didn’t seem like the safest option, but a safe option didn’t jump out at her right at the moment, and it might keep her mind off Vitale’s driving skills. Or lack thereof. “I don’t usually dine at someone’s house without taking something. Should we stop and let me pick up a bottle of wine?” And find a nice, safe donkey to ride back to town.
“No, they have the wine. You are the guest.”
“How many people will be there? Do you have a large family?”
Vitale shook his head. “Not large. Mama, Papà, Maria, Giovanni, Rachele, Paolo, Adrianna, Antonio, Giada, Michele, Celeste, Piero, Lia, Enrico, Orabella, Cesare, Chiara, Elia.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sakes. You don’t consider that large? I mean, you’re talking to an only child who was married to an only child and produced an only child. How many siblings do you have?”
His brows drew together in confusion. “Ceilings? In the house? I never count them. One for each room.”
Julia tried to suppress a giggle. “Not ceilings. Siblings. Brothers and sisters.”
“Seeblings.” He tried out the new word. “Five see-blings. No brothers. Five sisters.”
Aha. That explained a few things. The only boy and five sisters. No wonder he was used to getting his own way. Articles she’d read about Italian culture painted Italian men as quite spoiled by their families. It would be interesting to see if that was actually true in Vitale’s case. “Are your sisters older than you? Younger?”
“Three older. Maria, Giada, Celeste. Adrianna and Orabella younger.”
“They are married?”
“Sì.”
“All of them?”
“Sì.”
“I assume you’re not married?”
“No.”
“Girlfriend?”
“No girlfriend.”
So, unless his family gets the wrong idea, I won’t have some hotheaded Italian mistress putting out a contract on me.
“Oh, that reminds me.” Julia pulled the small parcel from her tote. “This is from Rosa at the café in the village. She tells me all the women love Vitale.”
Vitale laughed, and Julia realized it was the first time she’d heard him really laugh. The sound originated from somewhere deep, and it made her feel like she was sharing something intimate with him, warming her from the inside out.
“Rosa, she talk too much, and she think all the world is like Rosa.” He chuckled again and shook his head. “But sua nonna, she make biscotto deliziosa.”
He started to tear open the parchment package, but that required him to let go of the steering wheel. Julia grabbed the parcel out of his hands. “Here. Let me do that.”
Inside the paper were four pastry pinwheels.
“Eat,” Vitale insisted. “You understand.” He slowed the car and reached over to hold one up to her mouth. She bit into it and the buttery crust seemed to dissolve away, leaving a tangy concoction of apricot and chopped chestnuts.
“Mmmm. Yum.” She closed her eyes and savored the taste. When she opened them, Vitale was watching her with a look that made her feel like she was being devoured. She smiled and he laughed again.
“You like biscotto, yes?”
She nodded.
“Eat.” He pushed it toward her mouth. She took another bite and caught the pastry in her hands as it started buckling under the assault.
A crumb hung on her bottom lip, and she slipped her tongue out to catch it just as Vitale’s thumb brushed it away. When her tongue grazed him, she quickly sucked it back into her mouth, drawing another smile from him. He responded by stroking his thumb slowly across her lip.
Her breath caught in her throat.
Then he helped himself to a biscotto, shifted in his seat, and lay down on the accelerator again.
They drove in silence for a while, seeming to understand any conversation while eating such a treasure would amount to sacrilege.
Julia’s stomach adapted to the lurching of the car, though she concentrated on keeping her eyes glued to the road to aid her backseat driving—on anything that would shift her focus from the flirtation this man inspired. “Your English is good, Vitale.” She broke the silence. “How did you learn?”
She saw his shrug in her peripheral vision.
“I do not learn. I just do.”
“Is that your answer for everything?”
She cast a quick glance his way and caught the hint of a smile.
“Most important thing, person just know.”
They rode again in silence a few minutes.
“Vitale.” She decided to broach the subject again. “I don’t want to seem ungrateful. I really do appreciate all you’ve done for me and your hospitality . . . offering me a place to stay. But I don’t think it’s a good idea. I mean, for all I know, you could be a serial killer.” She flinched as a tree branch missed her window by mere inches.
“I do not eat the cereal, but I do not kill it. I will get you the cereal if that is what you eat for the breakfast. I am the good host.”
Even his offended look couldn’t keep her from smiling at the thought of Vitale plunging a knife into a box of Special K. “I’m not worried about breakfast, and I’m sure you’re a very good host.”
He took a long, exasperated breath. “Julietta, there is no room. I try to find, call many places. The tour, she take everything. Do you worry because I am a man?”
“Of course not.” She waved away the absurdity. “I mean, I’m not afraid that anything will happen. But it doesn’t look right. It’s not proper to stay with a man I hardly know.”
“We will not have the sex. Unless you want it,” he added.
His tone was matter-of-fact, but the mention of the word hurled Julia way over the edge of her comfort zone. “Have sex?” she sputtered. “Who said anything about having sex?”
“Vitale say it.”
“I know who said it . . .”
“But you ask who say it,” he replied flatly.
“It’s just an expression. I meant that it hadn’t even occurred to me to have sex with you,” she lied, trying not to let her face show that she actually had envisioned it pretty graphically numerous times since first seeing him. “You’re too young. How old are you?”
His quick laugh inferred her fears were inconsequential. “Thirty-four. I am a man. You are a woman. And the breasts say—”
“You can’t believe my breasts,” she countered, still reeling from the realization that a thirty-four-year-old had obviously thought about having sex with her. “They lie.”
“Breasts no lie. The woman lie.” He brought the car to a grinding halt in front of a house and shot her a triumphant smile.
She opened her mouth to protest again but dropped her next comment, choosing to use the time to gather her wits about her so Vitale’s family wouldn’t think she’d been thinking about having sex with him.
The quintessential two-story Italian farmhouse surrounded by olive and cedar trees remained tranquil for all of two seconds before someone inside must have noticed their arrival. Then it became a beehive of activity with men, women, and children flying out from every direction shouting, “Vitale! Vitale!”
A young boy of eight or so bolted up first and jerked open the door on Julia’s