Slow Dance

It was the last thing that Caitlyn had expected to hear thousands of miles away from home on a piazza in Italy, but there was no mistaking the familiar tune and the lyrics of the sultry songstress singing Ella Fitzgerald.

Grinning like the cat that swallowed the canary, Duke dragged her with him through the loose crowd, to an empty spot beneath the illuminated fountain of Neptune. There, he pivoted, his open palm sliding around her waist to her lower back to press her against him while his free hand lifted hers. “Let’s dance.”

“There’s no one dancing!” she sputtered in a near-panic.

He merely grinned, politely refusing to accept her refusal. “There will be.”

“I—no! Duke—I—can’t!” Stumbling over the cobblestones, she clung to him, tripping over her own feet and his.

“Sure, you can,” he encouraged, reluctantly allowing some space between their bodies and directing her attention to his feet. “It’s a two-step. Easy-peasy for a woman with your IQ.