Travis tipped her chin up, drew his thumb along Kateâs lower lip.
âI know you need more time. I wonât push you. But while youâre weighing the pros and cons, donât forget to include this in your calculations.â
He lowered his head, giving her time to draw back, feeling the jolt when she didnât. At the first brush of his mouth on hers, hunger too long held in check kicked like an afterburner at full thrust. The heat, the fury burned like a blowtorch.
His palm slid to the nape of her neck. His mouth went from gentle to coaxing. From giving to taking. He circled her waist, drew her into him. They were hip to hip, thigh to thigh, her breasts pressed against his chest, her palms easing over his shoulders.
This was what he needed. What heâd ached for. The feel of her. The taste of her.
* * *
Three Coins in the Fountain: When you wish upon your heart â¦
Chapter One
âCmâon, Kate. We have to do it.â
âNo, we donât.â
Katherine Elizabeth WestbrookâKate to the two friends tugging her through the crowd lined up at one of Romeâs most famous landmarksâdragged her feet. The water spouting from the Trevi Fountainâs gloriously baroque sculptures glistened in the late August sunshine, but Kate had no inclination to participate in the time-honored tradition of tossing a coin in the sparkling pool.
âThis is too touristy for words.â
âNo, itâs not.â Vivacious, auburn-haired Dawn McGill dismissed Kateâs protest with an airy wave. âWeâve talked about doing this forever.â
âRemember the first time we watched Three Coins in the Fountain?â
That came from Callie Langston, the quiet one of the unbreakable triumvirate forged more than twenty years ago, when eight-year-old Kate and her family moved to the small town of Easthampton, Massachusetts.
Callieâs reminder of that long-ago sleepover won a smile from Kate. âHow could I forget?â
Theyâd been friends for years by then, all three hopeless romantics and avid movie buffs. In that particular all-night extravaganza, theyâd devoured pizza and Twinkies and a gallon of triple ripple mocha fudge while bingeing on rented movie classics.
Callie had chosen the 1940 megahit The Philadelphia Story, which had the three teens drooling over a debonair Cary Grant. Dawn had opted for Audrey Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart in Sabrina, a sparkling romance that provoked laughter and tears and a burning desire to run off to Paris. Kate had gone with the 1954 version of Three Coins in the Fountain, starring Dorothy McGuire and a dreamy Louis Jourdan as a playboy Italian prince. The story of three single women finding love and adventure in Rome made all three girls vow that one day they, too, would visit the Eternal City and toss a coin in its famed fountain.
Kate had loved the movie. Then. Back when she was young and naive and stupid enough to believe in happy endings.
âThe wish wonât come true unless all three of us do it,â the irrepressible Dawn insisted.
âThatâs right,â Callie chimed in. âAll for one...â
â...and one for all.â Kate dredged up another smile. âOkay, okay! Whoâs got a coin I can bum?â
âHere.â
Dawn thrust a euro into her friendâs left hand. It was dull and tarnished and banded by a rim of brass. Soon to be replaced, Kate knew from her work at the World Bank, by a newer, shinier model.
Out with the old, in with the new.
Like her life, she thought, although her new was uncertain and her old hurt almost more than she could bear. Her fist closed around the euro while images cut through her mind like shards of jagged glass. Of Travis roaring up to her college dorm on his decrepit but much-loved Harley. Their engagement the day sheâd pinned his air force pilotâs wings on his uniform. The wedding two years later that Kate and her two friends had planned in such excruciating detail. The much-dreamed-of trip to Italy that she and her husband had been forced to put off repeatedly while he rotated in and out of Afghanistan and Iraq and a dozen other locales he couldnât tell her about.
The irony of it ate at Kate as she remembered the hours sheâd spent planning this dream trip. She remembered, too, all the days sheâd buried herself in her own work to dull her gnawing worry about her husband. And the long, empty nights sheâd tossed and turned and prayed for his safe return from whatever hot spot heâd been sent to this time.