how to swim,” Isabella said.
He looked at her, wary of her demure tone.
She smiled back at him, though she had to bite her tongue, yet again, to keep from laughing out loud. She could so clearly see he was terrified of going on a date with her. His terror made her feel powerful and attractive and sexy. She had never really felt those things before. It was worth facing her own terror of the water dead-on.
A swimming lesson? He didn’t know what he was letting himself in for. In fact, Connor Benson had no idea that he was teaching her already, all about the nature of confidence and courage.
“When should we start?” she asked, sweetly. “And where?”
“I’ll arrange with Nico to use his pool,” Connor said. “An hour, every afternoon from tomorrow, Monday to Friday, should give you the basics.”
“I can learn to swim in five days?”
“Well, you won’t be trying out for the Italian swim team, but you’ll have some basic skills you can practice.”
“Thank you,” she said, lowering her eyes from his so he would not see the glee dancing in hers. When she looked back up, Connor was eyeing her suspiciously. Then he pushed back from the table and left the room.
“Things are improving between us,” she said softly to herself. “I managed to feed him something before he ran away this time.”
He probably hadn’t considered that little detail when he was planning swimming lessons. No, Connor had probably not given a single thought to how hard it was going to be to run away from her in a swimming pool, especially since she had no love of the water. She’d be clinging to him like a barnacle to the bottom of a boat.
But there was another problem. Where, in a tiny place like Monte Calanetti, on such short notice, was she going to find the right bathing suit for this? Obviously she would have to make do with what she could find for tomorrow.
But he’d said it would take a week.
It was so much better than a date! A whole week.
She went into her office and shut the door. She flipped on her computer and typed the words she wanted into the search engine. Then she narrowed the search by putting in the necessary delivery dates.
By the time Isabella was done, she felt extremely naughty. The way she had felt in the red dress should have been fair warning to her, and to Connor, both.
Isabella Rossi liked feeling naughty.
* * *
As Connor was waiting in the water of Nico’s beautiful pool, Isabella came through the back gate and gave him a quick wave before ducking into the cabana beside the pool.
He was pleased to note she looked particularly understated today in a longish skirt in a dull shade of beige and a baggy blouse in the same color. Her glossy hair was pulled back tightly, and she was carrying a large book bag that she was hugging to her chest. Really? She looked more like a nerdy student than the teacher.
He surveyed the pool while he waited for her. It was nestled in the garden grotto behind the house, and the pool had been made to look like a pond. Ferns trailed fronds in the water, and there was a small waterfall at one end of it.
Lovely as it was aesthetically, it was not really a pool for serious swimming, but it was large enough to do a few strokes, plus it had a deep end. It was about the furthest thing from the pools he had done SEAL training in, but it would do for an introduction to swimming basics.
Connor was feeling enormously pleased with himself. Teaching Isabella how to swim—instead of going on a date—had been a brainstorm. Swimming, after all, was useful. Tackling an irrational fear was useful. When he left this place, he would leave her with a skill that would be practical to her for her whole life. He would leave her with a sense of herself that was different than what it had been before. That sounded quite a bit better than leaving her with the heartache that a date promised.
She was staying here in this idyllic little village in Tuscany, and he was leaving, so what was the sense of exploring the sparks that were flying between them?
Isabella came out of the cabana. She had taken her hair out of the elastic when it would have been more sensible to leave it in. She had on an enormous poncho-like caftan that covered her from her head to her toes. It had hideous wide stripes in a crazy array of colors. It reminded him of pictures he had seen of what people wore to music festivals in the ’60s.
When she stood on the deck he was at eye level with her feet. Her toenails were painted lime green, and as odd a choice as that was, he had to admit it was adorable, and a little less nerdy than the rest of her ensemble.
“What’s that thing?” he asked her. He noticed that her face had been scrubbed free of makeup, probably in preparation for her swim.
“What thing?”
“That thing you’re wearing.”
She looked down at herself. “Oh. My swim cover.”
He had to bite back a smile. She had to wear a swim cover to get from the cabana to the pool? The walk might have been twenty yards.
“Well, how about if you take it off and get in the water.”
She hesitated. He could see the pulse beating in her throat. She looked past him at the water and gulped.
“Believe me, you can’t swim with it on.”
“Oh,” she said, as if he was breaking world news to her. Isabella reached for the zipper, and closed her eyes. Because she was afraid of the water? Or was she sweetly shy about being seen in her swimming suit?
She bent over to get the zipper undone. Her swim cover was still doing its job. Covering. The zipper stuck partway down, and she tugged and tugged, but nothing happened. Suddenly, in frustration, she gave up on the zipper and pulled the caftan from her shoulders. As she was freed from the bulky covering, it slid down and settled in a lump at her waist.
Connor stared helplessly.
Her eyes locked on his. He looked away, focusing on those little green toenails, not sure he wanted her to see what he was thinking. She pushed the caftan away from her waist and it floated to the ground, at his eye level, creating a puddle that looked like a burlap bag around her little monster-toed feet.
He was left looking at the length of her lovely legs. Then she stepped out of the fabric puddle and kicked the covering aside.
Connor reminded himself he had seen her in a transparent shower curtain. And a red dress that had made his mouth go dry. Whatever this was, it could not be any worse than that. Isabella was a practical schoolteacher. She would know how to pick a good bathing suit.
Having thus reassured himself, Connor cocked his head upward to see more than her feet and her legs. His mouth fell open. He gulped. He snapped his mouth shut so that the practical schoolteacher would not guess how much she was rattling his world.
A swimming lesson? Whose dumb idea had this been?
She was wearing one of the tiniest swimsuits he had ever seen, if you could call that scrap of fabric—three scraps of fabric—a swimsuit. Isabella was wearing a string bikini in an amazing shade of lime green that made her skin look as golden as the sand at a beach in New Zealand, Kaiteriteri, that he had visited once. Her dark hair spilled over that golden expanse of skin, shiny and beautiful.
“Is something wrong?” she asked. Her tone was all innocence, but he wasn’t fooled. No woman put on a bathing suit like that without knowing exactly what she was doing!
Suck it up, he ordered himself. He’d seen her in a shower curtain. Nothing could be worse than that. Except this was worse than that. It was worse, even, than the red dress.
Isabella Rossi, village schoolteacher, nerdy girl, was smoking hot!
“Wrong?” he choked out, not willing to give her the victory. “What could