Forever Rome (Forever #1)

by Brittney Sahin

  “Maggie.” He groaned a few minutes later. “Fuck . . .” he cried, shutting his eyes as he came.

  His hand slipped to my center, but he remained inside me as I continued to move. I gasped as my body shook, surrendering to his touch, and I collapsed, exhausted, at his side.

  “You made me swear,” he said before releasing a throaty laugh.

  “I guess there’s no escaping it—I have that effect on you.”

  He wrapped his arm around me, holding me tight. And it made me feel . . . secure. A feeling to which I knew I shouldn’t grow accustomed.

  Twenty-Two

  We were lying on a blanket on the upper deck of the boat, hand in hand as we stared upward. The sky was like black silk, with pockets of light poking through it. The soft sound of the water lapping against the boat was almost enough to put me to sleep. But I didn’t want to waste my time sleeping when my days and nights were growing fewer and fewer.

  We’d already spent forty-eight hours on the sea, and I was dreading tomorrow. Tomorrow we’d go back to Rome. Tomorrow meant only a few days left with Marco.

  We had spent the last forty-eight hours getting to know each other. And you really do get to know someone when you’re on a boat together. We’d showered, sunbathed, swam, went shopping on the shore, and dined at cute little fish restaurants before making love . . . It had been a slice of Italian heaven.

  We’d skirted the heavy topics, though—we hadn’t talked of his mother, his job, or my return to New York.

  I groaned at the thought of going back to the fast-paced hell of New York. The city would swallow me up until I forgot my days here. My mind would remember this time like scenes from a beautiful movie. A part of me had awakened in Italy, and I was so afraid to lose myself again.

  “Do you miss home?”

  Marco’s question had me rolling to my side to face him. I propped myself up on my elbow and reached out to touch the beard he was now sporting. “No.”

  He captured my wrist and held my hand in the air, then brought my fingers to his lips and brushed kisses over my knuckles. His eyes narrowed on me, and his lips pulled together for a moment as if he were questioning something. “Mi sto innamorando di te,” he said slowly, and it was the first time I’d heard this combination of sexy words. The man had been whispering sweet Italian phrases to me throughout the last few days and refusing to translate. It was driving me mad.

  I pulled my hand away from him and tried to threaten him with a scowl, which apparently induced a chuckle from him. “You plan on leaving me in the dark?”

  “Your blue eyes make me lose my mind.”

  I grunted. “I’m pretty sure that’s not what you said!” I touched the material of his T-shirt, tugging at it to pull him closer to me. “Tell me,” I pleaded.

  His gray eyes were smoldering as he looked at me, and it set off a deeper threat of curiosity within me. He moved his hand up to the messy bun I had on top of my head, where stray blonde hairs had pulled loose to frame my face. He twisted a strand of hair between his fingers. “Sei stupenda.”

  Stupenda. Stunning?

  Ha. At least I knew that one.

  His dimples deepened as he smiled at me. He rolled to his back once again and clasped his hands on his chest, staring up at the sky. “I wish the world was like this.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Bold. Beautiful. Lit by stars.” He shook his head. “Not so many black holes.”

  Of course Marco was not only beautiful, kind, passionate . . . of course he was profound, too. Could he get any more perfect? Perfetto, as he would say.

  “I understand. I kind of hate turning on the news these days. And I’m a journalist, which makes it hard not to do. But there is always something depressing on TV.” One day, I wanted to turn the news on and learn about something awe-inspiring.

  I peeked over at Marco. He was the definition of inspiration in my book—a man people could look up to.

  “I can’t imagine raising kids in this world.”

  Kids?! I jerked my face upward to the sky, nervous to look at him. I focused on the small puffs of gray clouds, which moved in to ruin our perfect starlit sky. Was that supposed to be symbolic of something?

  No, I was just overthinking. Like always.

  “I guess we need to have hope that tomorrow will be better than today.” Ms. Optimism had apparently found a home in my head.

  “I like the way you think.” His warm hand covered mine.

  “Do you want kids?” I practically choked on my question.

  “Sì,” he answered without hesitation.

  Of course he did, look at his life . . .

  “You?”

  “Um. I’ve never thought about it, to be honest.” I was never sure if I’d meet a man who’d make me want to be a mother. “Marco?”

  “Sì?”

  I sat up, which required me to pull my hand free of his.

  He stretched one leg out and sat up as well, bringing his knee to his chest. “Maggie, what is it?”

  “I didn’t want to bring this up while we’re still on the boat, but it’s been on my mind, and I don’t know . . . since we’re talking about family and stuff, I thought I’d go ahead and mention it.”

  His dark brows slanted with concern.

  “I did some research on your mother’s condition.” His lips drew together in a straight line at my words. “There are three hospitals in the world that are known to deliver the best results in regards to rehabilitation, particularly with speech and memory.” I gulped and waited for his reaction, wondering if he’d ask the locations.

  His eyes cast downward. “I have already mentioned New York to her as an option, a month ago. I have yet to convince her.”

  Of course he knew about New York.

  “Getting her to stay at my house in Roma has been challenging enough. If I decide to take her to another country, she will kill me.” He rolled his shoulders back. “Besides, she thinks I’m still playing for Roma, so when I mentioned New York, she insisted we could not leave.”

  “But if you tell her the truth—”

  He raised his hand out in front of him and pushed up to his feet. His hands came down over the thin railing, and he looked out onto the illuminated cliffs. “I cannot tell her the truth until I get her back in Roma. She will be angry and not leave England if she thinks I’m quitting for her.”

  “If your mother would be that angry, then do you think you’re making the wrong choice about quitting?” His shoulder blades pulled together, and I could see his forearms tense as he braced the metal bar of the railing. I came up behind him and touched his back, but he flinched. “I’m sorry. I wish I could help.”

  He spun to face me, and I could see the whirl of temper in the muscles of his face. Was he angry with me, or with the situation? His lips parted, but then he bowed his head without a word. He raked a hand through his thick dark hair and moved past me.

  “Marco.”

  “I need a minute.” He climbed the steps, leaving me alone on the top deck.

  I rubbed my hands over my face, wishing I hadn’t mentioned it. I should have known better. The fact that he even trusted me to meet his mom meant a lot. I shouldn’t have risked the fragile trust we’d recently built by opening my damn mouth.

  Twenty-Three

  I stared out the car window, trying not to be nervous as Marco’s Lamborghini snaked around the corners of the tiny roads that hugged the cliffs overlooking the blue-green coastline.

  My hands were clenched tight in my lap, and Marco must have noticed because he eased up off the gas pedal. I sighed on the inside, thankful for the change of speed.

  Marco had been different since our conversation last night. When I’d eventually gone to find him, he was asleep on the bed with the lights out. I hadn’t been sure if I should sleep next to him or not, so I covered his clothed body with the comforter and slept—well, tossed and turned—on the couch.

  He hadn’t mentioned anything to me in the morning about
my absence in bed, and so it made me wonder if he was purposefully distancing himself from me. He knew I would be going back to New York on Sunday, and he would be taking care of his mother after that, with no room in his life for anyone else.

  I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye as he scratched his beard, a beard he wore so damn well. A man with scruff was such a turn on for me, especially one who looked the way Marco did. He caught me looking at him, and his hand moved from the stick shift and covered mine for a moment. I stared down at the black leather band on his wrist, remembering the losses he’d suffered.

  He cleared his throat and withdrew his hand to shift gears.

  And he said that I confused him? I blew out a breath and resumed my window gazing as Italian music drifted in the car, filling the silence that hung heavy and thick between us.

  I wasn’t sure how long we’d been driving, but as we neared the hotel, I realized my phone wasn’t in my pocket, where I had placed it before we began the drive back to Rome. I checked the floor and beneath my rear end.

  “What’s wrong?” He looked over at me.

  “Can’t find my phone.”

  “I’m sure it’s in here. I’ll help you look.”

  I nodded and inhaled sharply as we pulled up in front of my hotel. “What the hell?” A swarm of reporters greeted the car. Over two dozen cameras and people with microphones surrounded the vehicle.

  Marco cursed under his breath in Italian and gripped the steering wheel once he’d shifted into park.

  “I assume they are here for you?” I raised my shoulders as confusion cornered me from all angles. “What do we do?”

  “I’ll deal with it. Let’s get your bag and find your phone.”

  I guessed he was used to this sort of thing. I unbuckled my seatbelt, and Marco slid his hand between the seat and by the stick shift, tucking his hand within the thin space. “Found it.” He pulled it up and handed it to me.

  “Fifteen missed calls from Will and one just now from Travis.” I realized I’d forgotten to switch my phone back from silent this morning when I woke up. I always silenced it overnight because of the time difference between the US and Italy, as I’d quickly grown tired of two a.m. phone calls from friends at home.

  “Hope Will is okay.” He pushed open the door and slid on his Ray-Bans.

  I tried to wrangle my nerves as I exited the sports car.

  Microphones were shoved at both Marco and me as we tried to get past the crowd. Marco came around to my side, touched my elbow, and tried to help me through the pack of reporters, but they were standing in some damn formation that blocked us from entering.

  Where was security?

  “Is it true, Marco? Is your mother the reason you quit?” a reporter shot out, and her words sounded like gunfire to my ears.

  Marco stopped trying to move and looked at the reporter. “Scusi?”

  “Did Miss Lane convince you to change your mind and resume playing, like she was hired to do?” another woman, an American, asked. The woman’s gaze shifted to me, and she pointed the microphone my direction. “Was the Super Bowl story really worth all this?”

  “Wh—what?” I cupped a hand to my mouth, my lungs growing tight. What in the hell was going on?

  One of the reporters was holding a tabloid in her hands, and I recognized both Marco and me in the photos on the cover. I couldn’t help but reach out and snatch it from her hands.

  “Hey!” the woman screamed.

  The magazine was in Italian, but I flipped through it anyway and took a few steps back from the throng of reporters. My jaw edged open as a slow curl of shock enveloped me. I couldn’t hear what Marco was yelling, even though it was in English because all I could see were the images.

  There were romantic photos of Marco and me, even some taken on our recent excursion to the coast. But what had me feeling weak at the knees were the photos of Marco’s mom and the image of my personal notebook, which had gone missing last week.

  The tabloid had snapped photos from some of the pages in my notebook, where I’d scribbled about Travis’s “plan” to get Marco to play again. I have no clue why I ever wrote any of that down.

  The magazine was lifted from my hands, and I looked up into a pair of stormy gray eyes. Marco ignored the flashes from the cameras and the reporters’ questions as he studied the story.

  “Are you sleeping with your photographer, as well?”

  I spun in a hurry to face the journalist who’d asked the question, her Italian accent thick in my ears. “What?” My nails dug into my palms as they formed into fists at my sides.

  “It is reported that your photographer entered your room late at night, and then left your hotel room the next morning,” the woman responded to me, while her cameraman snapped a photo of me as my eyes widened. “We have pictures of you and Sean Houseman at the hotel lobby while Marco was in London, too. Who are you—really . . . Maggie Lane?”

  I wanted to jam my fist right into the damn woman’s face.

  Marco’s breath was in my ear, but he didn’t speak. I couldn’t begin to imagine what he was thinking. Was this truly happening?

  In the midst of the chaos, my eyes drifted over, and I spotted the woman who had been following me around for who knew how long. She was hiding in the back of the crowd, and her lips pulled into a victorious smile.

  I rushed her direction, prepared to draw blood. “You!”

  The reporters broke apart, and I was grateful. Now I would finally catch her. And yet, the woman didn’t even flinch this time. She didn’t need to, though. She had gotten her story, so she didn’t need to run. “You did this,” I accused. “Why? How’d you—”

  She parted her red lips and winked at me. “It is nothing personal,” she answered before turning away.

  I resisted the urge to pound her in the face with a left hook and instead turned around to find Marco. God, what did he think?

  “Maggie. We need to talk,” his voice rumbled low and deep from his throat.

  I bit my lip and watched in surprise as the crowd seemed to sense Marco’s anger and backed off, allowing us entrance to the hotel. We made our way to my room in silence, but I could feel the anger emanating from his as we walked.

  Once I opened the door, he chucked my bag to the floor and slammed the door shut with the palm of his hand.

  “Marco, I can explain.”

  He lowered his head, keeping his back to me. “You betrayed me. You used me for a story.”

  My lips parted, but I couldn’t utter a word. How could he believe that? Of course, I saw the evidence of my apparent deceit moments ago—but it had been misconstrued, and he needed to understand. God, why hadn’t I just told him about Travis and Sean’s plan? “I would never betray you,” I managed out in a weak voice.

  “Tell me something, Maggie.” He slowly turned to face me. “Did your boss really send you here to try and convince me not to quit? Was that your endgame? Is an article about the damn American Super Bowl that important to you?”

  “That’s what my editor wanted, but I never—”

  He held his hand up, his face revealing his disgust as he snickered at me. “I trusted you.” He wet his lips and looked up, but not at me. It was as if looking at me was too painful. “Did you and Will—are you two together?”

  My heart shattered, and I started for him with my palms in the air, pleading for him to listen to me. “God, no. We’re just good friends.” He took a giant step back. “Someone’s been following me. And my notebook and purse were stolen last week. But I promise I didn’t tell anyone about—”

  “I can’t be here.” He turned away from me and reached for the door handle.

  “Marco, please. Please, don’t leave. Let me explain.” I reached for his arm.

  A small part of me died on the inside as he jerked free of my grasp and opened the door. “Go back to American football, Maggie.” His voice broke as he spoke, and then he stormed down the hallway and out of my sight.

  For the first time i
n years, I cried.

  I sank to my knees with my door wide open, feeling weak, tired, and broken.

  “Maggie!”

  I swiped my tears at the sound of Will’s voice. He pulled me up from my knees and to my feet. “Shit, Maggie. I tried to warn you.” He wrapped his arms around me and hurried me back into my room, closing the door behind us. “Sit down. Drink some water,” he instructed, motioning to the couch.

  “Thanks,” I croaked as he handed me a water bottle. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know. The tabloid was outside my door this morning. Someone wanted me to see it. Travis just called. He found out about the article.”

  I hung my head and groaned. “What’d he say?”

  “He wants us to come home. He said forget about staying until Sunday—the article is dead. And with you being all over the news . . .”

  “What? But he hasn’t even heard my side of the story.”

  “He said it doesn’t matter.” Will patted my thigh. “I’m sorry, Maggie. I’m so damn sorry.”

  “It’s my fault. I fell for him. I broke my rules.” I stood up, feeling dazed. “But I never betrayed his trust. I never did whatever the hell that magazine said I did.”

  Will stood up behind me. “Marco’s upset, but give him time. He’ll come around.”

  I faced Will, my eyes welling with tears. “What time? All Marco and I ever had was this. We were always going to go our separate ways. But I hate leaving things like this.” A trail of tears wet my face, and I licked the saltiness on my lips as I tried to get a grip.

  “I’ll tell Travis we can’t get on a plane tonight. Maybe we can leave tomorrow.”

  “I don’t think Marco will listen to me. He thinks I told the world about his mother, and he’s probably too damn stubborn to hear the truth right now.”

  “Then make him listen.”