Chapter Five Guinevere #2
My grin was so wide it hurt my cheeks, dimples digging trenches into my face.
Raffa got up with a murmur about making me an espresso, and I tipped my face into the sun, closing my eyes to smell the jasmine blooming in the flower boxes along the terrace’s stone railing.
I let myself wonder what it might be like to live this kind of life every day, waking up in a palace and having breakfast on the terrace in Florence’s most exclusive neighborhood.
Instead of going to work at my father’s financial firm every day, I would bike through the streets to the Uffizi Gallery, where I could give tours to English tourists on the bevy of art and artifacts on display.
I could come home every night to Raffa, tie discarded, buttons undone to his sternum to reveal the crisp black chest hair I’d pressed my nose into while I was too delirious with sickness to truly enjoy it.
We’d cook dinner and listen to jazz and dance under the moonlight.
I snorted at my own silliness, shaking my head to clear it of those childish fantasies.
There was an Italian saying my father had told me, vivere nel mondo della luna , which kind of meant living with your head in the clouds.
My entire life, I’d been dreaming of traveling to other places and being a different kind of person. I wasn’t going to waste my opportunity now that it was here by fantasizing about something that would never happen.
Of course, that was easier said than done when Raffa drove us to Via de’ Tornabuoni, which I knew from researching Florence inside and out was the most exclusive shopping street in the city.
I gawked out the window as we pulled up outside a large boutique and watched a uniformed valet move toward the car.
“When you said shopping , I was kind of expecting a Forever 21 or something,” I murmured as a gorgeous older woman strutted by in a pencil skirt and high heels that should have made it impossible for her to walk at all.
Raffa huffed something like a laugh but otherwise didn’t respond, getting out of the car to hand his keys to the eager driver. Before I could pull myself together to leave the car, he was at my door, opening it and then offering me his hand.
I blinked up at him dumbly because no one had ever opened the door for me, let alone helped me out of my car. My father didn’t even do it for my mother because she said it was antiquated and she knew damn well how to open the door of a car herself.
And sure, even recovering as I was, I could have levered myself out of the low Ferrari with minimal effort and much less grace.
This was just a much lovelier alternative.
I slipped my hand over his calloused palm and allowed his strength to pull me gently out of the car ... and into his body. The hard length of his chest pressed against my small breasts, and the heat of him seared me through to the bone.
My mouth dropped open in an inaudible gasp as I tipped my head back to look up at him.
He was staring down at me almost somberly, those copper eyes tracing my features.
I was close enough to notice how square his chin was, the nick of an old scar white against the tanned skin at the corner of his jaw.
“Do not be embarrassed when we go in,” he ordered.
“You are not the kind of woman who should wear cheap American cloth, and I am not the kind of man to buy it for you. We will go inside together, and you will let me buy for you what I want simply because I want to and it will bring me joy. You understand?”
I pursed my lips and narrowed my eyes at him. “You know, you’re really bossy, but it’s hard to take umbrage at it when you’re also being insanely generous.”
He gave me that one-shouldered shrug, like my concerns were beneath him and he knew he would get what he wanted in the end.
Why was that brand of arrogance so sexy?
Without another word, he shifted a hand to my lower back and pressed me forward to walk slightly in front of him toward the store.
“Signore,” a woman greeted him instantly when we walked in. She smiled beatifically as she moved toward us, hands open in greeting. “It has been too long.”
“Maria Lucia.” They exchanged brief kisses on both cheeks before Raffa presented me with a little push to the base of my spine. “This is my friend, Guinevere ...”
“Stone,” I supplied, offering my hand to Maria Lucia. “Nice to meet you.”
She blinked at my outstretched hand and then dissolved into a warm smile, grasping me lightly by the shoulders to kiss the air beside both my cheeks.
When she spoke, her English was flawless. “Hello, Guinevere Stone. I see you need some clothing?”
Her gaze trailed over Raffa’s shirt, which was belted at my waist with a Gucci scarf and paired with my hastily repaired sandals.
A blush warmed my cheeks like a sunburn, but before I could open my mouth to explain, Raffa was taking my hand to lead me to the nearest display.
“ Si , she needs a new wardrobe for summer. Is Maria Teresa working with you today?” When she nodded, he went on. “Good. When you have picked out some outfits, tell her I will pay her extra to go gather shoes and accessories for Guinevere while she wraps everything up here.”
“Raffa,” I started to complain when I lifted the tag on a linen dress and saw it was €1,500. “Please, I can’t afford—”
He lifted his buzzing cell phone from his pocket and raised a single finger to hush me. “I must take this. Maria Lucia, please ignore whatever protests Signorina Stone gives you, and if she is reluctant to shop, choose for her, capisci ?”
Before either of us could respond, he turned on his heel and strode for the door, answering the phone with a short, sharp “ Pronto .”
I blinked after him, then turned with a little wince to face Maria Lucia again.
She was grinning at me conspiratorially. “It is best, I’ve found, not to argue with Signore Romano.”
Romano. Well, at least I knew his last name now. Maybe I could google him from the changing room to find out who exactly my fabulously wealthy benefactor was.
“He’s a little overbearing,” I agreed with a sigh, trying to think about how much money I could afford to give Raffa for this designer wardrobe he was insisting on.
I had the ten grand saved for my trip, but some of that had already been spent on the apartment I’d rented and still hadn’t seen, and the few excursions I’d booked, including a day trip to Volterra to see the Etruscan ruins.
Now that Raffa had made an appointment this afternoon to expedite my replacement passport, I’d have access to my accounts again by next week, which was frankly a massive relief. Because it meant I didn’t have to divulge the details of my trouble to my parents.
I agreed with Raffa to a certain extent. They deserved to know I’d been really sick and maybe even hurt, but I wasn’t going to tell them enough to jeopardize my trip.
For the first time in twenty-three years I was doing something for me , and I wouldn’t give that up without a fight.
“Don’t stress,” Maria Lucia encouraged me with a gentle pat to my forearm. “Signore Romano is a very successful man. He can afford to spoil his ragazza .”
“Oh, I’m just a friend,” I corrected, awkwardly moving my hands as if I could erase the question from the air between us. “Not even a friend, really. He’s just helping me out.”
“Of course,” she soothed, but the creases beside her smiling eyes said otherwise. “Let’s get to work, either way. He is not a man who likes to be kept waiting. You are a size forty, I think? Yes. Do you have favorite colors?”
“Maybe just neutrals. I don’t usually wear bright colors.”
“Red.”
I jerked my head around to see Raffa coming back into the store, his phone still pressed to his ear, one hand covering the microphone.
“I don’t really . . .”
“Red,” he repeated. “It is my favorite color.”
Oh.
He turned away from us to speak into the phone again, pacing the front of the store.
I didn’t know what to think about him wanting to see me in his favorite color. It felt somehow inappropriate.
Intimate.
Like he’d imagined me in shades of red and found himself pleased with the image.
“Well then, we better find some lovely shades of red,” Maria Lucia said with a wink before gently leading me deeper into the store, chattering away about Gucci’s new summer line and Valentino’s to-die-for poppy patterns.
I let her compile an excessive number of outfits, all of them hanging together in the spacious changing room at the back of the store when she practically pushed me inside to try them all on.
I wasn’t a fan of shopping on the best of days, but only because I’d never really gone shopping with friends or even my mother or sister growing up.
Being ill so much had barred me from those little pleasures, and I hadn’t realized until now, trying on a slightly sheer black tank dress, how much I wished I’d had that time with Mom and Gemma.
Maria Lucia and Maria Teresa both cooed and exclaimed over me each time I emerged from the room to show them my outfits, fussing over me as they pinched the fabric at my waist and tried to prop my small breasts up more appealingly in low-cut tops.
They’d pulled things for me I’d usually never wear in a million years: a citrus-yellow maxi skirt and white silk cropped shirt, a sunset-orange midi dress with a sweetheart neckline, and a long, form-fitting dress that made me look like I was dipped in liquid gold silk.
Everything was too bold, too extravagant, utterly inappropriate for my simple life back home in Ann Arbor.
But even I had to admit, as I twirled in an almost backless white linen shift dress, that it was the perfect wardrobe for a summer in Italy.