The September weather was bright and warm as they crossed the lagoon, passing by the Piazza San Marco and the Bridge of Sighs on the way to their hotel. Venice. Talos had never expected to return here again. But sometimes, he thought grimly, a man had to change the playbook in the middle of the game. He would do whatever it took, be as romantic a fool as any man could be, in order to lure Eve into marriage before her memory returned. He looked down at her in his arms as they crossed the water of the canal. Her eyes shone with wonder, her full pink lips were slightly parted as she gazed around the city with awe. The same way every man who saw Eve looked at her. Even right now in this water taxi. The young Italian driver kept glancing back in his mirror. Talos’s bodyguard, Kefalas, was sitting in the seat behind them, and even he had looked at Eve a bit longer than strictly necessary. Eve was freshly showered and had changed her clothes on his private flight from London. Her dark hair now fell in thick, glossy waves past her bare shoulders, brushing the nipples Talos could easily picture beneath that clinging red jersey dress.
