JENNIFER LABRECQUE - Nobody Does It Better

Signora Ciavelli would know exactly where they should shop. And shop they would, because clammy panties, clothes she’d worn for thirty-six hours, no makeup and no hair-care products just weren’t working for Holly.

She checked out her reflection in the bedroom mirror. To quote her brother, Kyle, she looked like shit on a stick . Some women fared well going au naturel. She wasn’t one of them.

She knew she wasn’t a head-turner. She was just an average woman with odd-colored eyes. The entire time she was growing up, she’d loathed having the eyes she’d inherited from her father’s grandmother. She’d hated it when people commented on them because the compliments always ended a little flat, as if it was a pity the rest of her didn’t match up. She’d embraced her averageness to the point that when she’d begun earning her own money, she’d started wearing brown-tinted contacts. In fact, she’d had brown eyes for more than a decade. Her mother was the beauty. Thank goodness Holly looked more like her father. She didn’t want to be like Julia, flighty and vain. But with all her recent activities, she’d also realized hiding her eye color wasn’t exactly embracing who and what she was. Holly had forsaken her contacts several months ago. People still commented on her eyes, but oddly enough, it no longer bothered her. Funny how self-acceptance colored one’s perceptions. But there was no coloring her appearance anything but lacking this morning.

She desperately needed concealer for the lovely dark shadows beneath her eyes. As for her hair… She leaned forward and tried fluffing it with her fingers while she held her head upside down. She stood upright again and it looked decent…for about three seconds until it settled back into flat waves against her head. Not a good look.

She’d planned to show up at Julia’s address this afternoon. Holly wasn’t the great American beauty, but she’d be damned if she’d arrive looking like something the cat had dragged in.

The lock on the other side of her door clicked, signaling the bathroom was available. She might not have toothpaste, but she could at least brush and rinse with water before she ran downstairs.

She stepped into the bathroom, ribbons of steam hanging in the room. She had to admit she liked the scent of the shampoo and cologne lingering in the room. However, the guy must be near-ancient and hard of hearing, considering how loudly he sang in the shower.

She locked the door on his side. Granted, she was only brushing her teeth, but she still didn’t want the old fellow to get confused and wander in.

Five minutes later, she shrugged into her backpack and headed downstairs to meet Signora Ciavelli, determined to turn a bad start into a good day.

She descended the last stairs into the small lobby area, catching a tantalizing whiff of coffee and fresh bread. Holly’s stomach growled in recognition. Maybe the scent was wafting in from a kitchen that was out of sight. Maybe it was from somewhere else. She just knew she was hungry. Many pensiones included a continental breakfast but once again, she’d thought to shave a couple of dollars by choosing one that didn’t. Besides, her meals were included in her tour.

She’d kill for a cup of coffee and one of the Italian pastries she’d read about in the guidebooks. As soon as Signora Ciavelli showed up, she’d talk her into grabbing a bite to eat.

A couple stood by the front door studying a map and speaking in German…or was it Swiss? Heck, it could’ve been Russian. She just knew it wasn’t English, Italian or French. Tucked in one corner of the room, to the left of the stairs, two chairs upholstered in worn burgundy velvet flanked a small table. A man sat in one chair, his face obscured by a newspaper. The other chair stood unoccupied.

Mrs. Cheese stood behind the dark wood counter that served as the reception desk to the right of the stairs, speaking, in rapid-fire Italian, into a phone propped between her ear and shoulder.

No one, however, remotely resembled Signora Ciavelli. She stepped over to the window beside the heavy wooden door to peer outside. She experienced that same tingling awareness she’d felt the night before when she’d landed at the Marco Polo airport. Maybe it was something in the air here.

“Ms. Smith?”

Startled at hearing her name spoken in a masculine British voice, she whirled around…and found herself in heart-pounding close proximity to one of the sexiest men she’d ever encountered. Average height, dark hair worn a little longish, a lean jaw, dark eyes rimmed in thick dark lashes beneath heavy eyebrows and a hard, masculine mouth. “Yes. And you are…?”

Don’t let it be Signora Ciavelli with a sex change, which wasn’t as far-fetched as it might sound, considering her luck the past couple of days.

“Gage Carswell.” He thrust a very capable-looking hand with well-shaped fingers toward her. Because she wasn’t sure exactly why she shouldn’t, she shook hands with the man, whoever he was. His handshake was strong and firm without being a vice grip, and if she thought she’d tingled before… His touch resonated through her, all the way to her toes. “Signora Ciavelli had a medical emergency. She’ll be fine, but I’ll be taking her place this week.”

She’d never met him before, she was sure of it. But something about him teased at her, a familiarity she couldn’t quite identify.

“But you’re a man.” She realized how idiotic her comment sounded the moment it left her mouth.

“I’ve had occasion to notice.” His eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled, which further upped his make-her-heart-race quota.

“But I requested a woman. And a native.” She wanted Signora Ciavelli because they would blend in with the locals and Holly could feel relaxed around her. Gage Carswell didn’t appear to fit either criteria.

“So I understand. But I lived in Venice for a few years and I’m quite fluent in Italian.” To illustrate his point, he broke into the language. She thought he said he looked forward to showing her the beauty of Venice. But he could’ve said her butt was too wide and her hair disgustingly flat and she wouldn’t have known the difference.

The missing piece, however, clicked into place for her. He didn’t look familiar but he smelled familiar. And once he spoke Italian, she placed his voice.

The voice in the shower this morning, the scent that lingered in the steamy room. “You wouldn’t happen to be staying here at the hotel, would you?”

“I am. As luck would have it, the room next to yours was available and the agency put me in there.” She’d pegged her bathroom buddy as elderly and deaf. When she was wrong, she was really wrong. She didn’t want to think about him naked in the bathroom, but her mind seemed intent on painting just that picture for her—wet dark hair, water clinging to well-formed shoulders, white towel knotted low on his hips…

She nodded and worried her lower lip between her teeth. “I recognized your voice when you spoke Italian.”

He flashed a not-quite-contrite grin that set off butterflies in her tummy. “The singing this morning. Pardon that. I tend to get carried away.”

She was flexible. She could roll with the punches. She was not, however, this flexible. Gage Carswell was too male, too sexy…too everything. He just wouldn’t do. “Isn’t there someone else they can send for the week?”

“Was my singing that bad?” Another smile and that tingling blossomed into something that felt dangerously akin to lust.

She did not want to be charmed by him. She didn’t need the distraction. And he definitely wasn’t part of her plan.

She ignored his comment and his smile. “I wanted a Venetian native.”

“And I’m quite sorry that you have to make do with me. The agency has authorized me to refund half of what you paid in recompense.”

Well, this was a fine mess. She’d be hopeless navigating her own way around. And now she also had to spend money she hadn’t planned to spend to replace her luggage and clothes. If she settled for this guy, she got half of her money back. And being on a tight budget…

“Okay.” She just couldn’t muster being gracious.

His own smile seemed a tad tight. “So, according to what you’d arranged through the agency, we’ll have a spot of breakfast and then it’s off to Dorsoduro.”

That had been her plan, to check out the southwestern district, or sestiere, which was her mother’s last-known address. From what she’d read, it was an area of quiet neighborhoods and charming canals replete with tree-shaded squares, home to wealthy Venetians and foreigners. The Dorsoduro, however, would have to wait until this afternoon. “There’s a change of plans, Mr. Carswell. After breakfast, we’re going shopping.”

“Want to get the souvenirs out of the way up front?”

She knew her smile was grim. “No. We’re going to buy panties.”

4

HE’D UNDERGONE EXTENSIVE training in hand-to-hand combat, weaponry and guerrilla warfare tactics. He held a third-degree black belt and the powers-that-be considered him an expert in electronic surveillance. So it was ridiculous that one simple handshake and exchange with this woman had rattled his cage.

Still, one touch and the Gorgon had neatly thrown him for a loop, landing him on his figurative arse. No one had managed to put Gage Carswell in that situation since that first miserable week at boarding school when he’d been literally arse-ended into a rubbish bin by Geoff Winkley and his bully mates. Gage had sworn then and there he’d never find himself in that state again. Although this was figurative rather than literal, it was the same out-of-control feeling. He didn’t like it any better this time around.

She turned those brilliant aquamarine eyes on him and a spark kindled low in his belly. “Actually, I’m sure shopping for women’s underwear is more than you signed up for as a tour guide.” She shook her head and did a good job of looking chagrined, apologetic and annoyed all at once. “The airline lost my luggage, but there’s no reason both of us should be punished. If you can point me in the direction of a woman’s clothing store, I’ll manage. Just consider this morning a freebie and I’ll meet you back here, say around one?”

Light slanted through the window in the pensione lobby, tipping her brown lashes with gold. He wasn’t quite sure at all why she elicited such a response in him. Aside from her eyes, she possessed a quite ordinary face as he’d already noted.

A creamy complexion with a sprinkling of freckles across her nose, which was a bit longish, a mouth that was at close inspection full and plump, all set within an oval-shaped face. Average height—not gamine enough for cute, not tall and thin enough to merit striking, she looked like a nice young woman. Looks however, could be deceiving and, in her case, deadly, if one relaxed their guard.

Did she suspect he was a plant? She’d certainly been hacked to find him taking Signora Ciavelli’s place. Did she need the time alone to alert her contact of the companion change? None of it really mattered because she wasn’t going anywhere without him.

He summoned a smile. “Shopping in Venice is never a punishment. My agency would be most unhappy if I left you to your own devices.” That was an effing understatement. “But I’ll tell them—”

“If you go alone, I’ll simply have to follow at a distance to ensure you don’t get lost. I’m charged with your wellbeing here, and at YWI, we take that very seriously. Leaving you to wander about on your own could get me fired.” Surprisingly, that swayed her. He read it in her eyes the instant she decided it wasn’t worth the argument. He took her by her arm—once again feeling the energy swirling between them, through him—and steered her toward the door. “Let’s have a bite to eat and then we’ll go shopping.”