Page 78 of This Could be Love

“Might’ve been part of the problem.” His laugh was more like a sigh. “Wasn’t for me in the long run.”

He was obviously giving me the abridged version, but I didn’t want to dig any further.

“I thought it had more to do with an ex,” I admitted.

With a mixture of surprise and amusement, he raised his brows.

“Well, ultimately, Laurie was afraid you’d…that you could…you know…fall in love with me. So, it seemed kind of obvious.” My voice came out weaker than I would have liked.

“Hmm.” He lowered his eyes to his plate. “I haven’t had a real relationship in quite a long time.”

“Me neither. Relationships are hard when you’re on the road the whole year. Every other week another country. Hotel room.Time zone. And long-distance relationships aren’t really my thing. I want to have the people I love around me. Sounds selfish, I know.”

“I don’t think so. And you’re right about the long-distance thing. They’re predestined to fail.”

“Have you had one before?”

He nodded. “After high school. Summer, my girlfriend at the time, moved out east for college. It went okay for exactly three months and was really fucking expensive.”

“Where’d you study?”

“I didn’t.”

I let out a surprised “oh,” which embarrassed me at the exact same moment because it sounded snobby. “I didn’t study either,” I added quickly, and took a bite of my pasta. “In any event, you were right, I’ll never be able to enjoy supermarket pesto ever again. So, either you give me the recipe, or you accept the fact that you’re regularly going to find me out in front of your door.”

“I’ll take the door.” Something in his tone of voice made me catch my breath. “You don’t give out family recipes,” he mumbled.

“True.” It was nothing but a shaky whisper, but it gave away my mood completely.

We stared into each other’s eyes.

“So…I know we haven’t really talked about how things will continue, but…I’d really like to kiss you right now.” He was looking at me so intently, all I could do was nod. “Is that a yes?” he asked, and came closer, a hint of a smile playing about his lips.

Instead of answering, I closed the remaining gap between usand pressed my mouth to his. Our lips were oily from the pesto, but we didn’t care. He opened his mouth slightly, and I took the invitation to move forward with my tongue. Meeting his, I let out a sigh and softly began to make circles around it.

“You taste good,” he moaned.

I cocked a brow. “Are you complimenting your pesto again?”

“My…pesto Genovese.”

The sparkle in his eyes told me that he had emphasized it so strongly on purpose, now that he knew how smitten I was by his Italian. His plan worked. I melted like snow in the sun. He used the small interruption to put our plates on the table. But instead of kissing me again, he stood up. Confused, I looked at him, then at the hand he was holding out to me.

“I still owe you that sunset.”

* * *

“Wow,” I whispered as the sky turned a beautiful red, orange, and gold.

I had imagined that we’d watch the sunset from the beach. Instead, Vince had pointed to the tree towering into the sky from the middle of his terrace. We’d climbed up a few rungs to the viewing platform. And there we stood, our elbows on the railing, our eyes fixed devoutly on the natural spectacle on the horizon.

“Do you come up here often?”

He nodded. “I think this is one of my favorite places on the island,” he said, his eyes focused on the ocean.

“Thank you for showing me,” I said quietly.

Silently we watched the sun sink into the water and night come down. Up in the sky the first stars began to wake, and the moon appeared to take up its duty.