Текст книги "Italian Kisses"

Автор книги: Lucy Lambert

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Chapter 8

Two blissful days passed after my confession. It felt like I walked everywhere on a cloud. Food tasted better. Colors were brighter. Despite the age of the city around me, everything felt fresh and new.

Liam had taken me to see the Sistine Chapel, and I'd been so inspired after seeing the Creation of Adam in person that after I got back to my flat I'd completed my essay days ahead of schedule.

Then he'd taken me on a boat cruise of the Tiber river. And then we'd retired back to his hotel. Not only was I truly happy, I was also sore. But I loved it.

I felt fresh and new, too. I did think of my dad a few times, and it hurt still. But in a different way. Like a bone that you know is healing. It was a pain I knew I could bear.

"What is it? Why are you so happy suddenly?" Isabella said. She'd bought a small Mediterranean-style salad from the stall at the food court. I'd gotten one, too.

After buying our food, we'd went and joined Carlotta and Maria at the table in the hall, where they ate their lunches.

Maria shared two courses with me, and we traded notes on occasion. Carlotta was a grad student like Isabella, and was her friend. They liked to come and practice their conversational English with me, and I my Italian with them.

Today it was English day.

Together, the four of us formed a small social circle.

"I don't know what you mean," I said, the heat already rising to my cheeks.

"It is Liam, isn't it?" Isabella said, her lovely eyes taking on a feline cast, "He is the cause of all this joy."

Carlotta and Maria both asked who Liam was, also curious about my shift in personality.

So I pulled out my phone and showed them a picture I'd taken of the two of us sharing a plate of spaghetti at a restaurant he'd taken me to when we'd visited the Forum.

"Oh!" Carlotta said, taking my phone. She and Maria fawned over the photo, talking about how handsome Liam was and how it was no wonder I looked so happy.

They mooned over him so much that jealousy flashed across my mind. "Okay, that's enough. Hand it back."

When I got the phone back, I stuffed it back into my pocket quickly before Isabella could ask to see it. All three of them were quite beautiful, and I have to admit that it would be for the best if I didn't introduce them to Liam.

Not that I didn't trust him. It was them I didn't trust.

"Tell us about Liam," Carlotta said, my jealousy again flashing at the lyrical way his name sounded in her accent. She flicked her glossy black hair back behind her ears, "A man like this, I cannot believe you found one. Usually they are all... what is the idiom? Taken. They are always taken."

Maria leaned in, "Perhaps he is already taken? A handsome man like this, he could have many mistresses." The way she said it made it sound like she wouldn't mind being one of them.

However, when she saw the way I blanched at that she continued, "It is just the way of things here. You shouldn't be upset. It is like being upset that the sun rises in the east instead of the west."

"Maybe," I said, "But Liam isn't Italian. He's American, like me."

Maria shrugged. "Perhaps." The way she said it irritated me so much that I began losing that happy buzz I'd had the past couple of days.

I also decided to hold back on that bit of information about him receiving calls from a woman. They'd surely tell me it was his mistress or girlfriend or wife, no matter if I said I trusted him when he told me she was a colleague. They didn't know Liam like I did.

It bothered me so much that I decided to cut lunch short.

I got up, telling them that I had Dr. Aretino's course next and that I had some studying to do before the lecture that I'd been putting off.

It wasn't exactly a lie. I did have to go to his lecture in a couple of hours. And it was probably a good idea to go over the readings for it again. Really I just wanted to get away from Maria and Carlotta and their accusations.

Soon thereafter I arrived back at my flat, taking the stairs two at a time, eager to get inside. I wondered if maybe I could pull Liam away from his business so he could come over and make me forget about everything that those awful women had said.

Except, when I reached the door I found it wasn't locked. I distinctly remembered locking it before leaving for the campus, too. The deadbolt made a distinct click when it slid into place, and I'd heard it that morning.

I looked at the brass latch for a while, trying to decide what to do, trying to tell myself that I'd actually forgotten to lock it. That someone hadn't broken into my one room flat and made off with my laptop and the essay on it that I had quite stupidly forgotten to back up to my email yet.

So I opened the door, expecting to find my bed tossed, my old desk smashed to splinters, and all my expensive textbooks and my laptop missing.

Instead I found a woman sitting at my desk chair, which she'd turned to face the door.

We took each other in in an instant. She was pretty. Really pretty. Cheekbones to embarrass a cat, incredible, soft eyes and red lips that begged to be kissed.

She was a strawberry blonde, and the tight ponytail she had her long hair pulled back into gave her angular face a sinister and severe cast.

She wore a grey blazer and a matching skirt, one pantyhose-clad leg crossed over the other. She had her hands folded in her lap, and I noticed then that she'd painted her nails the same red shade as her lipstick.

Despite all that, I got the impression that she was probably only a few years older than me. If this was a robbery, she was about as far from my idea of a robber as she could get.

But somehow I knew that this wasn't a robbery. No, this, I could sense, was something much worse than that.

"...Hi?" I said, feeling self-conscious at my lack of makeup that day, the frizzy hair, the comfy pants and shoes I wore.

Her opinion of me showed itself with a slight sniff and a rolling of the eyes. "You're the one?" She spoke clearly, her red lips shaping each syllable with perfect clarity. This was a woman used to no small portion of power.

"The one what?" I replied, even though I also sensed that her question was at least partly rhetorical. The tone she said it in made me feel self conscious once more, and I had the urge to grab my brush and run it through my hair until it was silky smooth and straight.

"You are Emma Weston, correct?" she said.

She rubbed me the wrong way. Everything about her. Her overly perfect face. Her expensive clothes. The look of superiority in her eyes. And that got my back up, helped me regain some of my own composure.

"I am. Can I get your name, so that I can tell the police when I call them?" I pulled my phone out of my pocket. Unlike back home, you didn't dial 911 here. Instead, you got the police after punching 113 into your phone. I thumbed the 1 key on the pad twice, my finger hovering over the 3.

She gave me a tight smile of restrained irritation and amusement. It had the effect of thinning her lips, making them paler, bloodless despite the red lipstick. "No need for that."

I realized why I didn't like her. Well, one of several reasons. But it had been bugging me since we'd first dressed each other down.

She was perfect. Too perfect. It was the difference between a masterwork and just another painting or sculpture. Too often, artists sought to eliminate those little flaws that make someone human.

They'd give us works of art without flaws, without humanity. They were nice to look at, but depthless. Shallow and sterile.

And then there were her eyes. They were cold and green, like pine needles in winter. They were a shark's eyes. Hungry and predatory and somehow dead.

She had all the beauty of a statue and nothing to temper it and make her human.

"What, then?" All I needed to do to complete the call was to hit the little green button.

"You are the one Liam has been seeing, are you not?"

I went rigid at that.

The woman nodded. "I found your address on a piece of paper in his jacket." She reached into her pocket and pulled out the carefully folded note, unfolding it in her lap and smoothing it out.

From where I stood, I could see my hastily scrawled address.

My heart dropped into my stomach. Coming fresh from that awful lunch, I could see no other conclusion than the one I reached when I'd heard her say Liam's name.

"Are you his wife? His girlfriend?"

The beautiful woman seated in my chair stared at me for a second, then barked a harsh, ugly laugh. "Wife? Hardly. I'm his secretary. Of course, I would love to be more, what with Liam being who he is. Until last week, I thought I was well on my way to more, too." Her lips perked up in an awful, mirthless smile, "Until about a week and a half ago."

A rush of opposing sensations left me alternately hot and cold. Relief was first. Relief that Liam hadn't lied, that he wasn't seeing anyone else. Then worry. She was his secretary, but she talked like she'd been more. Besides, what young executive could afford to bring his secretary along on a business trip?

"You see," she said, "He went to a fundraiser one night. And after that night, he never touched me again. When I asked him why, he said that it had never been serious between us. That he'd found someone else he thought he could feel something more for. I just had to see for myself. And this is what I find? You?"

My teeth ground together, my eyes searching my tiny flat for some answers but not finding any. "He never said anything about you."

"That doesn't surprise me one bit," she said, "You have no idea what you've gotten yourself into, have you?"

"I want you to leave. Now." My stomach wouldn't stop churning, and there was no way in hell I would let this woman see me sick.

She laughed that mirthless laugh again. "Do you even know who Liam is?"

Why isn't she leaving? I thought. I wanted her to leave. I needed her to leave. To leave before all the strength left my knees and I crumpled to the floor.

"Of course I do," I snapped, "He's Liam Montgomery."

She shook her head, her ponytail whipping back and forth behind her head. Those shark's eyes had something like pity in them. Pity and contempt. "That's his name. That's not who he is."

I did my best to keep my body in check. I flexed my thighs and calves, trying to hide the tremble in my legs. I fought back against the angry pressure behind my eyes. I suppressed the lump lifting slowly up my throat.

I gripped the strap of my messenger bag hard enough for the nylon to bite into my palm. The pain helped.

"Please enlighten me and then kindly get the hell out of my apartment," I said.

"You've heard of Mass Systems, haven't you?" The LLC was implied.

"Of course," I snapped. It was a huge corporation, always mentioned in the news acquiring this company or that, funding tech start-ups that went public often to the tune of a dollar sign with nine zeroes behind it. They apparently owned half the social media sites on the net.

"Liam Montgomery is that Liam Montgomery. He owns it," she said.

I shook my head, my brain refusing to wrap around the idea. "That's impossible." Liam was too young. There was no way he owned a company that outpaced the GDP of several countries.

"Now you're being obtuse. It is him. You know it. Now can you see what you cost me? Now can you see that you're way in over your frizzy little head?"

"Get out now, or I call the police. I mean it," I spat, raising my cell like it was a weapon.

She stood up, smoothing the wrinkles from her skirt and tugging her blazer back into place. She wore a pair of high heels that arched her back, emphasizing her perfect figure and her perfect ass.

I had to step aside so she could get to the door. When she did, she stopped and looked at me again. I didn't look at her; seeing her in my peripheral vision was enough.

"He doesn't love you, you know. He's not that sort of man. He'll dump you when he's done with you, like he dumped me. Like he dumped all the ones before me." She paused, waiting for my reply. When it didn't come, she smiled again and let herself out without closing the door.

My eyes had fixed on the window looking out onto the street. Little motes of dust floated in the bars of sunlight stabbing in. There were some smudges and imperfections in the glass.

I don't know how long I stood there, my mind ticking over what she'd told me. Mass Systems was in the news a lot, all right. But so was its owner. I'd never really been into the stock market or celebrity gossip. Despite that, I still knew more than I wanted.

I still knew that the CEO of Mass Systems went through women like a machine gun went through ammunition. A lot of noise and commotion, the spent cases quickly discarded.

In my head, whenever I heard a story about him I always pictured him as this rich older man with too much money and no sense of decency.

I looked at my laptop, my fingers itching to tap his name into a search engine. I knew it would come up with plenty of pictures taken of him with his various flings. Lots of tabloid reports of the trail of shattered hearts he left in his wake. Actresses, models, probably a princess or two. High caliber women, if we continue the guns and ammo thing.

And then there was me, the nobody girl from St. Louis.

Except that clashed with the man I'd known. The man whose eyes didn't lie. The Liam that awful secretary talked about, the one mentioned in the news as a heartthrob playboy and heartbreaker, wasn't the man who'd tried to finding meaning staring into the bronze eyes of Marcus Aurelius.

Sudden rage seized me. Snarling, I grabbed my door and slammed it so that the frame rattled.

Hugging myself tightly, I went over to the window and stared down at the quaint scene below me. I hated Rome, then. Hated it more than I had before I'd met Liam. It was old and decrepit and I didn't know how I'd ever thought there'd be something of value or something beautiful here.

For the first time since it had happened, I actually felt a strain of happiness that my dad couldn't be here to experience the disappointment of Rome firsthand.

What hurt the most, though, was the thought of losing him. I just couldn't reconcile the man the world made Liam out to be with the one who'd held me in the tub while I bared my soul to him.

I'd known that this was something special. Something I'd never quite had before in my life. That Liam and I clicked and fit together in a way I don't think I could ever find again if I spent the rest of my life searching.

And now it felt like it had to end. I'd shared myself with him, but he had never fully opened up to me. I'd known that, too. I'd even been okay with it. Except what I'd thought had been a molehill turned out to be a mountain.

I'd just been looking at it, at him, as though from very far away, the perspective skewed. And now I'd had that image corrected for me.

But if breaking this whole thing off was the right thing, why then did it feel like I would be cutting off a part of myself in the act?

"Emma? Are you all right?" Mrs. Rosselini asked, in Italiono, from the other side of the door. She must have heard the slam, I knew.

"Fine, just fine," I replied, hoping she would just go away. I didn't want her to come in and start fawning over me, asking why I was upset. I didn't think there was a way I could explain my feelings in any way that made sense. Especially not in Italian.

"There are some extra rolls. Come down and take them if you like," she said.

"Thank you." I waited, listening to her retreat back down the steps.

I'd been planning on buying a few of those rolls and sharing them with Liam. He'd shared that amazing gelato place with me. It seemed only fair that I share this bakery with him.

Actually, I'd been planning to do that that same night. Except now I never wanted to see him again.

Even though, simultaneously, I wanted to see him more than anything. Like I said, there was no way I could explain myself that made sense. Not even to me.

The chiming of my phone sent my heart into my throat until I realized what it was. I yanked it out of my pocket.

A text from Liam. Probably asking about our plans that night. I didn't read it.

Ten minutes passed. He knew I was between classes. Another text came, and then another. I didn't look at any of them.

Part of me wanted to confront him right away, but that would be a bad idea. It would be nothing but lots of screaming and crying. Lots of emotion I didn't want to waste, that I couldn't afford to spend.

Let him worry, let him wonder, I thought.

Then I saw my textbooks and remembered that I had a class coming up. The thought struck me like a thunderbolt.

Liam had been right about one thing. I needed to move on. Move on from my grief, and move on from him. And I could do that by fixing my grades, finally looking into the future instead of wallowing in the past.

I could still salvage my grades, and therefore my semester abroad and my undergrad degree as a whole.

With a renewed sense of purpose, I shoved the textbooks into my messenger bag, set my phone on silent, and left my flat. This time I triple-checked to make certain that I'd locked the door.

If I never saw that imperfectly perfect secretary in my chair again, it would be too soon. I tried to add an "Or Liam, For That Matter," clause to that thought, but I couldn't.

Chapter 9

I don't know if it was a perfect combination of anger and determination, or desperation to avoid thinking about Liam's secretary had said, but that had to be my best lecture with Dr. Aretino ever.

Any time he asked a question, I raised my hand first. Not that it really mattered; Dr. Aretino would call on me even if I offered an answer in the middle of another student's explanation.

I got them all right, too. Even the hard one about the use of contraposto in late Etruscan sculpture.

I was on fire. The burn felt good. I liked it. I liked how it seared away my feelings. And if that fire started cooling to embers, all I had to do was bring Liam's face to mind to fan those flames back up high.

So it wasn't totally unexpected when Dr. Aretino asked me to stay after the lecture again.

I stood in front of his lectern, watching him file his notes away into his briefcase while the strap of my messenger bag big into my shoulder with the weight of all the books it held.

My phone vibrated in my pocket, buzzing at me like a fly that refused to be shooed away. He'd waited until class was over to start bothering me, at least.

Still, I refused to answer it. I refused to even take the cell out of my pocket.

"You seem different, Emma," he said. His forehead looked particularly huge and shiny today.

"Just trying to pull my grades back up, professor."

"Giuseppe! Please, it is Giuseppe, remember."

That fire inside started heating up again, right in the center of my chest. If I wasn't careful, I knew, I'd end up letting loose on the professor. And I couldn't. Not if I wanted to salvage anything from this semester.

So I gave him a close-lipped smile, hoping he would drop it and let me go. His wasn't the only class I had. And if I gave myself too much downtime, Liam was bound to surface in my thoughts.

He didn't, of course.

"Ragazza D'oro, I too would love to see your grades improve. You are as smart as you are beautiful. Which is, I think, smart enough to see what you must do gain that improvement."

He reached out and ran the back of his middle finger across my cheek. I flinched and pulled back. His hand wavered in the air in front of my face, uncertain whether to pursue me.

"I'll do whatever school work it takes... Giuseppe. But no more."

Dr. Aretino fanned his fingers and smiled. "Of course, of course. But soon I think you will come to see that there is only one way for this to work."

Then a wave of déjà vu washed over me. The door to the lecture hall swung in, Dr. Aretino and me both turning to look.

Liam stepped inside. He wore a suit today, apparently having come from some business related function.

My stomach tightened, my body unable to decide how to react. It started with excitement, then fizzled over into anxiety.

With what I'd decided about how to take my life from here, I knew that I should be upset that he'd come. Upset that he couldn't take the hint that I didn't want to talk to him.

But it's hard to change the way you feel so quickly. Hence the excitement.

He came closer and I saw how he'd pulled the knot of his silk tie loose and popped the top button of his collar below that.

Now that I knew just who he was, the cynic in me wondered if that suit was worth more than my whole semester in Rome had cost. Then I remembered that time we'd spent in the Coliseum, and my idle thought there about he looked like he would have been at home in the Emperor's box there and how I really hadn't been that far off the mark.

His initial smile at seeing me wilted from his face when he saw the look I gave him. Confusion sketched across his features.

And that look of confusion angered me, for a moment at least. Of course he's confused. How could he know that his secretary had come and tattled on him?

"Emma!" he said, relieved. His footsteps as he came towards me were loud and echo-y in the empty auditorium. "You weren't answering, and somehow my mind got onto how crazy the drivers are here and I couldn't get those awful thoughts out of my head..."

He stopped short, his Spidey-sense or whatever he wanted to call his ability to read people tingling. He probably read the tension in my shoulders, or the way I leaned ever so subtly away from him.

Whatever my cue, he knew that something had happened. Something had changed. And for the worse.

His concern for me was touching, and again I thought I could see the truth of it in his eyes. But now a shadow of doubt had been cast over everything involving Liam Montgomery.

Dr. Aretino also managed to sense something as well, because he stepped smoothly between the two of us, seeing his opening.

"Ah, the dance teacher, yes?" the professor said, "I believe that Emma is finished with your lessons. Perhaps you should leave."

The last thing I wanted was for someone else to fight my battles for me. Especially not the good professor. Any loan of assistance from him came with an interest rate to put the most unscrupulous of loan sharks to shame.

"Why don't you let her speak for herself?" Liam said.

Dr. Aretino puffed up. As much as watching two men fight over me appealed to me on an animal level, I knew that I needed to put an end to this.

"Yes, why don't you both let me speak for myself?"

Both the men looked at me, sensing the venom in my voice. I hitched the strap of my bag to a more comfortable spot on my shoulder.

"Professor, I'm going to submit a list of extra credit assignment ideas to you by the next lecture... Mr. Montgomery," the flash of hurt on Liam's face cut into me, but I kept going, "As you can see, I am just fine, crazy Italian drivers or not. If you'll both excuse me, I have studying to do."

I slipped by the two of them. Aretino said nothing, though I could sense his appraising and indulgent eyes on my back.

Liam, however, reached out for me. His hand lighted on my shoulder.

"Don't touch me!" I said, jerking away from him so violently that I nearly fell over the armrest of the chair next to me. I'd said it with more venom than I intended, and again I saw the uncomprehending hurt on his face.

This is the right thing, I kept telling myself, forcing my eyes ahead as I marched towards the door.

If it was the right thing, why did it hurt so much? If it was the right thing, why did it seem so much like the wrong thing?

My mood must have spread out around me, because other students scrambled to get out of my way out in the hall. The sun itself seemed to dim when I stepped out. The smile on the face of the normally jovial, flirty bus driver dropped as I hauled myself up the step and flashed my student ID at him.

I sat near the back, the vinyl cover on the seat creaking slightly as I put my weight on it.

I tried not to look back out the window. I really did. Unable to resist the impulse, I let my eyes scan out the window just as the bus huffed and lurched away from the curb.

When I didn't see him, I turned bodily towards the window, pressing my hand to the cool pane. Liam wasn't anywhere to be seen on the bus loop.

I'd been certain—certain—that he'd chase me outside, try to stop me, try to explain himself. That's what a player would do, wasn't it? But he wasn't there.

And then it was my turn to feel hurt. Even though I knew I shouldn't. If he accepted this so easily, it was a good thing. I could get on with my life and he on with his.

"Fine," I said, then again, "Fine," with a bit more venom. My voice didn't hitch there at all. No, it definitely didn't.

***

My flat looked even smaller, somehow. More cramped. The walls pressed in on me. The window seemed more a tiny jail cell porthole peering out onto a world barred from me.

I tossed my messenger bag onto the bed that I noticed was more a cot than anything. Then I yanked my chair out, the screech of the feet across the scratched old floor shivering up my spine.

I supposed I was so angry because of how good things seemed to be. Liam had seemed so genuinely interested in me, and I in him. He'd appeared so perfect, outside and in. A handsome man on the outside and a good one on the inside, such an apparently rare combination.

I'd begun to let myself be happy again, because of him, to let the world in. And now it was all a part of some game or scheme.

Or maybe it was because I wanted so badly to believe that all the evidence that secretary had presented me was wrong, that all the things I'd heard about him were wrong.

Again and again, I returned to that image of him examining that statue of the philosopher king, or the intimate knowledge and appreciation he had of and for the city.

What I knew about him simply didn't reconcile with what the world thought it knew about him. Yet, I also knew that if I brought up any search engine on my laptop there'd be no shortage of pictures of him with his various exploits, no shortage of articles about the trail of broken hearts left in his wake.

Or of the meteoric rise and success of Mass Systems. No company became that successful while also retaining any sense of morality or ethics.

Who knew what Liam Montgomery had done for his success?

No, I had to take away from this only the positives and move on with my life. The pleasant memories, the renewed sense of purpose. None of the heartache or the sense of betrayal.

A task about as easy as herding cats.

However, my mind kept returning to one point, over and over: Why didn't he come after me?

So when he knocked on the door and said, "Emma?" a bizarre triumph and excitement ran through me almost as intense as my anger.

"Just go away!" I said.

"You know that isn't going to happen. Talk to me."

Again, that strain of concern in his voice.

When I didn't reply, he tried the latch. And of course, in my distracted state I'd forgotten to throw the deadbolt into place when I'd come in.

He came in and closed the door behind himself. I faced away from him.

"You know," he said, "How?"

"Not from you." That was satisfying. Especially since he took it like a punch to the gut. Despite my attempt at schadenfreude, it didn't feel as good as I'd expected. In fact, the urge to apologize welled up in me so fast I had trouble stifling it.

"I deserve an answer," Liam said.

"I don't know her name. Your secretary. Your cold and beautiful statue of a secretary. The one you're involved with. If that's all, I'd like to be alone now."

"Abigail? That makes sense. But you have to know that the moment I met you it was over between the two of us. I'm not that kind of man."

"That's rich," I said, punctuating it was a humorless laugh, "The liar isn't a cheater. You should add that to your CV." Even in my angry state, I knew I was being harsh. Except I couldn't help it. There was something cathartic, letting all my feelings spill out in a torrent of vitriol.

"I never lied to you, Emma." Even though I couldn't see him, I knew that he'd set his jaw in a hard line, that he'd balled his hands into fists.

"Then why is it I learned who you really were from your most recent jilted lover instead of you?" And that was really the heart of it, that broken trust, that obscuring of identity.

"If you know who I am, then you also have to realize that I didn't want all of that changing the way you felt about me. I wanted you to like me for me, not for the money. You have no idea what it's like to see the dollar signs pop up in the eyes of every woman you meet."

I wanted to lash out again, if only because it relieved some of that angry pressure inside of me. Yet I couldn't. What he said made sense, even though I wanted so very badly for it not to.

The desire to be loved for who you are is, in my opinion, one of the greatest equalizers on earth. Beggars felt it just as truly as kings and oil barons.

"Judging by the procession of bimbos you've paraded in front of the media, you've never seemed to mind women throwing themselves at you before this." Again I sensed him flinch behind me. But there was more.

"You've never searched for anything so desperately before?" Liam said, his voice clouding with anger, "You've never wanted something so much that you let yourself accept something less than what you truly wanted?"

I squeezed my eyes shut. I won't let him get to me. "Then maybe you should have told me. How do you think it makes me feel to know that you didn't think you could trust me? Especially after I let myself trust you so completely? I guess you're not as good at reading people as you think you are."

Besides, it wasn't like he'd hidden the fact that he was well off. A five star hotel suite that probably cost more a night than most people paid the bank for the mortgage each month. A great, brand new luxury car. Although I supposed there was still a difference between Clearly Well Off and Richer Than Croesus.

"So you're telling me that wouldn't have changed things? Not at all?" he replied.

I wanted so badly to say that it wouldn't have, but even as my lips tried to form the syllable I knew it wasn't true. But I still didn't think it would have given me the dollar sign eyes he feared so much.