Page 60 of Italy Can Bite Me

Petra:See if he still smells like burnt feathers.

I pull up a photo of Petra and show it to Caterina. “Do you know—”

“Petra!” Caterina claps her hands together. “Our beautiful wild heart! So strong, so sad when she come to us. But this place?” She gestures to the endless vines. “It heal broken hearts.”

I’m imagining Petra as I watch the volunteers, their faces alive with laughter. They seem so unburdened, so liberated. That kind of freedom terrifies me. My mind drifts to Petra’s stories when she dropped out of college and chose the unknown path. I’d judged her for running away, but now I understand—she wasn’t running from something.

She was running toward herself.

Meanwhile, what was I doing? Creating a PowerPoint on how Jared and I could align our fiber intake—charting our future children’s college careers—designing a blueprint for the perfect life, as if list-making and ticking off boxes earned me the right to be loved.

I’ve invested six years into becoming Perfect Katie. The girlfriend who never made waves, the fiancée who knew what Jared needed before he did, the future wife who planned for every contingency.

And he still left.

Out here, where the vines grow wild and the air tastes like possibility, there are no schedules. No plans. No need to control every heartbeat, every breath, every moment. Just… living.

The opposite of who I’ve been.

The realization steals my breath. What if this wholeOperation Win Back Jaredthing isn’t about him at all? What if it’s about the one person I’ve been afraid to face?

Me.

Oh fuck.I’m going to need more wine.

My phone buzzes, and Matteo’s name lights up my screen.

Italian Stallion:Hotel secured. Missing your organizational skills. And your face.

Italian Stallion:Definitely your face.

Pure need crashes through me, hot and demanding. Seeing his words makes me throb, remembering how his fingers felt against me in that fountain square. How he found places that made me gasp—writhe—forget everything. Everything except the craving for more.

I’ve never felt this before. Not once in twenty-five years of living. Not in six years with Jared. Never felt my body surge toward release like it did with just a few strokes of Matteo’s skilled fingers. Never knew pleasure could build so fast—feel so intense.

What would it feel like to let him finish what he started?

Everyone else seems to know the secret. They dive into desire like it’s a perfectly temperature-controlled pool while I’m here awkwardly checking the pH balance.

My fingers shake as I type. For once, I want to be reckless. I want something that makes my heart race, my skin buzz, and shuts down my brain’s habitual reruns of worst-case scenarios.

Me:Better hurry back. The vineyard isn’t the same without someone making inappropriate grape innuendos.

Italian Stallion:Careful, principessa. Keep talking like that and I’ll think you want me to be inappropriate.

Me:Maybe I do.

I hitSendbefore I can overthink it.

For the first time in my life, I want to be the woman who takes what she wants.

Now I just need to make him break his rule.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

KATIE

Canwegettothe part where I climax? The buildup is killing me.

---