Her Italian Millionaire (30 page)

 Damned if he knew.

He knew she'd gotten what she wanted; he could tell by the look in her eyes and that smile on her face. That was that; she didn't want or need to go any further.

But he did. Even with his eyes half closed, his brain half asleep and his hand and even his arm useless, he knew he wanted more. He wanted to take her to bed in a real bed, to spend the whole night with her. He wanted to see her beautiful breasts, her long bare legs and her pale skin in the moonlight and by lamplight. He'd made love to many women, and he thought he understood them. He knew what they wanted, and he was sure he could give it to them.

 But Ana Maria was different. He was no longer sure of anything. Except that she couldn't drive a manual transmission. But that hadn't stopped her. He tried to stay awake, but the vibration of the engine and the effects of his medicine on top of mind-altering sex were too much for him to combat. Despite his efforts, his eyes closed and he drifted off to sleep, giving up control of the route and the road to her. But that was all, he told himself. In everything else, he was in control. Absolutely.

Anne Marie glanced at Marco as she drove. He looked miserable, with his swollen hand and arm propped up on the window ledge, and those frown creases in his face. At least he was getting some sleep, but it didn't look like he was having any pleasant dreams. Maybe he was sorry he'd made love to her. Maybe the end of the sentence that began with “I wish...” would have ended with “...we hadn't done that.”

She was not sorry, though she did feel bad that he'd slept in the chair last night. No wonder he needed to sleep. That and the medicine had knocked him out.

As for her, she was enjoying a surge of power and freedom. She'd mastered the controls of the car. She'd had the most incredible sexual experience of her life, and she was now driving to anyplace she wanted to go. Marco said he had no plans. He didn't know where they were going, and it didn't seem to matter.

She drove through pine forests. She drove up over modest mountain passes and down through verdant valleys. She passed small towns and vineyards. She passed farmers in their fields who stopped to wave at her, and she waved to children walking by the side of the road. She saw signs pointing to towns she'd never heard of and she turned onto roads that could lead anywhere. It was exhilarating.

Until the engine started missing. It coughed and sputtered, and she pushed her foot down on the gas pedal until it hit the floor. The engine stalled and jerked to a stop on the empty two-lane road. They hadn't passed another car for an hour.

She muttered a curse.

Marco woke up with a start. Damn, she would have liked to have started it up again without his knowing.

“Mio Dio,”
he said.
“C'e qualcosa che non va?
What in the hell happened?”

“I...I don't know. It just stopped.”

“Just stopped. What did you do to it?”

“Nothing. I was just driving along...”

He looked at his watch and frowned.
“Mamma mia!
Have I been asleep all this time? Why didn't you wake me? Where are we?”

“I don't know. I thought it didn't matter.”

He got out of the car and raised the hood with his good hand. She got out and peered at the engine, as if she knew what was what. As if she knew what could possibly be the matter. She watched while he yanked on a rubber tube and examined it. “Get back in and start the engine,” he ordered. “Please.”

She got in, turned the key and held it. Nothing happened. She didn't know whether to stay in the car or join him to look under the hood again and pretend she knew what she was looking at. She decided on the latter.

“How is your hand?” she asked, watching him tap on the engine with his good hand, the other arm held stiffly at his side.

“My hand is not the problem,” he said.

“What is?”

“See this? This is the fuel line. There's gas in it.” He squeezed it and tiny spurts burst out. “But the fuel pump is cracked. The gas is leaking out and not getting to the engine.”

“Oh.”

“I'll call a garage. Do you have any idea where we are? Do you remember any of the signs on the road?”

“Let's see.
Benvenuto
. I saw that a while back, and..”

 “Benvenuto means welcome.”

“I know that. What about
Avalina
, could that be a town or does it mean dangerous curves ahead?”

He ignored her sarcasm and started punching numbers into his phone and then he talked fast and loudly. While still talking, he took a map from the glove compartment and spread it out on the hood of the car. He listened to someone on the other end, then he looked at the map. Then he talked some more. When he hung up, he stared moodily out across the valley below.

“Did you find out where we are?” she asked.

He pointed to a spot on the map. “We could be here. Or here.” He pointed to another spot. “I described the landscape, and the garage in Maggiore thinks he can find us.”

“What if he can't?” she asked.

“Then we'll wait here until someone comes along.”

“But we haven't passed another car for hours. We could be here for days.” She looked around. They were on a narrow mountain road, surrounded by fir and pine trees. The air was cool and fresh. It was a lovely spot. But spending days there without food or shelter with a man like Marco might present a few problems.

He shrugged. “We have bread and wine. We'll survive.”

Yes, they'd survive. Though they might have to make a temporary shelter out of branches and leaves with their picnic blanket for a roof. After the bread and wine were gone, they could fish from a nearby stream and pick berries. Marco would go out and hunt for wild animals and she'd stitch clothes for them out of the skins. At night they'd lie on a bed of pine needles and make love for hours under the stars. It could be days or even weeks before anyone found them. Days and weeks of non-stop passion. Half naked, they'd chase each other through the forest, to fall laughing in a pile of dry leaves where their laughter would turn to cries of passion. It was enough to make her wish they'd be really, truly lost.

Anyone with a shred of romance in his soul would have said, we have bread and wine and each other, Anne Marie thought, especially after that incredible love-making back there. But Marco, true to his word, was not a romantic. He didn't believe in love or romance.

Fortunately, he believed in sex. And sex was what she wanted and needed. She hadn't known it before today. Or if she had, she hadn't admitted it to herself. Now that she knew what she'd been missing all these years, she wanted and needed it again. She wanted and needed Marco to make love to her. He'd made her feel whole. He'd made her feel desirable and wildly feminine and uninhibited. But she had the distinct feeling Marco had had his fling with the American tourist and was feeling only regret. He hadn't so much as smiled since they got up from the blanket. Of course he'd been stung by a bee, but couldn't he have said something...anything?

“Don't look at me like that,” he said.

She felt her face flush. Was she that transparent? Could he tell she was lusting after him even now? She had to think about something else. Think about Rome. Think about home. Don't think about the fireworks that had gone off when he made love to her. For him, it was probably just another roll on a picnic blanket with an eager American tourist who'd come to Italy to get unrepressed. She knew he didn't make a living as a tour guide. He was either a gigolo or...

“How? How am I looking?” she asked, wrinkling her forehead.

“Like this was my fault. After all, you're the one who got us here.”

“You gave me no instructions. You led me to believe we could go wherever we wanted to. I thought the point was to see the countryside.”

“Well,” he said, leaning against the car door. “Take a look. We're going to be seeing a lot more of it than we planned.”

“You mean...” Should she start collecting branches for their shelter now? Was it really possible to start a fire by rubbing two sticks together?

“I mean we probably need a new fuel pump and fuel pumps for twenty-year-old Lancias are in short supply, especially in some God-forsaken village.”

“Couldn't we rent another car?”

“I can't leave the Lancia here. It's valuable and I promised to bring it back. In good condition.”

“I have to be in Rome in a few days.”

“Don't worry, Giovanni will wait for you.”

“How do you know?”

“I have a feeling he wants to see you as much as you want to see him.”

Anne Marie didn't know where Marco got that idea; Giovanni's letter was certainly casual. “Let me see your hand,” she said.

He unwrapped it and held it out in front of him, observing it as impassively as if it belonged to someone else. She took his hand in hers and looked at it carefully. His skin felt warm. His fingers were still swollen, but the rest of the swelling had gone down. She felt a rush of sympathy and desire and something else, something that scared her.

“What are you doing?” he said suspiciously.

“Just...just checking,” she said, rewrapping it for him. “I see it's better. It must be the medicine and the ice.”

“And the chance to rest it,” he said. “Thank you for driving. I'm sorry I didn't choose a more serviceable car. A Fiat would have done, but I liked the looks of the Lancia.”

“It's beautiful,” she said, running her hand over the polished hood.

“But not practical. I should have known it wouldn't hold up.” Marco wondered if he'd ever learn that with women and cars, looks weren't everything. In fact, the more beautiful the machine or the woman, the less likely they were to be dependable. If he ever found both looks and reliability under the same hood, or the same skin...

“But it was worth it. We had a great ride,” she said.

“Yes, we did,” he said with a half smile and a long, knowing look. They'd had an unbelievable ride, and it had nothing to do with the car. When the words sank in, she bit her lower lip and her cheeks flushed. He loved seeing her cheeks turn pink. How many women her age still blushed? How many women made love the way she did, shy and bold at the same time? None that he'd ever met.

“And anyway,” she said, breaking eye contact and looking away, “we are in no hurry to get to Rome, as long as I have time to see the sights and meet up with Giovanni and Evie's cousin. As you said, we can survive as long as we have our wine and bread.”

“And if the tow truck doesn't find us, you wouldn't mind sleeping under the stars?” He swiftly adjusted his fantasy from making love to her on clean sheets in a bed, to making love outside with the moon shining through the trees. That ought to satisfy his wildest dreams; then he could let her go. Go back to America, back to her ex-husband who by now, unless he was a complete idiot, must have realized what he'd lost. Or go off to see Giovanni and give him the diamond.

He'd have to arrest them both, of course, but if that's what they deserved...so be it. In a few days he'd be able to handle whatever had to be done. He just needed a few days to get over whatever it was he had. Some kind of adolescent lust, or some damn thing. Maybe fate had decreed that the fuel pump should fail, that they should have to spend a few days in some village while his passion cooled. So he could do what had to be done and not look back.