Chapter 27
Twenty-Seven
Lexi
Mark checks the screen on his phone, amusement playing on his lips.
“These shots are good. Now how about one . . .” He points down at the step, so I sit, legs out and crossed at the ankle.
“Like this?”
He smirks. “Uh-huh.” He takes forever with the shot. Like three or four minutes, even though he has to apologize several times to people who have to walk around us, and I’m squirming on the uncomfortable, hard marble.
I shade my eyes, squinting at him. “What’s taking so long?”
He doesn’t need to answer. A shrieking whistle tells me why he lingered. A policewoman is pounding up the steps toward me.
“Oh, you have got to be kidding me.” I huff at Mark, and he holds out helpless hands and shrugs, but the barely contained mirth on his face tells me he’s getting exactly what he wanted.
I scramble off the step—do not laugh while an angry officer is coming to deal with you, Lexi. A brief plan to dart away and evade her flits through my mind, but I’m not wearing my sneakers today. These espadrille sandals are really messing up my life.
The policewoman reaches me and shakes her head. “Sitting is not allowed on the Spanish Steps.” Her English is practiced, if not perfect, as she’s clearly used to schooling clueless tourists.
I did know better, but that dang half-smile on Mark’s face distracted me into doing whatever he said.
“Please come with me. Off the Steps.”
So much for making fun of Mark’s run-in with the police. I narrow my eyes at him, and he presses his lips together. As the officer leads me past him, I ram into his shoulder. His oof dissolves into snickers, and it’s all I can do to keep a straight face.
Every eye is on me—I’m now an anecdote for a million stories of tourists’ time in Rome. Not to mention Mark the Opportunist getting a whole slew of shots of my public chastisement.
At the bottom of the steps, we pass the fountain and cross the piazza. A niggle of fear worms through the dirty trick fun. I thought the officer would just ban me from the Steps and give me a firm lecture, but we’re still walking.
“Are you arresting me?” I speak Italian in hopes it’ll buy me a bit of grace. Jail would be bad. Really bad. Let’s just say, the fact that it’s not on my schedule would be the least of my worries.
We round a corner onto a quieter street, and she stops my march of shame. Her stern expression doesn’t soften. “No, but you’ll need to pay the fine.” She asks for my passport and fills out a ticket.
She takes her time. Six minutes later, the officer tears the paper off her pad and passes it to me.
I mumble sheepish but respectful thanks and march back toward the Steps, but Mark is waiting around the corner and I crash into his chest (read: brick wall).
“Whoa, steady.” He settles me back on my feet, grinning.
I whack him on the arm, waving the ticket in his face but unable to tamp down my smile. “I can’t believe you did that.”
He doubles over with hoarse, contagious laughter. I grab his sleeves and shake him while he tries to speak. “Technically . . . I never told you . . . to sit down.”
“You—” I stop with my mouth open. He’s right. “You know very well what you implied. I was following my photographer’s tacit instructions.”
“Maybe less assumptions about me next time?”
An indignant-amused gasp shoots from my mouth. “Are you throwing my words from the airport back at me?”
He laughs again. I’ve never seen him this loose and it’s so worth the price of the fine.
I stuff the ticket into my bag and set my hands on my hips, attempting a stern expression. “You’re going to pay for this, you know that, right?”
His smile softens. “Yeah, I will. Come on. Fines are paid at the post office.” He leads me down the narrow, choked sidewalk. The sparkling gold and red entrance to the Gucci flagship store slows my steps even more, but with a ticket from the police in my pocket, I don’t even think they’d let me in.
We turn down a narrow cobblestone street with tiny cars parked on the left side. Now that the crowds have thinned, Mark can take full strides with his long legs. “How’s your search for the heart of Italy going?”
I swagger for a few paces as a show of unhurried confidence (which is harder than it sounds going at Mark’s speed). “Already have what I need.”
He grins, reading right through my lie because he always seems to see me. “Doubt it.” He leans close as we walk, his raspy voice tickling my ear. “You know I’m not going to delete your vacation photos, right?”
“Because you aren’t going to win the bet.” I bump his shoulder. “When I said you’d pay, I meant you’ll pay for this prank through my revenge.”
Rather than showing the appropriate level of fear, he rubs his hands together. “I would expect nothing less from you. But I’m also paying the literal money. How much is your fine?”
I was so focused on Mark taking his mugshots of me, I never even looked. I won’t in a million years tell him that, so I shrug. “It’s my business, I’ll take care of it.”
“No. I insist.”
We spend the next two blocks in a pleasant argument about whose right it is to pay, and by the time he pulls the door of the post office open for me, we’ve settled on splitting the fee fifty-fifty.
Once it’s paid (My part was almost a hundred euros. Pranks are expensive, kids), we stand outside on the sidewalk, facing each other. He adjusts the strap of his blueprints tube.
It’s not like we’re in a private spot, but all the city sounds around us—birds trilling, Vespas growling, and people chattering—might as well not exist. He’s giving me the same focus he showed the first time we met, like I’m all that matters right now.
That quality is really going to get me him in trouble someday.
With a jolt, I remember Katie, and everything fizzing in me goes flat. How have I let myself enjoy his company, do a photo shoot, touch him, when I know he’s engaged? How has he been okay with that? He must not be the guy I thought he was.
I take a step back. “I have to go, I’m already late meeting Gia at the museum.”
“Yeah.” His gaze sweeps over me, and he fills his lungs. “Oh, by the way, I think this belongs to you, Lexington.” He presses something small and cold into my hand and folds my fingers around it. With a tight smile that’s almost self-conscious, he waves and walks away.
I watch him go, frozen, until he’s rounded the corner. Only then do I open my hand to examine what he’s put there and gasp.
It’s my lira.