“You’ve done me a favor,” she said with a creak in her voice. “I’d rather starve than work for someone who could say something like that.”
She moved to open the door, but his hand was still on the latch. Her body heat mingled with his own, charging the air. The scent of fresh mountain air and wildflowers filled his brain, making him drunk.
“Let me out.”
He saw the words form on her pink lips more than heard them. They rang in his head in a fading echo. He didn’t want to. The encounter had become so intense, so fast, he was reeling, not sure if he’d won or lost. Either way, it didn’t feel over.
Cold fingertips touched the back of his hand. Her elbow caught him in the ribs before she pushed down and pulled the door open, head ducked. Her body almost touched his. He thought he heard a sniff, then he was staring at her ass—which was even more spectacular than he’d imagined.
She escaped.
He slammed the door closed behind her, trying to also slam the door on his impossible desire for her. On the entire scene.
There was no reason he should feel guilty. The wrong her father had done him had been malicious and far-reaching. Dante had foolishly dropped the charges in exchange for an admission of guilt and a promise of compensation, letting the man escape because, at the time, his life had been imploding. His grandfather’s sudden death had meant Dante had to set aside his own pursuits and take over the complex family business. Its interests ran from vineyards to hotels to exports and shipping.
All of that had been put in jeopardy by the loss of the seed capital his grandfather had allowed him to risk on his self-driving car dream. The consequence of trusting wrongly had been a decade of struggle to find an even keel and come back to the top—yet another reason he wanted to give his grandmother some attention. He had neglected her while he worked to regain everything she and her husband had built.
Cami Fagan ought to be grateful all he had done was refuse to hire her.
Nevertheless, that broken expression of hers lingered in his mind’s eye. Which annoyed him.
Someone knocked.
He snarled that he didn’t want to be disturbed, then flicked the lock on the door.
* * *
Cami was shaking so hard, she could barely walk. She could barely breathe. Each pant came in as a hiss through her nose and released in a jagged choke.
Get away was the imperative screaming through her, but she could hardly see, she was so blinded by tears of grief and outrage. Good? Good? Had he really said that? What a bastard!
She was so wrapped up in her anguish, she almost missed the faint voice as she charged past an old woman sitting on a bench, half a block from the Tabor’s entrance.
“Pi fauri.”
Despite drowning in emotion, Cami stopped. She and her brother always stopped, whether it was a roadside accident or a panhandler needing a sandwich.
Swiping at her wet cheeks, she raked herself together. “Yes? What’s wrong?”
“Ajutu, pi fauri.”
Cami had a few words in a dozen languages, all the better to work with the sort of international clientele who visited destinations like Whistler. In her former life, she’d even spent time with Germans and Italians, picking up conversational words, not that she’d used much beyond the very basics in recent years.
Regardless, help was fairly universal, and the old woman’s weakly raised hand was self-explanatory.
“I’m sorry, do you speak English? Qu’est-ce que c’est?” No, that was French and the woman sounded Italian, maybe? “Che cos’ è?”
The woman rattled out some breathless mumbles, but Cami caught one word she thought she understood. Malatu. Sick. Ill.
She seated herself next to the woman, noting the senior was pressing a hand to her chest, struggling to speak.
“I’m calling an ambulance. We’ll get you to the hospital,” Cami told her, quickly pulling out her mobile. “Ambulanza. Ospedale.” One didn’t race with champions down the Alps without hearing those words a few times.
She could have gone back into the Tabor and asked Karen to call, but she had her first-aid certificate, and this was exactly the type of thing she’d been doing since her first housekeeping position at a motel. The woman was conscious, if frightened and very pale. Cami took her pulse and tried to keep her calm as she relayed as much information as she could to the dispatcher. With the woman’s permission, she was able to check her purse and provide the woman’s name along with some medication she was taking.
“Do you have family traveling with you? Can I leave a message at your hotel?”
Bernadetta Ferrante pointed toward the Tabor, which sent a little shiver of premonition through Cami, but what were the chances? Dante Gallo seemed to be traveling with an entourage. Bernadetta could be related to anyone in there.
She asked a passerby to run into the hotel to find Bernadetta’s companion, then pointed into the sky as she heard the siren. “Ambulanza,” she said again. “It will be here soon.”
Bernadetta nodded and smiled weakly, fragile fingers curling around Cami’s.
“What the hell have you done?” The male voice was so hard and fierce, it made both of them jump.
Cami briefly closed her eyes. Of course it was him. What were the chances of two head-on collisions in a row?
Bernadetta put up a hand, expression anxious.
Dante said, “Non tu, Noni,” in a much gentler tone, before he returned to the gruff tone and said, “I’m speaking to her.”
The ambulance arrived at that moment. Cami hovered long enough to ensure she wasn’t needed to give a statement, then slipped away. Bernadetta was already looking better, eyes growing less distressed as she breathed more easily beneath an oxygen mask, while Dante left to fetch his car and follow to the hospital.
Cami trudged through the spitting spring rain to the next bus stop, only wanting distance from that infernal man. At least the crisis had pulled her out of her tailspin. Tears never fixed anything. She had learned that a long time ago. What she needed was a new plan. While she waited for the bus, she texted her brother.
My job fell through. Can I sleep on your couch?
MAKING COOKIES WAS the perfect antidote to a night of self-pity and a morning of moving boxes. Besides, she had a few staples to use up and a neighbor to thank.
When the knock sounded, she expected Sharma from down the hall. She opened her door with a friendly smile, cutting off her greeting at, “Hell—”
Because it wasn’t Sharma. It was him.
Dante Gallo stood in her doorway like an avenging angel, his blue shirt dotted by the rain so it clung damply across his broad shoulders. He was all understated wealth and power, with what was probably real gold in his belt buckle. His tailored pants held a precision crease that broke over shiny shoes that had to be some custom-crafted Italian kind that were made from baby lambs or maybe actual babies.
Oh, she wanted to feel hatred and contempt toward him. Only that. She wanted to slam the door on him, but even as her simmering anger reignited, she faltered, caught in that magnetism he seemed to project. Prickling tension invaded her. Her nipples pinched, and that betraying heat rolled through her abdomen and spread through her inner thighs, tingling and racing.
Woman.