In a super casual move, I swept my hair behind my ear and inched my head around.
Then all the air sucked out of my lungs. Because one of the bodyguards Rocco had walked through the crowd with earlier was standing right in front of me, wearing a sharp suit and a frown.
‘Will you come upstairs with me, Signorina Taylor. Signor Rocco would like to meet you,’ the man said in heavily accented English.
I blinked, feeling light-headed. Was this actually happening? Had my vanilla life finally located some much-needed spice? Or was this all just an illusion caused by oxygen deprivation?
Then Evie woke me up by squealing right in my ear. ‘Hewaschecking you out. I told you so. The dress totally worked.’
‘Umm,’ I replied, trembling now with a mix of exhilaration and panic, still struggling to breathe and wanting to kick Evie, because—subtle much, little sis? ‘That… Okay, if you’re sure it’s me he wants to see.’
‘Si, it is you,’ the messenger replied, then held out his arm, directing me towards the spiral staircase which led up to the top deck where his boss had disappeared ten minutes ago. ‘Follow me,per favore.’
I grasped Evie’s hand, intimidated now as well as dazed. ‘Can I bring my sister?’
He glanced at Evie, but before he could make a decision, Evie said, ‘Rocco doesn’t want to see me.’
‘No way am I going up there on my own. This was your idea,’ I murmured as I tightened my grip on Evie’s hand.
But then the bodyguard spoke. ‘Don Vito has not asked to see her, only you.’
Evie eased her hand out of my grasp. ‘You don’t need me with you, Mia. This is your moment. Enjoy it.’
Then Becca weighed in. ‘Don’t overthink this, Mia. You should totally go for it.’
‘But…’
‘No buts, Mia. We’ll be here waiting to hear all the dirty deets when you get back.’ Jessie grinned while wriggling her eyebrows at me.
I breathed out a heavy sigh.
‘Don Vito does not like to be kept waiting,’ the bodyguard said impatiently.
Don Vito sounded super arrogant, I decided. But even so, I forced myself to turn to the guard and nod. ‘Okay, I’m coming.’
After all, the guy was our host, and he was the hottest man I’d ever seen. So, there was that.
Becca and Jessie and Evie were hooting in triumph and toasting me with their champagne flutes as I followed the guard, which would have been embarrassing in front of this crowd of uber-sophisticated people, but I was too busy struggling to breathe and not trip over my killer heels.
He led me up a spiral staircase behind the DJ booth, to the top deck, where a small group of men in suits was gathered around an opulent bar area. Some of them appeared to be bodyguards. I could see wires coming from their earpieces.
The view of the bay was even more spectacular from this level, the lights of Naples sprinkled over the hills in the distance, while Capri and the Amalfi Coast sparkled like diamonds in the darkness. Inquisitive stares followed us as the guard and I walked past the bar and along a walkway to an isolated area at the back of the yacht, cut off from the rest of the party. A floodlit hot tub stood at the far end—steam rising from the open top—but there was no one in it.
Vittorio Rocco sat alone on one of the leather bench seats which circled the deck, tapping out something on his phone, but as soon as I stepped into the space, he put the phone down and watched me approach. My breath clogged in my lungs, but having his eyes on me added a seductive sway to my hips they’d never had before…or maybe it was just the heels, which required a balancing act to walk in I must have finally mastered.
Too soon I found myself in front of him. He made no move to get up. Instead, he inclined his head towards the bodyguard. ‘Vai via, Lorenzo.’
‘Si, padrone,’ the man replied. And suddenly we were alone on the secluded deck.
A soft breeze brushed my nape, making the tendrils hanging from my chignon dance across my neck. I shivered, but I wasn’t cold.
Even from his position on the couch, our host looked overwhelming—sleek, muscular and devastating. He’d lost the suit jacket and wore a pec-hugging black T-shirt, making the array of tattoos on his arms and around his neck visible. With his face lit by the lights from the yacht’s wheelhouse above us, I could also see a couple of scars, one cutting into the stubble on his chin, the other slicing through his eyebrow. The silver cross he wore around his neck seemed incongruous, because he looked like a panther…an extremely hot panther, ready to pounce.
The intense cerulean blue of his irises glittered as he dipped his head to do a roll-call of my entire body.
‘Ciao, Mia,’ he murmured. That he knew my name didn’t really surprise me. After all, the guard had addressed me personally downstairs. But on his lips, it sounded impossibly intimate.
‘Hello, Mr Rocco,’ I replied, deciding I probably shouldn’t address him as Vittorio if I didn’t want to start hyperventilating.
