Cristiano held her seat out for her and Keira blushed as she took it. She tried to calm her nerves but the beautiful cliffside atmosphere was enough to take her breath away. Adding Cristiano to the mix completely blindsided her.

“It’s not every day I get to eat outside,” Keira said, as a waiter came over and presented her with a menu. “Or beside the ocean.”

“You have an ocean in New York, no?” Cristiano asked.

“Yes, but it’s not like this,” Keira replied.

From here, they could see all the twinkling lights of other restaurants beneath them, and the ocean reflected the stars like a mirror.

Cristiano ordered them a bottle of wine, which arrived in a silver bucket filled with ice.

“I have never been to America,” he said, filling Keira’s glass. “It seems very exotic to me.”

“Exotic?” Keira laughed. “It’s not. I mean, not compared to Italy.”

“Yes, my country is quite beautiful,” Cristiano agreed. “But yours is vibrant. Alive.”

“I suppose it is,” Keira replied.

She sipped her wine and Cristiano looked at her eagerly. “You like it?”

She nodded. “It’s lovely.”

“Pecorino,” Cristiano said. “Goes very well with seafood.”

“Pecorino?” Keira exclaimed, laughing as she remembered the bags of smelly pecorino cheese stuffed into Antonio’s small car. “I thought that was a type of cheese.”

She instantly wished she hadn’t mentioned it. It wasn’t the sort of thing the sophisticated, confident woman she was pretending to be would say.

“It is.” Cristiano smiled. “It is both. But I can assure you that that is wine in your glass and not cheese.”

His joke took her off guard, in part thanks to the fact he kept his face completely neutral as he said it. But then he cracked into a smile, his whole face lighting up majestically. Keira laughed as well. Bolstered by the interaction, she took a risk.

“My last guide was a big fan of pecorino. The cheese, that is, not the wine. His car was full of it. And I mean full.”

Cristiano laughed, his pleasant chuckle causing a thrilling sensation to race through Keira’s whole body. The risk had paid off. Perhaps there wasn’t as much need to pretend to be sophisticated as Keira had thought. He seemed to like her company as she was.

When the waiter came over, she took Cristiano’s advice and ordered calamari for starters.

While they waited for their food to arrive, Keira found herself relaxing into Cristiano’s company. He had a very laid back way of speaking, and the way he looked at her as she spoke, with a curious expression, was very endearing. She couldn’t quite tell if he was struggling to understand the language or whether he was completely fascinated by her.

The starters arrived—calamari on rocks for both of them—and Keira tucked in. It was fresh, delicious.

“Do you like it?” Cristiano asked.

“Very much,” Keira replied.

“It complements the wine?”

Keira nodded. She liked the amount of concern Cristiano seemed to have for her comfort and enjoyment. It made a vast change to Antonio.