Chapter 26
CLEO
My head felt clearer this morning than it had in days. The talk on the balcony had worked. It had drawn the boundary I needed, put the night before in a box I could close and label and set aside.
I’d slept with Cash Bancroft. It had been incredible. And it was over. Now I could focus on what I’d come here for. I had done my part and now I could enjoy Rome. I wanted to appreciate the experience and the opportunity to do something just for me.
And if my chest felt a little hollow, that was fine. I’d get over it. I was operating in full-experience mode. I didn’t need to overthink things. We partied. We had sex.
I’m in fucking Rome. Hello. I am not about to let what happened between us ruin what is the trip of a lifetime.
I munched on the granola bar from the minibar.
It was probably going to cost Cash fifty bucks, but he could afford it.
I waited for him to finish getting ready.
If he thought he was going to stall me out of seeing Rome, he had another thing coming.
I’d go without him. I was a strong independent woman and I did not need a man to hold my hand.
But it would be nice to have a big strong guy watching my back in a foreign land.
Finally, he strolled back into the room, dressed in khakis and a dress shirt.
I was in a flowing skirt with purple and silver threads, comfy shoes, and a loud blouse, and he looked like he was about to go yachting.
At least he had the top three buttons of his shirt undone and his sleeves were rolled up his forearms.
“Ready?” I asked.
“Yes. The car is downstairs.”
That was when I realized he’d been hiding in his room waiting for the car. I couldn’t decide if I was offended. I felt offended but whatever. None of this was real.
And I’m in Rome.
We left the suite with my crossbody bag across my chest. I had my sunglasses, phone, and a credit card, but I knew Cash would handle any expenses. That had been the deal.
My face was practically glued to the window as the driver navigated through the city, which was amazing. Any direction I looked, there was something cool to see. Old buildings, fountains, and so many people from all over the world.
And then we were there. The place I’d seen a thousand times in textbooks, documentaries, and even a few movies.
But standing here, looking up at the arches and the crumbling stone and the size of it, it was clear the pictures paled in comparison to the actual Colosseum.
It was something that had to be seen in person.
“Holy shit,” I whispered.
Cash glanced at me. “That bad?”
“That good.” I turned in a slow circle. “It’s just, it’s still here. You know? Two thousand years and it’s still standing in the middle of a modern city. Like time ignored it. Just let it be.”
“You sound like a tour guide.”
“I’m about to sound like a walking Wikipedia entry, so buckle up, Bancroft.” I grinned at him. “Did you know the Colosseum could hold between fifty and eighty thousand spectators? And they had a retractable awning system to provide shade?”
“I did not know that.”
“Well, now you do. You’re welcome. Save all questions until the end of the tour.”
Cash smiled at that. “I’ll try to restrain myself.”
Our guide met us at the entrance, a woman named Francesca with immaculate English.
Cash told me he had arranged this VIP tour last minute.
I had no idea what VIP meant. Apparently, it meant we got to skip every line and go places the regular tourists didn’t get to go.
I was trying very hard not to think about what that had cost. Or what strings he had pulled.
He was a Bancroft. Their world was not something I would ever understand. I had a feeling few people could understand the access their wealth gave them.
Francesca led us through the ground level first, explaining the layout and the engineering.
I hung on every word. I took pictures and made Cash stop so I could get a panoramic shot of the arena floor.
Despite my earlier joke, I asked Francesca at least six questions that made her warm up to me considerably.
“You’re interested in history?” she asked as we descended a staircase into the lower levels.
“Obsessed,” I admitted. “When I was a kid I had posters of Pompeii and the Pyramids all over my bedroom walls. My friends thought I was weird.”
“You were weird,” Cash said from behind me.
I threw him a look over my shoulder. “Still am weird. It’s part of my charm.”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t charming.”
I stumbled on the next step. Francesca caught my elbow, steadying me, and gave me a knowing smile that made my cheeks burn.
We descended into the labyrinth, two levels of tunnels and chambers carved directly into the earth beneath the arena floor.
The stone was cool and damp, lit now with modern lights that cast long shadows across the ancient walls.
I could see the grooves where cages had been anchored.
The channels for the pulley systems. The trapdoors that would have opened onto the sand above.
“They kept animals down here,” Francesca explained, gesturing to a series of small chambers.
“Lions. Bears. Exotic beasts brought from across the empire. And the gladiators waited in these rooms.” She pointed to another set of cells.
“From here, they could hear the crowd above. The screams of those that had gone before them while they prepared to fight.”
I closed my eyes and tried to imagine it. The roar of eighty thousand people. The heat. The fear. The machinery groaning as platforms rose through the floor, delivering death or glory or both. If these walls could talk.
No. I didn’t want them to talk. I didn’t want to feel what those pour souls had experienced. I would have shat myself without a doubt. It was horrible. Terrible. Intriguing, though.
“Being here is incredible,” I breathed.
Francesca smiled. “I’ll leave you here for fifteen minutes to explore on your own. I’ll wait for you at the top of the stairs. Holler if you need me.”
She disappeared up into the dim stairwell, and suddenly it was just Cash and me standing in a two-thousand-year-old piece of history.
It was definitely spooky, and if it wasn’t for the six-foot-something guy with me, no way in hell would I have stayed down here. Gladiator ghosts? Hell no.
“This is the coolest thing I’ve ever done,” I said.
Cash was leaning against one of the walls, arms crossed, watching me with an expression he got sometimes. It was one I couldn’t quite read. “You really were obsessed with this stuff.”
“Are you kidding? I wanted to be an archaeologist for like three years.” I ran my hand along the stone.
“My mom took me to the natural history museum in New York when I was ten and I saw the Temple of Dendur and I was gone. I checked out every book the library had on ancient Egypt. Drove my parents insane talking about mummification. And I might have treated my cats like sacred animals.”
He grinned and shook his head. “Wait, let’s rewind to the bit about mummification.”
“I was very thorough about my interests.” I wandered deeper into the network of tunnels, Cash following behind me. “I had this whole fantasy that I’d grow up and discover a lost tomb somewhere. Be the next Howard Carter. Find treasure and cursed tablets and become famous.”
“Was that the guy who died from a mummy curse?”
I smiled and nodded, impressed he’d caught the reference. “The ‘curse’ was probably just the mold they inhaled in King Tut’s tomb, but yeah, that’s the guy.”
“Damn. So why didn’t you pursue this? You clearly love it.”
“I got to high school and realized I was terrible at science.” I laughed.
“Also, I discovered fashion. And boys. And the fact that being an archaeologist means spending a lot of time in the dirt, which is not really my vibe. And living in a tent in some faraway place without running water, toilets, and internet is definitely not my thing.”
“No?”
“I like my creature comforts.” I turned to face him. “But I still love the history. The idea that all these people lived and loved and fought and died, and we’re walking where they walked. It makes me feel small. In a good way.”
He was quiet for a moment, just looking at me. “You would have made a good archaeologist. Very Lara Croft.”
“You think?”
“You’re relentless when you want something. Thorough. Detail oriented.” He pushed off the wall and came closer. “You would’ve found your lost tomb.”
I didn’t want to like him. I couldn’t like him. I was leaving and our only interactions would be at family functions involving Melody and Austin.
“Thanks, Lurch.”
“What would you have done with it?”
“The tomb?”
“Yeah.”
I thought about it. “Donated everything to a museum. Made sure it was preserved properly. Maybe written a book about it.” I grinned. “Definitely would have named it after myself. The Quinn Tomb has a nice ring to it.”
He laughed. The sound echoed through the tunnels, bouncing off stone and history. I felt my stomach flip over.
“I always wanted to be Cleopatra,” I admitted before I could stop myself.
Cash went very still. “Did you?”
“She was brilliant, you know. Spoke like nine languages. Politically savvy. Powerful. Sexy.”
“You’d be a very sexy Cleopatra.”
“Would I?”
“Absolutely.” His voice had dropped half an octave. “The purple streak alone. Very historically accurate.”
“I don’t think Cleopatra had any purple hair.”
“She would have if the technology existed. Purple used to be the color of royalty.”
I laughed, breaking the moment before it could pull me under completely. “What about you? What were you into as a kid?”
He shrugged. “Math. Computer science. Economics.”
“Ew.”
“It’s not ew.”
“It’s extremely ew.” I wrinkled my nose. “You were that kid who did extra credit, weren’t you? Who reminded the teacher when she forgot to assign homework?”
“I was efficient.”
“You were a narc.”
He laughed again and the sound filled the whole underground. I was standing in my dream with my dream guy.
Oh no.
No. Definitely not my dream guy. He can’t be my dream guy. He’s Cash Bancroft. Nothing about him checks any of my boxes.
Not really.
He wasn’t the asshole I’d convinced myself he was.
He wasn’t the uptight, spreadsheet-loving robot who’d made my life difficult and looked at me like I was an inconvenience.
He was kind. Thoughtful. He’d held me when I cried.
He’d pushed me toward my dreams when I’d been too scared to reach for them myself.
He’d kissed me like he owned me. Maybe like I owned him. Gave me amazing orgasms.
And now I was stuck in Rome with him for another day and a half, trying to keep a boundary I’d already started resenting. I was trying to remember why I said we couldn’t do that again.
I cleared my throat. Forced myself not to think about last night.
“We should go,” I said. “Francesca’s waiting.”
We climbed back up into the light. I had to take a breath of fresh air to clear my head.
“Car’s waiting,” Cash said.
“Let’s walk,” I said.
He looked surprised. “It’s hot.”
“You’re the one that got dressed up to look at old stuff.”
“Fine, where are we walking to?”
“No idea. That’s the point.”
He sighed and then nodded. “All right.”
I didn’t have a map and I didn’t care. We turned down side streets and cut through alleys and followed the sound of music until we emerged into a sun-washed courtyard that felt like something out of a postcard.
There was a fountain in the center where a group of young women sat on the stone steps with sunglasses and paperback books.
Music poured out of a café on one side, something jazzy and warm.
A restaurant had claimed half the courtyard with small tables and cheerful yellow umbrellas.
“Here,” I said immediately.
Cash raised an eyebrow. “Here?”
“It’s perfect. Let’s have lunch.”
We sat. A waiter appeared almost instantly, and Cash ordered us wine in flawless Italian that made my knees feel unstable.
I pulled out my phone while he ordered and pretended to check my messages, but really I was watching him—the way he gestured when he spoke, the way the waiter lit up and became animated in response.
When the waiter left, Cash rolled his sleeves up to his elbows.
I watched him do it. I couldn’t help it. His forearms were ridiculous. All muscle and tendon and golden skin. I wanted to lick him. Start at the wrist and go all the way up to his shoulder. Across his chest.
He raked his fingers through his hair.
I swallowed and squeezed my legs together. He was hard to look at. No, he was too easy to look at, which made it hard because I couldn’t just look. I fantasized.
My phone sat on the table and I had a sudden need to tell Melody.
Me: Okay, I think I get the whole Bancroft thing now.
The wine arrived. Cash poured for both of us. I took a long drink and tried to focus on anything other than the way his shirt fit across his shoulders or the small patch of skin visible at his throat.
“Thank you,” I said.
He looked up. “For what?”
“The tour. The VIP treatment. Letting me nerd out about dead Romans for an hour.”
“You were in your element.”
“I really was.” I smiled. “I’m going to be completely insufferable about this for the rest of my life.”