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After fully enjoying each other every night over the last two weeks, she felt deliciously sore all over. And aware. So aware. Just his hand on hers made her body tighten and shiver. When the tattooed waiter spoke to Cristiano in Italian, she thought again how easy it would be to love her husband.
But she couldn’t. It would be a horrible mistake. Because he would never love her back, and, eventually, that would make her love turn to hate.
Their meal started with a cocktail, the ubiquitous Aperol spritz, a light bubbly drink blending Prosecco, soda water and orange liqueur over ice and orange slices, but with an added twist of rosemary. Sipping the drink, Hallie felt the other celebrities staring at them. She glanced down at herself self-consciously. She whispered, “What’s wrong with me?”
“Why do you think something’s wrong?”
“Why would they—” she waved her arm toward the powerful, fascinating people at the other tables “—stare at me?” She bit her lip. “It’s my makeup, isn’t it? The bare back of my dress? I look weird, don’t I?”
He leaned forward. “You are,” he said huskily, “the sexiest woman in Rome.”
She felt the weight of that compliment and saw, from the expression in his eyes, that he meant every word.
As their eyes locked, a pulse of heat rushed through her. Turning away, she took a sip of the light, bubbly cocktail to try to cool down. She cleared her throat. “But there are so many beautiful people here. Famous people. Why would they bother looking at me?”
“You’re famous now, too. And unlike all of them—” he dismissed his fellow patrons with a glance “—no one knows anything about you.”
Hallie gave an incredulous snort. “I’m just a regular girl from rural West Virginia.”
Wordlessly Cristiano drew his phone from his pocket. Pressing a few buttons, he handed it to her.
Hallie stared down at the screen in amazement.
“See? You’re a star,” he said softly.
Looking at his phone, she realized it was true. Pictures and stories about her had exploded all over the internet. She was on news websites. Celebrity gossip pages. Someone had started a fashion blog in Italian, with a photo of her every time she’d come out of the hotel over the past two weeks, with a listing of each day’s clothes, who’d designed them and where to buy them. There was even a page devoted to Jack’s clothes. Her baby had somehow become a fashion icon.
It was jarring to see pictures of herself, taken without her knowledge, and pictures of her baby, too, all now online for the world to see.
She sucked in her breath when she saw a video of herself singing at the trattoria, posted on YouTube a few days before. It had already gotten over a hundred thousand hits. A hundred thousand.
Her mind boggled.
But not all the attention was positive. Some of the posts were downright mean. Strangers were calling her a gold-digger. And, apparently, Hallie’s family tragedy made excellent news fodder. Many news stories breathlessly reported that Hallie was a failed folk singer from a poor Appalachian family who’d all died tragically in a flash flood, but then she’d gotten pregnant and was now married to an Italian billionaire, so wasn’t she the luckiest girl in the world?
The words and pictures swam before Hallie’s eyes. Her stomach clenched. Abruptly she gave him back his phone.
“You see why,” he said quietly, “I want you always to take Salvatore with you when you’re out on the street.”
Hallie shivered. As a girl, she’d wistfully dreamed of growing up to be somehow special. Hadn’t she even gone to New York hoping to become a star?
Now she found that being the center of attention just made her uncomfortable. Feeling the warm night breeze against the bare skin of her back, she tried to smile. “You didn’t bring Salvatore with us tonight.”
“This restaurant is exclusive. The patrons are mostly famous themselves.” His eyebrow lifted. “Besides, I can protect you.”
Remembering the night he’d forced her landlord to return her precious possessions, Hallie could well believe it. Biting her lip, she ventured, “Matthews said that you were a street fighter in Naples when you were young.”
His expression closed up. “That is one way of saying it. I had no money. So I fought.”
“And now you are a billionaire, with the most luxurious hotel chain in the world.”
“So?”
“How did it happen? How did you build your fortune?”
Cristiano stared at her, his handsome face shadowed against the soft lighting of the garden.
“I was lucky,” he said flatly. “I met a man who owned a small hotel chain in southern Italy. I convinced him to hire me and teach me everything he knew. Then I betrayed him.”
