“I always thought her more of a general,” Luca said as he set the tray on her lap and carefully arranged everything out in front of her. Colette had never been so well looked after in her entire life. Not even her mother had been this attentive when she was a child.

“There is another reason I come,” he said then.

“What’s that?”

His dark eyes brightened a little as she met his gaze. “You.”

Colette felt as if her head was about to explode. She must have misunderstood. “What do you mean?”

He smiled again and took her hand in his. “I mean that I want to get to know you better, my English rose.”

“I don’t understand,” she said, slowly removing her hand from his. “Why?”

Her question seemed to amuse him as Luca began to chuckle. “You really don’t see yourself, do you?”

Her brow furrowed at his odd response. What did he mean she didn’t see herself?

“Why wouldn’t I want to get to know you?” he asked. He folded his arms over his chest and adjusted where he sat to make himself more comfortable. “Tell me. I’d love to hear it.”

Colette could feel the heat rising up through her body and she could only imagine what hue her cheeks had taken on as she fumbled for the right response to his question.

“I’m just...not the kind of person someone like you notices,” she began with a shrug of her shoulders.

“And what kind of person do you think you are?”

That was a loaded question. Colette had to think for a moment. “Well, I’m not particularly outgoing, or gregarious like, say, Annie,” she began. “And I’m not worldly or beautiful like Kim,” she added softly. “I’m just...simple, I suppose.”

Luca smiled. “Usually the simplest things are the best things.”

Colette couldn’t help the reaction his response had on her. A large smile spread across her face.

“And you’re wrong,” he added a moment later.

“About what?”

“You are beautiful,” he replied as he curled a strand of her hair around his finger and forced her chin up with another so that their eyes met. “Don’t ever say or think that you aren’t.”

There were wings inside her chest and knots inside her stomach as Colette sat there in amazement. The most gorgeous man she’d ever laid eyes on was telling her that she was beautiful. Maybe she’d hit her head harder than the doctor thought.

“You don’t believe me?”

She shook her head. “Not particularly, sorry.”

“It’s because you don’t see what I see,” he replied as he leaned closer, one finger still entangled in her hair.

“And what’s that?” she asked as she swallowed the lump in her throat.