Mediterranean Men & Marriage: The Italian's Forgotten Baby / The Sicilian's Bride / Hired: The Italian's Bride. Raye Morgan
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try…
Did she dare start that conversation off? Maybe. Maybe soon. If she couldn’t get him to leave, at least she could help him wake up to the reasons he should go.
“Shayna, I hate to look a gift horse in the mouth.” He stopped himself and almost laughed. “Let me start that over,” he said smoothly. “Shayna, I appreciate all you’re doing to help me,” he amended quickly. “But I need to know one thing. How is all this running around the island going to help me find my plans?”
She struck a pose before him. “We’re re-creating your stay. I’m taking you around to see all the places you visited while you were here.”
He looked pained. “But I didn’t carry my portfolio along with me, did I? After all, you saw all my papers right there in the hotel room that last day.”
“Good point,” she agreed breezily, turning on her heel and starting off again. “But you’re overlooking one thing. The people I’m taking you to see were people who came in to see you off that day. There’s a chance they might have seen something, or you might even have given them your papers for safekeeping. Plus, you told me that you always made two sets of papers. I only saw one. You said you often mailed them ahead in a cardboard tube.”
“True.”
“And, bottom line,” she said with a carefree shrug, sashaying in front of him toward the scooter, “seeing these places and people again might just jog your memory.”
Funny how he was finding her more and more appealing. He smiled at her, as indulgent as a lover. “Okay. I’m sold.”
They’d reached the Vespa. Marco turned back for one last look at the gorgeous beach line, but Shayna was still mulling over the possible hiding places for finding his plans. She turned to him.
“Marco, about your portfolio. You carried it separately from your main luggage?”
He nodded. “Sometimes. Sometimes I was able to get it all put into one bag. I just can’t remember what I did that day.”
She frowned. “But the second set…I wonder where it was. I don’t remember seeing it at all.”
He took hold of her shoulders, staring down into her face. “Okay, think back. Try to remember everything you can about the plans, from the first to the last.”
She shook her head. “I didn’t see you working on any plans until that last day. You didn’t do it when I was around. Maybe you did it in your hotel room, probably when I was at work at Kimo’s Café. But whenever we were together, you weren’t talking about any plans.”
“Okay, so you came into the room and what did you see?”
She gazed up at him. He was serious about this. When he talked about the missing designs, she saw an intensity he didn’t seem to have about anything else.
“I’ve told you. Your papers were spread out all over the floor where you were organizing them.”
“And that was the first you knew about me designing yachts.”
“Yes.”
His hands dropped from her shoulders and he turned to stare at the horizon. That was odd and didn’t seem like him at all. He hadn’t thought about this much, but it was a mystery why he wouldn’t have told her from the beginning. And this calling himself “Smith” was just another puzzle in the game. He must have had some rationale, but what in the world could it have been?
The only thing he could think of was that he’d decided to stay on Ranai under an assumed name so that Salvo Ricktorre couldn’t find him and send his spies out. That was probably it. But why carry the pretense to such lengths that he wouldn’t have told Shayna the truth? That he actively hid it from her? He really couldn’t fathom that one.
He frowned, kicking the toe of his shoe into the sand. “What’s your theory on that?” he asked her, looking up from under his brows.
That startled her. “What do you mean?”
He shrugged. “Why do you think I didn’t tell you I was a yacht designer?”
Oh, that. She knew the answer to that, but she wasn’t going to tell him. Quickly, she batted the question away. “Why do you think?”
He frowned, seriously considering this. “I have no idea. Do you really think I deliberately didn’t want you to know?”
She drew in a long breath before she answered that one. “Yes, I do think that.” She bit her lip with regret. She shouldn’t have admitted that. But still, it was hard not to be honest with him. Something in her just wanted to be open with him, to tell him everything, and all that she was thinking. She had to fight it every minute.
He nodded, a bit troubled by that. But then he looked at her pretty face and changed his mind. “Here’s my theory.” His own face softened a bit and his warm gaze caressed her. “I fell crazy in love with you the moment we met.”
That one made her blush, she couldn’t help it. She turned away as warmth flooded her. Oh, if only she could count on something so clean, so pure, so candid. But it had been her experience that life just wasn’t like that at all.
“Oh, please.”
“No, hear me out.” He moved closer and she could tell he had the urge to touch her, but he was fighting it, at least for now.
“I think maybe I saw you and I fell so hard, all ideas and thoughts about sailing went out of my head. All I could think about was you.” He shrugged. “It’s a simple straightforward sort of explanation. I find the simplest is usually the best.”
She shook her head, trying not to smile. He was saying pretty much the opposite of what she’d been thinking. Who was closer to the mark? She wished she could believe it was him.
“I don’t think so.”
“I believe it.” He reached out and touched her shoulder, and she jerked away. But he didn’t back off. Instead, he took her more firmly, his hand at her neck, and let his fingers slide along her collarbone. “I can imagine wanting nothing more than to be with you, to hold you, to kiss you.” He moved even closer and his voice was husky when he said, “To make sweet love to you.”
“Marco!” She pulled away from his touch and turned toward the scooter.
“I think I wanted you more than I wanted to design yachts,” he said simply.
She got onto the Vespa and searched for her key. Her fingers were trembling, and she didn’t think they should be. His words were lovely, in a way, but not realistic, especially considering the real reason, which only she seemed to remember at this point. “You live in a dream world, don’t you?” she muttered.
He raised an eyebrow. “It wasn’t like that?”
She glared at him. “No it wasn’t like that. Not a bit like that.”
He tilted his head to the side, considering, as his gaze slowly traveled over her face. “But we did kiss.”
“Yes,” she admitted reluctantly.
He got onto the scooter, sliding in behind her and putting his hands at her waist.
“And I did hold you, sort of like this.” He leaned forward and began to nuzzle the crook of her neck. “Now about the lovemaking…” he murmured, and that was when she kick-started the Vespa and took off with a jerk that practically had him flying off into the jungle. He laughed, she bit her lip and bent forward. She would be a speed racer if that was what it took to get him to stop teasing her.
But once they were out on the main road, she pulled over and turned off the engine, remembering that she hadn’t called Gigi to warn her of their impending visit. Pulling out her cell, she poked in the number and hoped for the best. Phone service was hit-or-miss on the islands. Luckily, she got a connection.
“Hello?”