“I want passion,” Michael had said.
The implication was too painful to contemplate, so she studied the statues on the other side of the piazza, copies of The Rape of the Sabines, Cellini’s Perseus, Michelangelo’s David. Then her eyes settled on the most amazing man she’d ever seen…
He sat three tables away, a portrait of Italian decadence in a rumpled black silk shirt with dark stubble on his jaw, long hair, and La Dolce Vita eyes. Two elegantly tapered fingers curled around the stem of the wineglass that dangled indolently from his hand. He looked rich, spoiled, bored-Marcello Mastroianni stripped of his clown face and chiseled into perfect male beauty for an avaricious new millennium.
There was something vaguely familiar about him, although she knew they’d never met. His face could have been painted by one of the masters-Michelangelo, Botticelli, Raphael. That must be why she felt as if she’d seen him before.
She studied him more closely, only to realize he was studying her in return…
3
Ren had been watching her ever since she arrived. She’d rejected two tables before she found one that pleased her, then rearranged the condiments as soon as she was seated. A discriminating woman. She wore the stamp of intelligence as visibly as her Italian shoes, and even from here she radiated a seriousness of purpose that he found as sexy as those overly lavish lips.
She looked to be in her early thirties, with understated makeup and the simple but expensive clothes favored by sophisticated European women. Her face was more intriguing than beautiful. She wasn’t Hollywood emaciated, but he liked her body-breasts in proportion to her hips, tapered waist, the promise of great legs underneath her black slacks. Her blond hair had highlights she hadn’t been born with, but he’d bet that was the only thing fake about her. No artificial fingernails or false eyelashes. And if those breasts were stuffed with silicone, she’d be showing them off instead of keeping them tucked away underneath that tidy black sweater.