Brielle Hughes was cutting the crusts off her three-year-old daughter’s toast when the keypad on her rent-stabilized Brooklyn apartment beeped.

“It’s only me,” her mother called out. “I came to ask if you saw the headlines.”

“About?” Bree ignored her phone in the mornings, preferring to give Sofia her undivided attention until she dropped her at day care and was headed to work.

“Your boss getting married. Good morning, good morning.” Melissa Diaz showered affectionate kisses on both of them, looking and smelling fantastic.

“I made a picture for you, Gigi.” Sofia tilted an earnest smile upward.

“Another one? I’m so lucky.” Melissa had moved with them to New York from Virginia Beach two years ago, to help Bree with day care. Last year, she had married the love of her life and now lived a few blocks away, but often dropped by unannounced as she headed out to start her own workday.

She was a stunning woman in her mid-fifties thanks to the skincare regimen she had developed as a beauty queen in her teens. Her startling blue-green eyes against chestnut brown hair and a honey-gold complexion meant she was often called “exotic,” which annoyed her, but her unique look continued to land her modeling gigs. They were usually ads for antiaging cream and book covers about midlife wellness, but they were a nice addition to the thriving photography business she ran with her husband.

Bree took after Melissa with a similar tall, slender build and unusual eyes, but she wore her hair in a sleek bob that she touched up with a straightening iron every morning.

“It’s on the fridge.” Sofia was their outlier, taking after the Italian American Bree had only known for a day. Sofia had dark brown eyes and near black hair that curled into ringlets when bound in a pair of pigtails like today.

“I’ll take it home when I come next time, so I don’t wrinkle it while I’m out today.”

“Are you talking about Sheila?” Bree asked as she slid the triangles of toast to Sofia. “She’s been married for years. I was at her twentieth anniversary last August.”

“Tank you, Mama,” Sofia said from her booster seat.

“You’re welcome, baby,” Bree said absently, watching as her mother pulled out the chair across from her.

“Your real boss.” Melissa clicked on her phone and quoted, “‘Domenico Blackwood married Evelina Visconti in a private ceremony yesterday, sending stock prices soaring.’”

“That must be a misprint. We’re not allowed to say the V-word at work. There’s a huge feud between the families.”

“That’s what I thought you told me when that story came out a few weeks ago, about those two being stranded on an island in Australia.”

“That’s also something no one dares mention around the office,” Bree said wryly.

“Well, they’re married now.” Melissa offered her phone.

Bree still had to dress and drop Sofia, but she quickly scanned the article, astonished to learn that yes, the owner of WBE, the hotel chain where she was an associate manager in operations, had married a woman purported to be his sworn enemy.

The press release was short, but a related article speculated what it meant for the competing hotel chains. Bree skimmed the recap of the legendary feud and glanced at the photos. The first showed the newlyweds, who were objectively gorgeous. There was a snapshot of Dom with his father, who had died before Brielle started at WBE.

A third photo showed the Visconti family: Evelina with her parents and—

“Oh, my Gawd.” She nearly dropped her mother’s phone into her scrambled eggs.

“What’s wrong?” Melissa frowned with concern.

Bree was incapable of speech. She used her trembling fingers to enlarge the image, focusing on the middle brother’s face.

It couldn’t be.

She flicked to the caption, reading it again, looking for the name Jax or Giacomo. How many times had she searched those names, lacking a surname and having only the vaguest sense he lived in Naples and had a family cottage on Lake Como? How many times had she tried to find him—or at least see if she could find him—despite the fact they had agreed their affair would only last one magical afternoon?

A single day that had created a miracle.

She flicked her gaze to Sofia, who was blinking curious brown eyes at her while licking peanut butter off her finger.

Bree looked back at the caption.

Evelina Visconti with her parents, Romeo and Ginevra, and her three older brothers, Nico, Jackson, and Christopher.

Jax.

He hadn’t lied to her. They’d both skipped full names so she couldn’t fault his keeping quiet that he was Jackson Visconti of the Visconti Group. They were WBE’s biggest competitor for more reasons than a family feud. Their hotel chain was renowned worldwide, with a head office a few blocks from where she worked for WBE.

She was aware that the Visconti properties were operated by the brothers, each with his own territory, but she’d never had reason to look them up, otherwise she might have found Sofia’s father sooner.

Here he was, staring up at her with an aloof expression and the undeniable sexual charisma she hadn’t been able to forget.

Or find in any other man.

“Bree,” Melissa said in a mother’s mixture of crossness and worry.

“I’m okay. Just surprised.” She passed the phone back to Melissa, who didn’t miss the way it wobbled in her grip. “Come sit with me before we leave,” Bree coaxed Sofia.

Her hands were cold as she gathered her daughter into her lap and hugged her, dropping a kiss on the part in her sweet-smelling hair.

“I don’t understand.” Melissa looked at the screen then back to her. “This marriage won’t affect your job, will it?”

Bree bit back a semi hysterical laugh. It could affect a lot more than that!

“The middle brother.” Over her daughter’s head, she widened her eyes with significance and nodded at Sofia.

“What!” Melissa got it right away and was equally shocked. “Will you tell him?”

Bree opened her mouth, thinking about how many times she had wished she could. From the moment she’d learned she was pregnant, she had wished she had not left his number behind in a fit of pique.

But would he want to know about their daughter? Bree’s father hadn’t wanted her. Not really. She would never want Sofia to experience that same cruel indifference. At least when she hadn’t known Jax’s full name, she hadn’t had to take that risk with her.

Now she had an avenue to reach him, but the reality of bringing him into their lives when she had built her world around being a single mother loomed as such a huge shift, she could only say truthfully, “I don’t know.”

Chapter One

Four years ago, Lake Como

After twelve days of traveling alone, Bree decided it was actually a blessing her mother hadn’t been able to come to Italy with her.

She loved Melissa to the moon and back, but for the first time in her life, she was truly self-reliant. It was an important coming of age she hadn’t realized she needed until she was living it. This wasn’t flying solo to Chicago as a pre-adolescent to visit her father, or the pseudo independence of heading off to college to live in a dorm. It wasn’t playing house with her college boyfriend, Kabir.

This was a far too brief, single-woman-on-a-mission-to-find-herself journey that was reassuring her that she would, in fact, be okay without a man in her life.

Mom had promised she would be. They had survived after Daddy left, hadn’t they?

Bree had been devastated by Kabir’s rejection. She had wanted to crawl into bed and never come out, but her mother had urged her to, “Take a trip anyway. It will be good for you. Haven’t you always wanted to go to Italy?”

The lease was running out on the apartment she had shared with Kabir, so Bree had put her few belongings into storage, closed out the streaming accounts they had shared, and hopped on the plane. After landing in the chaos of Rome, she’d traveled south to Pompeii, then came north to sample wines in Tuscany. She’d spent three days soaking up the art and architecture of Florence, browsed boutiques in Milan, and spent this morning on a six-mile hike along the shore of Lake Como, weaving in and out of quaint villages and sweet-smelling bowers of nature.

Thanks to her mother’s shrewd financial planning, Bree’s student loans were manageable, but she was still desperate to get into the workforce to pay them off, otherwise she might have stayed in Europe all summer. She had planned to follow Kabir wherever he found work, but now she would be on her mother’s pullout as she built her adult life from scratch.

She turned her mind from that daunting prospect and made a beeline toward an outdoor café. Despite the dwindling balance in her savings account, she was treating herself to a late lunch overlooking the vivid blue water, where the fragrance of wisteria wafted from the trellis above. A sprinkling of guests occupied nearby tables, but the midday rush was over. She was given a seat near the rail and asked for a glass of white wine, then removed her sunglasses so she could browse the menu.

When she heard the maître d’ say “Giacomo,” with delighted surprise, she glanced up.

Oh.

She’d seen a lot of good-looking men here in Italy, but this one took her breath with his black, curly hair styled a fraction too long. His complexion was swarthy and he wore a shadow of stubble sculpted to accentuate his lean cheeks and strong jaw. On any other man his striped linen trousers and button-down shirt with rolled sleeves paired with a thin scarf would have appeared to be trying too hard. On him, it was casually elegant. Chic and confident. Worldly.

It didn’t hurt that he was built like a top-class athlete. His shirt sat against the musculature of his chest and shoulders. His trousers strained across his hips before hugging his long, lean thighs in a way that was both flattering and subtly sexual. His hair was wind tousled, his eyes covered by mirrored sunglasses that…

Was he looking at her?

A sting of self-conscious pleasure touched her cheeks. She looked back at the menu, but her ears strained to hear his voice. He and the maître d’ were speaking Italian too quickly for her rudimentary grasp of the language. She couldn’t help smiling faintly at their affection, though. Were they related? From the corner of her eye, she caught the way he angled his head to allow his cheeks to be kissed by the shorter man. Perhaps he wasn’t interested in heterosexual women?

He’s not interested in me. Who would be?

That dark thought was leftover insecurity from Kabir’s callous, You said living together would be convenient and affordable. It was. Now I’m going home.

The memory was sharp enough to leave her chest feeling freshly impaled. Her next few breaths stung. She reminded herself that she was off men and dating. She didn’t care if a stranger looked at her. She wasn’t part of the insta-lust, hookup culture. She’d had one boyfriend. Their relationship had been a slow burn and lasted almost three years. She had expected she would marry him.

She’d been kidding herself, though. Wasting her time. Succumbing to Daddy issues.

Her eyes burned and the menu blurred before her eyes.

She had to stop pining and wallowing in maudlin self-blame, punishing herself for not being able to keep a man. The whole point of this trip was to leave Kabir and all her dreams for their future in Europe so she could go home and start with a blank page.

“The view is better at this table, Alphonso.” The deep voice spoke in affable English with an American accent. A masculine hand descended on the chairback across from her. Mr. Tall, Dark, and Gorgeous waited until she’d lifted her startled gaze to ask her, “Would you like company?”

He did like women. Masculine interest radiated off him so unabashedly, he nearly gave her a sunburn with it.

“You’re American.”

She was more surprised by that than his request to join her. “How did you know that I am?” Was she trying too hard, wearing her new shoes from Milan and her sundress from Rome?

“My sister has a similar handbag.” He nodded at the tote her mother had given her after modeling it in a photo shoot. “They’re made in New York and not well-known enough to have knockoffs yet. May I buy you lunch?”

“Um…” A tingling glow filled her, one her ego drank up like a magic elixir. She was flattered that she’d gained the attention of a man whose magnetism was so tangible. She had been mooning over him. And berating herself for not moving on.

This was a bigger leap than she had had in mind, though. If she wanted to start dating, she ought to cut her teeth on a quiet-spoken claims adjuster from Des Moines, not a man with this much overwhelming confidence. She had the sense she could easily be pulled into his orbit and absorbed like light into a black hole.

She was willing to risk it, though. Because this was the new Bree, a woman who was self-sufficient and autonomous and secure in her worth.

“I can buy my own lunch,” she said as a precaution, so nothing would be misconstrued. “But company would be nice. My friends call me Bree.” She stood to offer her hand across the table.

“Mine call me Jax. Or Giacomo.” He nodded to Alphonso while his hand engulfed hers. He was at least six feet tall with a warm, strong grip and a self-assurance that made her feel special simply because she’d been noticed by him. He pointed at her glass. “The same, Alphonso, per favore.”

“Of course. I’ll tell Chef you’re here. He’ll be pleased.”

“Are you a celebrity?” Bree asked in an undertone as they sat.

“Not at all. Alphonso used to work for me.”

“At home? Or do you live here in Italy?”

“Naples, but my grandparents had a cottage here.” He waved toward the far side of the lake. “It was their first home when they married. My sister bought it from the estate after Nonna passed. The house is doing its best to slide into the water, but she won’t tear it down and rebuild. She wants it saved. She is not here, however.” He made that pronouncement with good-natured, put-upon disgust.

“She’s in New York?” Bree guessed.

“Yes. She enlists me every week or so to come deal with plumbers or painters.”

“Oh, dear.” She was both amused and sympathetic. “Is she your only sibling?”

“We have an older brother and another between us. You?”

“Three stepsiblings from my dad’s second marriage, but I was basically raised an only child by my single mom.” She shrugged, trying not to feel alienated after all this time. “That part of my life is a bit of a hot mess, so I don’t talk about it much.”

“Let’s talk about something else, then. What brings you to Italy?”

“Another hot mess,” she said wryly.

Alphonso arrived with Jax’s wine and an amuse-bouche. He relayed the chef’s suggested menu of three courses. Jax nodded agreement before Bree had finished the mental math on her budget.

When in Rome, she reasoned, and glanced out at the lake.

A soft breeze came off the water and the sound of outboard motors buzzed in the distance. The sun dappled through the greenery above them and music played beneath the lilt of nearby conversation.

It was movie set romantic so naturally she ruined it.

“I’m coming off a breakup,” she confided when they were alone again. “I was living with my boyfriend while we were getting our degrees. I thought he would invite me to go to India with him when we finished, so I could finally meet his family. He said they didn’t know about me.”

Jax’s dark brows shot up.

“He said his parents were looking for a wife for him.” She swallowed the ache in her throat, but it remained like a scuff behind her sternum. “My takeaway was that he would rather spend his life with a stranger than me.” She tried for a light, self-deprecating tone, but she was still deeply hurt.

“You’re nursing a broken heart.” His mouth twisted with rueful dismay.

Which gave her the thorniest pang of yearning and embarrassment.

“I shouldn’t have told you. That’s so cliché, isn’t it? This is my first date since before I met him. Can you tell?” She shook her head at herself.

His phone buzzed and he took it from his pocket to glance at the screen.

And there he went, she thought, expecting him to use the message to make his escape.

He removed his sunglasses as he read, revealing irises that were dark as black coffee. His mouth tightened.

“You don’t have to stay,” she said to forestall his rejection. “I realize you thought this might turn into something else.”

“I came here for a meal, not to prowl.” He turned his phone face down on the table and set his sunglasses beside it, sounding vaguely insulted. “If a vacation fling is your goal, though?” His tone turned intimate and self-deprecating. “I would be happy to oblige.”

Her heart did a somersault and she couldn’t help her smile of amusement.

“How long has it been?” he asked.

“Six—No, seven weeks. But I’ve started to realize he left months ago.”

“No sex?” he guessed.

“That had fallen off, yes,” she admitted, cheeks stinging at how rebuffed she’d felt by his lack of interest.

“Literally?” he drawled.

“Might as well have. I never saw it.”

They both chuckled.

“I blamed exam stress, but—” She sighed. “You know what? I’ll stop talking about him. I’ve been brooding this entire trip. This is my last day before I catch a train tonight and start my journey home. I’m determined to enjoy it.”

“Let me make you this promise, then.” He leaned forward. “I don’t prey on women who are in a vulnerable place. However, I will buy you lunch and compliment you without mercy, so you know exactly how attractive you are. Later, if you decide to exact quiet revenge by enjoying the best sex of your life, I would be very pleased to deliver that. If not, at least you’ll have the satisfaction of having turned medown.”

Bree nearly swallowed her tongue.

Their server arrived to switch out their course.

Jax leaned back and said, “Tell me what you’ve seen while you’ve been here.”

He wasn’t kidding. He applied himself to making her feel beautiful and interesting and desirable. It worked.

Bree blossomed under his attention, leaning in and talking animatedly with her hands. When she accidentally brushed her ankle against his shin beneath the table, awareness sparked in her belly and never abated. At one point, he caught her wrist so he could study her bracelet, which was a pretty silver bangle she’d bought in Florence with a matching one for her mother. He caressed her wrist before releasing her, leaving her bloodstream fizzing like champagne.

He asked about her degree, which was in business administration. She told him about her father’s suggestion she work in health care, which had been one of the few times he’d taken a moment to show an interest in her life.

“He’s a heart surgeon so I know how demanding the health care sector is. I’d prefer something with lower stakes that might have opportunities for travel. I’ll see what’s available when I get home.”

“Where’s that?”

“Virginia. Is all your family in New York? Do you get home much?”

“They are, but I prefer Italy.” His tone cooled enough to let her know that’s all he wanted to say about it. “What does your mother do?”

“She’s a model. My father was still in school when I was born. Times were tight so she took any work that was offered. I still sometimes walk into a bank and see my mother’s face on a poster, advertising high-yield savings accounts.”

His mouth tilted, then the heat of admiration filtered into his gaze. “If you look like her, I can imagine she’s in high demand. Your eyes are like this water. Blue? Green? Changeable and enigmatic.”

“A misrepresentation. I’m actually very boring.” She resisted putting her sunglasses back on, feeling naked.

“I disagree.”

She reminded herself he was only doing what he’d said he would do, but she was charmed all the same. He was so ridiculously attractive! Her gaze kept attaching itself to his mouth and watching his expressive hands and staring into his eyes. She wanted to touch his hair and press against his chest and tuck her face into the nook of his throat.

The sexual tension simmered as they chatted through their exquisitely prepared meal, splitting a bottle of wine, then lingering over espresso and sharing a pistachio granita.

As their last dishes were removed, Bree looked for their server. “I was serious about buying my own meal.”

“Don’t insult me. It’s already taken care of.”

“When? It takes more than lunch to seduce me, you know.” It was a lie. She was already looking forward to their goodbye kiss. Already thinking about more.

“I haven’t even started trying to seduce you, bella. You’ll know when I do.” His gaze met hers and sent a hot spear of pure lust into her belly, exploding with heat in her loins. “Where is your luggage?”

“At my pied-à-terre. I booked it before my girlfriend asked me to meet her in Zurich so I—” she cleared her throat “—have it until I leave this evening.”

“I’ll walk you.”

Her knees felt too weak to support her as they left. Alphonso waved them off without presenting a bill, but she had lost interest in that. Her world had become the smooth hand that clasped hers as she led Jax down the hot shadows of the streets between the closely set buildings. Her stomach was full of butterflies, her senses piqued with anticipation.

“I’ve never done this,” she confessed, pressing her shoulder against his so she could keep her voice down. “Brought someone home who I’ve just met.”

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.” His hand loosened on hers, offering to let her pull away.

“I do want to.” She tightened her grip and drew him up the outer stairs to the tiny, wrought iron porch of the studio flat.

The single room was dim and cool. She’d closed the blinds against the sunshine before leaving this morning, but the spicy fragrance of the nasturtiums in the window box filled the air. There was a double bed, a small table over a red area rug, and a kitchenette with a microwave and a kettle.

“I’m nervous,” she admitted as he closed the door behind them. “I’ve always considered myself a relationship person. It feels strange that this isn’t the start of one. Which I don’t expect,” she hurried to add. “Frankly, I don’t want anything serious. I want rebound sex. I just don’t know how to do it.”

“Allow me to show you.” He drew her toward him and pressed her back to the door.

Her heart spun as she reoriented herself with her naked shoulder blades against cool wood. Her hands reflexively went to his chest as he braced his arm over her head and dipped his mouth toward hers.

Wow. His chest was warm and contoured and solid. Deliciously intriguing.

“This, by the way, is me seducing you,” he teased, and his lips brushed hers.

An electric buzz shot through her system. Her lips parted, but he didn’t accept the invitation. He nuzzled her cheekbone and temple, nibbled the rim of her ear, murmured something in Italian that sounded pretty and was probably filthy.

His free hand caressed her throat and drew a line along her shoulder and down her upper arm, making her nipples tighten with anticipation, but he didn’t touch her breasts. He only trailed those tickling caresses along the skin of her arm while she tried to chase his lips.

She had to slide her hand up to his neck and curl it behind his skull to urge him to come down farther. To seal his hot mouth over her eager lips and oh. He kissed her with such slow, drugging impact, she melted against the door.

At a distance, she thought, This is different.

Not because there was novelty in kissing someone new, although there was that, but also because his effect on her was so profound.

He lifted his head briefly, eyes glittering with something she couldn’t decipher. Heat and revelation, maybe. As though he was also surprised.

Then his lips dragged across hers again, the pleasure sharp and deep and expansive. Maybe it was the freedom of having no history or future with him. It allowed her to let go in a way she wouldn’t have if she’d expected to see him again, but she let herself become more and more immersed in their kiss. Letting him feast in his unhurried, claiming way.

Today was her only chance to know him in an intimate way, though. She found herself greedy to consume him in one gulp. She didn’t want to be coaxed or treated gently. Through lunch and all the light flirting, he’d kindled her curiosity and sensuality. Now  raw sexual hunger caught and burned within her. It went beyond yearning. It was craving. Urgency.

She licked into his mouth with blatant invitation and felt him stiffen.

That made her feel powerful, but her smile of satisfaction had barely touched her lips when his hand slid up from her waist and massaged her breast through the light cotton of her dress. His kiss deepened, becoming more demanding as he dragged her into a miasma of passion. His hungry mouth trailed into her throat and her nipple stung where his thumb teased it through the fabric of her dress.

She writhed, pinned beneath the unforgiving door and the press of his weight. When she wormed her hand between them to find the stiff shape pressing against her hip, his breath hissed in.

“Are you sure you’ve never done this?” he asked in a graveled tone.

“I’m not a virgin, if that’s what you mean.”

In many ways she felt like it, though. She had never experienced anything like the way he was making her feel. The greed. The surrender.

He bent to scrape his teeth across the tip of her breast, then sucked at her nipple through cotton and bra. The intense sensations grew until she whimpered. He straightened. His mouth came back to hers, rough and commanding. Somehow, he had picked up the hem of her skirt. Air danced across her thighs. His touch skimmed her plain underwear, then his wide palm arrived between her thighs, claiming her in a firm squeeze that made her abdomen contract with alarmed excitement. Heat flooded into the press of his hand.

What had she unleashed?

Turning her head, she gasped, “Do you have a condom?”

“I don’t need a condom for this, bella.” He slid the placket of her underwear aside and his fingertip delicately slid into her soaked folds, making her groan with pleasure.

She felt his smile before he smothered her with another kiss.

The sounds from the street below carried in, but all she really knew was the breadth of his shoulders and the drag of his mouth and the way his touch rolled and dipped and circled, making her stomach tense and tremble with anticipation. They kissed in flagrant licks and passionate clashes. She squeezed his erection through his trousers, hoping she was delivering as much erotic delight as she was receiving, but she was losing her hold on reality.

“We should…” She could hardly form words.

“Die your little death, dolcezza. It’s what you want, isn’t it?” His lazy touch slid in a delicious, unrelenting rhythm, invading and retreating.

She couldn’t fight it. As climax rose to overtake her, she clutched at his shirt and bit her lip. She pushed her face into the hollow of his shoulder while her inner muscles clamped on the finger that impaled her. Waves of joy rolled over her, making her moan with abandon while he continued to caress her.

He held her close in the aftermath while she leaned weakly into him, panting in astonished joy.

“That is how it’s done, bella,” he said against her ear. “You give me the freedom to touch you and I make you forget where you are.”

“Yes, please.” She let her head fall back.

He kissed her again, tasting of deprivation. Demand. It thrilled her.

They began pulling at each other’s clothes, barely speaking.

Chapter Two

Jax settled onto his back after discarding the condom, still damp with perspiration, head pillowed on his arm, heart rate not yet steady, mind blown by the intensity of his orgasm.

He wasn’t sure why their lovemaking had been so potent, but he’d actually forgotten where he was as well. His only point of consciousness had been the way their bodies rang in unison.

Why? It hadn’t been that long since his last affair. He was twenty-eight, wealthy, and good-looking. Women threw themselves at him all the time. When they were clear about wanting a brief and uncomplicated encounter, he indulged.

He didn’t need sex. He merely liked it. A lot.

But as he heard his phone buzz yet again from the pocket of his discarded jacket, he kicked himself for lingering to indulge today. And wondered why it had felt so imperative.

“Do you need to get that?” Bree asked drowsily.

“No.” It was his brother, demanding a status report. Nico was up early in New York. Very early. It was a testament to how important it was for Jax to get to Naples and deal with Blackwood. If he had left as scheduled, he would be there by now, signing the deal Nico was badgering him about.

He should leave. Now.

But Bree curled into his side with a sigh of satisfaction, the kind his ego delighted in. Her head found his shoulder and her soft curves rested against his side.

“Good,” she murmured.

He wasn’t a cuddler, but he liked the way she fit against him. He liked the smell in her hair where strands caught in his stubble. He liked the taste of her on his lips. Her thigh rested on his own and her fingers traced patterns from the middle of his chest to his navel, making him loath to move.

A tryst with a tourist had been the last thing on his mind when he’d left Nonna’s. He’d come to Como for exactly the reason he’d given her. After flying in last night, he had monitored some work this morning, then stopped for a bite on his way to the heliport. Alphonso had been his head of catering until a year ago. He’d also been a running partner. Alphonso had left when he’d fallen in love with a chef, and Jax had provided financing for their enterprise. He dropped in when he could, to check on his investment.

His mind had been on Domenico Blackwood. Despite the financial beating Jax’s family had recently delivered, Dom was not staying down. In fact, he was driving up the price on the property Nico wanted, thus Nico wanted Jax in Naples, closing the deal.

Jax thought Blackwood was bluffing. He would overextend himself if he kept raising the bid, but Jax never shirked his responsibility to the family or the Visconti Group.

Almost never.

The second he had arrived at the ristorante, his inner caveman had clocked a pretty woman sitting alone. His interest probably would have leveled off at admiration if she hadn’t glanced over, arresting him.

Her sea-green eyes had delivered a sexual punch that took his breath. The rest of her was equally compelling. Her lips were heart shaped, feminine, and wearing a pink gloss that set off her golden tan. Her hair was a rich chestnut brown that had been gathered into a messy ponytail behind her neck. The breeze lifted flyaway strands that he wanted to smooth with his hands.

Her sundress was printed with lemons and had narrow straps that would only need a gentle brush off her shoulders to drop the silk around her feet, revealing what his practiced eye discerned were firm, lovely breasts and a lush ass. The lower half of her tanned thigh and bare shin was visible beneath the flirty length of the dress, ending in a chic sandal.

Everything about her called to him in a way he’d never experienced, not even when he’d been engaged to be married.

The painful fallout from that broken engagement was firmly behind him, but it was the reason he stuck to flirtations and flings. He’d assumed his lack of deep connections since then had been a deliberate choice. He would decide when he was ready to feel something more than superficial attraction.

He hadn’t expected a magnetic sort of carnality to hit him square between the eyes. Or the middle of his chest. Or take hold of his groin like a barbed hook.

American, he had judged her. It wasn’t just the handbag. It was the fact she’d met his gaze so boldly. He liked Europe for the fact most people kept their nose in their own business. Americans were always heads-up, eyes locking in readiness to meet, assess, and connect.

He could have—probably should have—left when he realized she was rebounding from heartbreak. Perhaps he would have, if she hadn’t been so candid about her desire to move on. If she hadn’t been so enchanting and responsive to his slightest touch, blushing when he caressed her wrist.

He’d been utterly entranced by her, watching her lips, losing himself in her eyes.

Her nervousness as she’d led him back here had been another yellow flag, telling him she lacked the sophistication of someone who could separate physical connection from emotional. He’d been prepared to leave if she changed her mind, but when they kissed, she grew bolder, then shattered under his touch.

Good sense had gone by the wayside at that point. He always carried condoms, and it had taken all his control to put one on before falling onto this bed with her.

Somehow, he’d kept from unleashing the full force of his inner beast, but that hadn’t lessened the intensity of the culmination. It had been prolonged and so satisfying, it damned near tore him in half.

He still felt turned inside out.

He still felt hungry.

It wasn’t garden-variety horny, either. Yes, he was recovering and itching with renewed arousal. He had a very healthy sexual appetite, and he couldn’t help respond to the feel of her soft curves and the trail of her fingertips against his abs and the brush of her lips as she turned them against his pec.

A deeper sort of insatiable desire was digging claws into him, though. Something that felt thwarted despite the fact they were sated and she was inside the crook of his arm. He was trying not to acknowledge it, but he wanted more. Not just more lovemaking, but more time. More of her.

The last time he’d allowed himself to become deeply entangled with a woman, he’d been forced to choose between his love for her and the kind of man he thought he was. The kind of man he wanted to be. That push-pull had frayed things inside him to the point of nearly snapping. He still hated himself for the way things had played out.

Leave, he ordered himself and drew a breath.

She stretched against him. “You’re a man of your word, aren’t you?”

“I try to be. Why?” Had she heard his inner thoughts and wondered about his personal code of ethics?

“That was the best sex of my life. As promised. Thank you.” She shifted to sprawl herself across his chest, breasts sitting warmly against his rib cage. Her pretty mouth, bruised by their kisses, held a smug smile, but shadows flickered behind the screen of her lashes.

She was remembering sex with someone else, feeling disloyal for comparing.

Jealousy bit him. It was completely misguided. That other man was already out of her life. Jax would be soon as well.

There would be others, though. She was far too passionate to deny herself, and he was inordinately resentful of those future lovers she would take.

He rolled her beneath him. “Best so far.”

“Oh?” Her eyes flared with excitement. “I thought all those texts meant you have places to be.”

“They can wait.” They couldn’t, but he brushed aside the veil of obligation that tried to descend on him and used the superior strength in his thighs to open hers. He settled his thickening erection where she was molten and silky, then kissed her until she was buttery soft beneath him. Until she whimpered and rocked her hips, seeking stimulation in the apex of her thighs.

He moved his lips into her throat and slid down so he could graze his stubble in the valley between her breasts.

“Come back,” she pleaded, clasping at his shoulders, but he caught her hands and trapped them against the mattress while he detoured to kiss all the most beguiling places—her beige nipples and the scented underside of her breast. The place where her ribs ended and the tremble of her belly began. Her navel and the point of her hip and the musky thicket of her bush.

When he was half off the bed, her thighs clenching his ears and her fingers in his hair, he was exactly where he wanted to be.

He could have stayed there forever, making her shudder and gasp and sob with need, but even though she was utterly his in this moment, that primal need to possess her forever wouldn’t abate.

Rather than take her over the edge, he slipped on the other condom from his wallet and loomed over her, catching at his control even as he was draping her thighs over his arms, grasping her hips and driving into her.

“Too hard?” he asked through clenched his teeth, body singing with the need to claim.

“I like it,” she gasped. “It makes me feel sexy.” Her soft hands drifted over his shoulders then down to his hips. Her nails scored his buttocks, urging him on.

“You are.” He thrust heavily. “Too sexy.” Another thrust. Deeper. “Dangerous.”

Because he wanted to keep her.

He didn’t say it. His capacity for speech dried up. Their noises became animalistic as he made love to her the way he was aching to, driving her into spasms of pleasure, then shifting to arch her over his arm while he buried his mouth in her neck. He rolled so she was straddled across his hips and tumbled her onto her back again, riding her through one orgasm after another, keeping her at the heights of arousal with the pump of his hips and his mouth on her breast and his hands caressing every inch of her.

She matched him every step of the way, flushed and incoherent with lust, nipping at his lips and lifting her hips to meet his, grasping at him in desperation. Mews of need filled his ears.

They wrecked the bed, but that wasn’t enough for him. He wanted to wreck her for future lovers, so she only thought of him for the rest of her life. It was a primitive compulsion. Atavistic.

When her cries of anguished joy rose and his own need for release pressed like a branding iron, he was both fiercely triumphant and incensed that the end had arrived.

He dropped her onto her back and drove into her, trying to forge a link that would chain her to him for the rest of their lives. For all of eternity.

Jagged, ecstatic cries left her as she convulsed beneath him.

His final thrust into the contractions of her sheath was so intense, so pure, so abruptly exquisite, it tore a shout of exaltation from him.

Time stopped. He was held in that paroxysm of painfully sweet pulses. The fiery throbs bathed him in heat, the sensation acute and lasting for what seemed like hours. Days. A lifetime. Until he was hollow and defeated.

With a final shudder, he let his arms fold. He was so weak with gratification, he barely kept from crushing her.

It was only when his erection relaxed and slipped free that he realized the condom had split.

“The condom broke.”

“Hmm?” Bree was made of lead. From toenails to eyelids, all of her was too heavy to function. Her brain was a bed of moss, her entire being dulled into supreme indolence. “Issokay.” Even her lips were too sated to move. “I’m onna pill.”

“Are you sure?” The mattress shifted.

“Yes.” She made herself drag her eyes open to find his wide chest dominating her vision. The fine hairs lay in a treelike pattern that stretched toward his light brown nipples.

He was propped on his elbow, looking alert and powerful. His shoulders were satin, his mouth a stern line. His penis was naked so he must have removed the remains of the condom.

When she lifted her gaze to his, he penetrated hers with a steady stare, not nearly as destroyed by their lovemaking as she was. Angry?

“They’re in the bathroom next to my toothbrush,” she said of the pills, growing indignant. “See for yourself. Or do you mean…” She reached for the sheet, beginning to feel chilled.

The sheet was bunched below their knees. He was lying on the edge of it and didn’t move, forcing her to lie here naked before him.

“I had a physical after Kabir left.” Her friend had suggested she check that he hadn’t been cheating, leaving her with more than disappointment. He hadn’t. “I don’t have any health concerns. Do you?”

“No. I get checked every year and always wear condoms.”

“So it’s okay.” She quit tugging on the sheet and sat up to hug the one pillow that was still on the bed. “I can get a morning-after pill from the pharmacy on the way to the train station if you’re worried.” She had time, she noted with a glance at the clock.

Blues hit her as she realized she was not only at the end of her vacation, but very much at the end of her time with him. And, like the end of a vacation, stepping back into reality hit like a slap in the face.

“That would be wise.” He rose to gather his clothes.

He paused when his phone buzzed. He drew it from his jacket pocket and sighed, standing naked as he read it, an erotic silhouette of the masculine form against the striped light of the closed blinds.

If her phone had been within reach, she would have snapped him like that and called it “blind passion.” Amused with herself, she opened her mouth to tell him, hoping to return to some of the lighthearted humor they had enjoyed all day, but he swore under his breath.

“I have to go.” Tense energy had taken hold of him. When he flashed her a look, it was almost as though he blamed her in some way.

“Is everything okay?”

“An ongoing problem with a competitor. Nothing life threatening, but I should have been in Naples by now.” He pulled on his clothes. “I’ll leave my assistant’s card in case you need to get hold of me.” He flashed another of those piercing looks at her.

His assistant? That told her where she was in his circle of intimates, didn’t it?

She picked up the sheet and pulled it up to wrap across her breasts, under her arms, wondering what she had done to make him rush away—

No. No more blaming herself for men who left. Her heart might be twisting with a desire to maintain the connection they had seemed to share, but she’d been a one-afternoon stand for him. He hadn’t tried to disguise it as anything more than that. In fact, he’d given her countless opportunities to reject him, and when she hadn’t, he’d delivered exactly what he’d promised: electrifying sex that had made her forget Kabir existed.

She refused to pine and torture herself with wondering if he would have invited her to Naples if she’d been staying in Europe longer. Shewas the one who was unavailable.

“I guess this is the part where I say thanks, this was nice?” She aimed for a flippant tone and must have nailed it because he shot her a look of arrogantly lifted brows that rejected her tepid adjective.

Spectacular was more fitting. So was unforgettable. She would be damned if she would stroke his ego, though.

After a charged moment, he showed her a card, then scribbled something on it. “That’s my direct line. Reach out if you need to.” He left it on the table with a muted snap.

So she could be left on read? No thanks.

She waited for him to ask for her number. To say he wanted to see her again.

“I enjoyed this. Grazie.”

He didn’t sound grateful. He sounded mad.

She was still on the bed wearing only the sheet. She suddenly felt cheap and couldn’t bear it. She only wanted him to leave.

“You’re welcome,” she said with one of her mother’s stage smiles, the kind that covered anything from a wardrobe malfunction to a lost crown. “I have a train to catch so….” She wiggled her fingers. “Arrivederci.”

His cheek ticked. “Ciao, bella.”

The door closed behind him and she clenched her hot eyes shut, thinking, There goes another one.

No. She might not be the one to physically leave, but she was damned well leaving him behind.

After a quick shower and finishing her packing, she walked out with her suitcase and locked the door, leaving his card on the table without even looking at it.