His smile broadened until he flashed his perfect teeth, highlighting a dimple in his left cheek I hadn’t known he possessed. Actually, I couldn’t recall ever seeing him grin in the first place.

  Leaning against the arm of his chair, hands clasped, he seemed to chuckle to himself and spoke.

  “I like to listen to books when given the chance, and my music preferences are rather eclectic.”

  My heart sank, and, whether I’d intended to or not, I slumped in my seat. I was failing at the date. It’d been such a long time, and it was clear that I was out of my league when it came to Michele Sacchi. He shouldn’t have been the pool in which I dipped my toe when I tried dating again.

  It’d been a bad idea and only served to prove my crush had begun to connect dots that weren’t there. I’d been foolish to assume we had enough in common for a good time beyond a game. We didn’t. His lack of chemistry was clear proof.

  A woman emerged from the villa with her dark hair pulled back tighter than mine and a plate in each hand. She glided toward us and, without missing a step, set my plate down first then his. Crisp greens of varying shades were gathered in the center of the white porcelain with flecks of what appeared to be shaved almonds and a glistening dressing spread over it.

  She bowed to us and disappeared just as suddenly.

  I shifted in my seat, trying to ignore the fact that we were being waited on by people. I did my best to reason that it would’ve been no different in a restaurant. But at least they would’ve been busy with other customers instead of focusing wholly on us.

  “You’re not enjoying yourself.”

  His voice brought me to the moment, pulling me out of my bout of anxiety.

  He appeared worried, if not a bit disappointed, and guilt seeped in as a result.

  “No, it’s not that,” I said. “I’m sorry. It’s just, like I said, I haven’t dated in a long time, and it looks like I’ve forgotten how to do it.”

  “If it would make you feel more comfortable, I could always grab you by the neck and tell you what to do.”

  A shiver ripped through me, tearing down my spine. It’d washed over me too quickly for me to stop it.

  My gaze shot to Michele. He seemed unaffected, sipping on his wine with a wicked glimmer in his eyes, accentuated by the candlelight.

  A familiar sense of ease soon trickled in, wrapping me in its warm embrace and giving me control of myself again.

  With a playful glare and a smirk on my lips, I replied, “As much fun as that would be, it just serves to prove my point that I’m more comfortable with the sexual side of things.”

  He chuckled and began to pick at his salad while I did the same.

  “I don’t date often, either.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  He smiled in response but said nothing.

  The salad was delicious, the green complemented by the citrus sauce and the crunch of the almonds. And, while delicious, it was hard for me to think of adjectives to describe such a simple plate.

  “What was it like growing up in Arizona?” Michele asked after allowing us both to enjoy the meal. It was swept away an instant later by another figure in black.

  “Hot and dry,” I said, almost too fast. It’d been a go-to answer for as long as I could remember. “The desert is beautiful, though, plenty of mountains and oddly hypnotic expanses of incredibly flat ground. There isn’t this sort of greenery, though.”

  “I’ve never seen a desert in person.”

  I eyed him, tilting my head to the side. “Really?”

  He nodded.

  “Never?” It seemed impossible. Surely the man or his family owned a chunk of the Sahara—or perhaps half of Australia.

  “No,” he said with a shake of his head. “I haven’t ventured far from Europe.”

  I couldn’t explain why that surprised me, but it had. He seemed the sort who would’ve spent his entire life living it up, traveling to every country that existed.

  Movement from the corner of my eye alerted me to the approach of the woman again, but instead of a small appetizer, she seemed to bring out the main course.

  A seared piece of tenderloin sat on a fanciful splash of red that had been smeared across the white plate. Placed beside it were a few sprigs of asparagus that seemed perfectly blanched.

  “May I inquire about a sensitive subject?” Michele asked while he held his knife.

  Shit. That could mean a lot of things.

  “Sure,” I tentatively replied. I cut into the tenderloin and there hadn’t been a hint of resistance, like a hot knife in butter.

  “Your name,” he said, giving me a surprising level of relief. “It’s unusual.”

  “Mom likes to joke that she was inspired by the spice rack. I guess since she couldn’t cook, she chose to name her daughters after herbs.”

  “There are more of you?”

  “Rosemary and Sage, but I think I got the short end of the stick, a side-effect of being the youngest. And you?”

  “Only child,” he said.

  The small talk that followed was easier than I’d expected, and with it, I was able to banish the unease that’d surrounded my thoughts to the dark recesses of my mind.

  The steak had been the most tender, juiciest thing I’d ever tasted.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  After dinner, Michele took me on a stroll through the gardens until coming to an area that overlooked the water with Venice in the distance. Soft music flittered through the air, emanating from speakers tucked away near the lights that highlighted the landscaping. It was clear that the space had been used for multiple get-togethers through the years.

  He stood beside me with his hands in his pockets, the gentle breeze adding a nice chill to the air that somehow cooled my overheated skin.

  The reality of the moment seemed beyond my grasp. I couldn’t bring myself to accept the situation I found myself in. When Kennia had called, offering me the job, I hadn’t thought that just two weeks later I would be standing on a private island after eating an incredible meal with a man I couldn’t describe.

  “I can’t get over how beautiful everything is,” I said, hearing the awe lingering within the words.

  “Hmm,” he muttered. “I have had a fortunate life, but I don’t have everything.”

  He shifted at my side, drawing my attention. The meaning behind the statement hadn’t been well hidden, and the softness to his eyes only strengthened my thoughts. Yet, as cheesy as the line was, I couldn’t fight the flutter it created.

  There was no denying the blush that rose in my cheeks as a result.

  “Would you like to dance?”

  I nodded. He took my hand and guided me to the center of the expanse.

  Pulling me to his chest, we proceeded to move to the soft orchestral tune.

  Minutes might have passed while I stared into his eyes, our hands clasped and feet falling in step with one another, but I didn’t know or care to check. I’d become entranced by the man that had somehow become a dominant figure in my life in such a short period of time.

  I felt safe on that island with him, cared for. But more than that, I felt wanted. He knew about me, knew the truth that had sent many others running, and it didn’t matter. He didn’t judge me or tell me I was going to hell. He accepted what I liked and who I was.

  Leaning in, Michele met my advance and our foreheads connected. I closed my eyes and let the heat of his body along with the rustic scent of his cologne saturate me. Before I left Italy, I needed to discover what it was, though it could have simply been the way he smelled.

  “I don’t want tonight to end,” I said on a breath, the words barely escaping me. It may have been a cliché thing to utter, but it was how I felt in that moment.

  “It doesn’t have to,” he replied. “Not really.”

  I let out a small laugh that came across as little more than a scoff. With more difficulty than I’d anticipated, I pulled back. He pried open his eyes and stared at me with a drugged expression.

  “It’s getting late. I should probably get back to my hotel room.”

  Michele drew his bottom lip through his teeth, nodding while he cupped my face.

  “As you wish,” he said.

  Before we parted, he pressed a kiss to my temple.

  Taking my hand, we made our way toward the boat—but in no hurry to get there.