Gladly Beyond (7 page)

Assertive men strike two.

As I clacked down the marble stairs in my boots, I reviewed the odd exchange.

Well, I mostly tried to convince myself that I was just being paranoid and hyper-sensitive and man-hating.

The Colonel was a perfectly nice person, and I was reading things that weren’t really there in the subtext of his conversation . . .

So, you’re the granddaughter of this woman I knew—and possibly liked—a long time ago, and I’ve put you up in the house of a woman who married a wealthy man nearly three times her age. Hey, what do you know? Just like you and me!

Here, let me pat your hand one more time . . .

Had the Colonel actually been hitting on me? Or was he just a chatty, perhaps lonely, old man?

Please don’t let him be pervy,
I pleaded.
I need this job too much.

I hit the ground floor and took two steps toward the large wooden front door.

How would the next few weeks play out? Like being a contestant on
Survivor
?
The Great Race
?

A voice stopped me.

“Just the person I was waiting for.”

I closed my eyes.

Nope. Things were shaping up to be
The Bachelorette.

Honestly.

Pasting on my polite grin, which truthfully was more of a grimace by this point, I turned around.

“Mr. D’Angelo.”

“Dante, please.” He stepped out of the shadows at the base of the stairs. A window in the stairwell illuminated half of him. Even that half was huge.

Whereas I looked down on Pierce and was eye-level with the Colonel, I had to look up, up at Dante. At five ten myself, it takes a lot to make me feel short. But he somehow managed it. He had to be at least six four and linebacker-wide. Did he play football in high school?

His dark, wavy hair had been smoothly slicked back when he arrived earlier. But I had watched it creep forward as the morning went along until a section of it came loose, swinging down to kiss his jaw. My fingers itched to brush it back.

Dante was the type of man I had always had a sweet tooth for. Until I learned, oh-so-painfully, how bad for my health they could be.

I could hear Grammy.
Four out of five psychologists recommend avoiding luscious man-candy to maintain proper mental health . . .

I was the collateral damage of a lifetime of men like him. Pierce was supposed to have been my compromise. The man who didn’t make my pulse race but also wouldn’t destroy my heart. My savior from all the Dante D’Angelos of the world.

The. Irony.

Dante was staring at me again. A squinty, focused look, just as he had all through the meeting.

What was his problem? Trying to subtly intimidate me without technically violating the Colonel’s Sandbox Rule?

“How may I help you?” I asked.

“Just making sure you’re okay. I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation with the Colonel and Pierce. Things seemed a little tense back there.”

“My issues with Mr. Whitman are hardly your concern—”

“Look, I’m just trying to be polite and considerate here.”

I sighed. Right. “Thank you. Good day, Mr. D’Angelo—”

“It’s Dante, and I was hoping I could talk you into joining me for lunch.” His face morphed into a friendly smile. “I have a favorite restaurant off Piazza Santa Croce. Quiet. Delicious traditional Tuscan dishes.”

Sheesh. Three meal invitations in less than fifteen minutes had to be some kind of record.

Dante probably thought to sweet talk me into . . . what? Giving him pointers? Not exposing him and Branwell as frauds?

I hesitated too long.

“C’mon. I promise the food will be amazing.” His grin widened. Moving from merely charming into heartbreaking territory.

Granted, I understood stunning smiles were a specialty of men like him. But even knowing this, my heart
still
sped up.

Gah!
Why did I
always
have to be attracted to flashy exteriors? I
hated
myself for finding him sexy. I needed to pack every last ounce of that away—

Exactly! Become dis
man
tled,
I could hear Grammy chuckle.

Besides, the thought of eating in a public place where anyone could recognize me, take a photo of us together, paste it all over the internet . . .

“Thank you for the invitation. But I don’t think the Colonel wants us fraternizing—”

“I don’t recall ol’ KFC forbidding us from
talking
to each other. Just no throwing sand or stealing toys. I promise to be on my best behavior.”

Uh-huh. And the day I believed that . . .

“The less contact we have with each other, the better—”

“There’s a lot we could do to help each other.”

Ah.
There it was.

Did he really want my help? Or did he intend to undermine me? Both?

“Again, the Colonel made it clear we aren’t supposed to help each other.”

“No, he just said no
plagiarizing
. Talking about the project is hardly plagiarism—”

“You’re hair-splitting here.”

“If I must.”

“I prefer to keep my professional integrity unimpeachable, Mr. D’Angelo—”

“Dante.”

“—and I feel that we should work separately.
Buon giorno.
”

I turned to leave. And then paused in front of the wooden doors leading out to the piazza.

They were enormous. Like I’m-here-to-see-the-wizard huge. When open, you could probably drive an Escalade through them. Or at least a carriage and some munchkins. And, like front doors everywhere, they opened inward.

There was no door knob.

I looked to each side of the door, searching for a release button. Something. Anything. Someone had buzzed me in earlier.

It figured that I would be stuck staring at the doors. I swear I could
feel
Dante’s amusement tickling my shoulder blades.

“Would you like some help with the
portone
?” he asked.

He pronounced
portone
sharp and staccato, rolling the
r . . . port-OWN-ay
. He sounded native.

I turned back to him. “
Portone
?”

“Like
porta
and
-one.
Big door. The door that opens to the outside.” He chuckled. A deep smooth sound that rumbled out of his chest.

He stepped around me and threw the deadbolt. Or, at least, what looked like the deadbolt. He spun it one, two, three times. On the fourth round, it caught. With a loud click, he pulled the heavy door ajar. Politely motioned for me to pass through.

Ah.

“
Grazie
,” I said. Agenda or not, he was being courteous. I could at least thank him.

“
Parli italiano
?” he asked as I moved to step out onto the bright piazza.

It would be impolite to not reply. That’s what I told myself.

It wasn’t that I subconsciously liked every word out of his mouth . . . his very fine, full-lipped mouth.

Nope. I was e
man
cipated.

“Not really,” I said. “Just a few tourist phrases. Art words.
Chiaroscuro. Sfumato
. My brain short circuits when it comes to learning a foreign language.”

“
Peccato
. I love hearing my native language on the tongue of a gorgeous woman.”

I rolled my eyes.
Oy.

But the teenage girl part of my brain squealed and shook her hands.
He called me gorgeous. Eeeek!

I was pathetic.

Just walk out the open door, Claire.

Unbidden, I found myself pivoting as I stepped past him. My body a compass helplessly pointing to his north star.

“So you
are
Italian, then?”

“
Sì
.”

“Your English is perfect. I could have sworn you’re American.”

“Yes.”

I popped a hand onto my hip. Shot him a skeptical eyebrow.

“My mom is American from Portland, Oregon.” His gaze honey warm. “My dad was Italian from Florence.”

“
Was
Italian?”

His smile froze. An emotion flickered. “Yeah. My father passed away when I was a teenager.”

“Oh. I’m so sorry. My dad died in a car accident when I was three.” The words just popped free. I bit my tongue a second too late.

Why, why, why would I share that tidbit of personal information with Dante D’Angelo of all people? Why would my stupid subconscious leap to confide in him?

His head canted. Interested.

“I’m sorry.” Even though he repeated my own words, they hung with genuine sincerity.

I shrugged. “It was a long time ago. I don’t have any memories of him. Not like being a teenager.”

“Well, it feels like a long time ago for me too. My parents had been separated for years. Though I lived my first ten years in Italy, after that, I grew up mostly in the States with my mom. I just spent summers here with my dad’s family.”

Wow. I was standing in a doorway, bonding with a (surprisingly nice) playboy over our shared grief. This could not bode well for my emotional state.

I needed to leave.
C’mon feet, start walking.

But for some reason, my body had stopped listening to me.

“So, do you still live in the States?”

“No. We all live here now. In Florence. My brothers and I took over the family business after college.”

“Brothers? You have a brother other than your twin?”

“Branwell is my identical twin, but we’re actually triplets. Branwell, Tennyson and myself. We have a younger sister too, Chiara.”

I liked how he said her name . . . k
ey-AH-rah
. Again, trilling the
r
, so it sounded somewhere between an
r
and a
d
.

He braced an arm against the open door. The movement pulled his suit coat tight against his bicep, angling his body toward me. Looming. He looked expensive. Decadent, even.

I could always tell him and Branwell apart in photos. Despite being identical twins, it wasn’t hard. Dante had this urbane smoothness about him. Like he had just walked off a Milan runway. His brother, Branwell, was more Free People hobo with a thick beard and homespun vibe. The fun-loving playboy and mountain-man recluse, as the industry gossip labeled them.

Dante was leaning decidedly too close. Probably the Italian in him ignoring my personal space bubble.

I meant to take a step back. Really I did. But then I caught a whiff of his cologne (old school Drakkar Noir . . . classic), and my kneecaps liquefied just as my heart pounded its way up my throat.

Sheesh.
Could I
be
more pathetic? Stupidstupidstupid physical attraction.

A wide flashy smile. Some smooth Italian charm. A few bulging biceps . . . and all my hard-won resolve fluttered out the window.

Surely
World’s Biggest Idiot
was flashing across my forehead.

“You know—” There went that grin again. I had a feeling women denied him nothing when he smiled like that. “—if you come to lunch with me, you can ask me all the questions you like.”

“But would you answer them?”

“Possibly.”

“Tempting.”

“Mmmmm, so I’ve been told.” He winked, just like Pierce.

My senses plummeted back to reality.

Honestly.

How many times did I have to be sucker-punched before I learned to stay down for good? I was
not
going to let a man ruin my career again.

“Thanks, but I have no more questions to ask.”
Finally
my feet listened. I stepped out the door.

“Wait.”

His bare hand wrapped around my bare wrist.

And, I swear, the entire universe came to a jarring, hiccupping
stop
.

Sparks. Electricity.
Connection.

How do you describe that first jolt of contact? When every sensation focuses down, down, down to a single point of touch?

A shocking
ping
of sensation. A zap that chases your spine.

I don’t think he actually heard my gasp. But I certainly felt it.

I stared at his hand, heart instantly in my throat. Raised my gaze to his.

Our eyes locked. Fixed. Silence stretched.

He swallowed. Dropped my wrist.

I moved backwards.

One, two, three steps. And then turned, all but running across the piazza.

Trying to wipe the image of his face from my mind.

Eyes wide. Mouth slack.

His expression just as shell-shocked as mine.

Six

Dante

S
omething’s up with you.” It wasn’t a question. Branwell folded his arms and sat back.

“What makes you say that?” I asked.

“Womb-mate.” Branwell pointed a gloved thumb at his chest. The pun so familiar I didn’t even groan. “We
literally
share the same genetic brain, remember?”

Sometimes I hated having an identical twin brother.

We were in Nonna’s galley-style kitchen, a floor up from our own apartment, helping prep lunch. Or, rather, I grated fresh
parmigiana reggiano
into a bowl while Branwell watched. Things were easier that way.