for visitors. They were registered under false names and given two connecting rooms on the top floor. Two plainclothes cops were stationed outside the hotel in an unmarked Lancia on the Via Lombardia. It was a quiet, one-way street, which made their babysitting task a bit easier.
The rooms were spacious and had a great outlook over the lush gardens of the Villa Borghese and the domes of the Church of San Carlo al Corso and, farther to the west, of St. Peter’s Basilica. It was a glorious view on any day, and even more so with the sky all aglow from the setting sun, but Tess only managed to enjoy it for all of three seconds before stepping away from the window and collapsing into the comfort of the king-sized bed. To her ravaged muscles and drained mind, it felt like heaven.
She stretched her arms out and let her head sink back deeper into the soft down pillows. “What hotel is it that’s always rambling on about how amazing their beds are?”
Reilly appeared in the doorway that connected the two rooms, drying his face with a towel. “Westin.”
“Yeah, well … they ain’t got nothing on this baby.” She sank back even more, her arms outstretched toward the edges of the bed, her eyes shut with delight.
Reilly crossed over to the minibar and peeked inside. “You want something to drink?”
Tess didn’t look up. “Sure.”
“What would you like?”
“Surprise me.”
She heard the pleasing sound of a cap being popped off a bottle—twist-off tops, for some reason, weren’t yet a staple in Europe—then another. Then the mattress sagged slightly to her left as Reilly sat down on the edge of the bed.
She pushed herself up against the propped up pillows, and he handed her a cold bottle of Peroni beer.
“Welcome to Rome,” he said, a tired and wry expression on his face as they clinked bottles.
“Welcome to Rome,” she repeated, her face cloudy with confusion. She still wasn’t quite sure how that had happened. Even though they’d been over it all back at the Gendarmeria offices, it still felt surreal to be here. In Rome. In a hotel room. With Reilly by her side.
She took a long, satisfying sip, the cold brew tickling her throat before setting off a nice tingle in her belly, and contemplated his face. He had a couple of small bruises, one on his left cheek, the other more pronounced and scabbed, just above his right eyebrow. She remembered how he’d gotten a lot of those back when they’d first met. But after that, once they’d gotten back to the U.S., once they’d started seeing each other and, soon after, he’d moved into her house, the bruises had disappeared—only to be replaced, she knew, by another kind of hurt. She caught herself thinking that she’d missed seeing him in this guise, all life-saving super-agent with the bruises and the intensity and the urgency, and felt awkward about the thought.
“So here we are again, huh?” she asked.
“Yep.” His eyes had a distant, weary tinge to them, like his being there still hadn’t settled in with him either.
“Miss me?” she couldn’t resist asking, the edges of her mouth curled up in a mischievous smirk.
She watched his eyes roam all over her face—God, she’d missed that look—then he let out a small, playfully derisive chortle before taking another long chug.
“What?” she pressed.
“Hey, I wasn’t the one who ran off halfway around the world.”
Much to her relief, the way he said it didn’t sound resentful at all. “Doesn’t mean you can’t miss me,” she goaded him.
He laughed and shook his head with disbelief. “You’re unbelievable, you know that?”
“So is that a yes?” Her beaming grin was in full tractor-beam mode. She knew his shields wouldn’t stand a chance.
He held her gaze for a long moment, then said, “Of course I missed you.”
She raised her eyebrows with mock surprise. “Well then how about you stop looking at me like that and —”
She didn’t get a chance to finish it. He was already all over her, scooping her head up in his hands and kissing her with an urgent, primeval hunger. The half-empty bottles tumbled off the bed and onto the carpeted floor with muffled thuds as their bodies twisted around each other, frantic hands diving under clothes and seeking out familiar flesh.
“I’m filthy,” Tess whispered to him as he yanked her shirt off and devoured his way down to her belly.
He didn’t stop. “I know. I like that about you,” he said, in between big, wet mouthfuls of her skin.
She laughed, a dreamy, wicked laugh, in between moans of delight. “No, I mean, I’m really filthy—as in, dirty.”
He kept going. “Like I said, part of the appeal.”
She cupped his head in her hands and closed her eyes and arched her back, her head disappearing between two pillows. “I mean I need a shower, doofus.”
“We both do,” he mumbled without letting up. “Later.”
Chapter 16
Later took a couple of hours to come around. They hadn’t seen each other in four months. In fact, they hadn’t known when they’d see each other again, if at all, since they hadn’t exactly parted on the best of terms. And although a couple of hours of disappearing into each other and shutting the world out wasn’t going to make up for the four months of pent-up desire as well as the near-death experiences they’d just been through, it was a good start.
After an extended stint together in the marble-lined shower stall, they were on the bed again, in thick toweling robes this time, digging into a room service dinner of
Reilly watched Tess as she ate. Despite the insanity of the last twenty-four hours, it felt so natural to be with her. Again. Being with her brought it all bursting back to life, everything that he missed about her. The peridot green eyes that glinted with intellect as well as with mischief. The exquisitely shaped lips and perfect teeth, co- conspirators behind her luminous smile. The wild, blond curls that framed it all and added to the untamed vibe she radiated. The laugh. The humor. The drive and the energy. The magic that entranced any room she walked into. Watching her now, as she wolfed down her food with the wholehearted delight of someone who ate life up in big, greedy mouthfuls, he couldn’t believe he’d actually let her walk out of his life. And yet he had, although the reasons for their split now seemed, well, if not trivial, then certainly mishandled. Which was something that was always easily said in hindsight.
He should have said something back then, he thought. Put a stop to the slow erosion, to the frustrations and the feelings of inadequacy, to the hurt. But there had been no easy solution. They’d leapt into starting a life together. She already had a kid, Kim, a daughter from her ex-husband, a sexual-harassment-lawsuit-in-waiting of a news anchor who’d moved to the West Coast. Reilly, on the other hand, had never been married or fathered a child. Which became a problem when the capriciousness of human reproduction came into play. Reilly wanted to be not just a step-father to Kim, but also a dad himself, and, as it was with more and more women in their thirties, it hadn’t proven to be that simple. The gift of life was proving to be frustratingly elusive. Tests had shown that his body wasn’t the one at fault. Years of Tess taking the pill were a probable culprit. And so an undercurrent of melancholy took root as Reilly’s primal longing became hers too. The IVF treatments added to the malaise, chipping away at the bond between them. Each failed attempt felt like going through a divorce. By the end of it, Tess needed to get away. The heartache and the feeling of failing him were too profound to face. And he didn’t try hard enough to stop her, although at the time, he’d felt as drained and hollow as she had.
Yeah, he should have said something, he thought, as he held her firmly in his sights. He told himself he’d never let her walk out of his life again—but in the same breath, he reminded himself that it wasn’t just up to him.
She must have sensed his stare, as she slid a sideways glance at him. “You gonna finish that?” she mumbled between chews, pointing her knife at his plate.
