When in Rome...Break His Heart

by Lena Mae Hill

  “I—I have to go.” He hung up before she could protest further. He didn’t want her. He was busy. He’d moved on that fast, faster than she had. Kristina was right. He was going to marry someone else in a couple months. She’d made the one mistake that could never be fixed—she’d given him an opportunity to put that ring on someone else’s finger. And now what was she going to do? Get Enzo to propose? What a joke. If Enzo had begged for all eternity, she’d never marry him. He was an immature, sloppy, drunken pervert. Weston was everything she’d ever wanted in a husband. Everything except willing to marry her.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  On the bus ride back to Rome, Maggie listened to music and stared out the window. This time, Kristina did not turn around to randomly call, Switch! Things had calmed down between them that morning, after they’d slept off the wine, but they were still cool towards each other. They’d had lots of arguments before, bickered about Kristina’s wildness or Maggie’s uptightness, but they’d never had a fight like that, where they said ugly things to each other.

  Ugly things? the annoying little voice in Maggie’s head asked. Or true things?

  She didn’t know anymore. Maybe ugly things were true things. True things could be awfully ugly, but was the inverse also true? Like Weston not wanting her back. Just thinking about her drunken phone call made her want to grab hold of the hands of time and wind them backwards. Why had she called him?

  Why had she broken up with him in the first place?

  She’d never wanted it to be permanent. She’d just wanted…a ring. When she hadn’t gotten one tiny thing she wanted, she’d thrown away everything that she did have. At the time, it had seemed so reversible. So easy.

  Kristina made it look easy. Maggie had assumed it would be easy for her, too, that she could have at least a taste of the life Kristina so easily slipped into. But she wasn’t Kristina. She couldn’t have her life, and she didn’t want it. The kind of commitment that Kristina not only tolerated, but expected and enjoyed, would never make Maggie happy. She had never wanted to sow wild oats or see what else was out there before she settled down. She wasn’t an oat-sower. She’d always had what she wanted.

  Until you threw him away.

  Yes. Until she threw him away. It still didn’t seem real. They were Maggie and Weston. Without him, she wasn’t herself anymore. She was herself without something essential, like skin. That’s how she felt now—raw, painful, desperate for something to cover up all the vulnerable parts that were exposed. Who else would ever want her, love her, or even put up with her? She’d wanted to figure out who she was without Weston, but the truth was, she wasn’t her without Weston. They were like two trees in the forest that grew together until they became part of the same being.

  How could this be? How could he not want her back? She’d only meant for it to last a short time.

  So you could be free while you were in Rome.

  Maybe that was true. She had wanted Enzo. And now that’s all she had—a guy she didn’t even know, a guy she didn’t even like unless they were together. How could she make that work once she went back to America? She had assumed Weston would want her back, and they’d go back to the way things had been. He’d always love her, just as she always loved him. She’d wanted them both to enjoy their time apart, not grow bitter and hateful towards each other. Because if they hated each other, they’d hate themselves, too. They could not be separated.

  But they were. She’d started it, but he had ended it. He had made the final splice.

  This wasn’t the way this was supposed to happen. Weston was supposed to know what she needed, to understand her, to do what was best for them both. Weston was supposed to be reliable, predictable…

  Malleable.

  That was it. Maggie sat up and opened her eyes. Maybe that had always been it. Weston was easygoing. He was the perfect guy for her, because he always did what made her happy. He was easy to mold, going along with whatever she wanted. Not that he did a lot of things he didn’t want to do. But generally, he let Maggie run the show. She didn’t just pick the movie or restaurant when they went out. She’d chosen when they slept together. She’d chosen where they went to school. When they should live together, when they should have kids.

  She had tried to choose when they got married, when they got engaged. The one time Weston hadn’t followed her schedule—or more accurately, her orders—she’d broken up with him. The one time he’d tried to do things his own way, without her controlling every detail. No wonder he didn’t want her back.

  The funny thing was, when she’d been attracted to someone else, she had chosen Weston’s polar opposite. When Weston failed to do as she wanted, she hadn’t found someone who would. She had found a guy who did whatever he wanted, who didn’t let her control him at all. A guy who maybe was more like her than she’d like to admit. Because wasn’t Enzo always trying to control everything, too? Or at least trying to control her, the same way that she controlled Weston? Part of the attraction was his unpredictability. Which was just another way of saying uncontrollability.

  Maybe that was what she needed. Someone who challenged her, who didn’t put up with her crap. Because it wasn’t just Weston she tried to control. It was everyone. Kristina, who was never careful enough. Rory, who was so quick to agree. And of course, Enzo, who refused to be controlled.

  If she was going to let go of that, to learn to let people be themselves, then she’d have to accept the way he was. Not try to make him into Weston, to whom she constantly compared him. Not try to make him into Armani. Just let him be Enzo. And the truth was, that wasn’t good enough for her. She didn’t want Enzo as he was. She wanted the fantasy version of him, someone she could love. If she couldn’t have Weston, she was at least going to find someone she could love.

  When they got back to Rome, Maggie said goodbye to the girls before going to Enzo’s to break up with him. Not that she could really break up with someone she wasn’t dating. She didn’t know what to call it. Casually sleeping together? That sounded so tacky—not quite as tacky as what Kristina had called it, but still tacky. But maybe she didn’t need to label it, to make it something it wasn’t.

  “There’s my sexy girl,” Enzo said, opening the door for her. He swept her into his arms, pushing her against the door to his apartment. “You’re so sexy,” he said, breaking away from her mouth and moving down her neck. His scratchy chin tickled, and she scrunched her shoulders up, but he grabbed her hair and pulled her head back. He was all over her, running his hand up the back of her thigh, pressing his hips against hers.

  As his hands moved more purposefully, her resolve began to slip. Surely this attraction had to mean something. That she could love him, maybe, or at least have a relationship with him. Weston didn’t want her, and she couldn’t change that. But Enzo still wanted her. And what would it hurt to do this one more time? She’s already done it. She’d already been bad, and being bad one more time wouldn’t make it worse. “Let’s go upstairs,” she breathed.

  “No, here.” His fingers were already undoing her shorts, worming their way inside.

  “Not here,” she said. “Your neighbor could open the door any second.” Still, she had to push him away twice before he relented. He opened the door and they climbed the stairs to his apartment. Inside, he pushed her onto the couch and resumed his passionate kiss. It was like being devoured, when he kissed her. Everything in her traitorous body said yes and leapt at him. Her knees were weak within seconds when he touched her.

  Maybe that was what had drawn her to him. How utterly out of control he made her feel. The way her body took over control from her mind and did what it wanted to do when he was around.

  “Can we go in your bedroom?” she managed as he slid her shorts down.

  “Let’s do it here this time.”

  “Are your roommates home?”

  “They’re sleeping,” he said. “Relax.”

  Relax. She had to do that. It was so easy to resolve, so much harder to do
when another person with his own will was added to the equation. But she tried to relax as he rolled on a condom. And then he was pushing against her, inside her. If only she could get there as fast as he could. But she kept worrying about his roommates. If they were really sleeping, since it was afternoon. And if they weren’t, they might walk out at any moment. Luckily, she didn’t have to worry long. Enzo finished in a few minutes and rolled over onto the couch.

  Maggie pulled up her shorts and sat next to his feet.

  “I missed that,” he said. “Why’d you stay away all week?”

  “You didn’t call me.”

  “You didn’t call me, either.”

  Of course he wasn’t going to do what she wanted or expected. “That’s true,” she said. “So…what did you do all week?”

  “Not a lot,” Enzo said, shifting his weight to pull up his shorts, though he didn’t bother to button them. “Hung out with my cousin, worked.”

  “I don’t even know what you do.”

  He crossed his arms above his head and grinned at her. “I’d do you anytime, my sexy.”

  “No, seriously. What do you do? Why won’t you tell me? Is it something illegal?” Possibilities rolled through her mind. Sex trafficker, mafia, drug dealer.

  “I work at Teatro dell’Opera di Roma,” he said after a short pause. “The Opera House.”

  Of all the things he could have said, that would be the very last things she would have guessed. Again, he’d caught her by surprise. “What? Are you serious? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “You Americans,” he said, his lip curling in disgust. “That doesn’t mean I’m a puff.”

  “I didn’t say that,” Maggie said. “I just didn’t expect…what do you do there?”

  It was true that he always dressed nice, but so did all of his friends. When they went out, at the very least, they all wore slacks and nice shirts.

  “I work on the sets and the lights,” Enzo said.

  “Do you get to meet opera stars?”

  “No. Well, not very often. But sometimes.”

  “Can we go? Will you take me?”

  “You want to go to the Opera?”

  “Of course I want to go to the Opera.”

  He gave her a long, searching look. She hadn’t seen him look at her or anything that way before, like he wasn’t quite sure. Finally he shrugged and said, “Okay. I’ll get tickets for Friday. And bring your friends.”

  “I think Kristina and Armani broke up,” she said, remembering suddenly that she was supposed to be breaking up with Enzo. But he worked at the opera house. He wasn’t some scummy drug dealer or lowlife. He had a job at the most glamorous place imaginable. He met stars, and since he still had a job, she had to assume he didn’t act like a complete vulgarian in front of them. Which meant he wasn’t exactly the person she’d assumed. There was more to him than she’d expected, and she wanted to figure it out before she made a mistake again, threw him away too easily, how she had Weston.

  “I know,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t go. I will bring my friends, too.”

  Later, as Maggie walked to the tram stop, she thought about what Kristina had said about guys getting scared. Maybe that’s why he’d asked her to bring her friends along. Not because he was interested in Kristina, but because going to the Opera with a girl was a serious date. It wasn’t like a movie. But if he wasn’t ready for a super serious, romantic date, she was okay with that. This date was more about what they were doing than who they were with. The Opera. Even with a group of friends, it would easily be the most romantic place she’d ever been. She wished she could call Weston and tell him, and that he’d still be excited for her. But if she told him now, it would be rubbing it in his face. It didn’t seem right that she could lose a friend of seven years over just a handful of words. But wasn’t that always the case? Relationships always ended with words.

  We should see other people.

  I don’t love you anymore.

  I want a divorce.

  This isn’t working.

  We should break up.

  This is too hard.

  No.

  It seemed cheap that something that meant so much, something that was so much a part of her, could be so easily severed. In such a mundane, ordinary way, with words used a hundred times a day in other sentences. How could those same words be the ones that ended what she and Weston had built together? How could those ordinary words suddenly become weapons that wounded them both so deeply?

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Maggie didn’t see Enzo all week because she wanted to get a jump start on her final research paper, plus she had her period so they couldn’t mess around, anyway. But Enzo called her every day. “See, he’s totally hooked now,” Kristina crowed. “Make sure you invite me to your big fat Italian wedding.”

  “Hardly,” Maggie said, rolling her eyes. “I don’t think he’s the marrying type.”

  “Well, you thought Weston was, and look where that got you,” Kristina pointed out. “Seven years and nothing but an itch. Which Enzo so graciously stepped in and scratched for you.”

  “What a gentleman,” Maggie said. They were staying in on Thursday, researching for their final, which was in another week. It seemed impossible that the trip was ending so soon, in less than two weeks.

  “I think he’s sweet,” Kristina said, snapping shut her laptop. “At least he’s still around. Armani has vanished into thin air. I halfway think I imagined him.”

  “Mass hallucination of the perfect Italian guy?”

  Kristina rooted around in her makeup bag. “Yeah, an unforgiving liar. Sounds perfect to me.”

  “I guess you’re right,” Maggie said. “Enzo’s definitely not perfect, but I don’t think he’s a liar.”

  “Just a flight risk.”

  “I could ask him where Armani went.”

  “No,” Kristina said quickly, jerking her head up from her heap of makeup. “Don’t you dare. Then he’ll know I’m still thinking about him.”

  “You are still thinking about him.”

  “Yeah, but he doesn’t know that. Hopefully he thinks I’m so busy hanging out with Nick that I can’t even remember his name.”

  “About that,” Maggie said, clicking through a series of photos of the Colosseum on her laptop. “Are you sure that’s a good idea? Cynthia obviously likes him.”

  “Then she needs to say it,” Kristina said, finally dragging up a pallet of eyeshadow and going to work on one eyelid. “Until then, he’s fair game. She told me to go for it, so I’m going for it. Besides, he’s adorable. And a great kisser.”

  “It seems like unnecessary drama to me.”

  “What drama? There’s no drama. That’s the best thing about Nick. He’s simple. And a great kisser.”

  “You mentioned that.”

  “It’s worth repeating.”

  Maggie sighed. “Enzo could use some work.”

  “Really?” Kristina asked, looking up from her mirror. One eye looked comically larger than the other with all the makeup. “He always looks so passionate when he kisses you.”

  “He has plenty of that.”

  “Don’t you love that about Italian boys?” Kristina asked, wrinkling her nose and smiling. “Not afraid to show emotion. God, I miss Armani.”

  Maggie went back to working on her paper. Kristina missed Armani the way she missed all her boyfriends, in an extreme but finite way. She would miss him just long enough to wear out the patience of everyone who would listen to her sorrows. Then she would throw herself headlong into something new and exciting, unlike anything she’d done before. That’s what she said about each new guy.

  Missing Weston was different, though. It wasn’t the train wreck that Kristina’s breakups always were. It didn’t even feel like heartbreak half the time. She could go for minutes, maybe even an hour, without thinking of him. But it was always there, just below the surface, waiting to wash over her the moment she thought of it. It lingered like a chronic
pain, one that she would have to learn to live with for the rest of her life.

  On Friday, they all met and went to dinner and then the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma. Maggie had been to operas before, but this was in Italy. They didn’t have great seats, but the sound was amazing. She couldn’t understand most of it, but she was spellbound. Midway through, Cynthia started whispering loudly to Enzo, but Maggie didn’t know what was going on.

  “What happened?” she whispered to him when he turned back to her.

  “Nothing, my sexy,” he said, running a hand up her thigh.

  “Quit,” she said, moving away. “We’re in public.”

  “No one is watching us,” he purred into her ear. “They’re all watching the show.” He moved his hand further up her thigh, massaging her through her dress. They’d all dressed up to go, and so had everyone else in attendance. It was all so romantic, she almost didn’t mind Enzo’s hand roaming under the edge of her skirt.

  “Let’s get some air,” he said after a bit. “I’m dying for you, Maggie.”

  She didn’t think he’d ever said her name before. His hand rested on her upper thigh, this time outside her dress. But his little finger moved up, softly stroking just above her thigh.

  “Okay,” she breathed, pushing his hand away. Even though she knew that sex with him wasn’t fantastic, her body still hadn’t gotten the message. “Air would be good.”

  He smiled and stood, pulling her to her feet. They ducked out, though she wasn’t sure they were supposed to leave during the show, or that they’d be allowed back in. “I know a place we can go,” he said, pulling her away from the entrances.

  “I thought we were getting air.”

  “I had something better in mind.”

  “Really, Enzo? Here?”

  “Really,” he said, opening a door to what appeared to be a utility closet. A breaker box with what looked like a hundred fuses paneled one wall.

  “What are you doing?” she whispered, glancing back before he tugged her inside. Of course she already knew what he wanted. “What if something goes wrong and someone comes in to check on these?”