AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Okay,” Santino said. “If you say so.”
He still looked doubtful, and Adriano wasn’t sure he had it in him to continue arguing about the issue, so he changed the subject to the newest yacht in Santino’s fleet. Santino was happy to talk about his boat—he was always happy to talk about his boats—and Amy’s name didn’t come up again for the rest of their time together.
Later, though, when he was back at home, Adriano found himself brooding on what his friend had suggested.
Could there possibly be any truth to it?
He knew he had been having trouble getting past the memory of the chemistry and connection he and Amy had shared. Hell, he was reminded of it every time he laid eyes on her. But that didn’t mean he hadfeelingsfor her. It just meant that, given the chance, he would probably sleep with her again.
His attraction to her was complicated enough without adding feelings into the mix.
No, he didn’t have feelings for her.
He simply refused to allow that to be true.
CHAPTER16
AMY
The two of them had fallen into a pattern, one Amy was unsure of how to interpret. When she had first arrived in Italy, Adriano had kept his distance from her to the point of frustrating her—she hadn’t known how she would ever get the chance to talk to him.
Things were very different now. He was always in the kitchen when she arrived in the late afternoon after her work at the clinic. She’d find him sitting at the counter in front of a plate of whatever Claudia had made, and although she told herself every day that she wouldn’t do it, she always found herself sitting down with him to eat and talk about her day.
They kept the conversation light. She felt as if the night they’d tried to talk about surrogate options was weighing on both of them, and she had a feeling they were trying mutually to avoid both that subject and any other subject that might lead to tension.
So she told him about her patients at the clinic. He was a good audience for it, laughing when she reported on the man who came in every other day with some new fictitious ailment, looking impressed when she described the young boy with appendicitis that she had been able to diagnose and refer to a hospital quickly.
“You probably saved his life, you know,” Adriano said, nibbling on a piece of pasta.
Amy knew it was probably true. Still, right now she found herself more focused on Adriano than on the things that had happened today.
He was sitting so close to her. Had he always sat this close to her when they had their afternoon meal? She couldn’t be sure, but she thought not. She thought this was new.
A part of her wanted to scoot her stool away from him, knowing that a little distance would make her feel safer. But there was a big part of her, too, that really wanted to move closer. That longed to see how far she could push this. She wanted to feel the heat of his body. She wanted to see if he would stand up and move away at her approach or if he would let her touch him—if maybe that was what he had been angling for all along.
Which one of us is pushing this, and which one is pulling away?
She had to admit that she no longer knew the answer. Not with any degree of confidence. And that scared her—and exhilarated her, too.
She cleared her throat, trying to bring herself to her senses. “You’ve hardly touched your pasta,” she pointed out.
He grinned at her. “Are you trying to save my life too?”
“I mean, you already know that I am. That’s why I’m in Italy in the first place.”
“And it’s a good thing. I wouldn’t want to drop dead of not finishing my afternoon snack.”
She swatted his shoulder. There was a momentary thrill at the contact, and Amy wondered at her own motives. Had she been trying to flirt with him?
She had to get it together. She’d been asking him a serious question. His eating habits were important.
“You should be finishing your afternoon snack,” she told him firmly.
“Okay, Mom.”
“I’m serious. What else have you eaten today?”
“I had breakfast with you. You saw what I ate.”
