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The idea is for the men to take shifts on watch while I sleep.
I’m thrilled and comforted, thinking that I’ll have one of these magnificent men on either side of me, sleeping sentinels, superhuman night time bodyguards. Alessio volunteers to take the first watch. Carlo and Bruno lie down either side of me.
Both men’s arms slip around me and now, whatever pain and troubles the morning will bring, I really do feel like a princess.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
My body tingles with lust and my heart pounds with romance, but almost as soon as my head sinks into the rich softness of the pillows, I’m in a deep, sound and solid sleep.
I stir, sitting up wide awake soon after five in the morning. Carlo has moved and changed the side of the bed he’s on, but he is out like a light. On the other side, Alessio is sleeping like a log, although not a completely silent log.
Wrapping the toweling robe tight around me, I pad out in search of juice and coffee.
Light breaks orange and turquoise around the horizon with cloudbursts reflecting on the silver blue water.
In the galley, I find the fixings for coffee. The stove is still warm, so I figure that Bruno has been here not too long ago. As I expect, I find him on the bridge.
“You know photographers call this the magic hour for the light,” he raises a mug of coffee to greet me. “The hour after sunrise. The hour before sunset is a magic hour, too. But it’s not as quiet..”
The views all around are breathtaking. The little bay where we’re nestled is brushed and highlighted by the light of thesunrise. I stand next to him and lean close. It feels magical, nestling with this fabulous man.
Not wanting to break the spell, I turn to nuzzle into his chest.
I sip my coffee.
In spite of all the tech, the screens and touch panels, in the center of the console is a big old dark wood wheel, with handles like compass points. It looks lovely, but anachronistic.
I touch one of the handles and murmur, “A rich man’s fantasy?”
Bruno smiles. “Imagine. On a forty million dollar yacht.”
I press my head against him again.
He strokes my hair. “It’s so good to have you back, princess.”
“Some of the way back,” I put my arms around him. “I wish I could move the process along.”
“You made amazing progress yesterday.”
“Yeah, but,” I lean against the heat and strength of his huge pecs. “We’ve got trouble.”
I feel him nod, “Right here in River City.”
“No point you explaining it to me, I suppose.”
I can feel that he wants to bring me in. But he says, “Understanding half of it or less would do you more harm than good.”
I nod. “That’s what I thought.” I look up, “And I would get in the way, right?” Reaching for the mug to take a pull on the coffee, I tell him, “Flashes drift back. Fragments. But they’re like random pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, and I don’t have the box. I don’t even know the picture.”
His voice is a steady rumble in his chest. “It isn’t that you would get in the way. It’s more that the assaults and attacks on our people and businesses are targeted to take advantage of you not being there.”
“So, it’s people who know us. People close by.”
“We’ve been looking, believe me.”
“Someone from the past, then?”
He breathes in and straightens up.
