Since her return, the Italian had been a regular visitor.

“How is he this hot?” Annie drooled now from a pair of rickety loungers on the pool terrace, as she and Kim watched Luca pass through the courtyard and inside the house, to where the other girl convalesced amid the cool of the rear living room.

“Dunno, but he sure is burning.”

“Burning for Colette, it seems,” she replied with some dismay.

Kim chuckled. “Clearly there’s a helluva lot more to our girl than meets the eye.”

“Lucky wagon,” Annie muttered darkly.

“But why should it bother you?” Kim asked, raising an eyebrow. “Don’t you have your very own Romeo in the wings?” She watched with satisfaction as Annie flushed a bit and a small smile tugged at her lips.

It was apparent that Colette wasn’t the only one being romanced at the moment.

“Mind your own business.”

“I am. Believe me,” Kim said, lifting up her book again.

Annie rolled her eyes. “You and that bloody book—you’re always stuck in it. Must be a good one, though in fairness you seem to have been reading it forever.”

“Maybe I just read slowly,” Kim countered.

“And maybe my name is Steve.” Her response dripped with sarcasm as she stood up and wrapped a sarong around her waist, her boobs bursting out of the skimpy bikini she wore. Kim knew they were completely natural, too, not bought and paid for like so many of her friends back home.

Annie really was the living, breathing definition of voluptuous, though Kim knew the Irish girl had major insecurities about her looks, always referring to herself as a “heifer” and “massive.”

Despite Kim and Colette’s protests, the other girl just couldn’t seem to admit that she had a body most girls would die for. But those assets and, no doubt, Annie’s sparkly wit, throaty laugh, and infectious sense of humor attracted plenty of male attention, especially here.

Whenever they went out, their Irish friend was the radiant flame who attracted all of the moths nearby, and since Colette was a little too shy to head off the obvious players—groups of locals or other holidaymakers out for a good time—Kim pretty much played bodyguard on their nights out. She wasn’t a complete bore and enjoyed the attention and odd flirtation, too, for sure, but she was determined not to fall back into her old party-girl ways.

“I’m going to head in for a while, before I start getting ready to go out later. Like you said, I have a hot date tonight and I want to straighten my hair and do a bit of a defuzz. See ya.”

“Have fun,” Kim called after her.

Annie winked mischievously. “Don’t worry. I will.”

She smiled and shook her head. Between Colette and Annie, she wasn’t sure who was the more smitten.