Homeport

squeezed her eyes shut as her heart swelled with gratitude. “Tonight, right away.”
    “The sooner it’s done, the better. The lab, it’s closed for a few days, so no one will know.”
    “Closed, why?”
    He smiled for the first time. “Tomorrow, my lovely pagan, is Good Friday.” And this was not the way he’d intended to spend his holiday weekend. He sighed, nudged the bag with his foot. “Where will I reach you when it’s done?”
    “I’ll reach you.” She leaned forward to touch her lips to his. “ Grazie, Giovanni. Mille grazie . I’ll never be able to repay you for this.”
    “An explanation when it’s done would be a fine start.”
    “A full one, I promise. Oh, I’m so glad to see you. I wish I could stay, but I have to get back, and . . . well, I suppose we’d say face the music. I’ll find a way to call you in the morning. Take good care of them,” she added, and nudged the bag toward him with her foot. “Wait a minute or two before you leave, will you. Just in case.”
    She kissed him again, warmly, then left him.
    Because she looked neither right nor left, she didn’t see the figure standing in the dimness, turned as if to contemplate the faded frescoes of Dante’s Inferno.
    She didn’t feel the fury, or the threat.
    It was as if a burden had been lifted, the weight that had pressed down on her head, her heart, her conscience. She stepped outside, into the gilded light from the sun that was melting into the west. On the off chance that Ryan was out on foot searching for her, she walked in the opposite direction of the hotel, toward the river.
    It wouldn’t do, she thought, to have him find her before she and Giovanni had plenty of distance between them.
    It was a long walk, and gave her time to calm herself, time to think, and time, for once, to wonder about the couples who strolled along, hand in hand, who shared long looks or long embraces. Giovanni had once told her romance lived in Florentine air, and she had only to sniff at it.
    It made her smile, then it made her sigh.
    She simply wasn’t fashioned for romance. And hadn’t she proven it? The only man who’d ever stirred her to the point of aching was a thief with no more integrity than a mushroom.

    She was better, much better off alone. As she’d always been.
    She reached the river, watched the dying sun sprinkle its last lights on the water. When the roar of an engine sounded behind her, when that engine revved violently, impatiently, she knew he’d found her. She’d known he would.
    “Get on.”
    She glanced back, saw his furious face, the way that anger could turn those warm golden eyes to deadly ice. He was all in black now, as she was, and astride a blue motorbike. The wind had blown his hair into disorder. He looked dangerous, and absurdly sexy.
    “I can walk, thanks.”
    “Get on, Miranda. Because if I have to get off and put you on, it’s going to hurt.”
    Since the alternative was to run like a coward, and likely be run over for her trouble, she shrugged carelessly. She walked to the curb, swung a leg over to sit behind him. She gripped the back of the seat for balance.
    But when he took off like a bullet, survival instinct took over and had her wrapping her arms tightly around him.

seventeen
    “I guess I should have used the handcuffs after all.” After taking the narrow, winding streets with a reckless and risky speed that suited his mood, Ryan jerked the bike to a halt in the Piazzale Michelangelo.
    It seemed apt, and it gave them a heart-shattering view of Florence, with the Tuscan hills rising beyond. As well as the privacy he wanted should he decide to commit violence.
    It was nearly empty, with the vendors that crowded the area gone for the day and a broody storm gathering in the western sky, where the sun clung tenuously to the horizon.
    “Off,” he ordered, and waited for her to pry her hands from their death grip around his waist. He’d given her a couple of good scares on the ride. He’d meant to.
    “You drive like a lunatic.”
    “Half Italian, half Irish. What do you expect?” He swung off himself, then dragged her to the wall, where Florence spread like an old jewel below. There were still a few tourists taking pictures of the grand fountain, but since they were Japanese he thought he could risk ripping into her in either English or Italian. He chose the latter because he considered it more passionate.
    “Where are they?”
    “Safe.”
    “I didn’t ask how they were, but