They fell in love.
They got married.
And, surprise surprise, they ended up hurt.
Anna, fortunately, was not, would never be, one of those women.
She and Isabella had talked about it just a few months ago.
They’d met for lunch at a place they both liked in midtown, poking at salads and drinking Diet Cokes, playing catch-up because they hadn’t seen each other in a couple of weeks. Izzy had asked about a guy Anna had been seeing, if maybe she was serious about him, and Anna had rolled her eyes and said what was there to be serious about?
He was fun, he was interesting, he was good in bed.
“End of story,” she’d told Iz. “Why would I want to spoil things?”
Izzy had put down her fork and heaved one of her Izzy sighs, the kind you could imagine a fairy princess giving while she waited for her Prince Charming to appear.
“That’s such a sad attitude, Anna. What about love?”
“What about it?” Anna had replied, spearing a grape tomato and popping it into her mouth. “You have to stop reading all those women’s magazines stuffed with that June, moon, forever-after bull.”
Izzy had sighed again. “Honestly, Anna, I don’t know what you’re trying to prove.”
“Nothing. Women don’t need to prove anything. Well, maybe only that we’re women, not idiots. You don’t really think only men are entitled to be realistic about these things? About sex?”
Iz had shaken her head and Anna had smiled benignly, and they’d gone on to safer ground—Anna’s defense of a woman who’d shoplifted a winter jacket for her little boy because she didn’t have the money to buy one, and Izzy’s plans for the garden she was designing for a friend.
The thing was, Izzy’s lovely head was in the clouds.
Anna’s was right here, squarely on her shoulders.
She liked her space the same way men liked theirs, which brought her straight back to the fact that Draco was still in her bed and she was still in his arms and—
“Buon giorno, bellissima
.”
She tried to think of some clever reply, but she couldn’t come up with anything. “Good morning” was deliciously sexy in his husky Italian, but it was only “good morning” in American English.
“How did you sleep?”
Deeply. Soundly. Who wouldn’t sleep that way after what had happened that last time they’d made—that last time they’d had sex?
All she remembered were Draco’s kisses, his caresses, his hard length deep, deep inside her and a rush of exquisite sensation, a breathless moment when the world spun out of control—and then the feel of him drawing her back into the warm, secure cradle of his body …
“Anna.”
Draco’s voice was low and rough. Just the sound of it made her skin tingle. And when he slid his hand up her side and cupped her breast …
Physiology, she told herself, that was what it was. He was a wonderful lover. Any woman would react to his touch even when she knew it was time to put the night in perspective.
“Anna,” he said again, and turned her toward him.
Her heartbeat stuttered. He was gorgeous. Why had she ever thought early-morning stubble unattractive? It was perfect, the absolutely proper accent note to his square jaw, that magnificent Roman nose, the dark, dark eyes.
He smiled.
Anna almost flinched.