Swept Away by the Venetian Millionaire

She nodded slowly.

“You know where to find me, cara. Come by the studio tomorrow if you’d like.” He hadn’t known he was going to say the words until they’d actually left his mouth. But he found he simply wasn’t ready to have it all end so suddenly. Not when she had a few more hours. He would take any of that time she was willing to give him. But it had to be her choice, and hers alone. “It will be your decision whether this is to be our goodbye or not.”

She didn’t answer before she turned and entered the lobby.

* * *

She should spend the day packing and finally catching up on her missed emails and texts. Then she should indulge in one last walking tour around this beautiful city. After all, Maya didn’t know when, or even if, she’d ever be back. Despite spending some of the most momentous days of her life here.

What she absolutely should not do was take Vito up on his offer to see him once more.

Maya walked over to the small bathroom in her hotel suite and turned the shower on. As the steaming hot water washed over her, she decided that she’d made the right decision. A clean break would be easiest. Better to just rip off the bandage. Only sometimes ripping said bandage off too quickly resulted in losing a bit of skin. Sometimes it resulted in a wound that left a lasting scar.

By the time she’d toweled off, Maya knew she’d been fooling herself. Who was she kidding? Of course she was going to go see him. There was no way they could leave things between them as it all stood now. Her mind might be trying to tell her one thing, but her heart had other plans.

In the end, her heart won out. She found herself pushing through the door of Vito’s studio an hour later.

He immediately stood up from behind the marble counter. “You came, cara. I wasn’t sure that you would.”

Well, she hadn’t been, either. Right up until she’d found herself at his door. “I actually turned around twice to go back.”

Looking at him now, she was so very glad she’d trudged on. He looked like he hadn’t slept a wink since leaving her side. Dark circles framed his eyes and his hair looked as if he’d been ramming his fingers through it all night.

Was it possible he’d been thinking of her as often as she’d thought of him?

“What made you change your mind?” he wanted to know.

“Which time?”

Vito chuckled and stepped closer. She could smell that distinctive scent of his that had somehow grown familiar in such a short time. He trailed a finger along her jawline up to her temple. The simple touch sent a fiery surge of longing through her center.

How could she have thought she’d been in love with Matt? She’d been so naive.

“We’ll have to find a way to celebrate your final day in Venice,” Vito said softly, leaning in so close, she thought he might kiss her. He didn’t.

He took her by the hand. “I want to show you something.”

Maya followed him to the back room where she’d fallen asleep just a few days ago. He led her to the easel in the center of the room.

A painting. It was in its earliest stages. But she could see clearly what he intended it to be: the view of the Verona countryside from high above. The view they’d watched together in the hot air balloon. The way he’d captured the images, the sunlight as it fell on the countryside, the sheer detail—it was nothing less than breathtaking.

“Oh, Vito. It’s lovely,” she murmured, though the word fell far short.

“You’re the reason it exists. I was up all night working on it.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Don’t say anything, cara. But to tell you the truth, as much as I enjoyed painting what I have so far, I’d like to put this project aside. For now, anyway.”

“You would? But why?”

“There’s something else I’d like to begin painting. Someone, to be more specific.”

“There is?”

“Yes. You. If you’ll allow it, I’d like to paint a portrait of you.”

Maya bit back her cry of surprise. This was not how she’d expected their final day together to begin. She’d tossed and turned all night; images of Vito and the time they’d shared haunted her dreams if she so much as closed her eyes. It looked like he’d been thinking of her, too. Only in an entirely different way.