It was hard for him to not say, “You heard what I said,” but he held his tongue.
This small foolish woman held his future in her delicate hands.
Her agency contacting him was the boon he’d needed, and he wasn’t going to mess it up by making this personal.
Although, with her so close, his hold on her tight for her stability, and that scent of hers so sultry and wicked it made his head spin, personal seemed a long way back in the distance.
He shook off that ridiculous thought then murmured, “Can you stand?”
She bit her lip in a way that made his inner beast growl and sit up. He wanted to tug that morsel free and taste it.
Seeing her cheeks pinken again, he knew she was aware of where his attention lay.
But dammit, he was a man, and no woman wore that bright red lipstick if she didn’t want a man’s gaze firmly on her mouth.
God, she was beautiful.
So unlike the local women he’d been seeing of late—well, seeing was relative. He’d slept with one, found the other too clingy, but the comparison was just. April Santino was so goddamn gorgeous with her sleek blonde hair that was tied up in some complicated knot on the back of her head. Hair that was made to be worn down around her shoulders.
Her skin glowed with vitality, a milky coffee color that said she wasn’t ashamed to sit in the sun and feel its rays warm her from the inside out. Her eyes were a dulcet green that reminded him of the last time he’d been in Scotland and seen the green, green grass of the fields surrounding his maternal grandfather’s ancestral home.
Those red-slick lips made him think wicked thoughts, and her body did the same. Wrapped up in a loose white blouse that clung to her breasts and waist while still seeming comfortable and relaxed, she had jeans that looked painted on. Those fuck-me heels added to the dirty thoughts floating around his brain, and her red nails, on both hand and foot, had him thinking about her digging them into various parts of his body as he tasted her.
As only a real man could taste a woman of this caliber.
He blinked off the thoughts when he stared at her and saw she looked close to passing out. She wasn’t breathing.
Why wasn’t she breathing?
He scowled. “Are you okay?”
She licked her lips. “Sure.” Her voice was creaky. “Just exhausted. Long trip.”
Luca tilted his chin up in understanding. “Okay. I’ll show you the house and you can rest up.” He grabbed her cases and walked down the jetty, waiting for her to catch up and hoping she could manage without somehow pinwheeling into the water by mistake.
He squinted against the sun in exasperation at her earlier clumsiness, hoping that was the last of it while she was here.
He needed her approval, and the last thing he needed was her toppling off the balcony because of her stupid center of gravity and stiletto heels.
When he failed to hear the clatter of those fuck-me beasts behind him, he turned back, her cases still tucked under his arms.
She had three cases. One large which he carried in his left hand, then a carry on and a vanity case. The latter, he awkwardly slung under his arm.
“April?” he called, seeing she was staring back at the ocean again.
She turned back to him, jolted at his location, and immediately hurried after him.
Maybe he should have left her there to process the view. Was that what a good host did?
He’d plunged the last of his savings into this villa, and he needed it to work. He had a sharp mind for business, but people? Yeah, he was shit with those.
That was why his last partner had managed to fleece him.
Four years of hard work building a business that Luca had made successful with his verve and talents in seeing patterns in the stock market, only for Paul to cut and run one night, stealing millions of clients’ money and leaving Luca to pick up the pieces.
That was nothing, he guessed, to how bad it could have been.
Paul had had a side business, and thankfully, Luca hadn’t been connected to it in any way, shape, or form.