Chapter One
Verona, Italy
The heavens were about to open up and pour. Sasha downed the last of her cappuccino and then threw down money for the bill. Her hotel was only five blocks away. “I can make it,” she mumbled.
She was wrong. One block’s worth of a light drizzle, turned into a torrential downpour. Leave it to me to visit Verona during one of the wettest months of the year and not think to carry an umbrella. By the end of the second block, she was completely soaked through from her head all the way to her damn, adorable, Gucci, four-inch heels, which prevented her from making a run for it. Instead, she slowed down her gait and embraced the soak.
Another block later, with the rain easing only slightly, Sasha found herself standing stock-still, while in the middle of crossing the street, after a loud boom resonated somewhere around her. Was that a gunshot? Frantically, she looked around her for the source, but when finally, realizing that she needed to get out of the street, it was a moment too late. A car was headed straight toward her, brakes screeching, and as if trapped in a slow-motion movie, her brain had time to process that she would not get out of the way fast enough.
Strong arms wrapped around her, jerking her backward, landing both her and her savior with their asses on the pavement. Those same strong arms lifted her and nudged her forward.
“Over here,” the man said loudly to compete with the sound of the heavy rain falling. They ended up in a narrow alcove, the front of a little antique shop which was currently closed. “Are you all right?”
She looked up at the tall, brunet male, stunned by the color of his greenish-gray eyes, and nodded as droplets of water rolled down his face. Her heart still beat frantically, leaving her breathless and unable to speak just yet. When she finally managed to catch her breath, she said, “I heard … I thought I heard a gunshot.”
His face turned serious, concern written on his handsomely rugged face, his well-defined jaw tense. “No, sweetness. Just a Vespa backfiring. With so much going on in the world, I don’t blame you for thinking that.”
Sasha inhaled deeply and then noisily exhaled, slowly feeling her heart rate return to normal. “Thank you for saving me.” She managed to give the stranger a shaky smile.
His answering smile nearly took her breath away. A small gap in between his front teeth was even more endearing on his otherwise perfectly straight pearly-whites.
“What’s your name, sweetness?” he asked her.
“Sasha.”
“Well, Sasha.” He took her hand in his. “I’m very glad to have been in the right place at the right time.” He brought her hand to his lips. “I shudder to think what could have happened.”
He released her hand, making her feel bereft of his touch.
“You didn’t tell me your name.”
He smiled again. “I’m Rome.”
She couldn’t help the giggle that escaped her. “All you need is an O at then of your name, and then you’re definitely in the right city.” She knew her joke was lame, but it got him to smile again.
His eyes sparkled. “Too bad your name isn’t Juliet.”
Oh my!
They stood staring at one another for some time after that, neither of them seemingly able to look away. For her, maybe it was sharing a life and death moment with this stranger, or the fact that her body had never had this intense of a reaction to someone she had just met, or ever for that matter. True, he was stunningly beautiful to look at, with his gorgeous face, and well-built, lean muscular body, but it was more than that. She felt an undeniable pull to him.
When the rain all but stopped, she realized she couldn’t simply walk away from this man and never see him again. “Can I buy you dinner?” she asked. She could feel her cheeks burning. She’d never asked a man out before. “To say thank you, I mean.”
“No, you may not,” he said with a smirk.
Disappointed and embarrassed, she was about to make her quick getaway, when he added, “My mother taught me from a young age that a gentleman never allows his date to pay for dinner.”
Date?
“Will you please allow me to take you to dinner tonight?” His smile faltered, as if he was suddenly unsure of what her answer would be, despite the fact that she had asked him first.
Meanwhile, she nodded her head, perhaps a bit too enthusiastically, like some love-stricken teenager. When he gifted her with another heart-stopping smile, she figured making a fool of herself was worth it.
“Shall we?” Rome offered her his arm, and she happily took it.
He led her two blocks down and pointed out a small and quite charming place, with a green awning over the entrance, called Trattoria di Bellezza. “Say 6:30 over there?”
She had eaten there before, alone, and found the food to be absolutely amazing. She told him so. Excited butterflies fluttered around in her belly at being able to eat there with him.
