Page 31 of How Not to Mess with a Millionaire

Dante snapped the pencil in half and tossed both pieces down onto the desk with such force that one of them rolled off the edge and onto the floor. “Don’t you have some model or actress who would miss you in Rome?”

“For someone who claims they want nothing to do with this girl, you’re fighting awfully hard to keep me away from her,” Luca said. “What was it Shakespeare wrote? Thou dost protest too much?”

“You read Shakespeare?”

“No, but I heard that line once in a movie with Gilderoy Lockhart fromHarry Potteras this tortured prince haunted by the ghost of his father.”

“Hamlet.”

“That’s the one.”

Dante bent down to pick up the pencil piece. “Is there any business you wanted to discuss with me, or did you call to harass me about my—Nonna’s—house guest?”

By some miracle, Luca ignored his slip of the tongue. “Fine, be that way. We can talk shop. But don’t think the topic of your house guest is closed. At least not until her lease is up.”

Who needed Nonna when he had Luca and Miguel prying into his love life? Or lack thereof.

Dante threw both halves of the pencil in the waste basket and hit a button on his computer, waking the screen from sleep mode. “Let’s start with Rome. How are bookings looking? Is the new reservation system working out?”

They talked for another half an hour, thankfully sticking to work. They said their goodbyes, and Dante was about to hang up when he heard his brother’s voice and brought the phone back to his ear.

“One last thing,” Luca said.

“This better be about business,” Dante warned.

“Think about what we discussed.”

“The New York expansion?”

“Your American friend. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying a woman’s company. In every sense of the word. Nicole wouldn’t want you to live the rest of your life shutting yourself off like you have been for the past year.”

No, but that’s what he wanted. To hope for more—with Zoe or anyone else—was to court disaster.

…

Zoe struggled to sit up, rubbing her eyes against the sunlight streaking through the sliding glass doors.

Sunlight? Damn. She must have overslept. Not surprising, given the restless nights she’d had recently. Every time her head hit the pillow and her eyes closed, visions of Dante lying naked on the other side of the wall, cock in hand, danced through her brain, keeping her awake and aroused, leaving her with no option but to take the edge off with her trusty rabbit or wait for sheer exhaustion to win out.

The obvious solution was to be upfront with him. Not about the fact that she eavesdropped while he got himself off. No way was she going there. About the kiss. Make him admit he enjoyed it as much as she had, then get him to do it again. Burn off some of her sexual frustration so she could concentrate on something other than how he sounded when he came.

Maybe a little vacation fling wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

But Dante had made that a non-starter. It was hard to have a fling with a guy when he wouldn’t stay two minutes in the same room with you. It wasn’t like Dante was being overtly rude. True to his word, he’d stopped trying to get rid of her. Instead, he just…disappeared. He spent most of his time in his room, or in the study he used as an office, or out in a secluded portion of the garden he seemed drawn to, beyond the pool and down the steep slope toward the Mediterranean.

Zoe wondered if it had something to do with the picture she’d seen in the study. Okay, so she’d been snooping when he was out. In her defense, it started as research. She wanted to take photos of the various rooms, commit Pinto’s brilliant designs to film—or pixels—so she could go back to them again and again, not just as memories of her trip but for inspiration.

That was when she stumbled on the picture, half hidden behind a vase of fresh-cut bougainvillea. A broadly grinning Dante—who knew he could smile like that, open and happy and eager?—with his arm around a statuesque brunette who was looking up at him with equally unabashed affection. A riot of yellow, pink, and purple flowers in the garden behind them completed the idyllic scene.

The questions came flying at her fast and furious. Who was this woman? Where was she now? What tore them apart? At least, Zoe assumed they weren’t together anymore. She didn’t want to believe that Dante would kiss her if he was involved with someone else.

Oh, well. No use speculating. It wasn’t like she was going to get any answers from her absentee housemate.

She yawned and blinked once, twice, three times until the room started to swim into focus. What time was it, anyway? And where was—?

Her head snapped to the crate in the corner. No sign of Houdini. She bolted out of bed and raced to the crate, flinging the door open and tossing out the blankets that lined the bottom.

Still no pig.