Page 17 of How Not to Mess with a Millionaire

“Here.” She thrust the pig at Dante. “Hold him while I go change clothes.”

Dante took the animal reluctantly, grabbing him gingerly under his haunches and holding him away from his bare chest. He eyeballed Zoe from head to toe, his gaze stopping briefly on her breasts and reigniting the tremors his finger had started. “Good idea. Mr. Abruzzi’s not getting any younger. You’d probably give him a heart attack dressed like that.”

Zoe ignored the not-so-subtle dig and the tremors. “He likes to be scratched behind his ears. Houdini, I mean. Not Mr. Abruzzi. I have no idea what he likes.”

“He’s a man. As long as he still has a heartbeat, I’m sure he won’t object to having a pretty lady scratch him where it itches.”

Was he calling her pretty? She shook off the stray thought. He could call her a bridge troll for all she cared. She was no Victoria’s Secret Angel, but she was comfortable in her own skin. She certainly didn’t need validation from a man she’d known all of seventy-two hours. “Has anyone ever told you you have a dirty mind?”

“Si.” His mouth twisted into a smug smile. “But they usually mean it as a compliment.”

“Well, I don’t.”

Okay. Enough was enough. Time to get out of there before she said something stupid. Or stupider. Like that she wouldn’t mind him scratching her itch. Dante, that was. Not Mr. Abruzzi.

“And one more thing.” She pushed past man and beast and opened the sliding glass door. “If the pig comes back again, he’s staying.”

“We’ll see about that.”

“As I recall, you said the same thing about me.” She shot him a saucy smile before stepping inside the house. “And we both know how that turned out.”

…

It was quiet. Too quiet.

Dante threw off the sheet and sat up in bed, naked, the cool morning breeze that ruffled the curtains raising goose bumps on his bare skin. He cocked his head to listen for the sound of pan flutes or dulcimers or didgeridoos or whatever instruments musicians played in that new-age crap Zoe listened to when she exercised. The sounds that had woken him every morning for the past five days.

This time, however, there was nothing but the normal noises of daybreak in Positano. Birds chirping. Waves lapping against the shore below. The low drone of a boat engine.

Which meant one of two things: either Zoe had decided to give up her game of slow, calculated torture or she’d left, preferably permanently. The first would be good. The second would be even better.

He’d survived almost week of yoga at the ungodly hour of what-the-fuck o’clock, fortunately without a reappearance of his neighbor’s pig. He’d survived watching Zoe prance around in skintight workout clothes and sun herself in bikinis that might as well have been dental floss. He’d even survived her attempts at cooking, including one particularly memorable occasion when she set a dishtowel on fire. She would have torched the whole kitchen if he hadn’t been there to toss the damn thing into the sink and turn on the faucet.

He didn’t know how much more he could take. Had she figured out what he was up to? Was she trying to out-Felix him? If she was, she was a damn sight better at it than he was. She hadn’t shown any signs of budging, no matter what he tried. He’d followed Miguel’s advice and even added a few creative touches of his own—leaving his dirty clothes lying around, eating all the fancy figs she bought at the farmers’ market, changing the wifi password—and she hadn’t blinked an eye. As much as he hoped the silence meant she’d left for good, the truth was he was no closer to having her gone than he was on day one.

With a groan at that grim realization, he pulled on a pair of jeans—his underwear act was getting old—and went downstairs to investigate. He rubbed sleepy eyes as he rounded the corner at the foot of the stairs—and ran smack into something hard and unforgiving.

The couch.

He blinked and tried to focus so he could scan his living room. Or what he thought was his living room. But nothing was where it should be. The couch, obviously, had been pulled to the middle of the room. The Persian rug his grandmother had brought back from Nepal was rolled up in one corner. And the artwork Nonna had spent years collecting in her younger days, when she’d traveled the world as a high-end fashion model, had been taken down and sat propped against the walls.

In the center of it all stood Zoe in skimpy denim shorts and a bright orange halter top, hands on her curvy hips, surveying everything with a look of intense concentration he found strangely arousing.

He mentally beat back the arousal and let annoyance bubble up in its place. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Redecorating,” she answered without missing a beat, not bothering to look at him.

“And who gave you permission to do that?” He glared at her back. “Or have you forgotten who owns this place?”

She swiveled her head, fixing him with those pale, yellow-gold eyes that made his insides twist into nervous, needy knots. “How could I, with you stalking around like a wounded bear?”

The knots tightened. Yes, he wanted her gone. But part of him—a big part—couldn’t help wondering what Nicole would have thought of his boorish behavior. No, that wasn’t true. He knew exactly what she’d think. She’d think he was being an ass and that Bella Vista was more than big enough for him and Zoe to share.

But she’d be wrong. Yes, the villa had sixteen rooms, six bedrooms, and four and a half baths. But somehow, no matter how far apart he and Zoe were physically, he was acutely aware of her presence. It was like he had some sort of strange sixth sense that made his skin sizzle when she was near.

“Have I been that bad?” he asked, suddenly conscious of the way the hair on his chest was standing at attention. Why hadn’t he taken the extra few seconds necessary to throw on a T-shirt?

“Worse.” She bit her lip and frowned thoughtfully. “I think this”—she pointed to one of two overstuffed chairs—“should be over there.”