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If she told any of her friends what had happened, they wouldn’t believe her. No one would. And yet here she was, seriously considering spending the next three months in Italy, most likely at some luxurious estate, embraced, by the sounds of it, by a big Italian family who were eager to welcome her. It sounded like a fairy tale. It probably was. And yet, she acknowledged wryly, there were certainly worse ways to spend a summer.

“And if, at the end of three months, I say I want to go back?” she asked, raising her eyebrows in challenge as Christos continued to subject her to that steady, unblinking stare, his manner composed yet alert. The man had focus, she’d give him that. He also had very nice eyes, and his lashes were insane. She forced her mind away from its contemplation of his facial features. “What then?”

He shrugged and spread his hands wide, his sleeve riding up to show off the expensive watch she’d glimpsed earlier on his wrist, the silk of his shirt sliding sinuously over his powerful shoulders. Every movement he made was graceful, assured, drawing her eye to yet another part of his body. First his eyes, now his hands with their long, tapered fingers. What next?

He rested his hands on his muscular thighs, and she forced her gaze back to his face. She didn’t need to subject the man to a mental striptease, even one that ended at his chest—which, Rose couldn’t help but notice, was also very nice. Broad and muscular, tapering down to a narrow waist and lean hips…

Face, she reminded herself. Look at his face.

“Well?” she asked, her voice only a tiny bit unsteady after all these flyaway thoughts about a man she barely knew and his beautiful, powerful body. “Would you let me go?”

“I wouldn’t let you go because you wouldn’t be a prisoner,” Christos replied mildly. “You can come and go as you please, but I would hope you’d stick to the initial agreement of three months. I’m confident that is more than enough time for you to fall in love with Villa Amanti and the Nobile vineyards, as well as the Amanti family itself.”

Fall in love. The words caused Rose an unexpected and really rather ridiculous jolt of—something. He was talking about his estate, his family, not anything else truly personal. Not him, for heaven’s sake. Of course he wasn’t.

Yet for a second, at the mention of those three little words, something in her had jolted…with awareness, with excitement, with longing.

How utterly stupid. Forget psychological thrillers—she’d clearly read too many romance novels if she thought that you could fall in love, or even want to fall in love, with a complete and total stranger. It was just, Rose told herself, that he was so impossibly good-looking. It was hard not to start daydreaming about a man who looked like Christos Amanti.

“So, you wouldn’t confiscate my passport,” she stated with a small smile, and then realized she was only half joking. Just about anyone she knew would tell her she was crazy for even contemplating this trip. And yet she knew she was…and not just because her baby might really be the heir to an entire Italian estate. She was contemplating it, Rose thought with both a thrill of wonder and a ripple of exasperation, because she was intrigued. Because it felt exciting.

And because Christos Amanti really was far too good-looking.

“You may keep your passport,” Christos confirmed. His eyebrows lifted, and his gaze narrowed. “So we are agreed?” he asked, his tone suggesting it was a done deal, and she’d better grab her passport so they could go right this very minute.

Rose took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I think I should sleep on it,” she said. And she wanted to do some due diligence. Christos had suggested she search his name online. She intended to do that tonight and learn as much as she could about the man and the whole Amanti family, whoever they were.

For a second, his lips compressed in seeming annoyance, but then he nodded. “Very well. Why don’t you stay here? It’s very comfortable. You can have your own private suite and order whatever food or drink you like. I will send someone to your apartment to get what you require.”

“I don’t need to stay here,” Rose protested instinctively. She couldn’t help but be slightly alarmed by the way Christos could so quickly orchestrate things to his advantage—and control. Already, in just a matter of seconds, she felt her autonomy slipping away, simply in regard to a hotel room.

“But it would be simpler, as well as nicer for you,” he pointed out in the reasonable tone undergirded with iron that Rose was already coming to recognize. “Let me at least show you the suite.”

A suite at the most luxurious hotel in all of New York. Was she crazy for insisting she return to her crappy little apartment? “All right,” she agreed with less reluctance than she should have shown, considering her alarm, but fine, she was curious about the room. This was one of the most luxurious hotels in the city, and maybe even the world. “But that doesn’t mean I’m staying,” she warned him.

“Of course not,” Christos agreed.

There was a thread of laughter in his voice that had Rose saying defensively, “I’m just curious.”

“Wait till you see the bathtub,” he murmured, and then rose from his seat. “You won’t ever want to leave.”

Which sounded, Rose thought, like a promise as much as a threat. She supposed it was up to her to decide which one it really was…and how she handled it.

Chapter Six

“What?”

The screech of her friend Jodie’s voice had Rose laughing as she leaned her head back against the huge soaker bathtub. It was like a mini swimming pool, and Christos had been right. She didn’t ever want to leave. She stretched one leg out, bubbles clinging to her calf as she stared up at the chandelier suspended above the huge tub. This really was living.

“You’re staying at that hotel?” Jodie demanded. “It’s, like, thousands a night.”

“I know.” She’d googled how much her suite cost, and it was well into the thousands. It was the penthouse, with a balcony overlooking Central Park, a huge king-sized bed on its own dais, a private sitting room, a kitchen stocked with goodies, and this amazing bathroom and tub. When Christos had showed it to her, she’d felt her resolve instantly start to crumble. When would she ever get the chance to experience something like this again? She just hoped it didn’t come with strings. Or at least too many strings.

“And you’re going to Italy for the whole summer?” Jodie still sounded incredulous as well as scandalized. She was a fourth-grade teacher at PS 106, married with two children, and the closest thing Rose had to a best friend, even though she was busy with her own life. Their friendship usually didn’t extend to more than a grabbed coffee once every couple of weeks. Rose was used to being on the periphery of other people’s lives, and at least Jodie had wanted her there. Other people had not.

“Rose, are you sure you want to do this?” Jodie pressed. “You don’t know this guy—”

“I googled him.” While the tub had been filling, she’d done a deep dive into Christos Amanti, Nobile Vineyards, the whole shebang. He was who he’d said he was, although there had been precious little personal information on the man himself. In addition to Nobile Vineyards, he ran Amanti Investments, which was a separate corporation from the estate. Rose assumed the company was part of the safeguard against his grandfather’s will. Even if this distant cousin inherited, the Amantis would still be well off, but she appreciated they stood to lose a lot, which seemed crazy in this day and age.