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Chapter Twenty-Four
- Noemi -
DANTE PUT ME INTO SOMEsort of open-topped vehicle. There were other people around, but they didn’t speak. I just heard the shuffling of feet around me. A trunk lid closed, probably when our luggage was put in the back of the car. The air was warm and slightly humid. I could feel the brightness of the sun on my skin. I tried to think about geography and where it was that we could have flown to in nine hours that would have such warm temperatures in December. As the vehicle was set in motion, I realized I didn’t really care.
We weren’t driving fast. There was a definite breeze, but not as strong as it would have been had we been going any faster. I assumed from the citrusy, woodsy scent next to me that Dante was driving. I knew I was right when a reassuring hand reached over to grasp mine. He didn’t hold it for long, just long enough to let me know he was there.
I smiled into the air. Despite his talent for irritating me, Dante knew exactly how to soothe me. Exactly how to give me what I needed. If he kept this up, it was going to be ridiculously hard to walk away from him. Maybe, I wouldn’t have to. Maybe, Lilly was wrong, and I was exactly the kind of girl Dante needed. Not just wanted butneeded. He’d just said I was “fucking perfect.” I could use that, build on it. If he truly felt that way, and why would he lie, then I had time. I had almost two weeks to convince him that this was possible. There could be more between us than just a sexual relationship. God, if I felt it already, surely, he did, too?
My stomach knotted. Wasn’t this what Lilly warned me about? About wanting too much. About setting myself up to be disappointed. I breathed deeply, trying to calm my reappearing nerves.
I recognized the smell of the ocean, that salty air that came with the beach, sand and surf. As the scent intensified, I picked up on the roar of the ocean. I turned my head in its direction, following the sound of the waves slapping the shore. We were on a beach, an island maybe?
I didn’t really care what the specifics were. After five years in England, and loving every minute of it, a warm, tropical beach was just what I needed.
And how thehellhad he known that? Because he was intuitive. There was something to be said for the quiet man and the secluded life he led. He was aware. He paid attention. And he was much more thoughtful than he was portrayed to be. I was bargaining. Bargaining and falling.
Nine years ago, I fell in love with Dante Calegari because of a five-minute conversation in a kitchen. I spent the next four years wishing he’d pay attention to me. Then, I moved to England and tried desperately to forget about him.
Within seven days of being back home, I bargained with my virginity. I’d get him, let him have me, make him an offer he couldn’t say no to so that I could move on with my life. And now, at every turn, he was doing and saying things that made me fall for him even harder. It was supposed to have been one night. One incredible night where he took my virginity. We would have made love, several times, I’d hoped, but I knew he’d walk away in the end.
But now, he’d whisked me away on a whirlwind trip aboard a luxurious private plane to some unknown tropical location, and I wasn’t supposed to feel anything for him?
I felt nauseous. I was in over my head. This was going to hurt. It was going to hurt so damn bad.
