Five Dates with the Billionaire - Alyssa J. Montgomery Page 0,24
over ten years since she’d seen Giovani’s henchman and she couldn’t be certain it was him, but she didn’t dare risk taking another look.
Breathe, Mia.
I must be wrong.
Sully couldn’t be in Venice. He rarely strayed from Giovanni’s side and Giovanni never left New York.
She must be mistaken. It couldn’t have been Sully.
Taking a deep breath, she tried to banish her fears. All she’d had was a fleeting look at the man. It was just her overactive imagination. She’d projected her dread of being recognised, and linked the man in the vaporetto with her past.
A past you left behind years ago.
A past that lies thousands of miles away.
Steeling herself, she turned to look back at the man. The vaporetto had moved further down the canal and she could only see his back, but tension drained from her shoulders and she gave a small laugh in relief.
The man’s hair was plaited in a long ponytail.
Sully had always kept his hair short. Besides, hadn’t Sully been taller and not quite as thick set?
She leaned on the railing for support as she put her paranoia firmly from her mind.
Today was going to be a good day.
She had nothing to worry about.
‘Good morning, Mia. You look stunning.’
Looking up at Connor, her cares were forgotten. Dressed casually in denim jeans and a blue polo top, Connor embodied the definition of stunning. ‘Good morning.’ ‘Did you sleep well?’
‘Yes, thanks. It’s quiet here without cars.’
‘The vaporettos aren’t exactly silent.’
‘No, but they’re nowhere near as noisy as London traffic.’
He sent her a bemused frown. ‘You were very vague about where you lived when you wouldn’t allow me to drop you home the other night. Which part of London do you call home?’
She couldn’t tell him she lived around the corner from Violet or it would raise questions she wasn’t prepared to answer. ‘I’m not really sure I do call London home,’ she prevaricated. ‘I think I’m more of a country than a city girl.’
‘Where did you grow up?’
Damn. Damn.
Guilt pressed hard on her shoulders and a familiar heaviness settled in her chest. She had to tell Connor a bald-faced lie and stick with the background Mia Simms had been given. She would always be a prisoner to this deceit. ‘Southern England.’
‘That makes sense. You speak with the received pronunciation one would expect from the south. Did you go to a private school?’
For a second her memory files went blank and she almost blurted out the name of the high school she’d attended in the States. ‘For a time.’
When he arched an eyebrow, she expanded, ‘I went to public school initially, then finished in private school once my parents passed away.’
Another half-truth.
What she’d said about school was right because Stanley and Violet had enrolled her in a posh private girls’ school when it’d come time for her to re-enter the world and complete her last years of school in the UK.
What she’d said about her ‘parents’ was an out and out lie because she’d never known her father. She didn’t know whether he was alive or dead. She didn’t even know his name.
‘So, first stop this morning is the Doge’s Palace, then we explore the other sites around St Mark’s Square?’ she asked, before he could delve any deeper into her fabricated background.
‘That’s right. After we’ve toured through the palace we can enjoy a coffee on the Square. Unless you’ve changed your mind and want to have breakfast first rather than brunch?’
‘No. The concierge insisted it was important to get to the palace early or the queues would be horrendous.’
The doorman who’d greeted Mia earlier signalled to them that a gondola had arrived. They’d used the hotel’s water taxi from the airport, so this would be Mia’s first authentic experience on the canal.
‘Buongiorno,’ the gondolier greeted. ‘I am Vincento. I take you to Piazza San Marco, si?’
‘Here, take my hand to steady yourself,’ Connor told Mia as she went to hop into the beautiful black boat.
Holding Connor’s hand may have been meant to steady her, but it had quite the opposite effect. The second her hand was encased in the warm, masculine strength of his, she was bombarded with sensory signals telling her how good it felt. Her legs felt weak and uncoordinated as every other thought process was obliterated for a few micro seconds. Just enough time for her to completely lose her balance.
If it hadn’t been for Connor’s firm hold, and Vincento grabbing her flailing left arm, she would’ve ended up in the aqua waters of the canal.