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“How much?”
He named a price that made her inwardly wince. It was more than a fair price for handwoven Italian silk. Back in Florence, she’d most likely pay twice that at one of the luxury stores dotting the city. But with so much of her budget already consumed by her rent in Paris and her living expenses, she couldn’t afford the splurge right now.
“Perhaps my next visit.”
She looked up and realized Antonio had disappeared. Had she upset him? She’d broken off without a word. Rude, but not intentionally so. She glanced around the crowded lane.
There.
It was like watching a sea part as Antonio walked toward her, his eyes concealed by sunglasses. People stood to the side, watching him out of the corners of their eyes or, in the case of one bold woman, with open admiration.
He stopped in front of her, a small violet gift bag hanging from his fingers.
“I wondered where you were,” she said, her voice coming out breathier than she’d intended.
Before she could blink, he leaned down and pressed a quick kiss to her lips. The light caress sent electric currents charging through her arms, her legs, everywhere. Her eyes fluttered shut. She was about to stand on her tiptoes to return the kiss when she felt him step back.
“For you,mariposa.”
Butterfly. He’d called her that the first time he’d taken her out into the wilderness beyond the walls of the Cabrera family estate. He’d laughed and called hermariposabecause she “flitted from flower to flower.” And she had, soaking up the first bit of joy she’d found since her parents had been taken from her as she’d rambled over the grassy slopes. Between the nights she’d awaken crying for her mom to the tears that had formed in Tío Diego’s eyes the first few weeks anytime he’d seen her, tears that had made her agree to his laundry list of stringent conditions, Antonio’s invitation to get out of the house had been a lifesaver she’d desperately needed.
It felt like butterflies were fluttering in her stomach as she accepted the gift bag and opened it. Inside, wrapped in lavender tissue paper, was a diamond tennis bracelet.
“Oh!”
Not cubic zirconia. Not paste gems. No, these were real diamonds, a row of them set in silver with a hidden clasp. Antonio lifted it from the tissue paper and wrapped the diamonds around her wrist, his fingertips skimming the underside of her arm. A place, she learned as she froze, that was incredibly sensitive as he secured the clasp.
She looked down at the bracelet and nearly gulped. How much had it cost? Ten thousand? Fifteen? More? She was probably wearing nearly a year’s worth of rent for her Paris apartment on her arm.
“You didn’t have to do that, you know.”
“I know. But I wanted to.”
The simple statement warmed her. Even though it wasn’t the kind of bracelet she would normally wear, the thought had been very kind. She started to reply, to echo her thanks once more, but he continued.
“There was a photographer just behind us. Between yesterday and today, we should be giving them plenty to talk about.”
The bracelet grew heavy around her wrist, no longer a stunning piece of jewelry but a manacle. Of course the gift had been for show. So had the kiss.
So much for staying removed.Less than twenty-four hours from making her commitment to maintain a professional attitude toward this arrangement and she was already entertaining thoughts that any action Antonio took even hinted at his harboring feelings for her.
Self-pity beckoned. But the strength she’d slowly been building ever since her job loss surged forward, rescuing her from that precarious cliff. After this whole arrangement was over, she’d give the bracelet back.
She raised her chin. She didn’t need Antonio to find her attractive to be happy. Emboldened, she leaned her head against his shoulder. “If not, perhaps this will.” She leaned up and kissed his bearded cheek. When he looked down at her, she smiled, her reflection mirrored in his glasses. “Can’t have you doing all the work.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
OVERTHENEXTfew days, Antonio and Anna fell into a routine. They spent their mornings apart, Anna on the balcony and Antonio holed up in his office. Just before noon, Antonio would collect her and they’d go out to lunch at one of the many restaurants.
What he’d planned as a subtle way to be seen had turned into exquisite torture. Anna wasn’t like the women he’d dated over the last few years. Instead of pushing salad around her plate with a fork or turning her nose up at a slightly charred quiche crust, she enjoyed her food. The way her eyes lit when the waiter had placed a plate of caprese salad in front of her, the little moan of pleasure when she’d savored a forkful of pasta pomodoro...
That moan tortured him. She wasn’t immune to him. He caught the subtle glances, the flush in her cheeks. Yet her response seemed to be purely physical. She played the role of girlfriend when they were out and about. In private, though, she remained as aloof as he did, disappearing onto the balcony all morning and all evening once they returned from their afternoon activity. The first day, after he’d gifted her the bracelet and they’d enjoyed lunch on the terrace at an exclusive bistro, he’d been relieved that she had put so much distance between them.
But the second day, as they’d wandered through one of Positano’s many art galleries and she’d grabbed his arm, dragging him over to an oil painting of a beach, he’d felt...happy. Happier than he had been in a long time. New emails dinging his inbox every minute, contracts to review for Le Porto, and he couldn’t have cared less. He’d basked in Anna’s enthusiastic joy over a painting that cost a fraction of the bracelet he’d bought her, soaking up her sunshine like a man who’d been jailed for ages in the darkest dungeon. The third day, Anna had sweet-talked him into pizza and red wine over the fancy hilltop restaurant he’d picked out. Whether it was her luminous eyes as she bit into a slice topped with cheese and fresh basil or her sigh of contentment as she’d sipped her wine, he’d felt his own tension bleed out of his shoulders.
At night, the guilt that lurked all day beneath the blissful distractions Anna offered translated into nightmares the likes of which he hadn’t experienced since right after the accident. He knew what his terrors were telling him; that he didn’t deserve any of this. That he was gleaning too much joy from these sojourns with Anna.
God help him, he couldn’t stop. Even the suffering of waking up to the memory of William’s gaping mouth, blood trickling from his lips as he’d gasped like a fish and clawed at Antonio’s arm, was worth the pleasure of her company, the moments of happiness he hadn’t experienced in over a decade.
