Passionate Calanettis: Soldier, Hero...Husband?

And no wonder Justin had said to Connor, when he gave him this assignment, “Hey, when is the last time you had a holiday? Take your time in Monte Calanetti. Enjoy the sights. Soak up some sun. Drink some wine. Fall in love.”

Justin really had no more right to believe in love than he himself did, but his friend was as bad as his mother in the optimism department. Justin had even hinted there was a woman friend in his life.

“And for goodness’ sake,” Justin had said, “take a break from swimming. What are you training for, anyway?”

But Justin, his best friend, his comrade in arms, his brother, was part of the reason Connor swam. Justin, whose whole life had been changed forever because of a mistake. One made by Connor.

So giving up swimming was out of the question, but at least, Connor told himself grimly, he wouldn’t be falling in love with the woman in front of him. After having felt her pressed against him, and after having been so aware of her in every way this morning, it was a relief to find out she was married.

“Grazie, Signora Rossi,” he said, trying out clumsy Italian, “for providing me with accommodation on such short notice. You can reassure your husband that I will not begin every morning by attacking you.”

His attempt at humor seemed to fall as flat as his Italian. He spoke three languages well, and several more not so well. Connor knew, from his international travels, that most people warmed to someone who attempted to use their language, no matter how clumsy the effort.

But his hostess looked faintly distressed.

And then he realized he had made his worst mistake of the day, and it wasn’t that he had accidentally propositioned her by mispronouncing a word.

Because Isabella Rossi said to him, with quiet dignity, “I’m afraid my beloved husband, Giorgio, is gone, signor. I am a widow.”

Connor wanted to tell her that she of all people, then, should not believe a wedding was a symbol of love and hope and happy endings.

But he considered himself a man who was something of an expert in the nature of courage, and he had to admit he reluctantly admired her ability to believe in hope and happy endings when, just like his mother, she had obviously had plenty of evidence to the contrary.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” he offered, grudgingly.

“My husband has been gone six years, and I miss him still,” she said softly.

Connor felt the funniest stir of something he did not like. Was it envy? Did he envy the man this woman had loved so deeply?

Stupid jet lag. It seemed to have opened up a part of him that normally would have been under close guard, buttoned down tight. Thoroughly annoyed with himself and his wayward thoughts in the land of amore, Connor turned from Signora Isabella Rossi, scooped up the tray and went into his room. Just before he shut the door, her voice stopped him.

“I provide a simple dinner at around seven for my guests, when I have them,” she said, suddenly all business. “If you could let me know in the mornings if you are requiring this service, I would appreciate it.”

Connor, a man who was nothing if not deeply instinctual, knew there was some dangerous physical awareness between them, a primal man-woman thing. Eating her food and sitting across a table from her would not be an option.

On the other hand, he did not know the lay of the land in the village, and he would have to eat somewhere today until he figured that out. Besides, Isabella Rossi had shown she was unusually astute at reading people. He did not want her to know he perceived her as such a threat that he was willing to go hungry rather than spend more time with her.

“Thank you,” he said, keeping his tone carefully neutral. “That would be perfect for tonight. I hope the rest of your day goes better than it began, signora.”

CHAPTER TWO (#u1ac93c0d-dddf-5ad4-bd10-ad41f498d5b5)

ISABELLA STOOD IN the hallway, feeling frozen to the spot and looking at Connor Benson, balancing the tray of food she had provided for him on the jutting bone of one very sexy, very exposed hip. She felt as if she had been run over by a truck.

Which, in a sense, she had. Not that Connor Benson looked anything like a truck. But she had been virtually run down by him, had felt the full naked strength of him pressed against her own body. It had been a disconcerting encounter in every way.

His scent was still tickling her nostrils, and she was taken aback by how much she liked the exquisitely tangy smell of a man in the morning.

Now she’d gone and offered him dinner. Everyone in town knew she occasionally would take in a lodger for a little extra money. She always offered her guests dinner. Why was it suddenly a big deal?

It was because her guests were usually retired college professors or young travelers on a budget. She not had a guest quite like Connor Benson before. In fact, it would be quite safe to say she had never met a man like Connor Benson before.

“I hope my day goes better, too,” she muttered, and then added in Italian, “but it is not looking hopeful.”

This man in her house, who stood before her unself-conscious in his near nakedness, was the antithesis of everything Isabella’s husband, Giorgio, had been.

In fact, Isabella had grown up in Florence and walked nearly daily by the Palazzo Vecchio, where the replica of Michelangelo’s statue David stood. The statue represented a perfection of male physique that had filled the frail Giorgio with envy, and at which she had scoffed.

“Such men do not exist,” she had reassured Giorgio. She had swept her hand over the square. “Look. Show me one who looks like this.”

And then they would dissolve into giggles at the fact the modern Italian male was quite far removed from Michelangelo’s vision.

And yet this nearly naked man standing in the doorway of the room she had let to him made Isabella uncomfortably aware that not only did perfection of male physique exist, it awakened something in her that she had never quite felt before.

That thought made her feel intensely guilty, as if she was being disloyal to her deceased husband, and so she rationalized the way she was feeling.

It was because she had been pulled so unexpectedly against the hard length of him that her awareness was so intense, she told herself.

Her defenses had been completely down. She had just been innocently putting his breakfast beside his door when he had catapulted out of it and turned her around, making her stumble into him.

And now her whole world felt turned around, because she had endured a forced encounter with the heated silk of his skin, stretched taut over those sleek muscles. She had been without the company of a man for a long time. This kind of reaction to a complete stranger did not reflect in any way on her relationship with Giorgio! It was the absence of male companionship that had obviously made her very sensitive to physical contact.

It didn’t help that Connor Benson was unbelievably, sinfully gorgeous. Not just the perfection of his male form, but his face was extraordinary. His very short cropped light brown hair only accentuated the fact that he had a face that would make people—especially women people—stop in their tracks.

He had deep blue eyes, a straight nose, high cheekbones, a jutting chin.

He was the epitome of strength. She thought of his warrior response to her outside his door, that terrifying moment when she had been spun around toward him, the look on his face, as if it was all normal for him.

There was something exquisitely dangerous about Connor Benson.

The thoughts appalled her. They felt like a betrayal of Giorgio, whom she had loved, yes, with all her heart.

“I’ve become pathetic,” Isabella muttered to herself, again in Italian. A pathetic young widow, whose whole life had become her comfy house and the children she taught. She found love in the mutual adoration she and her students had for each other.

Why did it grate on her that her houseguest had known she was a schoolteacher? What would she have wanted him to think she was?

Something, she realized reluctantly, just a little more exciting.

“I’m sorry?” Connor said.

She realized she had mumbled about her self-diagnosis of being pathetic out loud, though thankfully, in Italian. She realized her face was burning as if the inner hunger he had made her feel was evident to him.

Well, it probably was. Men like this—powerfully built, extraordinarily handsome, oozing self-confidence—were used to using their looks to charm women, to having their wicked way. They were not above using their amazing physical charisma to make conquests.

He’d already told her how he felt about weddings, which translated to an aversion to commitment. Even she, for all that she had married young and lived a sheltered life, knew that a man like this one standing before her, so at ease with near nakedness, spelled trouble, in English or Italian, and all in capital letters, too.

This man could never be sweetly loyal and uncomplicated. Connor Benson had warned her. He was not normal. He was cynical and hard and jaded. She could see that in the deep blue of his eyes, even if he had not admitted it to her, which he had. She would have been able to see it, even before he had challenged her to look for details to know things about people that they were not saying.

“I said be careful of the shower,” she blurted out.