She did that. She grabbed his towel and her shoes and found a dry place on the bank to sit and towel off her feet.
She dared to glance at him. He stood, watching her. He was so extraordinarily attractive, those strong legs set in the water, the morning light playing with the features of his face, so comfortable in his own skin. Italians had an expression about men like this.
Sa il fatto suo.
He knows what he is about. He knows himself.
And then this man who knew himself so well, who knew his every strength and his every weakness, lifted a shoulder, dismissing her. He dipped the mask and snorkel he held in his left hand into the water. He slipped them on, resting them on his forehead. Then he casually saluted her, adjusted the mask and snorkel, and dived neatly into the water and disappeared.
She held her breath. Where on earth had he gone? It seemed as if he could not possibly be down there for that long without something having happened. Was he tangled in a branch under the water? Had he hit his head on a rock?
But then the water broke, at the far edge of the pool, where faster water fed it. He broke the surface, and without looking back began to swim against the current.
It would always be like this if you were with a man like him, Isabella told herself sternly. You would always wonder what danger he had managed to find.
And still, she could not tear her eyes away from him. She watched in utter amazement as Connor propelled himself through the water. His strength and his grace were utterly awe-inspiring. It was as if there was no current at all, his body cutting through the water at high speed. If she didn’t know better, she would think he had flippers on, but no flippers had come out of that bag. She watched him swim until he reached a bend in the river, swam around it and disappeared.
She finished drying her feet and put her shoes on. It was harder navigating the tricky path back to the bridge without him.
But it was what she had to do. She had to navigate without him—she had to go back to the way her life had been before they took that walk into a world of enchantment, this world where fears evaporated like the morning mist was evaporating under the Tuscan sun.
Isabella had to be who she was before.
A few minutes did not alter the course of an entire life.
But she of all people should know that was not true, because the entire course of her life had been altered the second she had said I do to Giorgio.
And it felt like the worst kind of sin that these few minutes this morning had filled her with regret, for the first time, at what the choice to say those words had made her miss in life.
But one thing about saying that to Giorgio? If she ever did say those words to a man again—and that was a big, big if—it would be to one who would grow old with her.
And there would never, ever be a guarantee of that with a man like Connor Benson.
* * *
The river was amazing to swim in, and Connor quickly made morning swims a part of his Monte Calanetti routine. His time in the military had made him move toward a structured approach to life. He loved routine and order. From firsthand experience, Connor knew when the world turned to chaos—which it could do in the blink of an eye—that was when an investment in discipline paid dividends.
And so now he developed a schedule for his days. He rose early, before Isabella was up, walked to the river and swam against the current in the cold water until his muscles ached but his mind was sharply clear and focused.
It was all working out quite nicely. By the time he returned, Isabella had left for work.
Isabella. The clear mind made Connor uncomfortably aware, especially after that magical morning together, that this time Isabella could well be the chaos waiting to unfold in his life.
And that kind of chaos was way more dangerous than the sudden crack of a sniper’s rifle, or a bomb going off on the side of the road.
Oh, she seemed innocent enough, the last place a man would expect chaos to come from, but that would be a man who had not felt her hand close around his, who had not heard her unexpected shriek of delighted laughter split the silence of the morning as her toes touched ice-cold water. That would be a man who had not, for one crazy, glorious moment, looked at her lips and wanted to taste the promise of them, wanted to see if they tasted like the nectar of life itself.
The answer was simple. No more dawn encounters. No more walking through streets so quiet he could hear her dress swishing against her bare legs, no more putting his hands around her narrow waist to lift her over the rocky parts of the trail. No more wading in icy cold water with her. No more encouraging her to explore the world of sensation.
And especially no more looking at the sweet plumpness of her lips!
A man—one not as disciplined as Connor knew himself to be—could live to see the light that had come on in Isabella’s face that morning by the river.
And so, he was avoiding her. And his avoidance had helped him develop a routine that he was comfortable with. There were no more tongue-loosening little chats over wine, and no more shocking morning encounters in the hallway or kitchen, and most of all, no more morning strolls through a predawn town.
Isabella seemed to enjoy routine as much as he himself did, and so it was proving easy to avoid her. He, an expert on figuring out people’s habits, had her routine down pat in no time. It fit perfectly with his lifestyle.
By the time he returned from his early morning swims, Isabella was gone. He used the kitchen and did his laundry when she was at school. A lot of his work could be done on his computer, and he took advantage of her absence and the coolness on the lower floors of her house to do that when she was not there.
When she was at home in the evenings, he went out to eat and did reconnaissance. It was cooler then, anyway, and he made sure never to be back until her house lights—and her bedroom light, which he could see from the street—were out.
Even with all that effort, it was hard to ignore the fact he was sharing a house with a woman. No, it seemed his avoidance strategy had made more awareness, not less, tingle along his spine. Her little touches were everywhere in that house: an exquisite painting, a fresh vase of flowers, the smell of toast and coffee in the morning. Her scent was in the air.
And by now it had become apparent to him that all the while he was congratulating himself on his avoidance strategy, the truth was it was so successful because she was avoiding him!
By the fifth day of living under her roof, after succeeding with zero encounters of the Isabella-in-person kind, Connor was not at all sure what his success meant, because he was fairly certain he had never been more aware of another person.
Connor came into the house. It was much earlier than he usually arrived in the afternoon, but he felt a need to change clothes before he went and found a place to eat tonight. It had been another scorching day in Monte Calanetti and he thought he might head to the river for the second time that day.
He paused and listened. Had he managed to get in before she got home from school?
Today, for the first time, he realized he had not been successful
