He took a moment to appraise her, and she realized that she had quickly developed a habit of working them into this position—her back to a wall, him leaning into her. It might have been subconscious, but she liked the feeling of being chased by him, leaving no doubt about the intensity of his longing. As much as she relished his affection, as much as she loved hearing about the everyday details of his life, she needed to feel that he wanted her. Perhaps it was the wounded twenty-two-year-old still somewhere inside of her, but physical evidence of his desire for her gave her a reassurance that cut straight to her core.

“When?” she asked, her tone more serious than she meant it to be.

“As soon as fucking possible,” he whispered, lips now to her ear, the endless depth of his voice rumbling against her. “Because I’m not going to be able to sleep again until I have you.”

“Ahem.”

Their tour guide was standing just a few feet away, clearing his throat in a way that felt vaguely managerial.

“Our group is heading to the basilica, if the two of you would like to join us.”

“Uh,” Danial cleared his throat and ran a hand through his hair, “Of course. Of course.”

“Yes, definitely,” Alex added.

The two of them assumed the stance of chastened middle schoolers, nodding in the general direction of the guide and walking sheepishly toward the rest of the tour group. Her legs still felt weak beneath her body as she moved, all the more so when Danial’s hand effortlessly found hers between them.

The first thing Alex heard was an angry knock at the door, tearing her out of her late-afternoon nap. She startled to sit on her bed—she’d fallen asleep before thinking to pull the sheets back—and looked out of an open porthole. They were moving along at a steady clip, somewhere between Sicily and Greece. The knock came again, louder this time. Bang, bang, bang against the heavy wooden door, the kind of knock usually followed by someone shouting the word police.

“I’m coming.” Her voice was thick with sleep, and she cleared it before speaking again. “One second.”

She roughly grabbed the terry cloth robe from its hanger, slipping her arms through it to cover the barely there satin nightgown she had been sleeping in. As soon as the tie was closed firmly around her waist, she moved to turn the knob, and the door practically pushed itself in her face with the force of the entry.

“You really had me going there for a second,” Danial whisper-shouted, chest ragged with anger, knuckles white around the phone in his hand.

“What?” she asked, moving around him to close the door. “What is going on?”

“I guess I should say congratulations, right?”

“Congratulations?”