“It was my plan to continue on to Rome tonight. I already have a room booked.”
“Thank goodness, because it will be impossible to find one this close to Christmas.”
“Nearly everything was taken. That’s why the room is only for tonight and tomorrow night. I was thinking that we could see as much as we could tomorrow, and then maybe leave around noon on Christmas Eve. I can drop you back here and head back to Zurich.” He paused for a moment before adding, “That is, unless you don’t mind me hanging around until Christmas Day.”
Her mouth opened, then closed. “I...I think I’d like that,” she said.
Aiden couldn’t stave off the smile that curled up the corners of his lips. “So would I.”
Nyla cleared her throat and returned to packing the breads. “So, which hotel did you book in Rome?”
“I can’t remember the name, but I know it’s in the Termini Station District.”
She looked up at him. “That’s perfect. My friend Else lives not too far from there. I can stay with her.” She tipped her head to the side and smiled. “I really am happy you invited me along. There’s something truly miraculous about Rome at Christmas.”
Aiden didn’t doubt it, but he already had his Christmas miracle. Having her there with him was the only miracle he needed.
* * *
“Are you sure you didn’t want to stay for the concert?” Aiden asked. He strolled alongside her, his hands stuffed in his pockets. They delivered the baked goods to the church, which was already filling up with both tourists and locals eager for the annual concert to begin, then took off for their walking tour of San Gimignano.
“Positive,” Nyla said. “Don’t get me wrong, I find watching a bunch of cute kids sing Christmas carols precious and all, but after about twenty minutes of standing in the cold my feet go numb. Besides, I want you to see the town.”
The snow had finally stopped falling as they traversed Via San Matteo, one of the town’s main arteries, but flakes continued to shuttle down the eaves of the shop roofs that lined the popular tourist route.
Nyla pointed to the structure at the southern edge of the narrow street. “You see that stone tower up ahead? That’s La Torre del Diavolo, the Tower of the Devil.”
“Huh, didn’t realize I’d get to see where the devil lives. I guess that’s cool, though not what I had in mind when planning my Christmas vacation.”
Nyla laughed. “Legend has it that the owner left for a trip, and when he returned, the tower had somehow grown taller. The townspeople attributed it to the devil, thus the name.”
“I think the townspeople just wanted the owner to think he was losing his mind. They probably had those bricks tucked away somewhere and started adding to the tower the minute he left.”
Nyla lolled her head to the side and released a tired sigh. “Your lack of appreciation for good folklore is such a disappointment.”
“Sorry,” he said, humor shading his voice. “I’ll try to lock away my pesky scientific side so I can be more open to your folklore and fairy tales.”
“It’s for your own good. It will make this trip much more tolerable, especially when we get to Rome with all of its ancient legends.”
“I can appreciate good history,” he said. “I hadn’t heard of San Gimignano before learning that you lived here, but I must admit I’m intrigued by these towers. The fact that they’ve survived this long and are still in such good shape is amazing,” Aiden said, his eyes focused on one of the town’s fourteen remaining medieval towers. “When you live in a country as young as the United States, it’s hard to comprehend structures that have been standing for several centuries.”
“I know,” Nyla said with a wistful sigh. “Even though I’m surrounded by it every day, it still takes my breath away.”
Aiden looked over at her and, after a moment, blew out a resigned sigh. “You really do love it here, don’t you?”
She nodded. “I do.”
He dropped his head and huffed out a humorless laugh. “Shit.”
“Don’t be that way,” Nyla said. “Tuscany has been good to me. It’s been good for me. I thought moving to Paris and following one of my lifelong dreams would solve everything, but it didn’t. I was still in such a dark place. There was something about San Gimignano that made me whole again.”
Aiden stopped walking, causing her feet to halt midstroll. He took her hands in his and, with an earnestness in his voice that touched her soul, said, “As much as I hate that you had to leave in order to feel whole again, I’m happy you were able to find a place where you could be happy. Over the tens of thousands of times I’ve thought about you these past three years, the thing I’ve wished for most is that you were happy.”
His words wrapped around her like a warm blanket, eliciting a measure of comfort that only Aiden had ever provided. It scared her as much as it consoled her. The feeling she experienced this very moment—the trust, the tenderness—it was the thing she feared most about being around Aiden again.
Three years ago, she’d fallen for him with amazing ease. As a result, her well-ordered life had been upended. It was only by some miracle that Aiden’s had not been destroyed, as well.
She would not be so stupid—so selfish—as to put them through that kind of turmoil again.
Two days.
She only had to get through two days. It would be a test of her will, but also a testament to how well she’d learned from her past mistakes.
They walked through the narrow arched passageway that led to the Piazza della Cisterna. Nyla gave Aiden a brief history of the triangular-shaped square.
“What’s that?” he asked, pointing to the well in the center of the piazza.
“Probably one of the most visited sites in all of San Gimignano. For hundreds of years that well was where the town’s residents got their water.”
“It’s a cistern. That’s where the name Piazza della Cisterna must come from.” He looked over at her. “Am I right?”
“I knew it wouldn’t take long for that massive brain to catch on,” she said with a laugh. She breathed deeply and pointed to the café just off to the right of the well. “Mmm...do you smell that? That place makes the best ribollita you will ever eat.”
“I make it a point not to eat anything I can’t pronounce,” Aiden said.
She pinched his arm, even though she couldn’t do much damage through his heavy suede coat. “There’s more to life than Quarter Pounders with cheese,” she said, remembering his ridiculous love of McDonald’s. “Ribollita is a thick soup made with beans and topped with fresh red onions to give it a crunch. It’s perfect on cold nights like tonight.”
“I think I’ll stick with the burgers and fries.”
Nyla rolled her eyes, but she had to admit it was nice to see some things about him hadn’t changed.
She pointed out several more structures as they walked through the narrow streets leading back to the bakery. They climbed the stairs behind it, which led to the small apartment she sublet from her boss’s son.
Murano Leoncini had been living in San Francisco for the past two years. But he would be back in San Gimignano at the end of January, which meant she had an important decision to make.
“Well, this is home,” Nyla said, shutting off thoughts of Murano’s return and gesturing for Aiden to enter ahead of her.
He unwrapped his scarf from around his neck, took off his jacket, and draped them both over the arm of her living-room chair.
Nyla took in the size of his shoulders and marveled at how much he’d changed, at least physically, since the last time she’d seen him. His body resembled his brother’s more athletic build, but he wasn’t overly muscular as Cameron had been. Those nicely defined muscles looked very good on him, too good. So good that she was starting to question the wisdom of being confined in a
car with him for three hours as they drove down to Rome.
He walked over to the scraggly three-foot Christmas tree she’d placed on a stand atop an end table. A crooked smile tilted his lips as he trailed a finger along the string of popcorn garland she’d made in a fit of nostalgia.
“Give me a few minutes to throw some clothes in a bag,” Nyla said. “Can I get you something to drink while you wait?”
Aiden waved off the offer. Leaving the tree, he plopped down on her sofa, leaned his head back and closed his eyes.
Nyla’s breath hitched as memories assailed her. How many times had he assumed that pose after “dropping in” at her home in Kirkwood, exhausted from a day of challenging classes at Georgia Tech? She’d accepted his excuses about not wanting to face the traffic heading home to north Atlanta, and never questioned when an hour of hanging out soon led to two or three. And eventually overnight.
On those few occasions when he told his parents that he was bunking in a friend’s dorm room, Nyla convinced herself that the little white lie wasn’t all that bad. It wasn’t as if they’d spent those nights doing anything untoward. They’d watched old movies, or played Scrabble until after midnight. When it was time for bed, she would sleep in her room and Aiden on the sofa. Nothing ever happened.
But she knew Aiden wanted it to. And as much as she’d tried to turn a blind eye to what was happening, she knew that she had wanted something more to happen, too.
She should have stopped it long before those feelings got so out of hand. But she had not wanted it to stop, because never in her life had she felt more alive, more true to herself, than she had when she was with Aiden. Even though their relationship had never become physical, what had started as just a friendship had blossomed into more.
That she had allowed her heart to become involved had made her into the thing she most loathed—a cheater. After suffering through the hurt of a philandering ex-lover, Nyla had thought it incomprehensible that she could ever do something remotely similar.
That’s why she continued to feed herself the lies that what she and Aiden were doing wasn’t cheating. There was nothing wrong with spending time with someone who shared her interests, especially when Cameron had shown a complete lack of enthusiasm for many of the “boring” things she enjoyed. Aiden had filled a void, and eventually he began to fill crevices in her heart she hadn’t known were empty.
He’d made falling for him so damn easy.
Nyla’s eyes fell shut. She would not go there again. She couldn’t. She’d suffered enough guilt to last a lifetime; she would not put herself through that again.
She grabbed her weekender bag from the top shelf of the hall closet on the way to her room. As she snatched a couple of sets of bras and panties from her underwear drawer, she pulled up Else’s number. She knew Else, a college professor originally from Phoenix, wouldn’t have a problem with her bunking at her place for a few days, but Nyla would do her the courtesy of asking first. Her call went to voice mail, so she left a message, letting Else know that she would be darkening her doorstep in a few hours.
As she plucked a couple of sweater dresses and her calf-length boots from the closet, she tried to dismiss the anxiety creeping along her conscience.
“What are you doing?” Nyla asked the empty room.
On a list of bad ideas, this had to rank at the very top, right above jumping off a cliff. Which was how she felt with the way her emotions were all over the place. Had she not learned anything from the repercussions she’d suffered the first time she’d allowed herself to get close to him? Was she setting herself up for another fall?
“It’s just a couple of days,” Nyla reminded herself. She could handle a couple of days.
She reentered the living room and immediately rethought that assertion.
Aiden stood with his back to her, observing the framed photographs she’d taken when she’d tried her hand at photography.
Nyla was struck by the quiet confidence he now exuded. It was evident in the way he carried himself, standing strong with shoulders back and his head high. She’d caught glimpses of the young, sweet, slightly nerdy college student she remembered so well, but there was no denying that he’d come into his own. Or that he was all man.
As his eyes roamed the black-and-white stills of the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe and the tree-lined Champs-Élysées, Nyla’s eyes roamed over him.
Her gaze immediately homed in on the way his soft brown corduroys cupped his backside. As her eyes traveled upward, she marveled at the way the wool sweater outlined the muscles in his back and shoulders. It was such a contrast to the slim, lanky body of a few years ago. His muscles weren’t as big as Cameron’s, but they were just as fine. Perfect, actually. She had never been a fan of huge muscles. Toned and trim was much sexier.
Nyla’s head jerked back as she realized where her train of thought had led her. She had to stop doing this.
Aiden turned, catching her off guard. “Hey.” He gestured to her bag. “You ready?”
“Uh, yes,” she said. “I am.”
His forehead dipped in a curious frown as he reached for her bag. “You okay?”
“Yes, of course,” Nyla lied.
She wasn’t okay. Not even a little bit. She didn’t know how she would survive the next few days. The swift rush of pleasure she experienced every time she saw him, along with the anguish she suffered knowing that he would eventually share all that she loved about him with someone else, was bound to overwhelm her.
Envy toward the woman who would one day be a part of his world had been a constant struggle during those first few months after she left. It still was. Although, now that she thought about it, maybe knowing he was off-limits could actually help her get through these next few days.
“I’ve been meaning to ask how things are going with your girlfriend,” Nyla said.
“Who?”
“The girl who was with you in your profile picture on Facebook for a while. She had that pretty light brown complexion and those green eyes.”
“You mean Erica.”
“I guess. Where did the two of you meet?”
“Work. She’s in Human Resources. But we’re not seeing each other anymore. We decided we worked better as friends and coworkers.”
“Oh.” Nyla staunchly ignored the sudden tingles that traveled across her skin. It shouldn’t matter that he’d broken things off with his girlfriend. “So, is there anyone special in your life?” she asked.
Aiden paused for a moment, his eyes trained on her. “Yes,” he answered.
She couldn’t ignore the way her heart deflated at that single word. “That’s wonderful,” she said, and tried to convince herself that she meant it.
She was happy for him. Of course, she was happy for him. Aiden was sweet, smart and funny; he deserved to have someone special in his life. And it was exactly what she needed to hear. Knowing that he was taken took the pressure off her. She wasn’t about to become the other woman for anyone. She could relax now and just enjoy this time with him.
“Nyla,” Aiden started. “That someone special—”
Her phone rang.
She held up a finger, grateful for the interruption. She was happy for him, but she wasn’t interested in hearing about his latest girlfriend.
“One minute.” She checked the phone, expecting to see Else’s number. Instead it was Guido Leoncini’s. “It’s the bakery owner,” she said. “I need to cover a few things with him before I leave.”
She turned and spoke to Guido in Italian, letting him know the bakery was locked up but that he should go in tomorrow to make sure the embers in the oven had completely burned out.
She took pride in running Leoncini’s, even though she’d known she would leave, even if Murano weren’t returning. She had not put in so much time and effort into learning the craft of
pastry making to spend the rest of her life in a small family bakery. Her dreams had always been so much bigger. She just wasn’t sure she was ready to take the step she had been contemplating.
Nyla glanced at the tiny desk in the corner. The yellow legal pad next to her laptop listed several vacant storefronts in downtown Atlanta and a few in some of the wealthier suburbs where a high-end bakery would thrive. She’d slashed through the ones that had been leased over the past few weeks, but the one she’d had her eye on was still available.
All it would take was a phone call to the real-estate agent. She’d purposely refrained from accumulating too many possessions. A few boxes and her suitcase, and she could be on her way to Atlanta and the pastry shop she’d had her heart set on opening since her dad brought her to one to celebrate her tenth birthday.
Her chest tightened just at the thought of returning home, back to the family she’d missed like crazy over the past three years.
Back to the place where so many people knew of the humiliation she’d suffered.
Could she do it? Did she have a choice?
She couldn’t stay hidden in Europe forever. And she didn’t want to. As much as she loved Tuscany and the life she’d built for herself, she missed the life she’d left back in the States. Maybe it was time she returned.
Now was not the time to think about this. She’d vowed to put all that stuff aside and just enjoy herself these next couple of days. It was Christmas, after all.
She pocketed her cell phone and clapped her hands together. “Ready?” she asked.
“Nyla, about what we were talking about before your phone rang.”
Yes. His new girlfriend.
If there was one thing she didn’t want to think about more than those impending decisions she had to make regarding going back home, it was Aiden’s new girlfriend.
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