Roman Encounter

by Lily Zante

  She knew everyone at the Cazale Roma well and despite her position and experience, she didn’t put on any airs. Rather, she considered herself as one of them. Demetrio’s behavior irked her. Often, she would come up behind him when he was having such moments of conceitedness and take him down a peg or two.

  Later, in the afternoon of her first day, he came up to her.

  “I was thinking,” he said slowly, rubbing his chin. She still couldn’t help but stare at the gigantic face of his watch. “We haven’t gotten off to a good start.”

  She waited for the information he was about to impart. As far as she was aware, she had never knowingly done anything to incur his wrath, and as such, had never understood the grudge he seemed to hold against her.

  “How about we go out and get something to eat tonight?” he asked, “Just friends, of course.”

  Ugh. She didn’t at all relish the thought of spending any extra time with him over and above her working day but, if she turned him down now, it wouldn’t look good and it would give him more ammunition for that arsenal of grudge he appeared to hold against her. This was one of those times when she would have to just do the thing and get it over with.

  “Just colleagues, of course,” she corrected him. ‘Friends’ wasn’t a word she would use to describe what she thought of him.

  “It would seem odd not to, since we’re both here…”

  “True.”

  He rolled his sleeves up another inch, flashing the watch some more. Ines was right, he was in love with himself. Haughty and self-obsessed—the worst combination. She’d thought Christian was over-confident, but he wasn’t as bad as Demetrio. Thinking about it, Christian wasn’t so bad after all.

  She shook her head, not wanting to go down that rabbit-hole. Being back in Rome, knowing he wasn’t far from her, the temptation sometimes reared its head for her to call him, and then she reminded herself of that conversation, and it always stopped her.

  “Shall we just have a quick dinner?”

  “Yes,” she said, “That would be good.” A chance to get on better, maybe understand Demetrio better and find out what he was really like. At least she would be distracted and not sitting in her hotel room, or wandering around Rome alone, still thinking of Christian.

  A few hours later, she found herself sitting opposite Demetrio outside a restaurant not far from where Christian had taken her after Trussardi.

  “How will you cope?” Demetrio asked, twisting a fork through his spaghetti.

  “Cope?” She dug a fork into her gnocchi and lifted it to her mouth. “What do you mean?”

  “The Casa Adriana isn’t as busy, and you’re probably not going to find a place that’s as lenient, or a boss who lets you get away with,” he paused to take a sip of his lemonade. “To get away with things as much.”

  Her nostrils flared. “What do you think Nico has let me get away with?” She’d worked hard these last few years, and Nico knew it. This obnoxious upstart in front of her had no idea, and she was interested to hear where he thought she’d been slacking off.

  Demetrio put down his fork. “Like the couple of months you wanted to take off.”

  Apart from the fact that she’d now resigned, and therefore wouldn’t need to take those months off, she failed to see why this was an issue for him. “Nico owes me a lot of leave in lieu of the extra time I’ve worked, not the whole two months, but I’ve postponed my vacations and training courses and I’ve often changed my plans to suit him.”

  Demetrio huffed out like a petulant child. “You’re getting upset again, Gina. We’re having a discussion. You don’t have to get so uptight about it.”

  She almost choked on her food. “I’m not getting upset.” She gritted her teeth together. “I’m not uptight, either.” She flashed him a smile she didn’t feel.

  “Are you sure? I’m simply trying to have an honest discussion with you.” He continued eating, and for a few moments she sat back, aghast. This was why he’d wanted her to come to dinner, so that he could wind her up even more.

  “You’re making a lot of assumptions,” she said, putting down her fork and clasping her hands together, hoping to exhibit a sense of power in order to hide the fury she sought to quell. “Especially for someone who hasn’t been with the company for long. You obviously have no idea what you’re talking about. And as far as I’m concerned, my request to take extended leave from work has nothing to do with my ability to cope. I think you’ll agree that Nico has no problem with it either, and he clearly thinks I can cope otherwise he wouldn’t have sent me here to help with the audit.”

  “You’ve misunderstood me, Gina.”

  “I didn’t misunderstand.” She sat forward, and examined his face closely. This guy was a pure psychopathic piece of work and he had no idea of how annoying he was. She was fed up with holding back and now she had wasted her evening listening to this asshole. “I know you think I don’t have the skills for the job I have, and I know you mistakenly believe that your precious pieces of paper from your fancy college make you better than most, well, let me put that pompous little mind of yours to rest and lay things out for you in a way you might understand. I might not have a fancy degree or qualifications, but I have enough on-the-job experience earned from being in the trenches to know what’s what, and I probably got the bulk of my training while you were still going through puberty.”

  Demetrio’s face turned white. His mouth opened but no words came out.

  “Gina?”

  She was so incensed, that she couldn’t help but hold her gaze as she stared into his stone-cold face. “Gina?” She turned to find Christian looking at her, his brow furrowed.

  The shock of seeing him didn’t hit immediately, that came seconds later. It took a moment for her to grasp who he was, as if there was a delayed reaction to her brain. And then she saw the woman next to him. All she could see was an abundance of too-muchness. Ample lips, ample hips and ample breasts. The goddess of womanly curves in-all-the-right-places. She felt like a stick figure just being in the same space as her.

  “What are you doing back here?” Quiet surprise accompanied his words. She didn’t answer immediately, so taken aback was she at seeing him with another woman.

  “This is Rachele, a friend of mine.”

  She felt something pierce her lung. Something that made the air leak out of her lungs so that she struggled to breathe. That Rachele. A friend.

  A girlfriend?

  Her body stiffened on cue.

  “Ciao.” She forced the word out but it sounded more like an exhale of breath. Rachele mumbled something in return.

  “What are you doing here?” Christian asked again. She could tell he was completely caught off guard. She wanted him to carry on talking so that she could pick up the pieces of her heart that had just fragmented and crashed to the floor. She put down her cutlery. “Working,” she replied and picked up her napkin but then didn’t know what to do with it.

  “You’re working here?” The lines on Christian’s face contorted. He looked at her as if she’d done him a grave injustice. “That was fast. Is this a new job?”

  “No,” she said, trying to still the jingle-jangle of motion in her stomach. “I’m working at our hotel here. You remember I told you we had one in Rome?” She could barely look at him. Seeing him like this, was like a punch to her gut. He’d winded her.

  Rachele coughed lightly, and Gina wasn’t sure if it was to clear her throat or because it was a secret signal to Christian to hurry up. He didn’t seem to want to go, and instead looked into her eyes as if he was trying to understand why she was here.

  “You can re-take your test while you’re here,” he offered, ignoring his friend completely.

  “Re-take it?” The emphasis in Demetrio’s voice made Gina’s belly harden. “But you said you’d passed.”

  Heat seared her cheeks, branding them.

  Liar. Liar.

  She wanted to vanish into the air and be blown away.

  “Y
ou said you got 95%.” Demetrio was enjoying this, as much as it was slowly killing her. She lifted her eyes to Christian’s because, to look away would make her feel even more wretched than she already did. A fluke and a liar.

  “I was joking with you.” She eyed Demetrio. “Ines knows I didn’t pass. It wasn’t a secret at all.”

  Christian broke the awkwardness and offered his hand. “I’m Christian,” he said. “And you must be?”

  She vaguely heard the conversation taking place while she and Rachele appraised one another as casually as possible. She heard Demetrio rattling off the reason he was here, while Christian said nothing.

  When it turned quiet again, Christian addressed her. “You can call the center anytime.”

  She offered a weak smile in response.

  “Ciao.” He walked off, his head high and his gaze cold. His girlfriend tottered after him.

  “Why did you lie to me?” Demetrio demanded.

  “It was only two marks.” She forced herself to pick up her fork and act as if nothing affected her. As she had expected, Demetrio was making a big deal out of the news.

  “It’s still a fail.”

  “I know.”

  “Are you embarrassed?”

  Her mouth stilled, and the food she had in it turned to plasticine-tasting mush. “Of course not! It was two marks. I had a feeling you were going to make a big deal of it, and I was right.”

  “Does Nico know?”

  “Ines knows,” she answered, lifting her glass of sparking mineral water to her lips.

  “Who was he, anyway?” Demetrio asked.

  “One of the trainers at Fordana.” She gazed wistfully in the direction that Christian had gone. A woman like Rachele looked good on Christian’s arm. Gina bit down hard on her teeth, making her jaw tighten. She relived the memory of their night together. It was so clear to her. He had been desperate, and she had been nothing more than instant relief.

  Chapter 27

  “Who was that?” Rachele asked.

  “She was on a course a few weeks ago.”

  “She lied about her test! Even her boyfriend didn’t know.”

  “How do you know he’s her boyfriend?”

  “He seemed like he might be. Why else would she lie about her grade?”

  His lips drew back in a snarl. Was she really with that idiot? Somehow he doubted it. Gina would have told him if she had a boyfriend, and besides, she hadn’t looked too happy when he’d turned up. It seemed as if the two of them had been arguing.

  He pulled off his tie and slipped it into his trouser pocket. The heat sizzled and Rome on a sultry evening felt, to him, even dirtier, more gridlocked, more polluted than ever. Gina had loved it here, but she was looking at it through the eyes of a tourist.

  Or escaping.

  He had often pondered what she had told him that evening on his balcony, about her need to escape. He liked to think he had made her visit memorable. He thought he had, until everything had crumbled to dust the next day and, for the life of him, he was still none the wiser.

  So, she was back in Rome, and working here and she hadn’t even had the decency to call and tell him? It had only been days since he’d called her and asked if she wanted to retake the test. She hadn’t said a word to him then.

  “What are we celebrating again, C?” Rachele asked, looping her arm through his and sidling up close. She attached herself to him like a leech, making it difficult for him to walk.

  “We’re only going for drinks.”

  “Oh,” she sounded disappointed. “We don’t usually go for drinks.” She pressed her breasts up against his biceps.

  But now that he’d seen Gina and with a guy, Gina here in Rome—something he had no prior knowledge of—he was more pissed off than he’d been in days. He wasn’t used to being ignored by a woman he’d taken to bed.

  “Why are you making that face?” Rachele tugged at his arm.

  “What face?”

  “The one you make when you’re not listening to me.”

  “You’re being silly,” he said, dismissively.

  She huffed out but said nothing. The only reason he’d arranged to meet Rachele for drinks was because he wanted to tell her something. This arrangement of theirs, while it had been mutually beneficial for both of them at one time, was no longer working for him.

  Not since Gina—which was crazy.

  He couldn’t do this anymore, and he didn’t want Gina to ever find out. What he had with Rachele was pure, animal sex. With Gina, it had transcended to something more. He had experienced a fleeting connection of hearts and minds of two people who were the perfect match, and he needed to tell Rachele that this had to stop, he had to tell her to her face so that she got the message.

  “What did I say?”

  “Look, Gina, I need to—”

  “Gina?” she hissed. “Gina?” Louder this time.

  He wiped his forehead with his hand. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

  She looked at him suspiciously. “What’s the matter with you all of a sudden? You’ve been acting all weird lately. What’s going on?”

  He was so wound up that he no longer wanted to go for a drink. He didn’t want to sit down and spend time getting to the point. He wanted to get it over and done with now.

  “I can’t—I don’t want to do this anymore.”

  “What?” Surprise flickered across her face. “What do you mean you don’t want to?” She was so incensed she could barely get her words out.

  “I’d rather you were just my friend, and nothing else.”

  Rachele’s eyes fluttered as if she was trying to make sense of his words. “I’m not asking for commitment, Christian,” she said, stressed, shaking her head as her eyes bored into his. “I’m not asking you to put a ring on my finger. It’s just sex.” She sounded completely flummoxed. As if she’d handed him the winning numbers to a lottery and he had refused them.

  “Just sex isn’t working for me,” he told her, and caught the glimmer in her eye and knew she was starting to hold onto false hope if he wasn’t careful.

  “We could take things slowly, if you want commit—”

  “I don’t want anything.” Not with you.

  “But I don’t understand. Is it me? Is it something about me that you don’t like?”

  “None of this is about you, Rachele.” How could he make her see? Not everything was about her.

  “Are you having a problem with your…your…” She stared down at his crotch, then whispered in his ear, “Can’t you get it up or something?”

  “No.” He locked his jaw together and let out a slow and restrained breath. “That’s not it either.”

  “It’s someone else, isn’t it?”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  Her eyes turned shiny then, as if he’d punctured her heart. “Then why? Why, Christian?”

  He shrugged, he wasn’t sure himself. This couldn’t be because of that one night, could it? He scrubbed his forehead, wishing he himself could understand why.

  “You’ve met someone,” she said, decisively, as if she’d made up her mind about it. She clutched her handbag with two hands and pursed her lips, rolling them together as if to stop herself from making an anguished cry. “You’re with someone and you don’t know how to break it off with me. It was my fault for going away on business for so long.”

  He didn’t want to upset her but he didn’t know how to lessen the hurt. Their arrangement had been so short-lived that they hadn’t even discussed the consequences of meeting other people, or that one of them might get hurt. Even though what she said held a grain of truth—he had met someone—it didn’t look as if this was going anywhere. “We can stay friends,” he said, softly.

  She backed away, shaking her head. “No, we can’t.”

  Chapter 28

  Christian flicked through the class survey sheets. The students seemed happy and he should have been. He’d received high scores for his course delivery. And
a perfect 5 out of 5 from the pretty project manager from Turin. Nothing new there. He filed the sheets away into a folder ready to give to the receptionist on his way out.

  Another Friday night drinks session beckoned. The sales team had sold another big license and there was reason to celebrate. He had half a mind to go. Maybe Nesta might have some good news for him.

  The door suddenly flew open and Emilio walked in, not looking so happy. He closed the door behind him. Curious, Christian straightened up, moving his hand away from the mouse.

  “What?” he asked.

  Emilio stood in front of his desk, with his hands in his pockets and his head lowered. “I got the job.”

  “What job?”

  “The one in sales.”

  Christian narrowed his eyes. He wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly. “What job?”

  “The sales job, the same one you went for.”

  The news hit like a bare-knuckle bodyshot straight to his stomach. The kind of hit that ruptured an appendix.

  “You went for the job in sales?”

  “I thought you knew.”

  “How the hell would I know? Why would I know?”

  Emilio let out a breath slowly. “I figured what the heck, I didn’t think I stood a chance, to be honest. I thought they might consider me over-experienced, too technical to be good at sales.” He laughed, but Christian found nothing about it that was funny. “Nesta came over and told me just now that they decided to take me on. I wanted to tell you first.”

  The sneaky bastard. “You could have said something.”

  “I thought I did.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “Sorry. I thought I did. Well, I’m telling you now.”

  Christian clamped down on his molars, feeling sure he’d shaved at least a millimeter off. The son of a bitch. “This is the first I’ve heard of it, but that’s…that’s great.” If he’d known Emilio was in the running, he wouldn’t have pinned his hopes so high. Compared to Emilio, he didn’t stand a chance. “Congratulations.” It took a huge shift of effort for him to extend his hand. “When do you start?”