Page 21 of Rules Of Engagement: St. Louis (In The Heart of A Valentine #17)

Chapter

Thirteen

CHRISTIAN

The villa was quiet except for the sound of birds outside and Naomi’s soft breathing beside me.

I’d been awake for an hour, just watching her sleep, memorizing the contours of her peaceful face.

There were no nightmares last night. At least, it didn’t appear to be, but if there had been I would’ve been ready to save her from them.

Our flight wasn’t until three, but I knew once we started moving toward departure, this bubble we’d created would begin to crack. Here, in this bed, with her arm thrown across my chest and her forehead relaxed against me, I could pretend we were just a man and woman who belonged together.

She stirred, her eyes fluttering open to find me watching her.

“Good morning,” she said huskily.

“Good morning, beautiful.”

She stretched, and her soft body moved against mine, heating my blood. “What time is it?”

“Early. We have time.”

“Time for what?”

“Time to pretend we don’t have to leave today.”

Her brows dipped. “We can’t stay in bed forever.”

“We can try.”

She laughed softly, pressing a kiss to my chest. “I’m hungry.”

“Then I guess I’d better feed you.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to. Let me cook for you one more time before we go back to reality.”

Reality. Where she had rules and I had boundaries, and we pretended this was just an arrangement between two consenting adults.

She nodded, understanding what I wasn’t saying. “What are you going to make?”

“Real Italian breakfast. Espresso, fresh herbs from the garden, maybe some bruschetta.”

“Idon’t know how to make espresso.”

“Then I’ll teach you.”

“Wait, let me shower first.” She turned her head and stuffed her nose in my shoulder. “You smell like soap.”

I chuckled. “I showered already.”

“Cheater.”

“I would never cheat on you.”

She sucked in a deep breath. “That’s not what I meant.”

“What did you mean, then?”

“I—” her mouth opened but her thoughts couldn’t catch up with her words. “You know what I meant.”

“You called me a cheater. I don’t cheat in anything in life, and especially not with a woman I adore.”

Heat rushed her cheeks as her brown skin darkened there.

“I apologize if I offended you.”

I smiled. “You didn’t.” I pinched her chin. “But I’m glad you brought it up, so you’ll know better next time.”

Her eyes lowered on me, almost a squint but not quite. I waited for a feisty rebuttal, but none came.

“I’ll be back.”

And she was gone, disappearing like a ghost as if my words haunted her.

In the kitchen, I pulled out the moka pot—a simple aluminum contraption that every Italian household owned. Naomi watched from the counter, wrapped in my shirt from yesterday.

“You put my shirt back on.”

“I did.”

“I expected you to come down primped and ready to take on the globe.”

Her browns dipped and she looked affright. “My God, should I have? We’re still on a short vacation, aren’t we?”

“We absolutely are and no, you shouldn’t have. I just assumed you would.”

“Because I usually am?”

“Precisely.”

“Ah… well, now you’ll know better next time we’re on short vacation. I stay relaxed and your shirt is comfy.” She smirked and then I assume her words caught up with her. “I mean, if ever a time arises.”

My mouth spread into a smile and heat stirred my soul. If she had considered being with me in a space like this again then I was winning this tug and pull between us. And that delighted me more than anything.

“It looks like a tiny rocket ship,”she said, changing the subject, referring to the espresso.

“Giuseppe’s grandmother would roll over in her grave if she heard you say that.”

“What would she call it?”

“The heart of the home. She told me you can judge the quality of a marriage by the quality of the espresso.”

“That’s a lot of pressure for a little aluminum pot.”

I filled the bottom chamber with water and added finely ground coffee to the middle section. “Come here. You’re going to make it.”

She slipped off the stool, strolling over bare foot. I positioned her in front of the stove, my arms coming around her to guide her hands.

“Twist it tight, but not too tight,”I murmured against her ear. “The steam needs to build pressure.”

Her hands were smaller than mine, warmer. I covered them with my own, showing her how to screw the pieces together properly.

“Now we wait?”

“Now we wait. And while we wait, we get herbs from the garden.”

“In my pajamas?”

“In my shirt. Which looks much better on you than it ever did on me.”

The herb garden was Giuseppe’s pride, with neat rows of basil, oregano, parsley, and rosemary. The morning air was crisp but not cold, offering the trace of olive trees and the distant smell of wood smoke from the village.

“How do I know which ones to pick?”Naomi asked, crouching beside the basil plants.

“The young leaves, tender ones. Like this.”I showed her, pinching stems carefully. “In Italy, they say you should pick herbs while they’re still dreaming about the sun.”

“That’s beautiful.”

“That’s Giuseppe being poetic about plants.”

She laughed, filling her cupped palms with fresh basil and oregano. “I’ve never had a garden. Never grown anything.”

“Why not?”

“City living. A demanding schedule. Gerald always said it was a waste of time since you could buy herbs at the store.”

Gerald again. Even here, in this perfect morning, the shadow of her past crept in.

“Gerald was wrong about a lot of things,”I said quietly.

“Yeah. He was.” She angled her head and looked up at me. “You managed to find out a lot about Giuseppe between the time you bid on the Tuscany trip and now.”

“I had a whole year to come back and forth and see what I had won.”

She laughed. “So you were just bidding and didn’t know what all involved the bid, huh?”

“I bidded because you told me you would join me, and I would’ve bid on who should be the next face on Mount Rushmore if I could convince you to take the trip with me.”

She sucked in her laughter. “Why?”

“You don’t remember? You were the best date I’d ever had, and I wanted more, and I still do.”

We stared at each other, and I saw her shiver. She blinked and pulled her eyes back down to the garden. She cleared her throat.

“You learned so much during your back and forth.”

I continued to stare at her, wanting to press what I hoped I wasn’t imagining, these heartfelt emotions. But I swallowed my needs and stayed in her comfortable line of conversation.

“I met Giuseppe, and I wish you could’ve met her, too.”

Her lips spread into a tiny smile. “Me, too.”

“Next time I won’t wait so long to ask you on a date out of the country.”

She glanced back at me, and I reached for her. She took my hand, and I pulled her close.

“You don’t have to promise me you’ll go. I’ll bug you about it later.”

She laughed and we walked back to the kitchen to find the moka pot gurgling and hissing on the stove. The smell of brewing espresso filled the space.

“It’s working,”Naomi said, sounding surprised.

“You sound shocked that you successfully made coffee.”

“I’m shocked I successfully made Italian coffee. There’s a difference.”

I pulled eggs from the refrigerator while she rinsed the herbs. “Frittata, okay?”

“Idon’t know what that is, but sure.”

“It’s an Italian omelet. But fluffier, and you finish it in the oven.”

“Show me.”

We worked together with her cracking eggs while I heated olive oil in a cast-iron pan. The way we sync with every ingredient added brought pleasure to my soul and I could see us, far beyond this moment doing this on a regular basis.

“How many eggs?”she asked.

“Six. We’re not eating again until we’re home.”

I whisked the eggs while she chopped herbs with focus. “You’re very precise,”I said.

“I like things done right.”

“Even cooking?”

“Of course. If I’m going to do it, I want to do it well.”

I added the herbs to the eggs, along with salt, pepper, and grated Parmigiano-Reggiano. “Taste this.”

I held the spoon to her lips, watching her expression as she tasted the mixture.

“That’s really good.”

The frittata went into the oven while we made bruschetta. Simple bread, rubbed with garlic, drizzled with olive oil, and topped with tomatoes.

The espresso was impeccable, strong, and aromatic, with that layer of crema that marked Italian brewed coffee. We ate on the terrace with the morning sun warming our faces, and the valley spread out below us like a painting.

“This is the best breakfast I’ve ever had,”Naomi said.

“You made most of it, so give yourself a standing ovation.”

She laughed. “Yeah, sure, but with your hands guiding mine.”

“What can I say, we’re good together.”

Our gazes remained connected, and I reached across the table, covering her hand with mine. “I’m glad you came with me.”

“Me too.”

We finished eating slowly, neither of us eager to start packing. But eventually, the sun climbed higher, and reality began to intrude.

“We should get ready,”she said ultimately.

“We should.” Yet neither of us moved. We sat there so long just being that we would end up arriving later than we intended.

She squeezed my hand and stood up. “Come on. We need to pack.”

Each item we folded and put away was a piece of the weekend disappearing. Naomi moved through the bedroom methodically, but I saw her pausing sometimes, touching surfaces, looking out the windows as if trying to memorize everything.

“You can come back,”I said, watching her fold the shirt she’d worn yesterday.

She laughed. “I can?”

“This is my house. You’re always welcome here.”

She looked at me, smirked, and nodded. “Thanks for the open invitation. I might just take you up on that.”

“I hope that you do.”

The car arrived at two-thirty with Luca behind the wheel. He helped load our bags while we took a final look around the villa.

“You will come back soon?” he asked in his careful English.

“I hope so,”I said.

“Both of you?”

I glanced at Naomi, who was studying the vineyard one last time. “I hope so.”

The drive to the private terminal was quiet but relaxed. Naomi sat beside me in the backseat, her hand in mine, both of us lost in our own thoughts. The Tuscan countryside rolled past, olive groves, cypress trees, and stone farmhouses.

“It’s beautiful,” she whispered.

“It is.”

“I understand why you fell in love with this place.”

“Tell me.”

She turned to look at me. “It’s peaceful. Quiet. You can just be yourself without all the noise.”

“Is that what you want? Peace and quiet?”

“Sometimes. Don’t you?”

“Sometimes I want peace and quiet. Sometimes I want noise and chaos and someone to share it all with.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“Even if that person is off limits to your wants?”

I felt her hand tighten in mine. “Christian...”

“I know. It was posed as a question, but it was more rhetorical than anything.”

She was quiet for the rest of the drive.

At the private terminal, our plane waited on the tarmac, sleek, efficient, and ready to carry us back to reality. The pilot greeted us professionally, the stewardess showed us to our seats, and within minutes we were taxiing toward the runway.

As Tuscany fell away below us, I watched Naomi stare out the window until the Italian countryside disappeared into clouds.

“Goodbye, Tuscany,” she whispered.

“Not goodbye. Just see you later.”

She nodded, settling back in her seat as the plane climbed toward cruising altitude. I had hopes that our time together would help us grow beyond our boundaries, but I also had to be prepared if that wasn’t the case.

I closed my eyes and tried to hold onto the memory of her laughing in the forest, covered in dirt and completely happy. Whatever happened next, I had that. We both did, and it might have to be enough.