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Okay, maybe she could risk a quick fling with Gio, to finish what they’d started this afternoon, but she wasn’t about to risk her life letting him fly her anywhere. The boy had always had a need for too much speed and far too little caution. On the evidence so far, she wasn’t convinced the man was any less reckless.
Gio grinned at her horrified expression. ‘Oh, ye of little faith,’ he murmured. ‘I happen to be a qualified pilot, Isadora. With a good solid one hundred hours of flying time under my belt.’ His smile widened as he stroked her cheek, weakening her resolve, not to mention her thigh muscles. ‘Trust me. You’re perfectly safe in my hands.’
As she strapped herself into her seat and watched him duck into the pilot’s cabin, Issy knew she’d be mad to trust Gio Hamilton with anything.
But forewarned was forearmed. And, given how well aware she was of Gio’s shortcomings, she was more than capable of keeping herself safe this time.
After a smooth take-off, and an even smoother touch down in Pisa two hours later, Issy had to concede Gio could be trusted to pilot an aircraft without plummeting her to earth. But when he ushered her just as smoothly into an open-topped Ferrari at the airport, then sped her through miles of glorious sun-drenched Italian countryside, her pulse continued to thump like a sledgehammer and she knew she shouldn’t trust him with anything else.
The noise of the wind and the rush of the heart-stopping scenery meant they couldn’t talk during the drive. Which gave Issy more than enough time to think.
Was what she had agreed to do demeaning? After all, what self-respecting smart, capable career woman agreed to be ravaged senseless?
But after examining their arrangement Issy came to the conclusion she didn’t have a choice. Because Gio was right. She needed to get over the dirty trick her hormones had been playing on her for years.
She’d had a measly two proper boyfriends since Gio had introduced her to the joys of sex. And both relationships had ended with a whimper rather than a bang. At the time she’d told herself it was because she wasn’t ready, because the timing hadn’t been right, because the two guys she’d dated hadn’t been right for her. But now she knew the truth.
That special spark, that frisson of sexual energy that had exploded in her face today had always been missing. Sex wasn’t the most important thing in a relationship. She knew that. But it wasn’t unimportant either. She’d compared Johnny and Sam to Gio in bed without even knowing it, and found them wanting. Maybe it was some sort of natural selection, a mating instinct thing—after all Gio was the ultimate alpha male in the sack—or
maybe it was just that Gio had been her first. But whatever the problem was it needed to be dealt with.
Because if she didn’t deal with it she might never be able to form a long-term committed relationship with anyone, ever. The sort of relationship she’d spent her girlhood dreaming about. The sort of relationship her parents had shared before her father’s early death. The sort of relationship she’d almost given up hope of ever being able to find for herself.
This wasn’t about letting Gio ravage her senseless—it was about releasing her from the sexual hold he had always had over her, ever since that first night, and allowing her to forget about him so she would be free to find the real one true love of her life.
Convinced she’d satisfied all her concerns about the trip, Issy couldn’t understand why her pulse refused to settle down during the drive. In fact it was still working overtime when Gio steered the Ferrari off a narrow cobbled road in the hills around the city and onto a tree-lined drive.
The scent of lemon trees perfumed the air as he braked in front of a picture-perfect Florentine villa constructed of dusky pink terracotta stone. A grand fountain with two naked water nymphs entwined at its centre tinkled quietly in the circular forecourt.
Issy gawped as Gio leapt effortlessly out of the low-slung car.
She wasn’t a stranger to wealth and privilege, for goodness’ sake. She’d spent the formative years of her life living below stairs in a stately home. So why had her pulse just skipped into overdrive?
He opened the car door. As she stepped onto the pebbled drive she had to remind herself to breathe.
The carved oak entrance door swung open as they approached. A middle-aged woman with a homely face and a pretty smile bowed her head and introduced herself in Italian as Carlotta. Gio introduced Issy in turn, and then had a conversation with the housekeeper before she excused herself.
Hearing Gio speak Italian had Issy’s heartbeat kicking up another notch.
How strange. Even though he spoke English with barely a hint of an accent, Issy knew he was fluent in Italian. But there was something about hearing the language flow so fluidly, watching him use his hands for emphasis, that made him seem very sophisticated and European—as far removed from the surly boy she remembered as it was possible to get.
She tried to shake off her uneasiness and calm her frantic heartbeat, but as Gio led her through a series of increasingly beautiful rooms the unsettled feeling only got worse.
The house’s furnishings were few, but suited the open Mediterranean layout and looked hand-crafted and expensive. The minimalist luxury should have made the place seem exclusive and unapproachable, but it didn’t. As they walked into a wide, open-plan living area, the brightly coloured rugs, the lush, leafy potted plants and the stacks of dog-eared architectural magazines on the coffee table gave its elegance a lived-in feel, making the house seem unpretentious and inviting.
Gio held open a glass door at the end of the room and beckoned her forward.
Issy stepped on to a balcony which looked across the valley past a steeply terraced garden. At the bottom of the hill in the distance the sluggish Arno River wound its way through Florence, the city laid out below them like a carpet of wonders. She could make out the Ponte Vecchio to her right, probably heaving with tourists in the sweltering afternoon heat, and appreciated the citrus-perfumed breeze even more. Walking to the low stone wall that edged the terrace, she spotted a large pool in the lawned garden one level below, its crystal blue waters sparkling in the sunshine.
‘Goodness,’ she whispered, as her heartbeat pounded in her ears.
Who would have expected the wild, reckless boy whom she had assumed would never settle anywhere to make himself a home almost too beautiful to be real?
‘So what do you think?’ he asked.
She turned to find him standing behind her, studying her, his hands tucked into the back pockets of his jeans. She thought she saw a muscle in his jaw tense. As if he were anxious about what she might say.
Don’t be an idiot.
