Page 33 of His Fantasy Bride (Things To Do Before You Die)

“Not usually. It tends to be buildings or artifacts, but bodies occasionally turn up.”

“It must be fascinating.”

“You should come on a dig with me sometime. Get your hands dirty.”

Her eyes twinkled, and she opened her mouth to answer but then closed it. She bit her lip. “Maybe.”

There she went again, holding back on her natural response, as though scared to give something away.

The door opened, and Nick walked in. He grinned when he saw Vito and came across and shook his hand. “Glad to see you back in the real world.” He turned to Gabby. “And this is…?”

She held out her hand. “I’m Gabby.”

He looked her over and smiled. “Are you a student, Gabby?”

“No, I’m just a…friend of Vito’s.”

“And you’d like a tour?”

“Yes, please.”

“Well, come along then.”

Vito allowed them to walk in front, happy to tag along behind, where the view was pretty good. She was wearing jeans today, tight jeans that hugged the curve of her ass, and a pink T-shirt that matched her hair. She looked younger than her twenty-four years, and he could see why Nick had mistaken her for a student.

Two weeks had passed, and he was no closer to understanding Gabby and why she had agreed to marry him and then lost her nerve. She cut him off if he ever tried to ask her directly, and finally he’d stopped trying.

They had spent all their free time together. She’d taken him to the ballet and the theater and insisted on going dancing again, which was slow torture. But as it was the only time they touched, he’d gone along with her more than once just to get her in his arms. Somehow, they had managed to keep to the agreement and not had sex.

It was killing him.

Occasionally, when she relaxed, he saw glimpses of the Gabrielle he had known before, but mostly she was someone entirely new. Sometimes he believed that she went out of her way to deliberately shock him. As though she were acting a part. The part of someone as different as possible from the woman he had proposed to. As though she were trying to prove that they were totally unsuited to each other.

And maybe she was right.

Gabby was certainly not the type of woman he had ever envisioned marrying.

More than once, he’d considered walking away, accepting that there was no point in prolonging this, had hovered on the verge of telling her that it was over. But somehow he couldn’t do it. However much he told himself she wasn’t his type, that they could have no long-term future together, he was drawn to her as he had been to no other woman.

Including Gabrielle when he’d known her the first time.

And he was pretty sure she felt the same.

Conflicted.

With hindsight, he could recognize that his relationship with Gabrielle had been of a more cerebral nature. He’d fallen for Gabrielle with his head. But Gabby, from the first moment, had captured his body, tied him in knots, until he could think of nothing else.

He watched as she listened to Nick, taking in everything the other man was saying.

Was that a twinge of jealousy? He wasn’t sure. He’d never felt the emotion before. But he wanted her to look at him like that.

Back in Sicily, she had. She’d seemed to hang on his words as if his every utterance was fascinating. Was that what he wanted? Unequivocal admiration?

He wasn’t that big an asshole, was he?

Maybe she was just a good listener.

He needed to find a way through to her. Get back to the beginning, where it had all started. An idea niggled at the back of his mind.

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