A Place in the Sun(14)

“So you up and fled the country? Why couldn’t you just tell her you weren’t interested in being set up anymore?” Katerina asked.

“It’s not that simple. My mum is very persistent…” I decided to leave out the details of our family’s tragic few years, skipping over all the reasons it was so hard to say no to her. “And I knew it made her happy, so I just sort of went along with it.”

“So why here, why now?”

Gianluca had finally spoken again, directly to me, and I tried my best not to make a show of how excited it made me. I turned to him with a shrug.

“Well she won’t rest until I’m married off, so I had to get away, and to be honest, it’s not like I wanted to go on living life alone either. I figured if I got out of London, I could test things on my own. Go on dates I’ve set up, that sort of thing.”

“And you like Italian men?” Katerina asked, nudging my shoulder suggestively.

“I’ve hardly gotten a chance to get to know him—them.”

I blushed and stared down at my wine glass.

The conversation felt so personal, like I was practically throwing myself on Gianluca or something. I was ready to shift things back onto someone else, but Katerina spoke up first.

“Have you got a list of requirements, then? A type?”

I frowned, confused.

“It just seems like you would. You’re gorgeous and single, which tells me you’re probably quite picky.”

I couldn’t force my blush to recede. “I mean…there are a few things—”

She clapped. “I knew it! Tell us then, from the beginning.”

“It’s not much, really. He has to be intelligent and handsome…”

“Boooo,” Katerina moaned. “Tell us the real stuff. He obviously has to be smart and handsome. What are you really going after?”

I grinned, giddy from the wine. “Fine, okay. Preferably he would like to read. He’d have a well-worn edition of Great Expectations or A Tale of Two Cities—y’know, proper literature.”

Katerina nodded with a big cheesy grin, encouraging me.

“He’d be tall, but not gargantuan, you know? Um, let’s see…he’d like to have a good laugh. He’d like footie, but he wouldn’t be obsessed with it or anything. Oh! Most importantly, he’d be open and ready for love, without a ton of baggage—”

Massimo tossed his napkin on the table and leaned back. “That rules out Luca.”

Katerina laughed, but I didn’t.

What did he mean?

Gianluca was peeling the label off his beer bottle, seemingly unaware of the conversation going on around him, but then he glanced up and locked eyes with me. It only took a moment for me to see that he hadn’t just been ignoring us, he’d been in another world altogether.

He fidgeted, aware of everyone’s eyes on him, and then dropped his beer and stood.

“This has been fun, but I ought to get back before the sun drops too much lower.”

He reached into his back pocket for his wallet, tossed a few bills onto the table, and offered us a curt nod.

“I’ll see you around,” he said to Massimo and Katerina before turning to me. “Gigi, nice to see you.”

What the—

My mouth dropped, but he’d already turned and moved past the table before I could shout after him that he’d gotten my name wrong. We’d sat across from each other for the last two hours and he couldn’t even remember my name.

Katerina reached her hand out to touch my arm. “Please don’t take it personally. He doesn’t mean to be rude.”

Massimo nodded. “He’s been like that ever since Allie.”





I MET ALLIE at university the spring before we graduated. I was already set up to take a job in finance in London and she was going to teach. We should never have crossed paths, but we did. We crashed into each other’s lives. I was riding my bike on campus, racing to meet my mates at a pub a few blocks away. Allie was heading in the opposite direction. I skipped a traffic light and collided into her. She went flying and landed with a thud on a spotty patch of grass a few feet away. Her pink bike was nearly bent in two.

I opened my mouth, prepared to defend myself, but she was laughing, lying flat on the grass with a giant grin on her face.

“Oh god, are you okay?” I asked, rushing forward to help her up.

She didn’t move right away, not really concerned with me.

“Why are you laughing?”

She tried her best to quell her laughter, but it was no use. For a minute, I thought she might be insane, but finally she pressed her hand to her mouth and glanced up to me. “I have absolute shite luck. My parents bought me that bike as a graduation gift, just this morning.”

I groaned. “And now I’ve gone and ruined it.”

Good going, Luca.

She sat up and shook the hair out of her face. For the first time, I got a good look at her. She was lovely. Blonde and sweet.

“It’s okay, really.” She turned to assess the damage and her smile faded. I didn’t want it to fade. “I’ll tell them a car smashed it. They’ll moan about it but—”

“No,” I said, shaking my head adamantly. “I’ll repair it.”

Her brows rose. “You know how to mend bikes?”