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“Oh my god, that’s amazing! Please tell me you’re considering it.”

“Damn straight, I am. Harris keeps calling me Savannah and has me on coat check duty. I’m getting that damn doctorate, so I can rub it in his face.” She winked and headed back to Marcangeli, Pete’s eyes on her the whole way.

Levi had all but abandoned me and kept being taken hostage by different groups of wealthy females. I knew he was pissed at me, but he was really proving to be the worst date. It was basically Homecoming 2.0, and I had to prepare myself for another rejection. I was stewing in hurt and anger, like a nice ragù. Add a little red wine and I was good to go.

“Diana.” Professor Harris approached and had the nerve to sound irritated with me. “Matteo said you told him about the documentary. I’d prefer if we kept that between us for the moment.” He had so little regard for personal space, he was practically pushing me against the table.

I glanced over his shoulder anxiously and my eyes once again locked with Levi’s. Jaw clenched, he strode over with such an iron-clad determination that I forgot my earlier irritation.

“Indy.” His deep voice wrapped around me as he not so gently pushed Harris aside. “Where did you disappear to?”

“Indy?” Professor Harris asked. Levi looked him up and down, his eyes narrowing in on Harris’s hand, which was millimeters away from my thigh. I was sure he was going to punch him. To defuse the situation, I stepped away, directly into Levi’s arms. I hated to admit even to myself how protected I felt there.

“Come on.” Levi tugged me closer. “We’re being seated for dinner. If you’ll excuse us . . .”

He guided me toward the arching doorway, anger radiating off him in waves. “What am I going to do with you? I told you not to be alone with that guy. And especially not now when I have your panties in my pocket and you’re dressed in a handkerchief.”

“I wasn’t alone with him,” I argued. “Anyway, where were you?”

“Keeping an eye on you from afar. And trying to forget about that bomb that you dropped on me back in the room, but I can’t because every time I put my hand in my pocket, I come back with a tiny scrap of lace.”

A shiver of excitement went through me and I stopped walking. “Why do you keep putting your hand in your pocket?”

“Why do you think?” I glanced down, hoping to see evidence of his own arousal as he steered me toward the dining room. We found our place cards at a round table where an older Italian couple was already seated. Levi ignored them and dragged me to a table in the back, tossing the other place cards in the trash. We were alone.

Levi pulled out my chair for me, held my shoulders and whispered, “And for the record, I also spent late nights in that bunk bed in your spare room thinking about my fingers inside you.”

“What?” I sputtered, thinking I had misheard him. He sat down, jaw still tense. “What about Ashleigh?”

“What about her?” he asked. “You want me to admit that I was relieved when she came around because she distracted me from fantasizing about my best friend’s little sister? Yeah, something like that.”

“You were seventeen, you probably got an erection looking at bare ankles back then.”

“True. It didn’t make it any better knowing that though.”

A server interrupted us, bearing glasses of wine and appetizers. Levi dug in. Signore Visconti took to the stage to honor Marcangeli’s team, but I couldn’t concentrate on the speeches. Levi had wanted me.

But he’d wanted anything with breasts at the time. Anyway, he’d picked her. I could replay the past a thousand times, but he’d always picked her.

I was lost in my thoughts when I felt Levi’s knee nudging against me. “You’re ruminating.”

“So?” I poked at my fish.

“So, stop it. You always overthink things.”

“And you don’t, I suppose?”

“Of course, I do. That’s why I know you’re doing it.” He leaned back in his chair. Then I felt the warm pads of his fingers on the nape of my neck and my skin tingled all over. As he squeezed lightly, I closed my eyes.

Levi draped his arm over me, edging my chair over as the keynote speaker took to the stage to present the findings of the lagoon project. As he spoke, the room went dark and film footage of the Venetian lagoon was projected on the walls. The audience gasped, delighted. It was hard not to be jealous of the funding and attention they were getting. Maybe one day it would be my turn. For the moment though, it was beyond my grasp. I was trudging through the backwater of the lagoon, sinking in the muck as everyone else took off in their fancy boats.

Levi drew his thumb over the space where my shoulder met my neck, and I moaned and leaned into him. “Jesus, Indy, if you keep making those noises . . . I’m going to lose my mind.”

“What noises?” I mumbled.

“Those little moans.” He leaned in closer, so I could feel the whisper of his warm breath. “Is that what you sound like when you come?”

My eyes fluttered open and met his. “I don’t know, Levi, why don’t you find out?”