One Summer at The Villa. Rebecca Winters

The sound of a zipper going up nearly made her breathe a very audible sigh of relief. “The time would pass so pleasantly. Before you know it, we’d be leaving again.”

      “Oh yes,” she forced out. Without looking up, of course. “We’d be leaving. And you’d waste no time informing everyone you could think of that you’d bedded me.”

      “I never kiss and tell, Principessa.”

      “Of course not,” she said, letting him know with her tone that she didn’t believe a word of it.

      “But if I want to claim we’ve been lovers, what’s to stop me?”

      Her head snapped back as her eyes met his. He was wearing another pair of khaki shorts and a navy T-shirt that molded the shape of his chest and abdomen. He was clothed, and yet her pulse still zipped along like an express train.

      “You wouldn’t. Besides, I would deny it.”

      Cristiano laughed. “Who would believe you, bellissima? You have a reputation, shall we say?”

      Antonella’s cheeks burned. Oh, yes, she had a reputation—gained when men had lied about her, as this one threatened to do. It made her angry. She flipped a page in the magazine, ripping the paper as she did so. Damn him.

      But maybe she could fight back. She arched an eyebrow, affected as chilly a look as she could manage. “Perhaps they would believe it when I claimed you were not so good as your reputation? I could say you were a selfish and hasty—” she emphasized the word “—lover.”

      Cristiano’s laugh was louder this time. Then he swept her with hot eyes. “You are welcome to try.”

      Antonella slapped the magazine closed irritably. “This is ridiculous, Cristiano. We could be in very real danger, and yet you keep insulting me and making jokes.”

      His expression grew serious. “Do you know what I think?”

      “No, but I know you will tell me.”

      He came over to where she sat, towered above her until he dropped to one knee and reached for her. Her heart stopped, simply stopped, as she tried to imagine what he was about to do. He picked up the magazine, turned it and set it back down.

      “I think you want me very much, Antonella.”

      She forced herself to speak past the giant lump in her throat. “You are deluded,” she managed.

      “Am I?” He stood and moved away without waiting for a reply.

      Antonella watched numbly as he disappeared through the door that connected the bedroom with the rest of the house. Then she looked down. And realized that he’d turned the magazine the correct way.

      She’d been staring at it upside down the entire time.

      By the time Cristiano returned a short while later, she’d managed to calm her racing heart and jangled nerves. She’d tried reading a book, but the power had blinked a few times and then snapped out, leaving her in the dark. She’d fumbled for the candle she’d placed on the table nearby, cursing softly when it rolled away and fell.

      Before she could get down on her hands and knees to find it, Cristiano was there, shining a flashlight into the darkness. He retrieved one of the candles from the stash at the foot of the bed and lit it, then switched off the light. A second later, he was stretched out on the bed, leaning against the headboard with his hands behind his head. The pose molded the shirt to his chest, bulged the muscles in his arms. Made him seem so delicious and sexy.

      Antonella crossed her arms over her body protectively and concentrated on the flickering candle where he’d set it on the bedside table. Anything except look at him.

      “It will be a very long night if we ignore each other,” Cristiano finally said.

      She forced herself to gaze at him evenly. “It’s already been a long day. Interminable.”

      “Yes.”

      Her pride pricked at the idea that he found her company tiresome. Why? Wasn’t that what she’d just intimated about him?

      “Tell me about Monteverde,” he said, and her jaw threatened to fall to the floor.

      “Why?” she asked a moment later, suspicion curling around the edges of her awareness.

      “Because we are alone, the night is long, and it’s a good topic.”

      “Why not tell me about Monterosso?”

      He shrugged. “If you wish.”

      For the next twenty minutes, he told her about his country—about the green mountains, the black cliffs, and the azure ocean. She found herself listening intently, nodding from time to time as she realized how much Monterosso sounded like Monterverde. When he talked of cool forests and bubbling mountain streams, she could picture them perfectly. When he spoke of the dryness along the coast, the cacti and aloe plants, she felt as if she’d stood beside him and looked upon the same things.

      “It’s amazing,” she said when he finished.

      “I think so, yes.”

      Antonella shook her head. “No, I mean it sounds exactly like Monteverde.”

      He arched an eyebrow. “You are surprised? We were a single country once.”

      “And you would wish it so again,” she said, inflecting her words with steel.

      “Have I said that?”

      “You didn’t have to. It’s what your people have wanted for years.”

      “Is this your opinion, or what you’ve been told by your father and brother?” His voice was diamond-edged.

      “If it’s not what Monterosso wants, why must we defend our border? Why are your tanks and guns there? Your soldiers?”

      “Because yours are.”

      My God, men were insane. Was this the sort of circular logic that had caused so many lives to be lost over the years? While the solution seemed obvious, she knew it wasn’t. “Then why don’t we both turn around and go home?”

      “Because we don’t trust each other, Antonella.”

      She sat up straighter in her chair. “But we could sign treaties, pledge to cooperate—”

      His laughter startled her. “Do you not think this has been tried?”

      “It hasn’t been tried since Dante became King. We have only the ceasefire—”

      “How would this change anything? He is a Romanelli.”

      “What is that supposed to mean? That he is untrustworthy? That we are not as good as the di Savarés?”

      “It means that your word and your treaties have not been enough thus far. Why should we believe your brother any different from your father?”

      She ached to tell him. And yet she couldn’t. Because it was unexplainable. And private. No, what she and Dante had endured wouldn’t convince this man. And there was every danger it would only reinforce his beliefs. Abuse often turned out abusers. For all Cristiano knew, Dante could be just like his predecessor.

      “He simply is,” she said firmly.

      “Yes,” Cristiano sneered, “this is quite enough to convince me of Monteverdian sincerity.”

      “You have yet to prove you are any better. If you would turn your tanks around, pull back your soldiers—”

      “And let you bomb innocent civilians?” Rage suddenly seemed to roll from him in a giant wave. It was so palpable she thought it would crush her. His expression was dark, hard.

      Intimidating.

      Her voice came out in a whisper in spite of her best effort to make it otherwise. “We don’t use bombs