Chapter 21
Twenty-One
Lexi
I’m dying inside, death by unreleased giggles. Mark’s obvious attempt to stop his cousins from revealing the heart of Italy was epic. This round goes to me, that’s for sure, even if I didn’t get an answer.
Mariella flags down a waiter for a bottle of water to relieve Mark’s supposed food-lodged throat.
My phone, facedown on the table, chirps with a new message. It’s still early for Julie or any clients to be awake, so I flip it over, curious who would contact me right now.
It’s Mark. He must have texted me under the table. I pull the screen close to my face.
Luca saw the picture you sent last night. Should I tell him the creepy stalker was you?
No, no, no. I just met these people and I like them.
“Mark seems fine,” I tell Mariella. “The water is not necessary, right, Mark?” I emphasize those particular words, hoping he gets the message loud and clear.
He stretches, chest out. Gloating about besting me in this next battle. “Right. I’m perfectly fine.” He pauses and taps his chest like he’s checking for more cough. “For now.”
I hold in a grin and shake my head in silent acknowledgment that we’ve reached an impasse.
The waiter removes our pasta bowls, brings out salmon with asparagus on indigo stoneware plates, and tells Luca that one of his sous chefs needs him for a second in the kitchen. Luca wipes his mouth and slips away with a quick apology.
Two seconds later, Mariella’s phone rings and she takes the call over by the bathrooms. Only Mark and I are left at the table.
We both speak at the same time.
“So, stalker lady—”
“I swear I didn’t know Mariella was your cousin.”
He purses his lips and raises doubtful eyebrows. “Evidence is stacking against you, Ms. Walker. Or should I say Stwalker?”
I clap a hand to my mouth. “Stop,” I tell him through my fingers. “I’ll laugh wine through my nose.”
“And that’s supposed to deter me?” He looks pleased with himself, and that satisfied smile is irresistible.
I can’t hold my amusement in any longer, except, after bottling it up so long, it comes out as a snort. Very attractive, Lexi.
Luca returns and looks between both of us. “What did I miss?”
I press my lips together. Anything I say is a minefield.
Mark shrugs at his cousin.
The metal legs of Luca’s chair scrape on the brick floor as he sits and pulls it close to the table.
“He didn’t try out one of his infamous puns, did he?
When he speaks in English, they spew out like a burst pipe.
He can’t help it.” Luca glances up at Mariella rejoining us.
“Plus, he’s sleep deprived with jet lag and then a text in the middle of the night from a crazy American woman shook him up. ”
Crazy? I choke on my fish. “Sorry, bone.”
Just because I was awake in the night, now I’m crazy?
Luca turns to his sister. “Did you hear about this bet he has?”
The siblings exchange significant, concerned glances, and a protective instinct rises unbidden in me. Not for my own reputation, but for Mark.
I squeeze the rest of my lemon into my water. “First, his humor is great. Also, the middle of the night here is evening in the States. I’m sure there’s a good reason for the text.”
Mark stares at me, and for a quick moment surprise and something else deepens his expression.
A man who gives up his seat in first class for an elderly gentleman, who lifts kids up on his shoulders, who helps his rival fill out forms—that’s a man I respect. Which makes me want to play nice.
Although I shouldn’t be playing at all. I let the competitive sparring inch too close to flirting.
I twist in my seat so our knees aren’t touching.
He’s off-limits. So even if it felt for a few minutes like our sparks could lead to warmth, that’s not what this is.
It’s a competition that ends on Thursday, nothing more.
Except for that, it’s me and Italy and Mom. Every time I’m with Mark, I seem to forget that. One more reason to get away from him.
Look away. Now.
Breaking our locked, intense gaze is harder than it should be. What about Katie? I want to hiss. Instead, I frown hard at him. He swallows and looks away first, releasing me.
I stand. “I should be—”
Mark pushes back from the table at the same time, sliding his keys and phone into his pocket.
“—leaving.” I’m trying to bolt. He’s not coming with me, is he?
But his face registers alarm, as if I’m trying to follow him. It seems we’re both trying to get away from the other.
“Same. I have work to do. Later, guys. Nice meeting you,” he adds to me, for the sake of our charade, but he doesn’t make eye contact. His face is closed off—an expression I recognize from the plane.
He heads back through the restaurant kitchen before any of us can react.
It’s very un-Italian of me to rush the end of a delicious meal with friends, but those last few moments rattled me. I set enough euros to cover my part on the table and tell Luca again how delicious his food was.
Mariella hops up, frowning. “I’ll walk you out, Lexi.”
The diners seated at the tiny tables outside the restaurant, shoved against the side of the building, are half-hidden by potted shrubs.
The rest of the street is lined with probably over a hundred parked motorcycles nearly eclipsing the store entrances, as if every driver’s philosophy was there’s always room for one more.
Mariella turns to me. “Are you okay? You seemed in a hurry all of a sudden.”
I trace a smooth cobblestone with my shoe. “I’m sorry. I had a great time, but I have a lot to do and only a few days here.”
She searches my face, then pulls out her phone. “Let’s exchange numbers. In case you need anything while you’re here or maybe you can hang out with me and my friends sometime.”
I would love to get to know her, and I consider asking if she knows the temple I’m looking for, but it’s too risky.
I just met her, and what if she leaked the image onto social media before the unveiling?
That would steal all the excitement from the festival’s climax and diminish my mom’s moment of homage.
Plus, part of me is afraid to insert myself any more into Mark’s family. He clearly doesn’t want that. No. More. Mark.
The distant honks, voices, and buzz of Vespas is a reminder that we’re tucked away in a major international city. I’m reluctant to give up this quiet corner, but lunch took longer than expected, and I missed my prepaid tour of the Sistine Chapel in St. Peter’s Basilica.
Choosing between people I meet in Italy and my schedule was never on my radar of possible issues.
I key in Mariella’s number, then text her so she has mine.
“Thank you for inviting me. It was amazing meeting you and your family. And thanks for keeping it under wraps that I’m Reena Brooke’s daughter.
To me, she’s Mom. I like to keep that separate from her fame. ”
“Of course. And get to know people on your own terms, not under her shadow, I’m sure.”
I bite my lip. Her fame isn’t the shadow I have to live with every day.
She hugs me, and I speed-walk to Vatican City, ignoring the temptation to stop and peruse the artwork for sale along the tree-lined avenue by the rushing river.
That’s what I would have done with Mom. She would disapprove of the way I’m letting my schedule cut the wonder out of experiencing Italy, but I can’t change the way grief has intensified my need for control.
Besides, I stepped out of the plan for a few hours and ended up flirting with an engaged man and nearly broke into tears at the loss of Mom’s lira on my necklace. So clearly that lunch was a bad idea.
Inside the busy, fortified city, all the signs on the tour company placards say SOLD OUT. The massive square is filled with lines of people who already hold tickets for the rest of the day’s tour times, or who have been standing in the hours-long line to view St. Peter’s Basilica for free.
I let loose an “agh” with my outside voice, but the square is so loud with animated tourists that no one notices. “That’s just peachy. More rearranging.”
Muttering under my breath and rolling my tight shoulders, I pull out my itinerary.
I’m running out of alternative times, squeezing activities into shorter slots.
I add the Basilica tour to Thursday afternoon, after a visit at the Pantheon that will have to be a dash-through.
The only font size that fits my new addition in the tiny space is six point, which I can’t even read without squinting. “And that’s with Arial Narrow!”
At my outburst, a startled woman nearby gives me the you-crazy look and widens her path around me. I don’t blame her. If Arial Narrow can’t even do its job, we’re all in trouble.
Rushing through sites is not how I wanted to experience Italy, and the bet is adding extra stress. It shouldn’t matter, but I can’t let go of the need to justify my trip, to prove to Mark that a week is long enough in a city to understand its soul.
I cross the spacious square and take a picture of the Basilica. It’ll have to be enough for now. I spin to face Aventine Hill. Someone could be looking right at me through that magical view at the scuffed door’s keyhole.
When I wished for my luggage and then received it hours later, it was easy to brush off. But stumbling onto Mark’s green door after wishing to find it . . . I’m having a harder time not connecting that to my wish at Trevi Fountain.
I don’t know what’s going on here, and even entertaining the thought that the fountain grants wishes puts me on the wrong side of the sanity train tracks.
All questions of if I’ve officially lost it aside, supposing the fountain does grant wishes . . . I could use it to find the heart of Italy.