Page 5 of The Virgin’s Dance with the Devil (The Martinelli Wedding #3)

Chapter Three

Rico was mildly surprised to find his heart was beating faster than normal.

It had to be the speed-walk he’d done to catch Marisa up, although it hadn’t felt especially strenuous, not when compared to the vigorous workout he put his body through each morning.

It wasn’t just his heartbeat either. Adrenaline was pumping through his veins, but that was likely because, finally, after four months of devoted letter writing and increasingly frequent ‘friendship’ lunches, he had Marisa exactly where he wanted her.

He'd come to enjoy writing those letters almost as much as he’d come to enjoy reading hers.

For sure, writing them had been hard work – who knew writing a letter by hand could cause your hand to cramp up?

– but they had been worth it. All those hours spent scouring the internet for book quotes and synopses had paid off.

The gradual change in the tone of Marisa’s letters had been a chef’s kiss.

She’d come to a stop at the sound of her name, and now, after a suspended beat, she turned her head. If colour hadn’t been crawling all over her face, he’d have believed the casual way she said, “Oh, hi, Rico. ”

It had been nearly three months since their first lunch together. Three days since their last. Three days since he’d heard her husky voice.

Barely a foot separating them, he looked at her flaming face and thought as he always did how his memory was never able to retain the radiance that shone from her and elevated her into something so much more than beautiful.

Watching her stroll past in those modest denim shorts that showed off her toned golden legs and the shimmering gold mesh vest she wore over a black bikini top had reinforced what a hot little body she had (he was quite certain she deliberately wore her chunkiest clothes for their lunches).

He’d chucked his pool cue onto the table, grinned at Tommaso and walked away, too busy admiring the sway of Marisa’s hips and the swing of the ponytail she’d tied her long chestnut hair into to care about forfeiting the game.

He’d spent four months putting in the groundwork with Marisa. He was not going to waste a minute.

Four months of writing love letters to a woman and regular lunches with only friendly hello and goodbye kisses on the cheek for his efforts. If the change in tone of her letters had been a chef’s kiss, the gradual change in her demeanour over their lunches…

She’d beaten him to the restaurant they’d met for their first lunch at, and had stayed resolutely seated on his arrival.

When those sixty-three minutes had ended – he hadn’t been lying when he’d written that those minutes had flashed by – she’d jumped to her feet, hugged her handbag to her chest and stammered that she had a meeting she needed to go to.

Her body language had told him loud and clear not to ask for a kiss goodbye.

Contrast that with the beaming smile she’d greeted him with at their last meet and the way she’d hurried through the crowds of tourists at the Piazza della Signoria to rest her hands lightly on his shoulders so they could swap kisses to their cheeks…

it had filled his heart with such warmth that he’d not needed any help from the internet in describing it in his letter to her.

She still kept her feet tucked under her chair while they ate so there was no chance of their legs brushing, and when they walked together it was with her arms wrapped around her chest, but there was no disguising the longing in her beautiful eyes or the tremor in her body when she leaned in for a goodbye kiss to his cheek.

Marisa wanted him. Her desire just needed coaxing out of her, and here, on the romantic Amalfi coast where privacy could easily be found, Rico was more than ready to do that coaxing.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“Nowhere. I’m just exploring.”

“Have you explored the beach yet?”

She shook her head. “Have you?”

“Not this one… Shall we?”

Her stare darted over his shoulder, no doubt making sure no one she was close to, like her sister, was there to see her talking to the dastardly Federico Esposito.

They never had that problem on their lunch dates.

If Marisa was travelling for work, he joined her; if she was at her main office in Florence, they could lose themselves in the crowds.

He didn’t care. If Marisa wanted to protect her reputation, that was fine by him.

It wasn’t like he wanted to marry her. He just wanted to win his bet.

That she seemed to have become a permanent fixture in his mind would be cured once he’d slept with her.

“Friends can take a walk to the beach together,” he reminded her lightly, even though he suspected she would prefer their ‘friendship’ to always be a secret one.

Again, this didn’t bother him. Once he’d won his bet, there would be no need to continue the charade.

He would never have to scratch his head over the perfect quote (and hope it had the appropriate context – he’d come within a whisker of quoting about love from a book where the quote itself had come from a serial killer) or suffer cramp in his hand again.

Her cheeks flushed all over again, and then she nodded shyly. “A walk to the beach would be nice.”

“Great. I hear there’s a bar down there that makes excellent cocktails.”

They passed a sign that stated No under 18s beyond this point and stepped onto the path, which, to Rico’s great delight, was so narrow that within a couple of steps, their arms brushed Marisa immediately hugged her arms around her chest.

Suppressing a grin, he said, “How was your journey here? Did your father manage okay?”

“It was good, thanks, and Dad managed fine.”

“He has everything he needs here? The nursing team are in place?”

“Yes…” He felt her stare zip to him. “How do you know about the nursing…” She came to an abrupt halt. “Was that you ?”

He met her wide, shocked stare and shrugged. “I hope you don’t think I’ve overstepped? They will only come if you need them. I just wanted you and your mother to have that extra peace of mind to be able to relax and enjoy yourselves while you’re here.”

“But…” She shook her head, a contortion of emotions flashing over her beautiful face. “Thank you. That is really, really kind of you. I don’t know how I can…”

Repay you went unsaid as fresh colour stained her beautiful face, and she set back off down the path.

“Think nothing of it,” he dismissed, falling back into step with her. “It’s a gift from one friend to another.”

“That’s some gift.”

“I’m from one of the richest families in Italy.” Rico had no time for false modesty. “The cost means nothing to me.”

“The thought does, though,” she said softly, and for a long moment his heart tripled in size as he felt himself basking under the light of her admiration.

Truthfully, Rico had surprised himself with this selfless act, mainly because when he’d first thought of it, it had been with Marisa’s peace of mind in his mind, and not as a means of ingratiating himself further with her.

Of course, once he’d struck on the idea and realised how many gold stars it would give him, he’d got straight on the phone to Leonardo to arrange it.

After a peaceable silence, she said, “So how was your trip here?”

“It dragged.”

Bemusement came into her voice. “I thought it was a twenty-minute helicopter ride?”

“Those twenty minutes were the longest of my life.”

“How come?”

He caught her eye and smiled meaningfully. “Because I knew those twenty minutes were taking me to you.”

She stopped walking again and sighed. “Rico, don’t.”

“Are you telling me you haven’t felt time drag the closer we’ve come to being here and having unlimited time together?”

She stared down at the ground.

Marisa, he’d learned, was incapable of telling a lie.

Placing a finger beneath her chin, he gently lifted her face.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said softly when her gorgeous dark eyes, brimming with apprehension, found his. “Neither of us can help how we feel.”

“But we can only be friends,” she whispered. “You know this.”

“Marisa, I will be whatever you want me to be.” He slid his finger from her chin to her cheek and lightly stroked her buttery-soft skin.

To his delight, she trembled at his touch.

“I just know that there’s no one else in the world I’d rather be with.

” His sincerity was pitched so perfectly that for a second he even believed it himself, enough so that he resisted brushing a kiss to her deliciously plump lips.

One step at a time, he reminded himself, and stepped back with a smile. “Come on, my angel. Let’s go and drink cocktails and paddle in the sea.”

She held his stare for so long that there was a beat when he was certain she was going to turn back. And then her mouth broke into a wide smile that lit the whole of her face.

The rest of the walk to the beach passed with a lightness in Marisa’s chest she couldn’t remember feeling before, a feeling that continued when they stepped onto the fine sand. Removing her sandals, she exhaled a sigh of happiness.

This was picture perfect. All of it.

The beach was set in a small, secluded cove, the only access by foot the steep path they’d just followed.

At its rear, practically backing onto the cliff, the bar Rico had been keen to reach, along with showers and a rack filled with beach towels.

On the beach itself, roughly fifteen Bali beds with muslin drapes to provide shelter from the sun’s glare.

There were no actual sun loungers she noticed, and she was about to ask why that was when Rico asked what she wanted to drink.

She thought it over for at least a second. “A pina colada, please.”

He grinned, then turned to the barman. “Two pina coladas.”