Winter In Venice (Escape To Italy Book 3)

by Melissa Hill

  A woman in line let out an excited squeal, and Rachel burst into tears.

  He quickly stood up and caught her as she grabbed him in a hug, nodding and trying to wipe her tears away with her coat sleeve. He pulled a wad of tissues from her coat pocket and handed them to her, to the happy clapping and cheers of the passengers in line behind him.

  Rachel slept through most of the flight home, and when they landed at JFK, Scott quickly collected their luggage and hailed a cab, settling her in the backseat where she dozed off again. When they got home he made sure she was settled on the couch with a hot cup of cider and dumped the suitcases in a corner. They could unpack tomorrow, or the next day. He didn’t see any reason to rush.

  Their Christmas tree was all set up in the corner of the living room, and he plugged in the lights, bathing the living room in a soft glow. Scott sat down next to Rachel, and she snuggled into him. She was still admiring the way the stones in her ring sparkled, and he laced his fingers through hers, admiring the stones too.“Do you like it?”

  “It’s perfect,”she whispered, leaning back into him. They sat still for a moment, admiring the tree.

  Finally Rachel broke the silence.“Are you hoping for a girl or a boy?”

  “I don’t really care,”Scott said after a moment’s thought.“You?”

  She shook her head.“I’m happy with either one,”she said. Then after another moment she said,“Promise me something.”

  “Anything.”

  “When we’re getting ready for the baby—fixing the nursery, whatever…”

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t try to make it perfect, okay?”She rubbed her stomach, smiling a little.“Let’s just enjoy these moments together and not worry about how they happen.”

  “You got it.”Scott kissed her.“Merry Christmas, my perfect wife to be, who wishes for imperfect but totally real and romantic moments.”

  Rachel smiled.“Merry Christmas, my perfect husband to be who will never stop trying.”

  After a few moments Scott could tell by her breathing that she’d fallen asleep. Gently he pried the cider mug out of her hands and placed it on the coffee table, then picked her up and carried her into the bedroom, tucking her gently under the blankets. She twitched and sighed in her sleep, smiling a little to herself.

  “Merry Christmas,”he said softly, pulling the blankets up over her shoulders.“And here’s to years of imperfectly wonderful Christmases ahead.”

  And here’s to the romance of Venice, he thought as he went back to the living room to unplug the tree lights. He smiled a little to himself as he tiptoed back into the bedroom. I guess the best romantic moments happen when you stop looking for them.

  With Christmas hymns still echoing in Italian in his head, Scott snuggled up to his fiancée and drifted off to sleep.

  THE END

  I hope you enjoyed this novella.

  Try SUMMER IN SORRENTO, another escapist Italian tale from Melissa Hill out now, or read on for a short excerpt of AUTUMN IN VERONA, another romantic story in theEscape to Italy novella series.

  EXCERPT - AUTUMN IN VERONA

  Melissa Hill (All rights reserved)

  1.

  Sarah Parker crossed and recrossed her legs as she sat in Rome’s Da Vinci airport terminal, trying to concentrate on the paperback novel in her hands. It was the latest from Lily Forbes–one of her favourite UK novelists—called No Ocean Too Wide. According to the synopsis on the back it should be thoroughly engrossing: a tale of two star-crossed lovers in 1700s England, torn apart when he is sent to the Americas to fight the colonists in the Revolutionary War.

  Sarah normally gobbled up anything romantic and she especially loved historical fiction. Several of her friends had already offered high praise (as well as little sighs of delight) for this book and its hero, the determined young Vincent Hawthorne who would become injured and lost in battle, and sail home to discover he'd been given up for dead by his betrothed, now engaged to another.

  Swoon.

  Yet for all she tried, Sarah couldn't focus on the words on the page. Overhead there was an announcement in Italian which she didn't understand; she supposed that before jetting off to Italy she should have studied a bit of the language, but she hadn't found the time.

  She twisted her head, scanning the lounge for any sign of her husband, with no luck.

  Nate had gone to argue with the airline about their lost luggage and insisted that she find a cozy place to tuck herself up with a book and some coffee while she waited.

  “It might take them a while,”he'd said before disappearing into the terminal, and while she normally would have taken his words as a chivalrous indication that he didn't want her to tax herself with the waiting, right now she wasn't so sure. She almost imagined her new husband leaning against an airport counter with relief, glad to be away from her for a few moments.

  She couldn't say she'd blame him, or that she didn't feel the same way. For a honeymoon, this trip was turning out to be anything but romantic. Italy wasn't even their original destination; nor for that matter was it strictly a honeymoon, coming two months after their wedding. In fact, as Sarah’s mind drifted back over the past few months, she thought that it was a wonder this trip had happened at all.

  Truthfully, she couldn't say the trouble had started with the wedding. If anything, it had started when she first brought Nate home to meet her parents in Chicago, two years prior.

  They had met through friends during their last year of college and had been instantly smitten. Her parents were not so enthusiastic. Over dinner they had drilled Nate subtly but relentlessly about all things related to his schooling, job prospects and family ties, and in the end he was weighed and found wanting.

  Sarah's parents raised an eyebrow when they learned Nate’s father was a self-made man (a term her dad used with prim derision) and that he didn't come from old money (as her father did).

  Later Sarah overheard her mother whispering on the telephone with a friend.“And can you just believe,”she said, in a horrified tone usually associated with natural disasters or some type of scandal in the family,“I think his mother actually works for a living.”

  Her parents’disapproval notwithstanding, Sarah was smitten with Nate and vice versa, and as things progressed naturally between the two an engagement was soon announced. That, Sarah decided, was when things begin to go sideways at an alarming rate.

  Of course she had met Nate's parents and she thought she got on with them fairly well. Nate's family was different from hers, of course, but overall she thought she made a good impression (despite a moment of awkwardness when she complimented their cook on the dessert and learned that, in fact, they had no such domestic help). Nate later told her that his parents found her“charming”, and Sarah revelled in the bliss that comes with being young and in love.

  Then it was time to announce their engagement, and for their parents to meet. The tension between the two families was palpable from the start. It was clear that the Fieldings were going through with this show of unity and affection only to please their daughter, but that they were not prepared to be anything less than frosty to the Parker family that so clearly belonged to another social class. For their part, Nate's parents were to all appearances perfectly civil, but Sarah could sense resentment underneath their outward politeness.

  She and Nate shared an optimistic view that perhaps over time their respective sets of parents would thaw out enough to share in the joy of the upcoming wedding; but if anything, the launch of wedding preparations turned the early tension into all-out hostility.

  Sarah's parents wanted a June wedding; the Parkers felt June was a crowded month and wanted to know why the young couple didn't go with something less showy and traditional.

  The families began a drawn-out tug-of-war over everything from venues to wedding colors to the guest list; the final straw came when Sarah’s mother announced firmly that no children under the age of ten would be allowed in the wedding pictures unless they
proved themselves to be perfectly behaved for the camera, since, after all,“nothing ruins a wedding picture more quickly than an ugly, crying child.”

  Little by little, Sarah watched the wedding of her dreams slip away through her fingers. Her voice could barely be heard over the demands of her parents and future in-laws, both of whom seemed determined to steer the wedding as much to their tastes as was possible. Nate seemed nonplussed by the whole thing.“Why don't we just elope, if it's all so stressful?”he asked one night, while the young couple tried to enjoy a quiet dinner out to get away from all the wedding drama.

  In retrospect Sarah supposed he meant the offer in kindness, and as an out from the burden of all the planning, but at the time she took it as a complaint and lashed out, berating him for not understanding what a fairy-tale wedding would mean to her. The night ended poorly, as so many of their nights seemed to end since he'd first got down on one knee.

  In the end, miraculously, Nate and Sarah married on a warm June day in front of nearly four hundred guests; the ceremony took place outdoors at the private estate of a friend of her father’s.

  She wore a custom-made strapless silk Vera Wang gown and hand-dyed Christian Louboutin heels, and a pearl seed-studded veil that had arrived packed in layer upon layer of tissue paper. There were thousands of dollars worth of lilies at the ceremony—her mother's favourite flower—and she was surprised and delighted when a flock of doves was set loose immediately following their vows, fluttering gently over the guests to the“ooh”s and“aah”s of the crowd. For a short moment, she thought that all of the stress of the past months was behind them, and they were ready for the bliss of married life.

  Oh, was she wrong….

  Sarah's reverie was interrupted as Nate came up to her, empty-handed.

  “It's no good,”he said wearily, sitting down next to her.“The airline says our luggage was mistakenly rerouted on another flight. We won't get it for another couple of days, at least. I've left them the name of our hotel in Verona.”

  Sarah's heart sank. Why did everything seem to be going wrong with this trip?

  “Well, I guess that's that, then.”

  “Yeah. It's a good thing we packed carry-on bags after all.”

  Sarah bit her tongue at this remark. They'd had a last-minute argument while packing for the trip when she announced that she planned to skip the carry-on; after all, she planned on taking one suitcase anyway, so why the extra hassle of an additional bag?

  Nate, a more seasoned traveler, patiently explained that in the event something happened to their bags, she would be glad to have a change of clothes and her toothbrush at hand. She'd told him he was worrying needlessly, and he'd implied that she never worried enough.

  Sarah thought that now he just couldn't resist the chance to rub in the fact that he'd been proved right after all. She closed her book and stood, pretending to ignore his remark. This was supposed to be a honeymoon, after all; she didn't want to start their stay in Italy with an airport spat. Instead she said only,“Shall we find a taxi?”

  “Of course.”Nate followed her lead.“What are you reading? Oh. Lily Forbes. Should have known.”

  This time Sarah really was tempted to say something cutting, but she satisfied herself with shooting him a withering look instead. He raised his eyebrows innocently and brushed past her to move through the terminal. He's never made a secret of his disdain for her choice of reading material and often teased her about the romantic“nonsense”she liked to read.

  “So what?”she would say.“I enjoy it and that's all that matters.”Today, though, she wasn't in a mood to tease or to be teased, and she jammed the book into her bag and followed Nate sullenly to the taxi stand.

  The couple had a bit of a wait for a taxi, but at last they were inside and en route to the train station that would take them from Rome to Verona, where they had planned to spend a long, romantic weekend.

  An uneasy silence reigned in the backseat of the car, with Nate and Sarah purposefully avoiding looking at each other or speaking in anything more than monosyllables. Sarah wasn't sure if the Italian taxi driver didn't speak much English or if he could sense by their mood that this wasn't a time for small talk, but in any case he drove without speaking to them, and she lapsed back into her own memories.

  The wedding. Oh, it had indeed been beautiful. But immediately afterwards, things started falling to pieces once more. Sarah had had her heart set on a honeymoon on a tropical Indonesian island since she'd been a teenager, and they'd originally made arrangements to fly to Bali for a two-week stay, complete with rooms in those cute little huts above the water and plenty of time to sun themselves on the beach during the day.

  They arranged to fly into San Francisco and spend a night there before leaving the US for their trip, but the next morning at their hotel they received a phone call from Nate's parents: his brother had been in a car accident leaving the wedding and was in serious condition at the hospital.

  Sarah swallowed her disappointment and told Nate that of course they had to cancel the honeymoon and return home; this was a family emergency, after all.

  But the honeymoon was not easily rescheduled. His brother recovered slowly and Nate was determined to stay in Chicago to help him as long as he was needed.

  Then there were troubles re-booking the hotel. Sarah began to suspect that Nate didn't really care about going after all when he expressed a lack of interest in helping her plan the trip; that led to another argument. The stress of their courtship and wedding and the weeks following it were beginning to wear on the newly married couple, and small disagreements were becoming a regular part of their life together. Sarah hoped desperately that a belated honeymoon would give them a fresh start and allow them to put this bumpy period behind them.

  At last, they had come to an agreement: Autumn in Verona. An old school friend had holidayed in Italy the previous year and raved about the delights of the city, the romantic atmosphere, the food, the art, and the feeling of stepping into another world where the stresses of everyday life did not exist.

  It sounded perfect to Sarah, and she booked their stay immediately.

  Of course, the plans for the trip itself did not go smoothly either. There was the argument about the luggage; the unexpected fees to fast-track an up to date passport (which led to another casual remark from Nate to his new bride that she didn't plan things out far enough in advance).

  They were forced to adjust their travel plans at the last minute when their direct flight to Verona was cancelled, forcing them to scramble for a different flight and endure a series of unpleasant (and time-consuming) layovers, delaying them still further from their elusive romantic honeymoon.

  And now to top it all off, the misplaced luggage, to be forwarded to their Verona hotel no sooner than Sunday. It was now Thursday afternoon. Sarah gazed out the window of the taxi and tried to lose herself in the sights and sounds of the Italian capital.

  The taxi reached the train station in short order, and they boarded in the same stiff silence that had reigned throughout their flight and taxi ride. They had been told that the train journey would take about three hours, and Sarah pulled out her novel once more, pointedly ignoring Nate's expression of irritation, and determined to lose herself in it as they travelled.

  However, she soon put it back in her bag, immediately absorbed in the view from the train windows.

  The Italian countryside was bathed in the soft light of an autumn afternoon; they were travelling to Verona just as sunset approached, and the soft golden light only enhanced the beauty of the scene.

  Sarah scooted closer to the window to gaze out at the gentle roll of hills, farms and lavender fields dusky in the last rays of light, trees casting gentle shadows over white-washed family homes. It was a captivating scene, and she couldn't help but feel enchanted as she watched the countryside roll by.

  She noticed that Nate also moved closer to the window to look out as the scenery flew by them.

  The train entered Ver
ona at dusk, but even in the fading light Sarah caught a small glimpse of what the city had to offer.

  The old stone architecture was impressive even in the falling gloom of night, and Sarah craned her neck for a better look at the old buildings.

  She'd expected a fusion of the modern and the classical in this city, but she hadn't been prepared for how much old-world charm the city exuded. Once they were in another taxi en route to their hotel she kept her face to the window of the car, peering excitedly at the city streets. Iron gates and winding cobbled streets whispered of another time, before the arrival of modern things like automobiles.

  Balconies trailed with vines, abloom with the last flowers of the year and Sarah could almost imagine their fragrance. She felt as though she were truly slipping into another world.

  It was a beautiful city and unmistakably romantic.

  She couldn't read a single one of the many signs in Italian, but even the look of the language was charming and exquisite. She caught sight of couples sitting outside of trattorias, enjoying their evening meals as day turned to night, and she felt a small pang of jealousy mixed with hope. They all looked so carefree, sipping wine and savouring their food together.

  Instantly Sarah felt her mood lighten, and decided that by the end of this stay in Verona, she and Nate would be among those happy couples, talking and laughing as though they hadn't a care in the world.

  Whether he liked it or not.

  2.

  Lily Forbes strode purposefully through the airport, heels clicking on the floor, sunglasses firmly in place, carry-on suitcase rolling along neatly behind her. She didn't expect to be recognised by anyone—that was something actresses and pop singers had to worry about, not authors—but all the same, she considered this trip to Italy to be equal parts business and pleasure (with heavy emphasis on pleasure) and she didn't want to be bothered if she could avoid it.