THEY arrived at an intimate little albergo in a tiny Alpine village. The hotel could have been on a postcard, it was so cute. All it needed was snow on the roof and icicles suspended from the roof to be complete. Though really, all it needed was what she had right here in front of her—a doting and crazy-handsome man at her disposal.
The place couldn’t have had but a handful of rooms, and the proprietor clearly had left no details forgotten.
“I’ve left explicit instructions with the staff to use the utmost discretion,” he told Zander as he greeted them both with a two-cheek kiss and led them to their second-story room with a stunning view of the mountains. “Lorenzo has taken care of all details.”
“Grazie, mille,” Zander said. “I really appreciate your help.”
Andi could only marvel at the turn of events. Only days earlier, she’d been hiking in the nearby Swiss Alps under fairly simplistic conditions: bread and cheese for meals, no shower for days, sleeping in the cheapest ostello available. And now she was being treated like, well, for lack of a better description, royalty.
Andi eyed the bed, with its massive goose-down comforter, and decided to dive on it. Zander laughed and joined her.
“Oh, God. I’ve never slept on something so soft before,” she said. “I might get too used to it.”
Zander leaned over her and settled his lips on hers.
They kissed for a few minutes, but then Zander sat up.
“As much as I’d like to continue this,” he said, his hand rubbing his chin as if contemplating his options, I’m going to display a rare show of discipline and drag you out of here before I change my mind. We have to be somewhere.”
With that he grabbed her hand and led her back to the car.
They drove for about twenty minutes into a valley and pulled into the parking lot of a small airport. With her very basic understanding of Italian, Andi didn’t recognize the words on the sign at the entrance.
But pretty soon she understood.
“Oh, no,” she said, shaking her head. “ Uh-uh. I am so not going up in the airplane and jumping out of it.”
Zander wrapped his arms around her from behind, nuzzling her ear. “I promise it will be the second most exciting thing you’ve done this week.”
“The first being?”
Zander arched an eyebrow.
Andi smiled. “And you seriously think scaring the crap out of me is going to rank up there with that?”
“I promise it’s amazing,” he said, squeezing her tightly. “The view is out of this world, and the sensation is intoxicating. We’ll jump together, and you’ll be paired up with someone so you’re not on your own.”
Andi scrunched her nose. “I promised my mother I’d be safe.”
“I promised your mother you’d be safe too.”
Andi looked at him with questioning eyes. “You talked to my mother about me going skydiving?”
Zander laughed. “I suppose you missed that memo. When I tried to track you down, I reached out to your mother. So when I decided to bring you here, I thought it would be the right thing to do to ask your mother’s approval. I know how mothers can be.” He kissed her cheek.
“I knew you’d texted her, but I had no idea you were still in touch,” Andi said. “Huh, so my own mother sells me out. She might as well have just come to push me out of the plane.”
Zander laughed. “She gave me permission to do that too.”
Andi turned around and pretended to bang her head into Zander’s chest, then said with resignation, “I guess I’m a victim of a grand conspiracy. Who am I to object to such collaboration?”
Zander lifted his brows, hopeful. “You’re ready to put on your jumpsuit?”
Andi held out her hands as if ready to be handcuffed. “I surrender. Take me.”
“Oh, trust me, I plan to do that later as well.”
Their pilot, who had been in the background rewrapping a parachute from an earlier jump, came over and introduced himself as Franco, then handed them both jumpsuits and goggles to put on.
They both stepped into them and then pulled goggles over their heads, laughing at the look.
“If only my mother could see me now!”
Franco went over all the instructions and introduced them to the men to whom they would be attached for the jump. They climbed into the small prop plane where they received more instructions about timing while they were harnessed to the men who were truly in charge of their lives for the next twenty minutes.
The plane took off and climbed skyward. Andi was so anxious she could practically taste metal in her mouth, her stress levels were so high.
“You sure this is a good idea?” she asked over the loud din of the plane. It was hard to hear or be heard between the roar of the propellers and engine.
Zander just gave her a thumbs-up while holding her hand.
“We will be first to jump,” her partner, Giancarlo said. Which didn’t exactly thrill her.
“Why me?”
He pointed at Zander, who shrugged and said, “I knew you’d never go otherwise!”
As they climbed, the pilot pointed out base jumpers nearby, those insane thrill-seekers who jump from sheer cliffs in bird suits. It only made Andi want to throw up.
“If I survive this, I may never forgive you, Alexander,” she said, grumbling.
“You sound like my mother using my formal name,” he said with a laugh.
“Yeah, well, maybe I’m starting to empathize with her a bit.” Andi shook her head.
They soon reached jumping altitude, and Giancarlo gave her a count of twenty, in which time she had to shimmy like an upended turtle with a human as a shell on her back, out onto a metal bar attached to the wing of the plane.
Don’t throw up. Don’t throw up. Don’t throw up, Andi muttered to herself, but of course no one could hear her because she was just barely connected to the airplane, with one hand on the bar and her feet dangling over the edge of the door frame, and then Giancarlo pushed from behind and they were free-falling from twelve thousand bloody damned feet, but the feeling was indescribable. Andi went from fear of death to complete sense of invincibility once she was away from the frightening propellers, perfectly happy that someone else was truly in charge of what she had to do, because if she had to remember the minutia she’d be a human pancake on the valley floor below in about a minute.
And then she was plummeting toward earth at a rate of speed that should have terrified her but suddenly felt amazing.
Her mouth was flapping with the force of the wind against her face, and she was grateful for those silly-looking goggles; her arms and legs were splayed as she and the now-most-important-man-in-her-life, Giancarlo, plummeted toward terra too-damned-firma. And then he motioned that he would release the parachute, and with a sharp tug from the force of air against the parachute, their descent slowed dramatically, and they drifted, taking in the spectacular panorama, from snow-capped mountaintops to the green valley below and waterfalls plunging from steep precipices. Only then did she look up to see Zander’s chute open, not far behind her, and she waved her arms wildly at him as she took in the view.
The four-minute descent went so quickly. Before she knew it, they’d landed with a hard thud on the ground, and Giancarlo detached their harnesses and she removed her goggles. Andi jumped up and down, squealing as Zander detached from his jumping partner and came running toward her and gave her a huge kiss.
“So?” he asked, his eyebrow raised.
“Omigod. Omigod. Omigod. It was the best thing I’ve ever done. Ever!” She was breathless with excitement.
“Ever?” Zander asked with a sideways glance, grinning.
Andi smiled. “Maybe you should remind me so I can compare and contrast.”
Zander stripped off his jumpsuit and urged hers off. “Your wish is my command.”