Wish You Weren't Here

Chapter 8

Ava

My wits have fully recovered (almost) and I’m ready to face day two.

I will no longer let the chaos of this place control me, nor will I let Ethan’s shortsightedness ruin my plans for our future together. I’ll give myself one more day to cool down, then I’ll use that five-minute calling card and someone else’s phone to do what I do best—convince and persuade. As for Italy—I’m gonna beat her crazy ass into submission. Gonna make this country my bitch. I’m determined to give my mom the authentic study abroad experience that I promised—but my way. Controlled. On my terms.

So I’ve put the bullshit that was yesterday behind me with a solemn promise to stay wine-free and pill-free for the near future, and got a fullish night’s rest (not including some pesky graphic dreaming and a few sheep sound wake-ups), and I’ve showered (albeit a far colder shower than the first), and dressed in my most professional pencil skirt and blouse and twisted my hair into a no-nonsense updo. This is my take-me-seriously-or-else outfit. My don’t-fuck-with-me outfit. My—

“Ms. Graham.” There is a gentle knock on the guest house glass and I turn away from my reflection in the mirror to find Dean Russo outside with a tray in one hand. My room-service-from-a-dean outfit.

I push the door open with a smile.

“Buongiorno, Dean Russo,” I say.

Yep. I practiced my Italian from the phrase book my mother gave me years ago. Well into the night, because I broke the jet lag rule by taking a nap—and it took hours to settle the anger from he-who-shall-not-be-named. I refuse to be the only monolingual human in every room here.

“Buongiorno, Signorina Graham,” he says, matching my smile and handing off the tray with an unnamed pastry and a steaming cup of cappuccino.

I take the tray, inhale, and nearly faint. “Oh my goodness. This smells amazing.” I turn and place the tray on the small table by the door. “Grazie.”

“I was hoping you could take it to go, veramente. I’d like for us to walk to campus together,” Leo says.

Walk? This is not my walking-for-miles-in-the-sweaty-countryside outfit. I glance down at the ridiculously overpriced pumps Tammy forced me to borrow and see their future demise. I can still hear her clucking at me and shoving them into my perfectly organized suitcase. “There is nothing the Italians respect more than fine footwear.”

“I’d love that,” I say. “Let me just change my shoes.”

I kick them off, slip into some flats, and grab my purse and the goodies from the tray, double-fisting like a pro.

“Pronto?”

“Sì,” I nod, trying not to slosh any cappuccino on me as I kick the door shut behind me.

It takes us a bit to find our rhythm as we make our way around the pool and onto the gravel road that James drove in on. My purse has to be shifted several times, and my stride is limited in the tight skirt, but eventually we fall into an easy pace that lets me enjoy the warm, foamy beverage without the threat of outfit ruination. We wind along the hill in companionable silence, nothing but the sound of my ladylike chewing and slurping to interrupt the peace around us. I go to wipe foam off my lip and I realize it’s sweat. It is too early in the morning for it to be this hot.

“Fa caldo, no?” Leo asks, reading my mind or my lip sweat. “This heat wave has made everyone restless. Even the sheep cannot sleep.”

“I hadn’t noticed,” I lie. I’d had to put ear plugs in to drown out the bleating.

“Fortunamente, the amphitheaters are air-conditioned. You’ll find most of the students arrive at class early and stay late because their dormitories are not.”

I smile. “Perhaps they are just eager to learn.”

“Ah, yes. That must be it.” He winks my way and I marvel at the fact that I can’t find a single bead of sweat on his tanned face. He’s dressed to the nines. Gray linen suit pants without a single wrinkle, a matching vest, the jacket slung over his shoulder. He reminds me of the guy from the Dos Equis commercials. The Most Interesting Man in the World. We come to a fork in the road and he nods to a little stone wall in front of us.

“Leave your mug there,” he instructs. “We will grab it on our way home.”

I do as I’m told.

“Is that the way into Urbino?” I ask pointing to the road not taken.

He nods. “Sì. Forse, James can show you the city today.”

I count to three before I answer. I don’t want to reject the idea over-eagerly, and be she-who-doth-protest-too-much.

“I always like to get to know a city on my own—form an independent opinion,” I explain.

He lifts his dark brows at me. His eyes are a dazzling shade of blue, lighter than the pool water at the villa. Finally, he pulls his lips downward and makes a sound like “vabbè,” lifting his shoulders to his ears, palms out and forward.

It’s the Italian gesture for whatever. And I like it.

“Vabbè,” I repeat, mimicking his movement.

He chuckles.

“Not bad,” he says.

Campus comes into view as we round the final curve, and I’m surprised by the modernity of it all. Walls of glass and brick topped with cement make a dozen little boxes set into the hills that rise above us. They seem to be squatting all around a gray paved courtyard where the massive central building sits.

“Benvenut’alla nostra università,” Leo says, gesturing to all of it with his hands.

The contrast of the architecture from what I witnessed the night before has me reeling a bit as I follow him across the expansive cement space toward the double metal doors leading into a huge circular building.

“You will be assisting our summer course with the highest enrollment,” Leo tells me over his shoulder. “Pastore will approve this, naturally, when he returns—he told me you were up for any challenge.”

I nod, wishing that I could hear this approval firsthand, but asking Leo for further information seems like an insult after all that he’s done for me. The sun catches the white in his hair and blinds me as he pulls open both doors to the main building. A rush of cold air smacks me and I hurry inside onto the tile floor, looking around at the high glass curves of the wall that stretches along my left side.

“This center circle houses the lecture halls,” Leo says, his shiny leather shoes making a satisfying click on the tile that echoes off the ceiling three stories above my head. I wish I’d worn my heels so I could make that sound. That sound is power.

He leads me to the right.

“Eccola,” he says, opening his palm toward another double door. “This is it.”

I take a deep breath and nod. This is what I’m good at—what I love—structure and school and impressing the hell out of people. Taking initiative and accomplishing more than asked. Plans and checklists and syllabi. Time to do my thing.

He opens the door for me and I step inside a huge semicircular amphitheater that stretches down and around to a center pedestal. I look over my shoulders to find that there are two balconies behind me on either side—like an opera house. Almost every seat in the space is full, and when the heavy metal door shuts behind Dean Leo and me, close to a hundred heads turn toward us.

“Salvete, studenti,” Leo says in his booming voice.

There’s a murmur of greeting and I lift my hand and give an all-encompassing wave. My hand freezes midair when my eyes land on the annoyingly handsome man standing at the pedestal at the bottom of the theater. In perfectly fitted gray pants and a crisp white button-down with a thin wine-colored tie, he no longer could be mistaken for the hired help. Behind him, a huge projector screen is alight with an image of Urbino at night. It is the exact angle of the city that this man showed me last night. It takes my mind a moment to understand why he of all people would be standing below at the epicenter of the lecture hall. His dark eyes widen and his lips part slightly as he takes me in, then he shakes his head once and narrows his eyes at the handsome older man standing beside me. And like that—snap—it all clicks into its dreadful, unwanted place.

On a breath, I hear myself whispering. “No. Nope. No. You’ve got to be kidding me. This is f—”

“I will leave you to it then, no?” Leo says loudly, drowning me out as he pats my back once.

I barely hear the sound of the metal door swinging open and closing behind me with a thud over the blood rushing up my carotid artery to my brain. The spin I felt last night at the table starts again.

“Welcome to art history,” James says into the microphone. “I am Professore Massini—”

I back toward the doors hoping I can get a moment to collect myself outside, but James has other plans.

“—and this is my assistant for the four-week course, Ava Graham.”

I wish his balls were within kicking distance.