Page 23 of Falling for Mr. October

“He’s staff?” she asks in disbelief. Looking beyond me, her gaze on Giovanni, she adds, “Is this some kind of prank?”

“No, ma’am,” I hear him say, but his tone is different now. Some of his confidence has leaked out. He’s not happy with this turn of events.

“Then…did you get amnesia, like in one of those movies?” Her eyes light up with the thought. “Did you wake up without any idea of who you were, and these people told you you’re some basic guy named John who works at their pumpkin patch?” She leans in closer and hisses, “Is that woman with the dark hair telling you she’s your fiancée?”

“I don’t know what kind of movies you’re watching, but Bianca’s not some crazy supervillain,” Emily says, stepping up beside me. “And what do you think you’re doing taking photos of this man without his permission?”

The woman scoffs and presses a button on her phone before lifting it up and training it on her face. “Friends, you’re never gonna believe this. I’m at this crappy farm in Apple Ridge⁠—”

“Hey, now,” I say, properly pissed off. This farm may be crappy, but it belongs to my family, and only we can call it that. “What exactly do you think you’re doing?”

“And you won’t believe who I found,” the woman continues. “I, Eva St. Claire, have just solved a mystery.”

“Please don’t,” Giovanni says, but he doesn’t attempt to step out from behind me. Probably because he’s still completely exposed and doesn’t want his glorious abs on this crazy woman’s video. But I noticed a note of resignation and sadness in his voice. Which is why I do the deeply inadvisable thing I do next.

I grab the phone straight out of the lady’s hand.

She gasps. “You can’t do that!”

“Watch me.”

She reaches for it, trying to snatch it out of my hand, and I lift it out of reach.

Or try to.

I’ve always thought I’m taller than I am. Miles says it’s because I shared the eight months of my short gestation with a man.

Miles, it must be understood, is an idiot.

The lady gets a grip on the phone, and we start a tug-of-war with it.

I’m pretty sure I’ve got the better shot—I grew up on a farm, after all—but then two strong hands wrap around my waist. The next thing I know, Giovanni is lifting me off my feet as if I weigh no more than a pumpkin.

I feel my fingers giving, even though I do not, as a rule, allow myself to lose. It’s the feeling of his hands wrapped around me that does me in. And the sensation of his warm, very naked chest pressed to the fabric of my cardigan.

The woman practically shrieks with delight as she frees the phone and waves the screen at us. “Did you see that?” she asks. “Did you see what she did to me? She kidnapped him, and now she’s trying to cover it up!”

I can hear her crazy ranting, of course—people on space probably can—but it almost feels like she’s underwater, or maybe I am. My head is swimming, my body a mass of sensation, focused entirely on Giovanni pressed against my back, his big, hard body unyielding…

“It wasn’t recording,” the woman says slowly. “Can we repeat that?”

CHAPTER SEVEN

GIOVANNI

“You’re going to tell us everything,” Bianca says as she stalks back into the tent and shoves a T-shirt at me from across the checkout table.

I pull it on gratefully, because fuck, my own abs make me feel exposed.

It’s too late, though. I know it’s too late. There’s no way that busybody with the phone isn’t going to spread the news far and wide.

Eva actually paid for the pumpkin she ruined before she left—but only after I agreed to pose for a photo with her. Emily’s the one who took it, while Bianca gave her the death stare.

We sold a couple of other pumpkins after she left, and the women who bought them insisted they wanted photos with me too. They clearly had no idea who I was, but they’re probably going to run to Google to find out.

I know it’s all over.

I can practically hear my brother say, Good going, Giovanni.