I fisted the back of his shirt. “Stay and share that bath with me.”
He growled and kissed me again. “Dio, you are a vixen. Tormenting me with things that gut me to refuse.” Sighing, he pressed his lips against the tip of my nose. “But I can’t this morning. I promise I will be back before you even miss me, though.”
“Impossible.”
His lips curled at the edges, not a full smile like he’d shown me in Venice, but more relaxed than I’d seen him in weeks. “Tell you what. Touch yourself and think of me. And when I return, you can tell me all the naughty things you fantasized I was doing to you in this bath.”
I drew in a shaky breath and pressed my lips to his again in a soft, gentle kiss, unable to believe that only a few short hours ago, I’d thought everything between us was doomed for eternity. And now...
Now there was a chance we might be okay.
“You’d better be quick,” I mumbled against his lips.
“I will drive ninety there and back. I promise.” He kissed my nose again and released me.
Smoothing out my shirt—well, his shirt, technically, since I hadn’t been able to take it off this morning—I sighed and said, “That won’t work. I can’t have you getting in an accident. Seventy max.”
One corner of his lips curled in a sexy smirk. Reaching for my left hand, he lifted my fingers to his lips and pressed a kiss right over my ring. The ring I now knew, thanks to Felicity, he’d designed specifically for me, and not for the reason I’d assumed.
“Seventy it is, amore della mia vita. Now get in that tub and relax. I want you soft and pink and ready for me when I return.”
His fingers slipped from mine. He moved back into the bedroom and reached for his suit jacket from the bed. I watched from the doorway as he slid his arms into the expensive fabric and shot me one last smoldering look before disappearing into the living room.
The front door opened and closed, followed by the faint sound of his car door slamming and the engine humming to life.
When he was gone, I glanced down at the tub he’d filled and ran my fingers through the frothy bubbles, a sense of hope I hadn’t felt in weeks struggling to break free from the ball of worry that had been knotted so tight inside me.
This was a first step. We still had a long way to go to get back to where we’d been before, but the Luc I’d fallen for—my Luc—was still with me.
I wouldn’t let his family come between us again. We were stronger than them. We’d survived so much. They couldn’t break us. I believed that. I had to believe it.
Because any other truth would absolutely shatter me.
My bath was amazing. By the time I got out, I felt better than I had in days. Relaxed, refreshed, rejuvenated.
But that feeling slowly deteriorated as minutes turned into hours with no sign of Luc and no word about what was taking so long.
By four o’clock, I knew something was wrong. Unable to concentrate on the paperback I’d been trying to read for the last two hours, I tossed the book onto the table beside me on the patio and pushed off the lounge chair where I’d been relaxing in the shade.
The main house was quiet as I approached. No sign of Luc’s car in the circular drive. No sign of Marco’s either.
I knocked even though Felicity had told me to come in whenever I wanted. I still wasn’t comfortable imposing on her space. Caprice, Felicity’s housekeeper, met me at the door with a blank expression.
“Miss Natalie.” The older woman stepped back with a nod so I could enter. “You are here to see Miss Felicity?”
“Yes.” Caprice’s accent was thick, her salt-and-pepper hair pulled back into a tight bun.
Last night when we’d been here for dinner, she’d been dressed in a light blue button-front dress with a white apron. Today, the dress was the same but black. The woman was all business, but I didn’t mind. It meant I didn’t have to worry about small talk, which I wasn’t in the mood to handle, especially when I remembered what Luc had told me about spies lingering even here.
“If she’s busy I can come back later.”
“She in her room.” Caprice closed the door at my back with a snap. “Wait here.”
The older woman’s footsteps echoed like doomed drumbeats as she stalked toward the hallway and disappeared around a corner.
Alone in the entryway, I studied a fresco on the high stucco wall and told myself to relax. I was working on the whole trusting thing, right? Just because Luc wasn’t back yet didn’t mean something bad had happened—or was going to happen. It just meant his family or his House was monopolizing his time and that he hadn’t had a chance yet to call me.
Footsteps sounded on the travertine tile to my left, and I turned to see Caprice stalking my way once more. “Miss Felicity said for you to join her in her suite. This way.”
“Thanks.” I followed Caprice down a long hall, then up a short flight of curved stairs to the second level.
From the outside, the main house didn’t seem all that spectacular—just a stone farmhouse with arched windows—but inside, it was rustic and charming with beamed ceilings, arched doorways, and old-world touches I knew were Felicity’s influence.
Caprice stopped outside a set of arched double doors and held out her arm. “Through here.”
I nodded and stepped into what looked like a sitting room with a big fireplace, wide windows that overlooked the rolling Tuscan hills, and comfy chairs. Above the fireplace was a huge painting of an ancient stone castle set on a lush green hill overlooking the water.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Felicity said to the left of the fireplace where she stood leaning against an arched doorway with her arms crossed. “It’s my favorite painting. A friend sent it to me after I moved here.”
“It really is. Is the castle real?”
“It’s my childhood home. Gadleigh Castle’s been in my family for years. It’s about forty-five minutes from Edinburgh on the water. My parents live there now, though my father prefers to spend most of his days at their home down in Wales. Scotland can be quite cold.”
It didn’t look cold to me. It looked absolutely gorgeous. And a million miles from Italy, which seemed like a fantasy just about now.
When I finally pulled my gaze from the painting, I found Felicity studying me with a curious expression. Only something about her eyes seemed... different.
I stared at her a heartbeat, then realized what it was. “Your eyes are brown? Yesterday, they were pale green.”
“Oh that. Yeah. I forgot I had my colored contacts in. I wear these when I don’t want to be recognized. My pale eyes give away my noble blood more than that castle.” She nodded toward the painting.
“Noble blood?”
“Luc didn’t explain that?” When I shook my head, she said, “You know about the five main Houses, right?”
I nodded, remembering what Luc had told me. She was part of House Merrick, the English House, and her father was the head of House Merrick.
“The nobles are all about keeping the bloodlines pure. There are certain characteristics that are markers of noble blood—very pale eyes like mine, two different colored eyes like Luc’s brother Dante, a coloboma like Luc has, even a lock of white hair, which Luc’s sister Ariana has. Technically, they’re recessive traits that show up when both parents carry the same recessive genetic disorder. Most people in the world would consider it a flaw. The nobles in our world think it’s a gift.” She huffed. “They’re wacked. Of course, that tends to happen when your breeding pool isn’t too big.”