Chapter 3
Laney
Next morning, I had a ton of energy, even before my landlady, Giovanna, brought my morning espresso and my usual breakfast—mozzarella with tomatoes.
I ate at the small round table in my living room, glancing out the window.
The bougainvillea growing on one side of the facade was starting to bloom, and I could even see one of those gorgeous pink flowers from my window.
I tore my gaze away with great effort, focusing on the thick Lonely Planet travel guide in my lap.
I had three hours until the tour started.
My life in New York was so different from this.
I left my apartment at five thirty in the morning, and by the time I was back home, I was too tired to do anything more than sleep.
I was grateful that the hospital here was going easy on us overseas interns, and I made the best of my free time.
Saturday was my favorite day of the week.
Today I was even more excited than usual.
I took stock of my appearance before leaving. My hair was up in a ponytail, my jeans, simple white sweater, and sneakers ready for a day of exploration.
I swung a black leather backpack over my shoulder and stopped near a mini-market on the way that made sandwiches with focaccia and mozzarella. Since the tour was four hours, we might need a snack in between. I also bought water.
When I arrived at the Colosseum, Cole wasn’t there yet.
My gaze fell on a bride. The groom was right next to her, and they were having their picture taken.
Oh, they looked so beautiful. She was wearing a mermaid-style dress, and her hair was braided on one side.
She was smiling at her husband from ear to ear.
He was looking at her with pure adoration.
I pressed two fingers on my sternum, sighing.
Ryan, my late husband, had left this huge hole in my chest. Two years had passed since I lost him, and yet that hole was still there.
As my friend—and a very good therapist—Isabelle kept telling me I had to move on.
I knew that she was right, of course. I wanted to move on, but it was easier said than done.
I’d met Ryan in my first year of college, in Philly.
He’d been even more of a geek than me and pretty shy.
It took him four years to ask me out. When he finally did, he took me to a rerun of Star Wars, Episode III .
The whole thing had bored me to tears, but I’d discovered that I liked Ryan very much.
He’d made me laugh, and we’d talked until the early hours of the morning, crammed in his one-person bed in the student dorm.
We married in my fourth year of med school and had lived in an on-campus apartment. He’d been a post-grad in biochem. In my last year of med school, we’d started looking at houses. He’d enrolled in a PhD program, and we’d decided to stay in Philly. We’d had so many dreams and wanted so many kids.
We’d only been married for six months when he passed away from a heart attack.
He’d been suffering from a rare heart condition that had never been diagnosed.
The shock of it all had just numbed me. I barely remembered those last few months in Philly when I’d simply gone through the motions.
I’d grabbed at the chance to move to New York like the lifeline it had been.
I couldn’t stay in Philly or buy a house there anymore.
I didn’t want anything that reminded me of the life we had, or the one we’d dreamed about having.
With a sigh, I glanced away from the couple.
I checked the perimeter around the main entrance, looking for Cole.
Then I took out my phone to see if I had messages from him and discovered that Isabelle had sent me pictures of her new apartment last night.
Oh, I was so jealous that I hadn’t been there to celebrate this milestone with her.
“Morning, doc.”
I startled, looking up. Cole stood before me.
In the morning light, he looked even more gorgeous—all masculine and…
charming. He was smiling widely, and just like that, I felt the corners of my mouth tip up, even though I’d been melancholic a few minutes ago.
How could his mood influence me so easily?
“Hey! Was looking at some pics Isabelle sent me of her new apartment.”
“That’s right. My siblings were helping her move yesterday. Did you talk to her?”
“Yeah, on my way home yesterday. Can’t wait to be back in New York, help her out with things. It’s daunting to move to a new city.”
“She’s got my family, though. And you. So… brought her up to date?” He wiggled his eyebrows. This man!
“Yes. Told her about this guy I met last night. Very fun and willing to indulge my culinary wishes.”
“Sounds like you like him.”
I laughed, tilting my head playfully. “Just a little bit.”
“Poor schmuck. He’s got to up his game, doesn’t he?”
Hmm… that hadn’t been the answer I’d expected, but I suddenly wanted to know what that would entail.
“What’s with that smile?” he asked, eyes focused on me.
“Nothing you need to know.”
He took one step closer. “Tell. Me.”
Holy shit, had he meant to sound playful? Because it had come out all bossy. He was used to being in charge, to get everyone to do his bidding, that was for sure.
“Well, she did tell me about your nickname, and she wanted to know if you do it justice.”
“And what’s the verdict?”
I winked, suddenly feeling a little feisty. “I’ll reserve judgment until after the tour.”
“Game on, Ms. Smith.”
“No, no. Tour on. Game off.”
“We’ll see about that.”
His gaze was smoldering hot. Holy shit, this was going to be an interesting day if he upped the ante like this before the tour even started.
I pointed a finger at him. “Cole, I want to focus, so tone down that charm.”
“Oh, I’m distracting you? Like the sound of that.”
I pointed a finger at him. “Colosseum tour. Don’t hijack it. Afterward, everything is negotiable.”
He smiled triumphantly. “Four hours. Then I make the rules.”
Chuckling, I took a deep breath. “Let’s find our guide. By the way, where is your luggage?”
“Sent it to the airport with a special service.”
“When do you have to be there?”
“Six thirty.”
“Okay.”
Tourists and souvenir vendors milled around the Colosseum. We were surrounded by fragments of conversations, English mixed with Italian. We found the group easily, right next to the entrance, in the shade. It was a small group, just ten participants.
“I am not going to talk all the time,” the guide said.
“I will give you all the information when we reach a new level, and then you can just walk around at your pace, soak it all in. A word of warning: if you’re not in good shape, reaching the top will be challenging. The steps are old and very steep.”
I grimaced a little, because while the general mayhem at the hospital meant I was always on the move, climbing wasn’t my thing.
“I’ll carry you, if you want,” Cole whispered in my ear. I swatted him away playfully.
“We’d look ridiculous,” I whispered, but the idea didn’t sound half bad.
“I don’t give a fuck.”
“Might break your back, mister.”
“Lucky I have this sexy doc with me. She can take care of me.”
“I’m not equipped to heal a broken back right now,” I said.
“I’m sure we can find something that would work.
” He was looking at me intently. I burst out laughing even as heat rose in my cheeks.
I had no idea how he could make me blush and laugh at the same time.
I couldn’t wait to discover what else he could do.
My stomach bottomed out as I realized he was leaving in a few hours.
I was still feeling a little off-kilter as the guide asked us to line up.
The Colosseum was honestly one of the most impressive constructions I’d ever seen.
Looking at something of this size that was more than two thousand years old was surreal.
We started with the arena floor. Stepping onto a reconstructed wooden plank, we went right to the center of the arena where the gladiator battles took place.
Being surrounded by these ancient stones while listening to the bloody, violent history gave me goose bumps.
“Oh, before I forget. Need to send my parents a selfie.” I held my phone so that the stands were visible and smiled brightly.
“The Wi-Fi isn’t working; I checked.”
“I’ve got one of those portable modems in my backpack, and I’m already connected. I can give you the password.”
“No, don’t tempt me. I’m staying offline, otherwise I’ll go down the rabbit hole checking emails, and I just want to focus on you.”
“You mean our tour.”
“No. You.” This man! I couldn’t believe he was flirting so openly… or that I liked it so much. He grinned and, probably realizing I was in a dilemma, dropped it. “Why the portable modem?”
“I’m sending pics in real time, otherwise I forget.
And when it’s late in the evening here and I’m out and about in the city is also when my parents are awake, so we can easily communicate.
They love my pictures. Actually, I think they’d love Rome.
They can’t afford to travel, but as soon as I finish my residency, I’ll make enough money that I could easily pay for their vacations.
I told them this once, but they won’t even hear of it. For now.”
“You’re a remarkable person.”
“Thank you.”
“I mean it.”
He grinned. “For now, huh? I like how you think.”
“I don’t really get it. If I can afford it, why won’t they let me do something nice for them?”
“I know a thing or two about parents’ pride.
Between my siblings, my cousin, and me, we wanted to buy an apartment for my mom and her husband.
This is my mom’s second marriage; long story to tell another time.
Anyway, she raised hell. We eventually managed to convince her to let us chip in for the down payment.
It was the toughest negotiation. We had thought the same thing—we all make decent money, so why not let us take care of her? ”
My stomach was full of fuzzy feelings. Isabelle had told me a few things about the Winchesters. They’d moved from Boston to New York many years ago when their dad left the family and practically started over… kind of like me.
I also knew they were well off. The sisters, Tess and Skye, owned a lingerie store.
Ryker was working somewhere on Wall Street, and Cole and their cousin Hunter were at the helm of Caldwell Real Estate.
Isabelle had emphasized they were good people, but in this case, good didn’t even begin to cover it.
The guide then shushed us, and neither of us spoke again as we followed the group. When we walked through the “gate of death,” a stone archway through which the losers would be dragged to their demise, my skin crawled.
The underground level was next.
“Very few people are allowed down here. They give out a limited number of tickets,” I whispered to Cole, feeling ridiculously proud.
He just chuckled, putting an arm around my shoulders as if realizing that while I admired all of this, the dark history immortalized in these walls weighed on me.
A current of awareness jolted through me when he squeezed my shoulder lightly.
The underground, dubbed the dungeons, was where the gladiators and animals were held. As a doctor, I couldn’t even wrap my mind around how fast infectious diseases would spread.
Stone walls surrounded us, and we walked on a metal pathway deep under the arena.
The guide spoke, and the microphone clipped at her collar amplified her voice.
“The Romans had very advanced technologies. For example, they could flood the arena above completely to stage battle ships. We still don’t fully understand how that was possible, but we have detailed descriptions from the writers of the time, as well as the remnants of a few of those mechanisms to prove that this was accurate. ”
Cole knocked against the stones, leaning in to whisper, “Many things are still unknown about them. Like the materials they used for the mortar that holds these stones together. It’s legendary. Two thousand years and several earthquakes later, still standing.”
The guide shushed us again. I pressed my lips together, looking at Cole out of the corner of my eye. He looked like he was barely suppressing laughter too.
We went back up afterward, on to the upper levels. There were five levels above the arena, and holy hell, the guide hadn’t been joking when she’d said that the climb was steep.
“You can climb at your own pace,” the guide said. “You can also use this part of the tour to take a break and rest a bit. We still have two hours to go. I will wait for all of you at the top, and then I’m going to explain who was sitting on each level and so on.”
“I’ll carry that,” Cole said after the guide finished her explanation, pointing to my backpack. I gladly gave it to him.
“Oh, a gentleman. I didn’t peg you as one,” I teased.
“That’s because I’m not. You’ll see that soon enough.
After you, Ms. Smith.” He pointed to the stairs.
I couldn’t tell if the glint in his eyes was playful or mischievous.
My heart raced as we went up. He was walking right behind me, and just like last night, his proximity caused a deep hum in my body.
What exactly did he have in mind? Was I even ready to find out?
I wasn’t even sure I knew how to flirt anymore, but I planned to do my very best.