Staring into his eyes, I offer a closed-mouth smile and pull myself away. “Pizza’s probably ready.”
He stands, sneakers in the snow, unmoving. The saddest man I’ve ever seen.
“Whoever loves you next,” he says, shoving his hands in his front pockets, brows furrowed. “I hope he treats you the way you deserve to be treated, and I hope he never has to know what it feels like to lose you. It’s a pain like you couldn’t imagine.”
30
Cristiano
“Ciao, Tomasso!” I greet my cousin, Tommy, at his apartment in Florence late Monday night. He’s from New York but is staying here on business all month. I called him up last night to reserve his couch for a few nights, and he was nothing short of ecstatic when he heard I was coming.
“Cuz, how’s it going?” He throws his arm around my shoulder and pulls me in. Frank Sinatra’s blasting on his speakers and an uncorked bottle of wine rests next to a plate of half-eaten cured meats and cheeses.
In the corner, a few girls and a couple of guys stop their conversation and turn their attention in my direction. The girls are beautiful, clothed in skintight dresses, their long, sleek hair dripping down their shoulders and reflecting off the city lights outside. Their red lips are slicked with red, glossed, and pulled up at the sides.
“Tommy,” the woman on the left says in her thick Italian accent. She rises from her seat and sways my way, extending her hand after brushing her long, ebony hair off her shoulder. “Are you going to introduce me to your friend or what?”
“Cristiano, this is Luciana. She works with me at the agency.” Tommy lifts his glass when he speaks. “Luci, this is my American cousin.”
“Cristiano,” she says, slipping her hand in mine and letting it linger. “Italian-American?”
I nod, pulling my hand back and moving toward the wine beside me. Pouring myself a glass, I say, “Born in Ohio. Raised in Jersey.”
She lifts her long nails to her lips, giggling slightly. “I don’t know those places. You’ll have to show me on a map sometime.”
“Yeah,” I say to appease her. Sipping my wine, I glance at the rest of the party and turn to my cousin. “You always have people over this late on a work night?”
Tommy shrugs, jutting his bottom lip forward. “We landed a big client today. Thought we’d do some celebrating. We’re going out tonight, by the way. Getting ready to leave soon. Freshen up, pretty boy. You’re coming with.”
I’ve been up since four this morning. I’ve spent hours in airports and almost nine hours in the sky. But I’ll scrape every last piece of me off this wood floor if I have to. I didn’t fly halfway around the world to sleep while the world spins madly on outside these walls.
“Yeah,” I say. “Give me a bit. I’ll be ready.”
Tommy grins wide, his smile reminding me of Matteo’s. Hell, people always thought the two of them were brothers growing up. Tommy, in a lot of ways, is more than a cousin. He’s like a sixth Amato brother.
“So what brings you to Florence?” Luciana asks as we stand around a high top table at a club called Firenze.
“Visiting Tomasso for a couple days,” I say. “then I’m making my way all over.”
“Where are you going to see?” She lifts her brows, taking a sip from her dirty martini. “I apologize if my English is bad.”
“I understand you just fine,” I say. “I’m going everywhere I can. London, Paris, Amsterdam. No itinerary, really. Just going where the wind blows me.”
“That is nice,” she says, offering a smile. She’s clung to me since the first moment she laid eyes on me. “I’m flying to New York next month. Do you live in that area?”
“I don’t really live anywhere.”
Her smile fades. I think she’s confused.
“I travel. I don’t stay anywhere for too long,” I add.
“I see,” she says, taking another sip. Someone pushes past us, bumping into Luciana and subsequently pushing her into me. Her body presses against mine in a flash of a second, and when she lifts her drink, it spills down her arm and onto my shirt. “Dio mio, that was rude.”
She yells a slew of Italian words, flinging her hand into the air as she speaks, but her voice is drowned out by the pumping dance music blasting through the speakers behind us and her intended target is long gone.
“It’s fine.” I grab a cocktail napkin from a nearby table and offer it to her first. She dries her arm and then dabs at the damp spots on my shirt, just above my heart.
I feel nothing, which is strange considering this Italian beauty is all over me, touching me and smiling and acting as if I’m the most interesting creature she’s ever laid eyes on. She’s clearly down to fuck. She wants me. And looking at her and knowing how painfully obvious it is that she’s offering herself to me on a shiny silver platter does absolutely nothing for me.
Yawning, I check my watch. We’ve only been here an hour, and already I wouldn’t mind going back to Tommy’s place and calling it a night. A couple of hours ago, I was all over the idea of going out. Not sure what changed, but for whatever reason, I’m not in the mood anymore.
“I think we’re good here.” I place my hand over Luciana’s, taking the wet napkin from her and stepping back to gain some space.
She steps toward me, clearly not taking the hint, and I glance at Tommy, who’s making his way back from the bar with a tray of limoncello shots. He shoots me a wink, his gaze moving from Luciana to me and back.
No.
I’m not screwing his co-worker tonight. I’m not screwing anyone tonight. I’m far too exhausted anyway, and if I’m being honest, the idea of screwing anyone who isn’t Daphne anytime in the near future holds zero appeal.
Grabbing a shot off Tommy’s tray, I wait for everyone else to take theirs before tossing mine back.
“Did you like?” Luciana asks, placing her palm on my forearm. She smiles, leaning in so close that her powerfully sweet perfume invades my air space.
I nod, but I don’t make eye contact with her, hoping she’ll get the hint. She lingers for a bit, and I feel her watching me, gauging my body language, and after a moment, she turns her attention to another one of Tommy’s co-workers.
In the far corner of the club, a tall blonde woman stands with a wine glass in her hand, her back toward me. Her silky, flaxen strands are piled on top of her head, and the way her hips curve beneath her narrow waist reminds me of Daphne.
My fingertips burn with the memory of her flesh beneath them. My lips crave hers. There’s a hardness in my cock when I think about how wet she was for me just a few nights ago.
What I wouldn’t give to see her one more time. To have her one more time.
Glancing away from Daphne’s doppelganger, I chuckle to myself. I need to snap the fuck out of this. Earlier today, at Newark airport, I could’ve sworn I saw her. And again on the plane. And at a little café I passed in the taxi on the way here.
So much for flying four thousand miles away to escape. She’s everywhere I go. She’s in everything I see. She occupies every thought I have, every recent memory. I can only hope it’ll all blow over soon because missing someone who wants nothing to do with me is really going to put a cramp in my European tour.
Heading to the bar, I order myself a finger of Glenlivet and make a silent toast.
To Daphne. May she be happy and loved, wherever she is.
31
Daphne
One Week Later . . .
“. . . and that’s how I came up with the Feather Touch charcoal technique. I’m working on a trademark now. And a textbook.” Professor Halbrook lifts his wine goblet over our candlelit dinner at a restaurant overlooking the Eiffel Tower. This place is much too romantic for a professional dinner. Then again, so are most of the restaurants he’s been taking me to since I landed last week. Time and again, I’ve insisted on eating alone, grabbing something from a café and having dinner in the privacy of my hotel room, but he insists on spending every waking moment with me durin
g my short tenure in Paris.
“Interesting,” I lie, taking a sip of my water before scanning the room. There’s a little bar in the corner that seems to be filling up by the minute. It’s mostly younger people. They’re laughing and having a good time, at least as far as I can tell. I’d hoped I’d meet some new friends while I was here. Maybe make some new connections. But Halbrook won’t let me out of his sight for two seconds.
“We don’t have much time together, Daphne,” he huffs whenever I try to sneak a free moment alone. “We have to make every hour count.”
The maître d at last night’s restaurant thought I was Halbrook’s younger lover, and Halbrook thought it was hilarious. He even casually suggested that we play along, placing his hand on the small of my back and invading my personal space until I moved away from him. I smiled politely and declined, feeling it wasn’t necessary to point out that he was old enough to be my father, and even if I were into older men, I wouldn’t be into pompous, arrogant, narcissistic artists.
Been there. Done that. No thank you.
Scanning the room, my gaze lands on the bar area once more. I’ve tuned Halbrook out for the most part, though I catch bits and pieces of what he’s saying. He’s talking about himself. Again. And I’m so bored I could gouge my eyes out with this shiny butter knife on my right.
“Would you excuse me for a moment?” I lift a finger to interrupt him before grabbing my purse and readying myself to prance off toward the ladies’ room. Halbrook stares at me dumbfounded, his jaw hanging as if I’ve just committed a social faux pas by excusing myself in the middle of his story. But I don’t care. I need to breathe. I need air. I need space.
He’s probably wondering why I’ve had to go twice in the last half hour, but every minute away from this man is a godsend, and I’ll feign a bladder issue as much as I need if it gets me some alone time.
Squeezing through the crowded bar section of the restaurant, I spot the line to the ladies’ room and count at least six women ahead of me. Taking a spot in line, I grab my phone and check my texts. Delilah sends me daily updates on Noah, though I’ve yet to receive one for today. It’s early afternoon in Chicago right now, but I know yesterday she said Noah was fussy and nobody was getting any sleep. They suspect colic, whatever that is. I just hope it’s not serious. She’d tell me if it were. I kept meaning to Google it, but Halbrook has me so busy I keep forgetting.
I scroll through some old photos of baby Noah, smiling to myself. If I try hard enough, I can almost remember what he smells like, his sweet, powdery scent and the ultra gentle detergent Delilah uses to wash his super soft onesies. I can’t wait to hold him again, breathe him in. I’m not much of a baby person, but already I love this little boy more than anything in the world.
The bathroom line moves ahead one spot, and I peer my head around the corner to check on Halbrook. His lips are pressed flat and he’s scanning the room and checking his watch. He’s annoyed that I ditched him, but I don’t care.
Two women ahead of me are engaged in conversation, their faces animated. They’re talking about a man. No. Men. Plural. French men versus American men.
“I love American men,” the woman on the left declares to her friend, though she speaks in French. “They’re so fast. I like it hot and heavy. I don’t like to waste time. French men, they are too casual. Too laid back.”
“But that’s what I love about French men,” the friend replies in her native language. “They’re mellow. They don’t rush you. American men try to rush everything. They sour the milk that way. French men take their time. They know how to do it right.”
The women laugh, sipping their drinks and casually scanning the bar area.
The line moves ahead, and the women continue to compare and contrast. They’re not wrong, at least in my experience. French men are laid back. They don’t like to label things or rush the process. They’re not in a hurry to make anything official. American men, at least the ones I’ve known, can be a bit intense. Then again, I can be a bit intense as well. I suppose it’s just our “fast food” culture. We want things and we want them now. We don’t like to wait, especially when we know the getting’s going to be good.
A small crowd of people collect outside a window just past the bar, several of them smoking and talking, waving at passersby. There’s a man with dark, ruffled hair, his back toward me. His height reminds me of Cristiano. His broad shoulders. His narrowed waist. His rounded biceps. The man is wearing a gray t-shirt and dark jeans, and he keeps his hands in his pockets while the two men beside him puff on thin cigarettes. My breath hitches for a moment, and I physically feel the tiniest piece of me long for that man to be him.
How funny it would be to run into him here. In another country. Thousands of miles from where we left off.
In that sliver of a second, I forget why it was I didn’t call him back . . . why it was I chose to go my own way.
The bathroom line moves ahead another place, and I turn my gaze toward the chatting women ahead of me. When I glance back to the window, the three men are gone. My heart sinks more than I’d like it to, but I pull my shoulders back and pull in a deep breath and brush it off.
To my left, jingle bells rustle as the door to the bar side of the restaurant swings open. Two men step in first, one in pencil jeans and a striped Breton t-shirt, the other in a sweater vest and corduroy pants. I’m not certain, but I think they were the ones standing outside just a second ago. The door swings closed behind them. The third man, the Cristiano-lookalike, doesn’t follow.
Exhaling hard, I tell myself this is getting ridiculous. I’ve been seeing him everywhere. Airports. Cafes. Shops. Places he couldn’t possibly be. It’s all in my head.
The bells jingle once more, and I can’t help but turn my gaze in that direction.
But the second I do, my heart stops cold in my tight chest. The air is sucked from my lungs, making it impossible to so much as attempt to breathe.
There’s. No. Way.
This isn’t happening.
My mouth is dry, my face flushed. He’s making his way across the bar, following his friends, but each step he takes brings him closer.
His associates grab some seats by the bar and then flag him down. He waves back at them, his mouth lifting at the side and revealing a hint of his bright white smile – the one that incinerates panties all over the world, I’m sure – and my heart pounds so hard I feel it in my eardrums. Nothing about this moment feels real.
My gaze is locked on him, and it’s as if I’m certain he’ll disappear into thin air if I look away once more. Watching him navigate through the crowded bar, I mentally calculate the distance between us and come up with the conclusion that he’s no more than fifteen feet away now.
There’s a thick, woolen scarf around his neck, and he yanks it down with one quick tug, letting it fall down his chest and shoulders. He seems happy, at least right now. And I wonder if any part of him misses me in any way. All things considered, we had a connection. And chemistry. And maybe we’re not meant to be, but it doesn’t change the fact that I’ve thought about him day in and day out since the day I left him in Scranton.
Licking my lips, I find myself completely entranced with Cristiano. He’s seated between his friends now, saying something. I can’t read lips, but I’m willing to guess he’s speaking in French, and I’d give just about anything to know what he’s saying. What he’s been up to lately. If he’s had any more “adventures” since I saw him last.
Cristiano eyes the bar, points quickly, and then leans closer to his friend to say something. A second later, he has left the table, headed even closer in my direction. His eyes narrow as he reads the drink special hanging over several well-lit glass shelves holding polished bottles of top shelf liquor.
And then he looks away.
He scans the room.
My body freezes, well aware that any second now, we’re going to lock eyes. He’ll notice me. And he’ll notice me noticing him.
And he’ll lo
ok away, because that’s what men like him do. They don’t need to mess with girls like me, the ones who flee the moment they find some kind of red flag. He doesn’t need to chase after me. He doesn’t need to chase after anyone.
I’m just a small blip on his radar at this point. A girl he met once at an airport. A girl he drove nearly three thousand miles across the country with. A girl he knew for five short days of his long and winding life.
He’ll forget me soon enough. Someday he may even forget my name. That’s just how these things go.
I decide to look away. I don’t want to know what his face looks like when it sees me – when it registers that we’re standing in the same bar in the same restaurant in the same city four thousand miles from home. I don’t want to know if he looks annoyed or indifferent or conflicted. I don’t want to see.
The bathroom line moves forward once more, and the two girls ahead of me go in together. Fishing around in my purse, I pull my phone out in a desperate attempt to preoccupy myself with something else. I need a distraction, something that’ll let me ignore the cherry heat in my ears and the galloping heart in my chest.
“Daphne.” His familiar voice sends an electric shock through my entire body a moment later. I don’t have to look up to feel his presence beside me. The warmth of his hand on my arm follows next.
Pulling in a deep breath, I look up at him. He’s half-smiling, studying my face, equally as shocked as I was a moment ago. His dark eyes are lit under the dim bar lighting, and the space between us tightens.
“What are you doing here?” he asks.
My lower lip falls, but nothing comes out at first. I’m lost in his gaze for a second, trying to find my footing and pull myself together. I didn’t think I’d see him ever again, and now he’s standing in front of me, happy to see me, touching me, breathing me in just as much as I’m breathing him in.
“I’m here for work,” I say.
Cold Hearted Page 43
