Page 53 of How Not to Mess with a Millionaire

Just like that, the happy bubble was intact again.

“You do?”

His fingers curled to cup her face. “La Bohèmeis playing at the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma. I thought you might enjoy experiencing it firsthand. There’s nothing like live opera.”

“That sounds amazing.” And romantic. Like that scene inPretty Womanwhere Richard Gere takes Julia Roberts to the opera for the first time and she gets all emotional watching the prima donna die of a broken heart. Except Zoe was no Julia Roberts, and she didn’t expect a fairy-tale ending, with Dante following her to San Francisco and climbing up her fire escape, blasting Puccini and bearing a bouquet of flowers. She wasn’t even sure her building had a fire escape.

“Are you scheduled to fly home out of Naples?” he asked, his thumb tracing a line from her ear to her jaw.

She nodded, the sting of yet another reminder that their relationship’s expiration date was fast approaching making the words stick in her throat.

“We’ll change it. You can leave from Rome.”

“That could work.” There was only one tiny, four-footed sticking point. “But what about Houdini? I’m still waiting to hear from the United States Department of Agriculture on my application for a live animal import permit.”

The process was way more complicated than she’d anticipated, but the man she’d spoken to in the Maryland office last week confirmed that her application was complete and she should hear back from them—in one to six weeks. Meaning it was possible she’d have an answer before she left for San Francisco—and just as possible she wouldn’t.

Stupid red tape.

Dante pressed a kiss to her forehead. “We’ll bring him with us. If your permit is approved in time, you can take him with you. If not—”

He paused and cleared his throat, like he was preparing to say something painful. “If not, I’ll take care of him until it is and make sure he gets safely to you.”

She looked at him in mock horror, tempered by the smile playing about her lips. “You’re volunteering to pig-sit?”

“Do I have a choice?” Dante asked, fending off Houdini, who had polished off the bowl of popcorn and was snuffling around their feet, trying to get in on the action. “Besides, you said George Clooney had one. If he can do it, so can I.”

“It’s settled, then. When do we leave?”

“This afternoon. Our flight leaves at two.”

“That soon?” She squirmed out of Dante’s arms and picked up Houdini, shoving him into Dante’s chest so he had no choice but to take him. “Then you can start practicing now.”

“Practicing?”

“Pig-sitting,” Zoe said over her shoulder, already halfway to the door. “You can watch him while I pack.”

Chapter Eleven

“When you said ‘our flight,’ I pictured something very different,” Zoe said, her eyes widening as they crossed the tarmac toward the sleek, silver Gulfstream G-IV.

Dante smiled, loving her wide-eyed wonder. He wasn’t the kind of guy who wore his wealth like a badge of honor. But, once in a while, it had its perks. Seeing Zoe’s reaction to his private jet was definitely one of them. “You approve?”

“I do.” She stopped at the bottom of the airstairs. “Is it yours?”

He nodded. “Makes business travel much more pleasurable.”

“Damn.” She let out a low whistle. “I knew you were loaded, but not this loaded.”

As much as they had shared in the past week since returning from Capri, there was still a lot she didn’t know about him and he about her. And even though his heart desperately wanted to change that, wanted to know everything about her and for her to know him fully, his head barraged him with constant reminders of how futile that would be. Their arrangement—he preferred that word to the relationship, with all its subtext and expectations—was temporary, nothing more. She’d be gone in a matter of days, back in her world, leaving him alone in his.

The way he liked it. Or so he told himself.

“So you’ll be after me for my money now?” He purposely kept his tone light, teasing, pushing down the bitterness that always threatened to overwhelm him when he thought of Zoe leaving. He put a hand at the small of her back as they ascended the stairs, balancing Houdini’s pet carrier in the other. She’d tried teaching the pig how to walk on a leash, but it was a work in progress, and she hadn’t wanted to risk him getting loose in a crowded airport.

“Hardly.” She gave him a sassy, side-eyed glance. “It’s your body I want.”

His lip curled into a naughty, knowing grin. “You won’t hear me complaining.”