Page 28 of Casanova LLC

I stood and toweled off and tried to make the process of getting ready fun. Fun! As if I were a teenager getting ready for a date. A version of a teenager I’d never been, getting ready for a date I’d never had. I tried being not the Claire I knew, but the Claire I wanted to be.

I dried my hair, twirled it up into a high bun, put on mascara, a simple pink gloss on my lips—that color that had launched my line—then debated what to wear. I’d dug through moving boxes and found a requisite little black dress and a La Perla bra and panty set. No. Too try-hard for tonight, the night that didn’t technically count.

I had two other options. One was embarrassingly nostalgic. It was what I had been wearing the night we had met: a black-and-white skirt and a white blouse. The other outfit I’d never worn. Bought on impulse one day when, for reasons now forgotten, I imagined I could be the kind of easy-peasy woman who would wear such a thing: a breezy off-the-shoulder peasant dress with a ruched bodice and knee-length hemline.

Did I want him to remember me, or did I want him to see me anew?

Claire! Stop overthinking every single little?—

I slipped into the peasant dress, pulled on a sheer panty, and had a heretical thought: what if I didn’t wear anything underneath? I checked the clock. Ten minutes.

I tried walking around without them. My skin felt over-sensitized. Everywhere, but especially under the dress. I was being ridiculous. Once again overthinking. So I put the panties back on.

Then I sat at the window seat, waiting, and watched the rain slow to a steady drizzle, boats come and go, people pass over the bridge.

I breathed, simply breathed, deep and long.

There was a knock, light, but it still made me jump. “One second!” I called and bolted to standing. I took a step toward the door, felt the light chafe between my thighs and, without overthinking—for once—whipped off the panties. What the hell?

If I had learned anything tonight, it was that the real challenge of these next few days would not be second-guessing Alessandro. It would be not second-guessing myself.

I tossed them through the door of the bedroom, smoothed my dress down, and called out, in what I hoped was a steady voice, “Come in.”

He did.

He’d changed, too. Out of his wet clothes and into gray slacks and a navy-blue button-down, both of which fit as though they’d been poured slowly over him. Saddle-colored leather loafers, chocolate belt. Effortlessly impeccable.

His eyes trailed down my body. As if he knew what was—or wasn’t—underneath.

“Am I underdressed?” I asked.

He came over to me. “You could wear a robe and not be underdressed.” He kissed my cheek. “Or nothing at all.” He pulled back and looked down the length of my body.

“What?”

His eyes slowly lifted to mine. “I’m sorry.”

“For?”

“That I’ve neglected to say before now: your body is my personal version of paradise.” Then he bent his elbow in invitation. “Ready?”

No.

Maybe.

I should have left my panties on.

I curled my hand around his forearm. “Yes.”

* * *

He led me to the first floor and I stood for a moment at the bottom of the staircase, appreciating the grandeur of the hall. There were two very tall, very wide carved wooden doors directly in front of us. On each side of them, down opposite sides of the hall, were two sets of narrower doors; also tall, also beautifully carved.

Alessandro waved his hand as if it were a paintbrush. “This is the piano nobile, which used to be the public floor of the palazzo. Now it’s where you and I will spend our time.” I expected him to reach for the huge double doors, for us to make a grand entrance into the room they concealed. But instead, he led me to the smaller doors on the right.

We entered a large modern kitchen with slate countertops and a copper farm sink and old beams running the length of the ceiling. It smelled delicious.

He walked through the kitchen and opened a swinging butler’s door on the other side. He gracefully bowed, gave a tease of a smile, and swept his painter’s hand low and forward. I had an urge to brush my hip against it as I walked past but refrained.

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