CHAPTER 20

Lia’s POV

Rob had never shown this kind of respect to anyone, let alone people he considered beneath him socially. Rob would have sent someone else to deal with this, or shown up and made grand pronouncements without actually listening to what anyone needed.

But Dante was different. Everything about the way he carried himself, the way he spoke to these people, the way he genuinely seemed to care about their input—it was all different.

I found myself studying him as he talked. The strong line of his jaw when he tilted his head to listen. The way his dark eyes focused completely on whoever was speaking, giving them his full attention. The occasional smile that softened his otherwise serious expression. The easy confidence in his posture, the way he took up space without demanding it.

He was compelling in a way I hadn't expected. Magnetic.

We spent over an hour at that cafe, and then Dante took me around to meet more villagers—the woman who ran the small grocery, the young couple who owned the bakery, an elderly man who apparently made the best wine on the island and insisted we try some.

Everyone assumed I was with Dante. His girlfriend. His partner. And each time, he would gently redirect without making a big deal out of correcting them, keeping the focus on the conversation at hand rather than on me.

But I noticed the way some of the women looked at me—curious and a little envious, like they couldn't quite figure out what someone like me was doing with someone like him.

I wondered the same thing.

By the time we got back to the car, the sun was lower in the sky, painting everything in warm golden light. My feet hurt from walking on cobblestones, but in a good way. A tired, satisfied way.

Dante opened my door again without comment, and I climbed in, settling into the passenger seat with a small sigh.

He got in on his side and started the engine, pulling back onto the narrow road that would take us back to the villa.

We drove in silence for a while, the windows down, the warm air rushing through the car. I should have been looking at the scenery—the rolling hills, the olive groves, the glimpses of blue sea through the trees.

But instead, I found myself looking at Dante's hands on the steering wheel.

They were large. Strong. His fingers long and capable, wrapped loosely around the leather steering wheel with the kind of easy confidence that suggested he was completely comfortable behind the wheel. I could see the tendons shift under his tanned skin when he turned the wheel, the light dusting of dark hair on his forearms, the faint white scar across his left knuckle.

I stared at those hands and couldn't stop myself from imagining them somewhere else.

On my thighs. Pushing them apart. Between my legs. Those long fingers touching me the way they had in my dream—firm and knowing and completely unhurried.

Heat flooded through me so suddenly and intensely that I had to look away, pressing my thighs together and staring determinedly out the window instead.

Stop it, I told myself firmly. Stop it right now.

But my body didn't listen. My body was already remembering the dream. Already aching with want.

I spent the rest of the drive trying to think about literally anything else and failing completely.

When we pulled up to the villa, the sun was just starting to set, painting the pale stone walls in shades of gold and pink.

Dante put the car in park and turned off the engine. We sat there for a moment in the sudden silence.

"Thank you," I said finally, turning to look at him. "For today. For taking me with you. It was... really nice."

Nice felt like an inadequate word for what I actually meant, but it was all I had.

Dante looked at me, those dark eyes unreadable in the fading light.

"You're welcome," he said simply.

We held each other's gaze for just a moment too long. Something passed between us in that silence—something I didn't know how to name but felt all the way down to my bones.

Then I broke eye contact, grabbed my bag, and got out of the car before I could do something stupid.

I walked back into the villa without looking back.

That night at dinner, everything felt different.

Rob was there, of course. And Celeste, sitting beside him in a beautiful dress that probably cost more than my entire wardrobe. Victor at the head of the table. Dante across from me.

The staff brought out course after course of incredible food—fresh seafood, perfectly cooked pasta, vegetables that tasted like they'd been picked that morning, wine that was probably older than I was.

And Rob flirted with Celeste through all of it.

It wasn't even subtle. He laughed at everything she said, leaned in close when she spoke, touched her arm constantly, refilled her wine before she even had to ask. At one point he fed her a bite of his dessert, and she laughed that pretty, tinkling laugh and licked the spoon slowly while maintaining eye contact with him.

It should have hurt. It should have felt like a knife twisting in my chest, watching my boyfriend openly flirt with another woman—his ex-girlfriend—right in front of me.

But it didn't.

I felt... nothing. Or close to nothing. A distant sort of resignation, maybe. A vague sense that I should be more upset than I was.

But mostly I just felt numb to it.

Because my attention wasn't on Rob anymore.

It was on the two men sitting at the table who weren't ignoring me.

Victor, who asked me thoughtful questions about my day and actually listened to the answers. Who refilled my water glass without being asked. Who looked at me with those piercing blue eyes like I was worth looking at.

And Dante, who sat across from me in brooding silence but whose dark gaze kept finding mine across the table. Whose presence I felt like a physical weight even when he wasn't speaking.

I was hyperaware of both of them. The way Victor's hand moved when he reached for his wine glass. The way Dante's jaw tightened when Rob said something particularly obnoxious to Celeste. The sound of their voices, deep and measured and so different from Rob's nasal whining.

I barely touched my food. I just sat there, going through the motions, responding when spoken to, all while fighting the completely inappropriate thoughts that kept flooding my mind.

When dinner finally ended, I excused myself quickly and practically fled to my room.

But I couldn't sleep.