Page 15 of How Not to Mess with a Millionaire

Nope, non, nein, and no in every other language on the face of the Earth. She wasn’t falling—would not fall—for Dante Sabbatini. She hadn’t come to Italy for love. Or lust. Or whatever it was she was feeling. She’d been burned twice—by her boss and her boyfriend. And unlike the old saying, the third time would definitely not be the charm.

With a tired sigh, Zoe forced her other eye open and rolled over, spying her yoga mat rolled up in the corner.

Riiiight. It was all coming back to her now. Sunrise yoga. Brilliant idea.

It had been tough squeezing the mat into her suitcase, but the thought of going a month without her go-to stress reliever had been too much to take. Normally, she liked her exercise after sunrise, preferably with at least one cup of coffee in her stomach. But turnabout was fair play. If Dante could persecute her with Puccini in the dead of night, she could do her morning meditation a little earlier than usual—right under his balcony.

She threw on some workout clothes—a hot pink sports bra and a pair of neon green lululemon leggings she’d splurged on before getting unceremoniously shitcanned from her job—grabbed her phone, and stuck the yoga mat under her arm. Then she headed downstairs, padding on bare feet through the foyer, out the sliding glass doors, and onto the terrace, pushing aside memories of Dante beautifully buck naked and dripping onto the very stones where she was standing.

She skirted the pool, dodging assorted lounge chairs and patio furniture, and stopped beneath what she was pretty sure was his balcony. Unrolling her yoga mat, she opened the music app on her phone and scrolled through it until she found her yoga playlist. She hit shuffle, cranked up the volume as high as it would go, and set the phone down on the mat in front of her. The opening chords of Fleet Foxes’ aptly named “Sun It Rises” blared from the tinny speakers.

“Om. Om.”

Zoe continued to chant along with the music as she went into mountain pose, standing with her feet slightly apart and parallel to each other and her arms at her sides, palms facing out. She took a deep breath and swept her arms over her head, pressing her hands together and staring at her thumbs. She stayed that way for a minute, exhaling in a long, slow hiss, before sneaking a glance up at Dante’s balcony for some sign of life.

Nothing. The sliders were securely shut, the curtains covering them in the same position they were in when she first started, tightly closed and undisturbed.

She let her arms fall and folded her body forward, touching the mat with her fingertips and continuing to chant as she pushed off the floor and flattened her back.

“Oink.”

Something cold and wet brushed against her ankle, making her wobble unsteadily. She flailed her arms like a windmill in a category five hurricane, desperately attempting to regain her balance. That lasted all of two seconds until she landed hard on her ass, barely missing a squealing mass of coarse black-and-white hair.

“Ow. What the—?”

“Oink.”

A tiny piglet sat on the paving stones that made up the terrace, staring up at Zoe with intelligent, gray-green eyes.

“Where did you come from?”

The pig let out an adorable grunt and climbed in Zoe’s lap, curling into a ball.

“Don’t go playing the cute card now. You interrupted my workout. And made me fall.” She reached back to rub her left butt cheek.

The pig, undeterred, lifted his snout and grunted again.

“Okay, you win.” She scratched between the animal’s ears. The pig rewarded her by licking her hand. “I’ve heard of goat yoga, but not pig yoga. Maybe we could start a new fad. What do you say? We could be famous. Appear on theToday Show. Meet Kathy Lee and Hoda.”

“Make a new friend?”

Zoe startled at the unexpected sound of Dante’s voice, frightening the pig, who snuggled deeper into her lap, burying its head between her thighs.

She stroked the shivering animal’s back reassuringly and glared up at Dante, framed in the open slider wearing only a pair of form-fitting navy boxer briefs. Oh goodie. They were back to underwear only, clothing optional. She dragged her gaze away from the feast of sinfully smooth, solid male flesh and back to the still-shaking pig in her lap. “Look what you did. You scared him. Or her.”

She hadn’t bothered to check. Did pigs have penises?

“Him,” Dante confirmed.

“How do you know?” She lifted one of the pig’s rear legs tentatively. Nope. No penis there. At least not one she could see.

“He’s been here three times this week. Likes to escape.”

“Escape? From where?” She reached for her cell phone and swiped the screen to turn the music off. So much for yoga.

Dante waved toward a neighboring villa, perched higher on the cliff. “Mr. Abruzzi thinks he’s going to make a fortune raising these things.”

“Houdini is not a thing.” She picked the pig up and clutched him to her chest. Houdini squirmed, and she loosened her hold. “He’s a he. Remember?”