At sixteen, when she had asked to take driving lessons, her father had said driving a car was inappropriate for her status. At eighteen, away at a demure college in Rome, there had been no reason to learn to drive, not when public transportation was readily available. Besides, it was easier not to argue.
At twenty, she received her useless degree and took the slip of paper with her on a visit to her mother at the sanatorio. Her mother was having one of her lucid days. She looked at the heavily engraved bit of nonsense, looked at Alessia and said, “Do something with your life, mia bambina. Do not let him crush the spirit within you.”
There was no question who that “him” was.
It was an epiphany. Alessia had returned home, packed, moved out. She took an apartment in Rome with three other girls. Her father was furious. How dare she disobey him?
He cut off her allowance.
She went to work as a waitress. It was all her expensive education had prepared her for, aside from marrying a rich man, which was, naturally, what her father had hoped she would do.
One morning, she awoke thinking that it was pitiful to be living on her own and still not know how to drive. So she convinced one of her flatmates who owned an ancient Fiat to take her outside the city and let her get behind the wheel.
It had been a harrowing day—her friend had babbled prayers throughout—but when it was over, Alessia could drive. More or less. She’d managed to pass her licensing exam but she’d never learned to enjoy driving or to feel comfortable in heavy traffic.
And having a stranger seated beside her didn’t help, especially when that stranger was Nicolo Orsini.
How could one man seem to fill the car with his presence, his irritation, his masculinity?
If only she had taken her father’s car and driver to the airport to meet Orsini. Her father had urged her to, which was precisely why she had not done it. It was her own fault that she was trapped in what had suddenly become a too-small vehicle on a too-busy road with a too-macho male breathing fire beside her…
“Figlio di puttana!”
Nicolo Orsini’s cry was almost as loud as the blast from the horn of a huge truck in the next lane. How had the Mercedes drifted so close to it? Alessia gave a shrill shriek; Nicolo leaned in, slapped his hands over hers and steered the car back into the proper lane. She knew the entire incident could not have taken more than a second to play out but in that second, she saw her life flash before her.
“That’s it,” the American roared. “Pull onto the shoulder.”
Yes, she thought, yes, pull over, pull over, pull—
Nick wrested full control of the Mercedes from her. They veered into the right-hand lane, then bounced onto the narrow shoulder, accompanied by a frenzied chorus of horns.
“The brake,” he yelled, and, thank God, she responded. The car shuddered to a stop and he shut off the engine.
For a heartbeat, neither of them moved. Then Nick let go of the steering wheel. Alessia’s hands dropped into her lap. Silence settled over the vehicle, broken only by the tick tick tick of the cooling engine.
Nick could feel his pulse tick-tick-ticking, too. He waited, fought for composure. Still, when he finally spoke, his voice was a hoarse croak.
“Get out of the car, Alessia.”
She looked at him. “I beg your—”
“Do as I say! Get out of the damned car!”
Do as he said? She bristled. “I do not take orders from anyone!”
Nick let fly with a string of Sicilian obscenities he hadn’t used or even thought of since he was a kid. He flung open his door, stalked around the automobile, yanked open her door, all but tore open her seat belt and physically lifted her from the car.
“What do you think you are doing?” Her voice rose; she wiggled like an eel, struck out at him with tightly balled fists. “Damn you, Nicolo Orsini! You have no right—”
“You almost got us killed.”
“I did nothing of the sort. That truck driver—”
“The truck driver is probably heading for a place where he can change his underwear.”
“You are not only rude, you are crude!”
“At least I’m not a danger to every poor soul who gets within a hundred miles of me!”