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There was one reaction he recognized, though. The stirring in his jeans as he breathed in her scent. He brushed the hair from her face, the strands reminding him of corn silk. Promise be damned. He wanted to kiss her. Quickly, he stepped away before he could take action. Now was not the time to push his luck. “Go pack a bag,” he told her. “We’ll leave before the paparazzi realize you’re gone.”
* * *
You made the right decision, Louisa reminded herself on the way upstairs. Hiding out was better than running away, and Amatucci Vineyards did make the ideal hiding place. Plus she would be earning her keep. It wasn’t as though she was going to become Nico’s kept woman. She’d insist on the entire arrangement being professional and platonic.
Why, then, was her stomach in knots? Maybe, she thought as her eyes fell on the suitcase in the corner, because she’d gone from leaving town to working for Nico in less than an hour without knowing how she made the journey.
Or maybe it was because saying yes had become a whole lot easier once Nico had brushed her cheek.
CHAPTER FOUR
LUSCIOUS LOUISA’S LATEST CONQUEST?
“TOO BAD THEY couldn’t find a proper synonym. Conquest spoils the alliteration.” Nico said, turning the newspaper over.
Louisa didn’t share his sense of humor. The headline screamed across the front page along with a photograph of her and Nico cropped from one of the official wedding shots. Apparently the photographer Nico kicked off her balcony had done some research following the altercation. The article described how the “enraged” vintner had come to her rescue and implied the two of them had been an item for weeks. Or, as the article put it, she’d managed to charm the richest man in town.
This was exactly what she didn’t need after a restless night. There was still a large part of her dying to grab the first bus to Florence. Screaming loudly, in fact. She couldn’t stop thinking how easily she had agreed to Nico’s idea. Sure, he had a point about staying and proving the press wrong, but to put herself in his care like this? It reminded her of how things had begun with Steven. He’d liked to swoop in and take care of everything when they were dating, too. Only you’re not dating Nico, she reminded herself, staring down at her breakfast pastry.
And unlike with Steven, this time she had age and hindsight in her favor. She may have agreed to stay here, but she would keep her bags packed. That way if the situation changed and the walls started closing in, she could be out of here in a flash.
Meanwhile, her breakfast partner was enjoying his pastry as though he didn’t have a care in the world.
“I don’t know how you can be so cavalier,” she said watching him chew his pastry. Anyone would think he liked being dragged through the tabloid mud.
Nico shrugged. “How am I supposed to act?”
Indignant, perhaps? Angry? Some show of emotion. He’d practically exploded when he discovered the paparazzo yesterday, and that had nothing to do with him. These headlines were personal. “The article makes you sound like a lovesick fool.”
“Which anyone who knows me will immediately recognize as a complete fabrication. I’m not and have never been the lovesick type.”
A fact that should comfort her, seeing as how she was now sleeping under his roof. It didn’t, though. Instead, she felt a dull ache in the pit of her stomach.
“So what was yesterday? An anomaly?”
He looked away. “Yesterday I caught a man breaking into your home. I was upset for your safety. This,” he said as he waved his cup over the tabloid “is entirely different.”
“How? It’s still an invasion of privacy. And the things they wrote about us...” As though Nico were some kind of fly trapped in her web. She shivered. “Surely you care what people think.”
“I already told you, anyone who knows me will recognize it for the garbage it is.”
“Why is that?” Not that she wasn’t glad, but she wanted to know why he was so certain.
A strange shadow appeared behind his eyes, turning them darker than usual. “Like I said, I’m not the lovesick kind,” he replied. “Now, the fact they referred to me as the ‘royal vintner’? That is something I hope people will believe. You cannot buy better publicity.”
“Glad you’re happy.” One of them should be.
She took a look around the surroundings that were to be her home away from home for the next few days. Worn out and uncomfortable last night, she’d insisted on being shown straight to her room. Nico’s rust-and-green kitchen was warm but dated, like the kitchen of a man who didn’t spend too many meals at home. Did that mean he didn’t entertain much either? Would people notice he had company?
