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Soldier, Hero...Husband?
Cara Colter
The tortured hero’s happily-ever-afterFormer navy SEAL Connor Benson is in beautiful Tuscany, but he can’t forget his time on the frontline. Meeting beautiful Isabella Rossi reminds him of everything he once fought for…and everything he can’t have.Isabella understands what it’s like to be stuck in the past—since becoming a widow she’s been sleepwalking through life. But handsome Connor’s delicious kisses are waking her up, and his courage inspires her: she must fight for the love they both deserve!The Vineyards of CalanettiSaying ‘I do’ under the Tuscan sun…



The Vineyards of Calanetti (#ulink_1b99d48d-654f-5450-940b-7eb8a580b5e6)
Saying “I do” under the Tuscan sun …
Deep in the Tuscan countryside nestles the picturesque village of Monte Calanetti. Famed for its world-renowned vineyards, the village is also home to the crumbling but beautiful Palazzo di Comparino. Empty for months, rumors of a new owner are spreading like wildfire … and that’s before the village is chosen as the setting for the royal wedding of the year!
It’s going to be a roller coaster of a year, but will wedding bells ring out in Monte Calanetti for anyone else?
Find out in this fabulously heartwarming, uplifting and thrillingly romantic new eight-book continuity from Mills & Boon
Cherish™!
A Bride for the Italian Boss by Susan Meier
Return of the Italian Tycoon by Jennifer Faye
Reunited by a Baby Secret by Michelle Douglas
Soldier, Hero … Husband? by Cara Colter
His Lost-and-Found Brideby Scarlet Wilson Available October 2015
The Best Man & the Wedding Planner by Teresa Carpenter
His Princess of Convenience by Rebecca Winters
Saved by the CEO by Barbara Wallace
CARA COLTER shares her life in beautiful British Columbia, Canada, with her husband, nine horses and one small Pomeranian with a large attitude. She loves to hear from readers, and you can learn more about her and contact her through Facebook.
Soldier, Hero…Husband?
Cara Colter

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To the team of editors and writers who worked so tirelessly on this series:
I am proud to have been a part of it.
I stand in awe of your creative brilliance.
Contents
Cover (#u10e816d7-6153-5beb-9c22-54d0235d55b1)
The Vineyards of Calanetti (#u060afce4-44b9-5794-bbf9-639c0fca4f67)
About the Author (#uf2de82ba-b3c5-5fa8-910a-2d8e0cfb15f8)
Title Page (#u72e27d87-190b-5f6a-a66c-3573ceb261c4)
Dedication (#ufb3cd776-008c-5830-ba11-c87152592a12)
CHAPTER ONE (#ua9c27650-2bd0-53fe-b5ac-50e0a574c877)
CHAPTER TWO (#u4f238849-a6fb-503b-99bc-19e76a03ab37)
CHAPTER THREE (#udfad0444-51df-5864-a6d7-64ebcb998fa5)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Endpage (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_9eb4bac1-8158-5b23-be4a-87ac7628a292)
CONNOR BENSON AWOKE with a start. It was dark. And it was hot. Where was he? Somalia? Iraq? Afghanistan? Wherever he was, it was so secret, even his mother didn’t know.
That feeling tickled along his spine, a sense of imminent danger. It brought him to red alert. Still not knowing exactly where he was, he was suddenly extremely focused, on nothing and everything. Each of his senses was so wide-open it was almost painful.
The tick of a clock somewhere in the room seemed explosively loud. Connor could feel the faint prickliness of the bedclothes against his naked skin, and he could feel a single bead of sweat slide down his temple. He could smell the residue of his own sweat and aftershave, and farther away, coffee.
Another sound rose above the ticking of the clock and the deliberate steadiness of his own breathing. It was a whispery noise just beyond this room, and as unobtrusive as it was, Connor knew it was that sound that had woken him. It was the sneaky sound of someone trying to be very quiet.
Connor tossed off the thin blanket and was out of the bed in one smooth movement, from dead asleep to warrior alert in the time it took to draw a single breath. The floor was stone under his bare feet and he moved across it soundlessly. His nickname on his SEAL team had been “the Cat.”
At six foot five, every inch of that honed muscle, his comrades didn’t mean a friendly house cat, either.
They meant the kind of cat that lived like a shadow on the edge of the mountains, or in the deepest forests and the darkest jungles, where men were afraid to go. They meant the kind of cat that was big and strong and silent. They meant the kind of cat that could go from relaxed to ready to pounce in the blink of an eye. They meant the kind of cat that had deadly and killing instincts.
Those instincts guided Connor across the room on silent feet to the door that had a faint sliver of light slipping under it. His movement was seemingly unhurried, but his muscles were tensing with lethal purpose.
Though most people would have detected no scent at all, when he paused on his side of the door, just under the aroma of coffee, Connor could taste the air. He knew someone was on the other side of that door. He also knew they were not directly in front of it—a hint of a shadow told him someone was to the left of the door. It was not a guess. His muscles tautened even more. His heart began to pick up the tempo. Not with fear. No, there was no fear at all. What he felt was anticipation.
Adrenaline coursed through his veins as Connor flung open the door.
He was nearly blinded by sunlight in the hallway, but it didn’t stop his momentum. He hurled himself left, at the figure, back to him, rising from a crouch beside his door well. His hands closed around slender shoulders.
Slender?
A scent he had not noticed before tickled his nostrils.
Perfume?
His mind screamed, Abort! It was too late not to touch, but not too late to temper his considerable strength. Instead of taking the culprit to the ground, he used the existing momentum to spin the person skulking outside his door toward him. The force of the spin caused a stumble, and as luscious curves came in full contact with him, Connor recognized the truth.
Her.
Connor stared down into the eyes of the woman he had just attacked, stunned. It wasn’t that women couldn’t be bad guys, but this woman so obviously was not. He cursed under his breath, and her eyes, already wide, widened more.
She seemed to realize she was still pressed, full length, against him, and she pushed herself away.
“Ma sei pazzo!” she said. Her voice was gorgeous, husky and rich, a note of astonishment in it that matched the astonishment in her huge, wide eyes. She definitely had the most beautiful eyes he had ever seen.
Eyes that, at the moment, were wide with shock. Now that she had pushed away from him, her hand went to the sweet swell of her breast, and he could see where her pulse beat wildly in the delicate column of her throat.
Connor, ever the soldier, and still in that place of heightened awareness, took in every exquisite detail of her. She had long, dark hair, luxuriously thick and straight, that was capturing the incredible morning light that poured in through the arched windows of the hallway they were in. Her hair fell in a shimmering waterfall of dark chocolate past slender bare shoulders.
At least a foot shorter than he was, the woman had on a bright, flower-patterned dress. It was sleeveless and accentuated the lovely litheness of her figure. The dress was pinched by a narrow belt at a tiny waist and then the skirt flared out in a way that made him able to picture her dancing, that skirt flying around her. She had sandals on her delicate feet, her toenails painted a soft shade of pink.
Her coloring looked as if it was naturally pale, but golden from the sun. Her skin was flawless. Ma sei pazzo. It occurred to Connor he was not in Iraq. Or Somalia. Not Afghanistan, either.
He cringed inwardly at his mistake. “Jeez,” he said, out loud. “I’m in Italy.”
It all came back to him. He was in a small town in Tuscany on a puffball mission for Itus Security, the company he and his friend Justin had started after Justin’s injury had made them both leave the US Navy SEALs, though for different reasons.
“Sì, Italia.”
Yes, he was in Italy. And it was not a secret. Everyone in his world, including his mother, knew exactly where he was. In fact, his mother had been thrilled for him when he had told her the Tuscan village of Monte Calanetti was on his itinerary.
Italy? she had said breathlessly. She had looked at him with ridiculously hope-filled eyes and said softly, The land of amore.
If anybody had a right to be soured by love, it was his mom, who’d had him when she was barely sixteen and had suffered through all it meant to be a single mother at that age.
In addition, Connor knew exactly what his years of service in the world’s trouble spots and danger zones had made him. He knew only a mother could look at a battle-hardened and emotionally bereft specimen like Connor and hope love was in his future.
“Do you speak English?” he asked the young woman. He kept his voice deliberately quiet, threading it with calm. The woman was still watching him silently, with those doe-like eyes, and just like a doe, was ready to bolt at one more wrong move from him.
She nodded warily.
He deserved her wariness. “Sorry, ma’am,” he muttered. “I seem to have a bit of jet lag. I was disoriented.”
“You came out of that room as if you expected an assassin!” she said accusingly, finding her voice.
No point sharing with her that was exactly what he had been expecting. There was something sweetly angelic in her face that suggested that would be entirely foreign to her world.
Looking at her, it did occur to Connor that if a man was not completely hardened to life, the woman in front of him—beautiful and angelic, yet still sensual in an understated way—might have made his thoughts go to amore.
“I said I was sorry. I hope I didn’t hurt you.” Connor had tempered his strength, but even so, she was right. He had come out of that room expecting trouble of one variety or another, and his force had been substantial.
“No. No, I’m not hurt,” she insisted hastily, but then she folded her hands over her shoulders and rubbed them.
He stepped in close to her again, aware of her scent intensifying. He carefully pried her hands off her shoulders. She stopped breathing, staring up at him, her hands drifting to her sides.
If he was not mistaken, he stopped breathing, too, as he leaned in close and inspected the golden surface of her shoulders for damage. He stepped back and started to breathe again.
“There are no marks on your shoulders,” he said quietly. “You won’t be bruised.”
“I told you I was fine.”
He shrugged, looked away from her, ran a hand through his hair and then looked back. “I just thought I should make sure. What does that mean? What you said to me? Ma sei pazzo?”
“It’s an exclamation of surprise,” she said.
It was her eyes sliding away from him that alerted him to the fact there might be more to it than that, so he lifted an eyebrow at her, waiting.
“Specifically,” she said, looking back at him, “it means are you crazy?” She was unrepentant, tilting her chin at him.
“Ah. Well. I can’t really argue with that, or blame you for thinking it.”
His senses were beginning to stand down, but even so, the woman’s scent tickled his nostrils. Her perfume was very distinctive—it had an exotic, spicy scent that was headier than any perfume he had ever smelled. He looked once more into the liquid pools of green and gold that were her eyes and recognized a weak inclination to fall toward those pools of light and grace, calm and decency.
Instead, he reminded himself who he really was. He let his thoughts travel away from her and down the road to the sense of failure that traveled with him these days, around the globe, like a shadow.
What had just happened was precisely why he’d had to leave the only world he had known for nearly two decades. He’d started making mistakes. It was why he had left the SEALs when Justin had. In his line of work, mistakes demanded a price be paid. Often it was a huge price. Sometimes it was an irrevocable one.
And he knew, from firsthand experience, it was even harder when it was someone other than yourself who paid the price for your mistakes.
“It’s all right,” she stammered, and he realized she had seen something in his face that he would have preferred she hadn’t seen.
And of course it was not all right to be attacking innocent civilians. Now that the initial shock had worn off, Connor could see she was trembling slightly, like a leaf in a breeze, and her eyes were wide on him. Her gaze flitted down the length of him, and then flew back to his face, shocked.
He glanced down at himself.
“Sheesh,” he muttered. “Would that be adding insult to injury?”
“I told you I wasn’t injured,” she stammered. “And I’m not sure what you mean by insulted.”
“It’s an expression,” he clarified, “just like your ma sei pazzo. It means on top of giving you a good scare, I’ve embarrassed you with my state of undress.”
Her eyes flew to his state of undress, again, and then back up to his face. She confirmed that she was indeed embarrassed when her blush deepened to crimson.
He would probably be blushing himself if he had any scrap of modesty remaining in himself, but he did not. He’d lived in the rough company of men his entire adult life and guys had a tendency to be very comfortable in their underwear.
Still, he was very aware that he was standing in this beautiful woman’s presence outfitted only in army-green boxer briefs that covered only the essential parts of himself.
Despite the circumstances he found himself in, he was reluctantly charmed that she was blushing so profusely it looked as if she had been standing with her face too close to a robust fire.
“Sorry, I’m disoriented,” he said again, by way of explanation. “I’ve been on an insane schedule. I was in—” he had to think about it for a second “—Azerbaijan yesterday putting a security team in place for the World Food Conference. And the day before that...ah, never mind.”
She struggled to regain her composure. “You’re Signor Benson, of course.”
“Connor, please.”
“I’m sorry I was not here to greet you last night. Nico told me you would arrive late.” Her English, he noted, was perfect, the accent lilting and lovely in the background of the precisely formed words. Her voice itself was enchanting, husky and unconsciously sensual. Or maybe it was that accent that just made everything she said seem insanely pleasing. Connor was willing to bet she could read a grocery list and sound sexy. He felt, crazily, as if he could listen to her all day.
“I think it was close to three in the morning when I arrived.”
She nodded. “Nico told me your arrival would be very late. That’s why I closed the shutters when I prepared your room. To block out the light so you could sleep in. I was just leaving you something to eat this morning. I have to be at work in a few minutes.”
“Schoolteacher?” he guessed.
She frowned at him. “Nico told you that?”
“No, I guessed.”
“But how?”
“You just have that look about you.”
“Is this a good thing or a bad thing to have this look about me?”
He shrugged, realizing he shouldn’t have said anything. It was part of what he did. He was very, very good at reading people. He could almost always tell, within seconds, what kind of lifestyle someone had, the general direction of their career paths and pursuits, if not the specifics. Sometimes his life and the lives of others depended on that ability to accurately read and sort details. This was something she, living here in her sheltered little village in Italy, did not have to know.
“I still do not understand if it is a good thing or a bad thing to have this schoolteacher look about me,” she pressed.
“A good thing,” he assured her.
She looked skeptical.
“You’re very tidy. And organized.” He gestured at the tray beside his door. “And thoughtful, closing the shutters so I could sleep in. So, I figured some profession that required compassion. A teacher. Or a nurse. But the dress made me lean toward teacher. Your students probably like bright colors.”
He was talking way too much, which he put down as another aftereffect of jet lag. She was nibbling her lip, which was plump as a plum, and frowning at him.
“It’s like a magician’s trick,” she said, not approvingly.
“No, really, it’s something everyone can do. It’s just observing details.”
She looked as if she was considering having another long, hard look at all of him, as if he had invited her to play a parlor game. But then, wisely, she decided against it.
Connor glanced at the tray set so carefully by his door, more proof of a tidy, organized, caring personality. It was loaded with a carafe of coffee and rolls still steaming from the oven. There was a small glass jar of homemade preserves and a large orange.
The fact he had guessed right about her being a teacher did not alleviate his annoyance with himself over this other stupid error. He’d heard someone sneaking around, all right—sneaking his breakfast into place so as not to disturb him.
“Thank you,” he said, “for taking me in on such short notice. I should have made arrangements for a place to stay before I arrived, but I didn’t think it was going to be a problem. When I researched it, there seemed to be lots of accommodations in the village.”
“There are many accommodations here, and usually there would be more availability,” she offered. “Today looks as if it will be an exception, but it is usually not overly hot in May. That makes it the preferred month for weddings in Tuscany.”
Weddings.
“Ah, signor,” she said, and the fright had finally melted from her and a tiny bit of playfulness twinkled in her eyes. “You are right! Sometimes you can see things about people that they don’t tell you.”
“Such as?”
“Even though you are here to help with the royal wedding, you do not like weddings.”
What he didn’t like was being read as easily as he read other people. Had he actually encouraged this observation? He hoped not.
“What makes you say that?” he asked.
“Just a little flinch,” she said, and for a moment he thought she was going to reach over and touch his face, but she thought better of it and touched the line of her own jaw instead. “Right here.”
Her fright had brought out his protective instincts, even though he had caused it. Her power of observation, brought out with just the tiniest of suggestions, was somehow far more dangerous to him. He noticed she had ignored his invitation to call him by his first name.
“I’m not exactly here to help with the wedding,” he said, just in case she had the absurd notion he was going to be arranging flowers or something. “My company, Itus, will be providing the security. I’m going to do reconnaissance this month so all the pieces will be in place for when we come back at the end of July. Though you are right on one count—weddings are just about my least favorite thing,” he admitted gruffly.
“You’ve experienced many?” She raised an eyebrow at him, and again he felt danger in the air. Was she teasing him, ever so slightly?
“Unfortunately, I have experienced many weddings,” Connor said.
“Unfortunately?” she prodded. “Most people would see a wedding as a celebration of all that is good in life. Love. Hope. Happy endings.”
“Humph,” he said, not trying to hide his cynicism. Over his years in the SEALs, lots of his team members had gotten married. And with predictably disastrous results. The job was too hard on the women who were left behind to fret and worry about their husbands. Or worse, who grew too lonely and sought someone else’s company.
He was not about to share his personal revelations about the fickle nature of love with her, though. Around a woman like her—who saw weddings as symbols of love and hope and happy endings—it was important to reveal nothing personal, to keep everything on a professional level.
“My company, Itus Security,” Connor said, veering deliberately away from his personal experiences, “has handled security for some very high-profile nuptials. As a security detail, weddings are a nightmare. Too many variables. Locations. Guests. Rehearsals. Photos. Dinners. And that’s before you factor in Bridezilla and her entourage.”
“Bridezilla?” she asked, baffled.
Some things did not translate. “Bride turned monster over her big day.”
His hostess drew in a sharp breath. “I do not think you will find Christina Rose like that,” she said sternly. “She is an amazing woman who is sweet and generous and totally committed to her country.”
Connor cocked his head at her. He was hopeful for any inside information that might prove useful to the security detail. “You know her?”
She looked embarrassed all over again, but this time there was annoyance in it, too. “Of course not. But her husband-to-be, Prince Antonio de l’Accardi, is a member of a much-loved royal family. That has made her a very famous woman. I have read about her.”
“Well, don’t believe half of what you read. No, don’t believe any of what you read.”
“So, you don’t believe in weddings, and you are a cynic, also.”
“Cynic is an understatement. I think you might have picked up I was a bit of a battle-hardened warrior when I treated you like an assassin instead of just saying good morning like a normal person would have,” he said.
There. Letting her know, right off the bat, he was not a normal person.
“Well, I choose to believe Christina Rose is everything she appears to be.” Her eyes rested on him, and he heard, without her saying a word, And so are you.
Connor lifted a shoulder, noting that his hostess had a bit of fire underneath that angelic first impression. It didn’t matter to him what the future princess’s personality was. It would be her big day, laden with that thing he was most allergic to, emotion. And it didn’t matter to him what his hostess’s personality was, either.
“Believe me,” he muttered, “Christina Rose will find a million ways, intentional or not, to make my life very difficult.”
But that was why he was here, nearly two months early, in the Tuscan village of Monte Calanetti. Not to save the world from bad guys, but to do risk assessment, to protect some royals he had never heard of from a country he had also never heard of—Halenica—as they exchanged their vows.
That was his mission. The lady in front of him could fill his life with complications, too, if he was not the disciplined ex-soldier that he was. As it was, he was not going to be sidetracked by a little schoolteacher in a flowered dress, no matter how cute she was.
And she was plenty cute.
But if that proved a problem, he would just keep his ear to the ground for another place to stay. He’d survived some pretty rough living arrangements. He wasn’t fussy.
“Thank you for breakfast,” he said curtly, moving into emotional lockdown, work mode. “Please thank your mother for providing me with a place to stay on such short notice, signorina.”
“My mother?”
“Signora Rossi?”
A tiny smile, pained, played across the beautiful fullness of her lips.
“No, signor. I am Signora Rossi. Please call me Isabella.”
So he had made another mistake. A small one, but a mistake, nonetheless. Looking at Isabella, after she made that statement, he could see, despite his finely honed powers of observation, he’d been wrong about her. She was not as young as her slender figure and flawless skin had led him to believe. She might have been in her thirties, not her twenties.
No wonder Justin had him on wedding duty. Connor was just making mistakes all over the place.
And no wonder Justin had said to Connor, when he gave him this assignment, “Hey, when is the last time you had a holiday? Take your time in Monte Calanetti. Enjoy the sights. Soak up some sun. Drink some wine. Fall in love.”
Justin really had no more right to believe in love than he himself did, but his friend was as bad as his mother in the optimism department. Justin had even hinted there was a woman friend in his life.
“And for goodness’ sake,” Justin had said, “take a break from swimming. What are you training for, anyway?”
But Justin, his best friend, his comrade in arms, his brother, was part of the reason Connor swam. Justin, whose whole life had been changed forever because of a mistake. One made by Connor.
So giving up swimming was out of the question, but at least, Connor told himself grimly, he wouldn’t be falling in love with the woman in front of him. After having felt her pressed against him, and after having been so aware of her in every way this morning, it was a relief to find out she was married.
“Grazie, Signora Rossi,” he said, trying out clumsy Italian, “for providing me with accommodation on such short notice. You can reassure your husband that I will not begin every morning by attacking you.”
His attempt at humor seemed to fall as flat as his Italian. He spoke three languages well, and several more not so well. Connor knew, from his international travels, that most people warmed to someone who attempted to use their language, no matter how clumsy the effort.
But his hostess looked faintly distressed.
And then he realized he had made his worst mistake of the day, and it wasn’t that he had accidentally propositioned her by mispronouncing a word.
Because Isabella Rossi said to him, with quiet dignity, “I’m afraid my beloved husband, Giorgio, is gone, signor. I am a widow.”
Connor wanted to tell her that she of all people, then, should not believe a wedding was a symbol of love and hope and happy endings.
But he considered himself a man who was something of an expert in the nature of courage, and he had to admit he reluctantly admired her ability to believe in hope and happy endings when, just like his mother, she had obviously had plenty of evidence to the contrary.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” he offered, grudgingly.
“My husband has been gone six years, and I miss him still,” she said softly.
Connor felt the funniest stir of something he did not like. Was it envy? Did he envy the man this woman had loved so deeply?
Stupid jet lag. It seemed to have opened up a part of him that normally would have been under close guard, buttoned down tight. Thoroughly annoyed with himself and his wayward thoughts in the land of amore, Connor turned from Signora Isabella Rossi, scooped up the tray and went into his room. Just before he shut the door, her voice stopped him.
“I provide a simple dinner at around seven for my guests, when I have them,” she said, suddenly all business. “If you could let me know in the mornings if you are requiring this service, I would appreciate it.”
Connor, a man who was nothing if not deeply instinctual, knew there was some dangerous physical awareness between them, a primal man-woman thing. Eating her food and sitting across a table from her would not be an option.
On the other hand, he did not know the lay of the land in the village, and he would have to eat somewhere today until he figured that out. Besides, Isabella Rossi had shown she was unusually astute at reading people. He did not want her to know he perceived her as such a threat that he was willing to go hungry rather than spend more time with her.
“Thank you,” he said, keeping his tone carefully neutral. “That would be perfect for tonight. I hope the rest of your day goes better than it began, signora.”
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_bb0829a3-ffac-57dc-8085-1950166ec572)
ISABELLA STOOD IN the hallway, feeling frozen to the spot and looking at Connor Benson, balancing the tray of food she had provided for him on the jutting bone of one very sexy, very exposed hip. She felt as if she had been run over by a truck.
Which, in a sense, she had. Not that Connor Benson looked anything like a truck. But she had been virtually run down by him, had felt the full naked strength of him pressed against her own body. It had been a disconcerting encounter in every way.
His scent was still tickling her nostrils, and she was taken aback by how much she liked the exquisitely tangy smell of a man in the morning.
Now she’d gone and offered him dinner. Everyone in town knew she occasionally would take in a lodger for a little extra money. She always offered her guests dinner. Why was it suddenly a big deal?
It was because her guests were usually retired college professors or young travelers on a budget. She not had a guest quite like Connor Benson before. In fact, it would be quite safe to say she had never met a man like Connor Benson before.
“I hope my day goes better, too,” she muttered, and then added in Italian, “but it is not looking hopeful.”
This man in her house, who stood before her unself-conscious in his near nakedness, was the antithesis of everything Isabella’s husband, Giorgio, had been.
In fact, Isabella had grown up in Florence and walked nearly daily by the Palazzo Vecchio, where the replica of Michelangelo’s statue David stood. The statue represented a perfection of male physique that had filled the frail Giorgio with envy, and at which she had scoffed.
“Such men do not exist,” she had reassured Giorgio. She had swept her hand over the square. “Look. Show me one who looks like this.”
And then they would dissolve into giggles at the fact the modern Italian male was quite far removed from Michelangelo’s vision.
And yet this nearly naked man standing in the doorway of the room she had let to him made Isabella uncomfortably aware that not only did perfection of male physique exist, it awakened something in her that she had never quite felt before.
That thought made her feel intensely guilty, as if she was being disloyal to her deceased husband, and so she rationalized the way she was feeling.
It was because she had been pulled so unexpectedly against the hard length of him that her awareness was so intense, she told herself.
Her defenses had been completely down. She had just been innocently putting his breakfast beside his door when he had catapulted out of it and turned her around, making her stumble into him.
And now her whole world felt turned around, because she had endured a forced encounter with the heated silk of his skin, stretched taut over those sleek muscles. She had been without the company of a man for a long time. This kind of reaction to a complete stranger did not reflect in any way on her relationship with Giorgio! It was the absence of male companionship that had obviously made her very sensitive to physical contact.
It didn’t help that Connor Benson was unbelievably, sinfully gorgeous. Not just the perfection of his male form, but his face was extraordinary. His very short cropped light brown hair only accentuated the fact that he had a face that would make people—especially women people—stop in their tracks.
He had deep blue eyes, a straight nose, high cheekbones, a jutting chin.
He was the epitome of strength. She thought of his warrior response to her outside his door, that terrifying moment when she had been spun around toward him, the look on his face, as if it was all normal for him.
There was something exquisitely dangerous about Connor Benson.
The thoughts appalled her. They felt like a betrayal of Giorgio, whom she had loved, yes, with all her heart.
“I’ve become pathetic,” Isabella muttered to herself, again in Italian. A pathetic young widow, whose whole life had become her comfy house and the children she taught. She found love in the mutual adoration she and her students had for each other.
Why did it grate on her that her houseguest had known she was a schoolteacher? What would she have wanted him to think she was?
Something, she realized reluctantly, just a little more exciting.
“I’m sorry?” Connor said.
She realized she had mumbled about her self-diagnosis of being pathetic out loud, though thankfully, in Italian. She realized her face was burning as if the inner hunger he had made her feel was evident to him.
Well, it probably was. Men like this—powerfully built, extraordinarily handsome, oozing self-confidence—were used to using their looks to charm women, to having their wicked way. They were not above using their amazing physical charisma to make conquests.
He’d already told her how he felt about weddings, which translated to an aversion to commitment. Even she, for all that she had married young and lived a sheltered life, knew that a man like this one standing before her, so at ease with near nakedness, spelled trouble, in English or Italian, and all in capital letters, too.
This man could never be sweetly loyal and uncomplicated. Connor Benson had warned her. He was not normal. He was cynical and hard and jaded. She could see that in the deep blue of his eyes, even if he had not admitted it to her, which he had. She would have been able to see it, even before he had challenged her to look for details to know things about people that they were not saying.
“I said be careful of the shower,” she blurted out.
That exquisite eyebrow was raised at her, as if she had said something suggestive.
“It isn’t working properly,” she said in a rush.
“Oh?”
“I’m having it fixed, but the town’s only plumber is busy with the renovations at the palazzo. I have to wait for him. Now, I’m late for work,” she choked out, looking at her wristwatch to confirm that. Her wrist was naked—she had not put on her watch this morning. She stared at the blank place on her wrist a moment too long, then hazarded another look at Mr. Benson.
The sensuous line of Connor Benson’s mouth lifted faintly upward. The hunger that unfurled in her belly made her think of a tiger who had spotted raw meat after being on a steady diet of flower petals.
Isabella turned and fled.
And if she was not mistaken, the soft notes of a faintly wicked chuckle followed her before Connor Benson shut his bedroom door.
Outside her house, Isabella noted the day was showing promise of unusual heat. She told herself that was what was making her face feel as if it was on fire as she hurried along the twisted, cobbled streets of Monte Calanetti to the primary school where she taught.
Yes, it was the heat, not the memory of his slow drawl, the way ma’am had slipped off his lips. He sounded like one of the cowboys in those old American Western movies Giorgio had enjoyed so much when he was bedridden.
Really? The way Connor Benson said ma’am should have been faintly comical. How come it was anything but? How come his deep voice and his slow drawl had been as soft as a silk handkerchief being trailed with deliberate seduction over the curve of her neck?
She thought of Connor Benson’s attempt at Italian when he had tried to assure that her mornings would not begin with an attack. That accent should have made that comical, too, but it hadn’t been. She had loved it that he had tried to speak her language.
“Buongiorno, Signora Rossi. You look beautiful this morning!”
Isabella smiled at the butcher, who had come out of his shop to unwind his awning, but once she was by him, she frowned. She passed him every morning. He always said good morning. But he had never added that she looked beautiful before.
It was embarrassing. Her encounter with Connor Benson this morning had lasted maybe five minutes. How was it that it had made her feel so uncomfortable, so hungry and so alive? And so much so that she was radiating it for others to see?
“Isabella,” she told herself sternly, using her best schoolteacher voice, “that is quite enough.”
But it was not, apparently, quite enough.
Because she found herself thinking that she had not told him anything about his accommodations. She could do that over dinner tonight.
Isabella was never distracted when she was teaching. She loved her job and her students and always felt totally present and engaged when she was with the children. Her job, really, was what had brought her back from the brink of despair after Giorgio’s death.
But today, her mind wandered excessively to what kind of meal she would cook for her guest.
Candles, of course, would be ridiculous, wouldn’t they? And they would give the wrong message entirely.
She had not made her mother’s recipe of lasagne verdi al forno for years. Food, and finally even the smell of cooking, had made Giorgio sick. Isabella was shocked at how much she wanted to cook, to prepare a beautiful meal. Yes, lasagna, and a fresh loaf of ciabatta bread, a lovely red wine. School in many places in Italy, including Monte Calanetti, ran for six days instead of five, but the days were short, her workday over at one. That gave her plenty of time to cook the extravagant meal.
So, on the way home from school, she stopped at the grocer’s and the bakery and picked up everything she needed. She had several beautiful bottles of wine from Nico’s Calanetti vineyard that she had never opened. Wine opened was meant to be drunk. It had seemed silly and wasteful to open a whole bottle for herself.
From the deep silence in the house, Isabella knew that Connor was not there when she arrived home. Already, it occurred to her she knew his scent, and her nose sniffed the air for him.
She began unloading the contents of her grocery bags in her homey little kitchen. She considered putting on a fresh dress. One that would make him rethink his assessment of her as a schoolteacher. It was then that Isabella became aware that it wasn’t just the idea of cooking that was filling her with this lovely sense of purpose.
It was the idea of cooking for a man.
She stopped what she was doing and sat down heavily at her kitchen table.
“Isabella,” she chided herself, “you are acting as if this is a date. It’s very dangerous. You are out of your league. You will only get hurt if you play games with a man like Connor Benson.”
She was also aware she felt faintly guilty, as if this intense awareness of another man—okay, she would call a spade a spade, she was attracted to Connor Benson—was a betrayal of the love she had had with Giorgio.
Everyone kept telling her it was time to move on, and in her head she knew they were right. Six years was a long time for a woman to be alone. If she did not make a move soon, she would probably never have the children she longed for.
But no matter what her head said, her heart said no. Her heart had been hurt enough for this lifetime. Her heart did not want to fall in love ever again.
Slowly, feeling unreasonably dejected, she put everything away instead of leaving it out to cook with. She would bring anything that would spoil to school tomorrow and give it to Luigi Caravetti. He was from a single-parent family, and she knew his mother was struggling right now.
She opened a can of soup, as she would have normally done, and broke the bread into pieces. She would invite Connor to share this humble fare with her when he arrived. She needed to go over things with him, make clear what she did and did not provide.
It wasn’t very much later that he came in the front door. She felt she was ready. Or as ready as a woman could ever be for a man like that.
“I have soup if you would like some,” she called out formally.
“Grazie, that sounds great.”
Isabella wished Connor would not try to speak Italian. It made her not want to be formal at all. It made her long to teach him a few words or phrases, to correct his pronunciation. She listened as he went up the stairs. She heard the shower turn on. Her mind went to the memory of touching that perfect body this morning, and something shivered along her spine. It was a warning. If she was smart there would be no language lessons with Connor Benson.
A little while later, he came into the kitchen. Oh, God. He was so big in this tiny room. It was as if he took up all the space. Her eyes felt as if they wanted to go anywhere but to him.
But where else could they go, when he was taking up all the space?
He was freshly showered. He had on a clean shirt. He smelled wonderful. His hair was dark and damp, and towel roughened. He had not shaved, so his whiskers were thick, and she could almost imagine how they would feel scraping across a woman’s skin.
“I hope you don’t expect homemade,” she said. Her voice sounded like a croak.
“I didn’t expect anything at all, ma’am.”
There was that ma’am again, slow and steady, dragging across the back of her neck, drugging her senses.
“Isabella.” Her voice sounded like a whisper. “Please, sit.”
He took a seat at her table. It made her table seem ridiculous, as if it had been made to go in a dollhouse.
“Isabella,” he said, as if he was trying it out. Her name came off his tongue like honey. She wished she had not invited him to call her by it.
“It smells good in here,” he said conversationally and then looked around with interest. “It’s quaint, exactly what I would expect an Italian kitchen to look like. That stone wall must be original to the house.”
She felt tongue-tied but managed to squeak, “Don’t be fooled by its charm. This house is three hundred years old. And it can be quite cranky.”
“I think I noticed the crankiness in the shower just now,” he said.
“I warned you about that.” She did not want to be thinking about him in the shower, again.
“No big deal. Woke me up, though. The water was pouring out and then stopped, and then poured out again. I’ll have a look at it for you, if you want.”
“No,” she said, proudly and firmly. She did not need to give herself the idea there was a man she could rely on to help her. “You are a guest in this house. I have already called the plumber, but I’m afraid with the renovation at the villa, my house is not a priority for him.”
“I don’t mind having a look at it.”
Some longing shivered along her spine, which she straightened, instantly. “Signor, this house is three hundred years old. If you start looking at all the things wrong with it, I’m afraid you will not have time to do the job you came here to do. So, please, no, I can manage.”
He looked faintly skeptical about her ability—or maybe the ability of any woman who was alone—to manage a three-hundred-year-old house, but wisely, he said nothing.
She dished out soup from the stove, gestured to the bread, took a seat across from him. She felt as if she was sitting rigidly upright, like a recent graduate from charm school.
“Relax,” he said softly, “I won’t bite you.”
She was appalled that her discomfort was so transparent.
“Bite me?” she squeaked. She was also appalled at the picture that sprang to mind. And that it involved the cranky shower!
“It’s American slang. It means I won’t hurt you.”
Wouldn’t he? It seemed to her Connor Benson was the kind of man who hurt women without meaning to, and she didn’t mean by attacking them outside the bedroom door in the morning, either. He was the kind of man who could make a woman think heated thoughts or dream naive and romantic dreams that he would not stick around to fulfill.
“This morning excepted,” he growled.
“You didn’t hurt me!”
“Not physically. I can tell you’re nervous around me now.”
She could feel the color climbing up her face. She wanted to deny that, and couldn’t. Instead, she changed the subject. “How was your day?”
“Uneventful,” he said. “I met with Nico and had an initial look around. It’s a very beautiful village.”
“Thank you. I like it very much.” Her voice sounded stilted. What was wrong with her? Well, she’d married young. Giorgio had been her only boyfriend. She was not accustomed to this kind of encounter. “Would you like wine?”
“I’m not much of a drinker.”
“You might like to try this one. It’s one of Nico’s best, from his Calanetti vineyard.”
“All right,” he said. She suspected he had said yes to help her relax, not because he really wanted the wine.
The wine was on the counter. Isabella was glad her back was to him, because she struggled with getting it open. But finally, she was able to turn back and pour him a glass. She could feel a dewy bead of sweat on her forehead. She blew on her bangs in case they were sticking.
He sipped it carefully as she sat back down. “It’s really good. What would you say? Buono?”
“Yes, buono. Nico’s vineyard is one of the pride and joys of our region.” She took a sip of wine. And then another. It occurred to her neither of them were eating the soup.
Suddenly, it all felt just a little too cozy. Perhaps she should not have insisted on the wine. She took rather too large a gulp and set down her glass.
It was time to get down to business. “I will provide a simple supper like this, Mondays to Saturdays, the same days that I work. On Sunday, I do not. I provide breakfast every day, but I don’t usually leave a tray by the bedroom door.”
“I wouldn’t risk that again, either,” he said drily. She had the uncomfortable feeling he was amused by her.
“It’s not a hotel,” she said sternly, “so I don’t make beds.”
“Understood.” Did he intentionally say that with a military inflection, as if he was a lower rank being addressed by a superior? Was he perceiving her as bossy?
Given how she wanted to keep everything formal between them, wouldn’t that be a good thing?
“I also do not provide laundry service.” Thank goodness. She could not even imagine touching his intimate things. “I have a washing machine through that door that you are welcome to use. There is a laundry service in the village if you prefer. Except for sheets, which I do once a week. I provide fresh towels every day.”
“I can do my own sheets, thanks.”
“All right. Yes. That’s fine. The common areas of the house are yours to use if you want to watch television or cook your own meals, or put things in the refrigerator.”
The thought of him in her space made her take another rather large and fortifying sip of the wine.
“I don’t watch television,” he told her, “and I’m accustomed to preparing my own meals. I don’t want you to feel put out by me. I can tell it is a bit of an imposition for you having a man in your house.”
He was toying with the stem of his wineglass. He put it to his lips and took a long sip, watching her.
She tilted her chin at him, took a sip of her own wine. “What would make you say that? It’s no imposition at all, Signor Benson.”
Her heart was beating hard in her throat. He shrugged and lifted his wineglass to his lips again, watched her over the rim.
She might as well not have bothered denying it was any kind of imposition for her. She could feel her discomfort snaking along her spine, and he was not the kind of man you could hide things from.
“Connor, please,” he said. “We’re not very formal where I come from.”
“Connor,” she agreed. He had caught on that she was being too formal. Didn’t he know it would protect them both? But she said his name anyway, even though it felt as if she was losing ground fast. She was using his first name. It felt as though she was agreeing, somehow, to dance with the devil.
But the question was, was the devil in him, or was it in her?
“And where are you from?” she asked. This was to prove to him she was not at all formal and stuffy and could hold a polite conversation with the best of them. She hoped it would not appear as if she was desperately eager for details about him, which she was not! She still had not touched her soup. Neither had he.
“I’m from Texas,” he said.
“I thought the accent was like that of a cowboy.”
He laughed at that. His laughter was deep and engaging, relaxing some of the constant hardness from his face, and she found herself staring at him.
“Ma’am—”
“Isabella,” she reminded him.
“Isabella—”
Him saying her name, in that drawl, made her feel the same as if she had drunk a whole bottle of wine from the Calanetti vineyard instead of taken a few sips out of her glass.
Well, actually, her glass was empty, and so was his. He noticed, and tipped the wine out over both their glasses.
“Most people hear that drawl and automatically lower my intelligence by twenty points or so.”
“I can tell you are a very intelligent man,” she said seriously.
“I was just trying to make the point that regional accents can lead to judgments in the United States. Like you thinking I’m a cowboy. I’m about the farthest thing from a cowboy that you’ll ever see.”
“Oh! I thought everybody from Texas was a cowboy.”
He laughed again. “You and the rest of the world. I grew up in a very poor neighborhood in Corpus Christi, which is a coastal city. I started picking up a bit of work at the shipyards when I was about eleven, and occasionally cattle would come through, but that’s the closest I came to any real cowboys.”
“Eleven?” she said, horrified. “That is very young to be working.”
Something in his expression became guarded. He lifted a shoulder. “I was big for my age. No one asked how old I was.”
“But why were you working at eleven?” she pressed.
For a moment, he looked as though he might not answer. Then he said quietly, “My mom was a single parent. It was pretty hand-to-mouth at times. I did what I could to help.”
“Was your mom a widow?” she asked. She and Giorgio had not had children, though she had wanted to, even with Giorgio’s prognosis. Now she wondered, from the quickly veiled pain in Connor’s face, if that wouldn’t have been a selfish thing, indeed, to try and raise a child or children without the benefit of a father.
“No,” he said gruffly. “She wasn’t a widow. She found herself pregnant at sixteen and abandoned by my father, whom she would never name. Her own family turned their backs on her. They said she brought shame on them by being pregnant.”
“Your poor mother. Her own family turned away from her?” She thought of her family’s reaction to the news she was going to marry Giorgio.
Life has enough heartbreak, her mother had said. You have to invite one by marrying a dying man?
Isabella could have pointed out to her mother that she should be an expert on heartbreak, since Isabella’s father, with his constant infidelities, had broken her heart again and again and again. One thing about Giorgio? He was sweetly and strongly loyal. He would never be like that.
But it had seemed unnecessarily cruel to point that out to her mother, and so she had said nothing. And even though they were not happy with her choice, Isabella’s family had not abandoned her. At least not physically.
Connor lifted a shoulder. “My mother is an amazing woman. She managed to keep me in line and out of jail through my wild youth. That couldn’t have been easy.”
“I’m sure it was not,” Isabella said primly.
He grinned as if he had enjoyed every second of his wild youth. “Then I joined up.”
“Joined up?”
“I joined the navy as soon as I was old enough.”
“How old is that?”
“Seventeen.”
She drew in her breath sharply.
“I served in the regular navy for two years, and then I was drawn to the SEALs.”
“SEALs? What is this?”
“It stands for sea, air, land. It’s an arm of the navy. Combat divers.”
She could tell there was a bit more to it than what he was saying.
“And your mother? Was she heartbroken when you left her to join the military?”
He smiled wryly. “Not at all. Once she didn’t have to expend all of her energy keeping me fed and in line, she married a rich guy she cleaned for. She seems deliriously happy and has produced a number of little half siblings for me.”
“You adore them,” Isabella guessed.
“Guilty.”
“I’m glad your mother found happiness.”
“Me, too, though her luck at love has made her think everyone should try it.”
“And shouldn’t they?” Isabella found herself asking softly.
He rolled his shoulders, and something shut down in his face. “A man who seeks danger with the intensity and trajectory of a heat-seeking missile is not exactly a good bet in the love department. I’ve seen lots of my buddies go down that road. They come home cold and hard and damaged. Normal life and domestic duties seem unbearably dull after the adrenaline rush of action.”
“That sounds very lonely,” Isabella offered. And like a warning. Which she dutifully noted.
Connor studied her for a moment. Whatever had opened between them closed like a door slamming shut. He pushed back from the table abruptly. “Lonely? Not at all,” he insisted coolly. “Thank you for dinner.”
But he hadn’t eaten dinner. After a moment, she cleared his uneaten soup off the table and cleaned up the kitchen.
Really, he had let her know in every way possible that any interest in him would not be appreciated.
After putting her small kitchen in order, she retreated to her office. She hesitated only a moment before she looked up navy seals on the internet. She felt guilty as sin doing it, but it did not stop her.
It was actually SEALs, she discovered, and they were not just combat divers. Sometimes called Frogmen because they were equally adept in the water or on land, they were one of the most elite, and secretive, commando forces in the world.
Only a very few men, of the hundreds who tried, could make it through their rigorous training program.
Isabella could tell from what she read that Connor had led a life of extreme adventure and excitement. He was, unfortunately, the larger-than-life kind of man who intrigued.
But he had told her with his own words what he was. Cold and hard and damaged. She was all done rescuing men.
Rescuing men? something whispered within her. But you never felt you were rescuing Giorgio. Never. You did it all for love.
But suddenly, sickeningly, she just wasn’t that sure what her motives had been in marrying a man with such a terrible prognosis.
And fairly or not, looking at her husband and her marriage through a different lens felt as if it was entirely the fault of Connor Benson.
Even knowing she had been quite curious enough for one night, she decided to look up one more thing. She put in the name Itus Security. There was a picture of a very good-looking man named Justin Arnold. He was the CEO of the company. Beside his picture was one of Connor, who was the chief of operations. There was a list of services they offered, and a number of testimonials from very high-profile clients.
Their company was named after the Greek god of protection, Itus, and their mission statement was, “As in legend, Itus is sworn to protect the innocent from those who would do them harm.”
Intrigued, she went and read the mythology around Itus. A while later, Isabella shut off the computer and squared her shoulders.
A month. Connor Benson was going to be under her roof for a month. After one day, she was feeling a terrible uneasiness, as if he could, with just his close proximity, change everything about her, even the way she looked at her past.
“I have to avoid him,” she whispered to herself. And it felt as if her very survival depended on that. She went to bed and set her alarm for very early. She could put out his breakfast things and leave the house without even seeing him tomorrow. There were always things to do at school. Right now, she was preparing her class to perform a song and skit at the annual spring fete, and she had props to make, simple costumes to prepare.
She had a feeling with Connor under her roof and her badly needing her schoolroom to hide out in and something to distract from the uncomfortable feelings she was experiencing, she was about to produce the best song and skit the good citizens of Monte Calanetti had ever seen!
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_f99a6bc9-9b64-5fb9-b8ac-3a3eed292692)
CONNOR RETREATED TO his room, annoyed with himself. He was not generally so chatty. What moment of madness had made him say yes to that wine? And why had so very little of it made him feel so off balance?
Intoxicated.
Maybe it hadn’t been the wine, but just sharing a simple meal with a beautiful woman in the quintessential Italian kitchen, with its old stone walls and its deep windows open to the breeze, that had brought his guard down.
He had told Isabella things he had not told people he’d worked with for twenty years. Justin knew about his hardscrabble upbringing on the wrong side of Corpus Christi, but no one else did.
The soft look in Isabella’s eyes as he had told her had actually made him feel not that he wanted to tell her less, but as though he wanted to tell her more, as if his every secret would be safe with her.
As if he had carried a burden alone for way too long.
“Stop it,” Connor snapped grimly at himself. He acknowledged he was tired beyond reason. You didn’t unload on a woman like her. She, cute little schoolteacher that she was, wouldn’t be able to handle it, to hold up to it. She’d buried her husband and that had sent her into full retreat. That’s why someone so gorgeous was still unmarried six years later.
So there would be no more wine tastings over supper that loosened his tongue. No more suppers, in fact. Tomorrow, rested, his first duty would be to find a nice little place to eat supper every night.
With none of the local wines. That one tonight had seemed to have some beautiful Tuscan enchantment built right into it.
And if avoiding her at dinner proved to be not enough defense, he would go in search of another place to stay.
Not that he wanted to hurt her feelings.
“The Cat does not worry about people’s feelings,” he said, annoyed with himself. What he needed to do was deal with the exhaustion first. He peeled off his clothes and rolled into bed and slept, but not before grumpily acknowledging how hungry he was.
Connor awoke very early. He knew where he was this time. Again, he could hear the sounds of someone trying to be very quiet. He rolled over and looked at his bedside clock.
Five a.m. What the heck? He had the awful thought Isabella might have gotten up so early to make him breakfast. That made him feel guilty since he knew she had a full day of work to put in. Guilt was as unusual for him as worrying about feelings. Still, he needed to tell her not to bother.
He slipped on a pair of lightweight khakis and pulled a shirt over his head, and went downstairs to the kitchen.
She had her back to him.
“Isabella?”
She shrieked and turned, hand to her throat.
“Sorry,” he said, “I’ve startled you again.”
She dropped her hand from her throat. “No, you didn’t,” she said, even though it was more than obvious she had been very startled.
“Whatever. I think we’ve got to quit meeting like this.”
The expression must have lost something in the translation, because she only looked annoyed as she turned back to the counter. “I just wasn’t expecting you to be up so early.”
“I wasn’t expecting you up this early.”
“I’m preparing for the spring festival,” she said. “I have extra work to do at school.”
“And extra work to do here, because of me?”
She glanced over her shoulder at him, and then looked quickly back at what she was doing, silent.
“I wanted to let you know not to fuss over me. A box of cereal on the table and some milk in the fridge is all I need in the morning. And coffee.”
“I’ll just show you how to use the coffeemaker then—”
He smiled. “I’ve made coffee on every continent and in two dozen different countries. I can probably figure it out.”
She looked very pretty this morning. Her hair was scraped back in a ponytail. It made her look, again, younger than he knew her to be. The rather severe hairstyle also showed off the flawless lines of her face. She had on a different sleeveless dress, and her lips had a hint of gloss on them that made them look full and faintly pouty.
“All right then,” she said, moving away from the coffeemaker. “So, no breakfast?”
“I don’t need supper tonight, either. I’m kind of used to fending for myself.”
And he did not miss the look of relief on her face.
So he added, “Actually, I probably won’t need dinner any night. Instead of letting you know if I won’t be here, how about if I let you know if I will?”
The look on her face changed to something else, quickly masked. It only showed him the wisdom of his decision. The little schoolteacher wanted someone to look after, and it would be better if she did not get any ideas that it was going to be him!
“I actually like to swim before I eat anything in the morning. This is the perfect time of day for swimming.”
“It’s not even light out.”
“I know. That’s what makes it perfect.”
Whenever he could, Connor had begun every morning of his life for as long as he could remember with a swim. That affinity for the water had, in part, been what made him such a good fit for the SEALs. But when he left the SEALs, it was the only place he had found where he could outrun—or outswim, as it were—his many demons. Despite Justin’s well-meaning advice to take a rest from it, Connor simply could not imagine life without the great stress relief and fitness provided by the water.
“You’ll wake people up.”
“Actually, Nico invited me to use the pool at his private garden in the villa, but I’d prefer to swim in the river.”
“The river? It’s very cold at this time of year.”
“Perfect.”
“And probably dangerous.”
“I doubt it, but I already warned you about men like me and danger.”
“Yes, you did,” she whispered. “There’s a place on the river where the boys swim in the summer. Would you like me to show it to you?”
“You aren’t trying to protect me from danger, are you, Isabella?” he asked quietly.
“That would be a very foolish undertaking, I’m sure,” she said, a little stain that confirmed his suspicions moving up her cheeks. “It’s hard to find, the place where the boys swim. That’s all.”
“Yes, please, then, show it to me,” he heard himself saying, though he had no doubt he could find good places to swim all by himself. He didn’t want to hurt her pride. “Yes, I’d like that very much.”
And so he found himself, with dawn smudging the air, painting the medieval skyline of Monte Calanetti in magnificence, walking down twisting streets not yet touched by the light beside Isabella to the river.
And enjoying the pink-painted splendor of the moment way more than he had a right to.
* * *
Isabella contemplated what moment of madness had made the words slip from her mouth that she would show Connor the way to the river. By getting up so early, she’d been trying to avoid him this morning.
Instead, she was walking through the still darkened streets of Monte Calanetti with him by her side.
And despite the pure madness that must have motivated her invitation, she would not have withdrawn it had she been given a chance. Because that moment, of unguarded impulse, had led to this one.
It was unexpectedly magical, the streets still dim, the brilliance of the dawn that was staining the sky above them not yet reaching into the cracks and crevices of the town. The occasional light was blinking on in the houses and businesses they passed.
Isabella was intensely aware of how it felt to have this man walk beside her. He was so big, his presence commanding. He had gone back up to his room for a moment, and when he came down he carried a small black bag and had a white towel strung around his neck.
He had a way of walking—shoulders back, stride long and confident and calm—that gave a sense that he owned the earth and he knew it. Isabella had never felt unsafe in Monte Calanetti, but she was aware, walking beside him, of feeling immensely protected.
“I can’t believe the light,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“It’s part of what makes Tuscany famous, that quality of light. Artists throng here for that.”
“How would you say this in Italian?” he said, making a sweeping gesture that took in everything—the amazing light and the twisting streets, still in shadows, dawn beginning to paint the rooflines in gold.
She thought a moment. Wasn’t this exactly what she had longed to do and had decided was dangerous? The morning was too beautiful to fight with herself, to be petty about what she would and wouldn’t give. She would give him a few words, nothing more.
“In tutto il suo splendore,” Isabella said.
He repeated it, rolling the words off his tongue. Mixed with his drawl and the deepness of his voice, it was very charming.
“And the translation?” he asked her.
“In glory.”
“Ah,” he said. “Perfect.”
After that neither of them attempted conversation, but the quiet was comfortable between them as they moved down the narrow streets. It gave a sense of walking toward the light as they left the last of the buildings behind and followed the road past the neat row of vineyards that followed the undulating green of the hills.
“There it is,” she said, finally, pointing at the ribbon of river that had become visible up ahead of them. “When you come to the bridge, turn right and follow the river. You’ll see a tire suspended on a rope where the boys swim.”
“Thank you. Grazie.”
“You’re welcome.” She should have turned back toward the town, but she did not. She recognized a reluctance to leave the simple glory of this moment behind. He must have felt that, too.

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