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“Don’t.”
She pulled her arm free.
“I will come out once the storm has passed. If the scarf is still there, I’ll retrieve it and have it sent to your accommodation.”
“How kind of you,” she drawled, and even though it was kind, her tone dripped with sarcasm. “But I think I’ll save you the trouble. Excuse me.”
She heard his curse though it was uttered under his breath, but she ignored him. At the base of the tree, she looked up, realized the scarf was higher than she’d first appreciated and a frisson of fear ran down her spine. But no way was she going to show even a hint of that in front of this guy, who’d been so arrogantly smug.
Closing her eyes for a second and praying, as she always did, for her mother’s strength and her father’s protection, she jumped up to the lowest branch, delighted and relieved in equal measure when her hands wrapped around it and held. The bark was slippery and rough but tree climbing was a definite super-hero strength of Georgia’s. Though she hadn’t done it for years, muscle memory was a formidable thing, and her general fitness and athletic abilities meant she had an advantage he hadn’t appreciated. She was relishing the prospect of showing him how wrong he’d been.
Dante watched with a knot in his gut and a grudging sense of amazement. He hadn’t seriously expected her to go through with this, nor, in fact, for her to be able to go through with it, for the simple reason that the lowest branch was fairly high off the ground. If he’d thought she was serious, he would have insisted on going up the tree himself, even though it was clearly a terrible idea. Only, he hadn’t anticipated the way she’d spring off the ground, cat like, and grab hold of the branch, swinging back and forth, dangerously close to the cliff’s edge, until she could hook one leg over a slightly higher branch and pull herself up. From there, the branches were close enough together that she was able to move almost as one might climb a ladder. Fast, nimble, genuinely fascinating.
It was no surprise he’d thought she might be a child at first. She was slim and petite, probably only a little over five feet, maybe five and a half, and her hair—a long, dark blonde—was pulled back into the kind of ponytail his parents’ goddaughter Sofia used to wear when she was about ten years old.
She wore fitted jeans and a thick, padded jacket with a hood that hung down her back. Her lack of gloves was unwise in this weather, though it clearly made the tree-climbing easier.
“There,” she said, triumphantly, turning to look down at him, but too fast, so her foot slipped and her eyes widened in alarm. He swore, moving instinctively into the position that would enable him to catch her, mentally calculating how many branches were between her and him and how likely it was that her head would connect with at least one of them, when she stabled herself by leaning forward, and let out a small laugh. “Whoopsies. That was close.”
“Whoopsies,” he muttered, anger rising in him like lava and flame. He wanted this woman off his property. She might not have a death wish, but she sure as hell invited it with her idiotic decision making.
“I’m coming down,” she called unnecessarily, putting the scarf around her throat, catching her ponytail in it, as she began her descent. It was as nimble as her climb up the tree. Fast and assured, she moved from branch to branch almost as though she had been a primate in a past life. On the lowest branch she sat, dangling her legs, assessing the best spot to jump down to, but there, Dante drew a line.
“I’m here,” he muttered. “I’ll catch you.”
Her eyes flew to his. “That’s not necessary.”
His temper sparked. “Could you not argue with me about everything?”
“I’m not, I’m just saying?—,”
“Get down here,” he interrupted curtly. “The storm is coming. If you want to get back to your accommodation before it hits, you need to leave now.”
“Fine.” She glared at him though, placed her hands on either side of her hips, then pushed off the branch with a neat little leap that would have looked at home in an international gymnastics arena. Despite his request, she aimed to the side of him. Foolish, foolish woman. The ground there was covered with moss, not grass, and it was slippery from the moisture in the air. Her feet connected and she turned to him with a look of triumph and slipped, one ankle twisting as she rolled towards the ground. He caught her without a moment’s forethought or rational consideration. He caught her because he was close enough to reach his hands out and steady her, bringing her body back to standing, close enough to see the way she winced a little and knowing she’d hurt her ankle.
He closed his eyes in frustration. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she responded, shaking her arms, but for some reason Dante didn’t let her go. She was so warm. The contrast to the feeling of her body against his and the icy cold day was doing something totally foreign to his pulse. Something he hadn’t felt in a long, long time was stirring inside of him. It was that which made him drop his grip and step back, angry with himself now, and with her, and the whole damned situation.
“I hope the scarf was worth it.”
“It was.”
His eyes narrowed. “You should leave,” he muttered. “The road will be at risk of fallen branches. I would suggest you drive carefully but I suggest doing anything with care is beyond your skillset.”
And with that, he turned and left, determined to blank the woman completely from his memory banks. A storm was coming, and Dante wanted nothing more than to sit inside and stare out at it, to feel the heavens open up and weep, to join him in his state of perpetual misery. And for that, he wanted solitude.
CHAPTER TWO
HER ANKLE HURT LIKE the devil itself. Getting back to the youth hostel before the storm hit had been unlikely beforehand, but with an undoubtedly sprained, if not broken, ankle, it was questionable whether she’d even make it by the next day.
Cursing her stupidity and stubbornness in insisting on retrieving the scarf, and in ignoring his suggestion of help, she tilted her chin and took another step, propping herself on a tree for balance and yelping as her ankle gave yet another throb of pain. She’d been walking for over an hour, and had probably only covered a little more than a kilometer. She didn’t know exactly how far she’d walked from town, but given that she’d been out since the morning, she guessed she’d covered a fair distance. Pulling her phone from her pocket, she checked the reception again—still nothing. Though, there was never strictly no reception. Emergency services were always available. If she absolutely needed to, she’d just have to phone the Italian equivalent to triple zero and beg for someone to come to her.
She groaned to herself and felt the threat of tears she wouldn’t allow to fall.
This was a pickle, but she’d been in pickles before and managed to find a way out of them. She looked around, desperately hoping for a solution, and when none came, she decided to sit a moment. The rain was pouring down, her hair was plastered to her face, her clothes were soaked through, and she was bitterly cold, but there was nothing to be gained from pushing on regardless. She needed to think, and to trust that somehow she’d work out a way not to freeze to death. If only to avoid giving that arrogant man the satisfaction of being proved right about her.
Dante listened to the phone call with a grim expression. “You are saying the road has been cut off all afternoon?”
