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“You didn’t like it?” Laughter gave her voice a husky quality.
“You know perfectly well I did,” he murmured hoarsely. “Our food is going to be here any second. Perhaps you should return to your own seat.”
“I’m here for a kiss and a kiss is what I’m going to get.” She was enjoying this far too much. And, damn it, so was he.
With a fatalistic sigh, Nic accepted that he’d let himself be drawn too far into her game to turn back. As much as he wanted to savor the expressions flitting across her face, he stared at the fishing boats bobbing near the cement seawall. Alert to her slightest movement, he felt the tingle on his cheek an instant before her lips grazed his skin.
“Let’s stop all the foreplay, shall we,” he finally said.
“Oh, all right. Spoilsport. I was enjoying having you at my mercy. But if you insist.”
Lightning danced in her eyes. She secured his face between her hands and grazed her lips across his.
“Again.” His voice was half demand, half plea. He hardened his will and inserted steel into his tone. “And this time put a little effort into it.”
“Whatever you say.”
He let his lashes drop as her mouth drifted over his again. This time she applied more pressure, a little more technique. As kisses went, it was pretty chaste, but her little hum of pleasure tipped his world on its axis. And when she nibbled on his lip, murmuring in Italian, desire incinerated his resistance.
“Benedette le voci tante ch’io chiamando il nome de mia donna ò sparte, e i sospiri, et le lagrime, e ’l desio.”
How was he supposed to resist a woman with a PhD in Italian literature? Although he knew what she’d said, he wanted to hear her speak the words again.
“Translation?”
“And blessed be all of the poetry I scattered, calling out my lady’s name, and all the sighs, and tears, and the passion.”
“Italian love poetry?” he groused, amused in spite of the lust raking him with claws dipped in the sweetest aphrodisiac.
“It seemed appropriate.” Her fingers splaying over his rapidly beating heart, she swooped in for one last kiss before getting to her feet. “I think I made my point.” With a satisfied smirk, she returned to her chair.
“What point?”
“That we both could use closure.”
Over the course of the kiss he’d grasped what she wanted to do, but he’d worked diligently over the past month to come to grips with living without her and couldn’t imagine reopening himself to the loss all over again. And she’d just demonstrated he’d never survive a few days let alone a week in her company. He’d be lucky if he made it past the next hours. No. She had to go. And go soon. Because if she didn’t, he’d give in and make love to her. And that would be disastrous.
“I got my closure a month ago when I broke things off,” he lied. “But I understand that I’ve sprung a lot of information on you today that you’ll want to assimilate. Stay for a couple days.”
“As friends?” She sounded defeated.
“It’s for the best.”
Four
The discussion before lunch dampened Brooke’s spirits and left her in a thoughtful mood as she ate her way through a plate of moussaka, and followed that up with yogurt and honey for dessert. Nic, never one for small talk, seemed content with the silence, but he watched her through half-lidded eyes.
Telling him she was pregnant had just become a lot more complicated. As had her decision regarding the teaching position at Berkeley. Before Nic had broken it off with her a month ago she’d been confident that he was her future and she’d chosen him over her ideal job. When he left she should have returned to her original career path, but finding out that she was pregnant had created a whole new group of variables.
Gone was her fantasy that once Nic heard he was going to be a father, he would return to California and they would live happily ever after as a family. Since that wasn’t going to happen, the Berkeley job was back on the table. Brooke wished she could summon up the enthusiasm she’d once felt at the possibility of teaching there.
And then there were the challenges that came with being a single mom. If she moved back to LA she would be close to her parents and they would be thrilled to help.
Thanks to Nic’s revelations she was a bundle of indecisiveness. They returned to Nic’s car for the ride back to the villa. He told her he would have Elena’s husband, Thasos, return the boat later. As the car swept along the narrow road circling Kioni’s tranquil bay, Brooke felt her anxiety rise and fall with each curve.
