The three young men had hung out together a lot the summer Parker spent with them at the beach.
“It’s crazy. I never thought he’d be so foolish.”
“Foolish, eh?” Parker said. “I figure at this point it’s probably okay to start settling down, no?”
“Not while I have blood coursing through my veins.”
Parker smiled. “I gotta give you credit for determination.”
“What, like you want to get married?”
Parker shrugged. “Honestly, I haven’t given it much thought. Though I don’t exactly have that much faith in the female sex these days, not after my last girlfriend hosed me like she did.” He proceeded to tell Lorenzo the whole story.
“Dude. No wonder you don’t want to get married.”
“I thought it was you who didn’t want to get married.”
“I don’t. But hearing that, I’m sure you don’t either. I mean, you can’t trust them as far as you can throw them.”
“There must be at least one reliable, trustworthy woman in the world.”
Lorenzo shook his head. “Yeah, like my mom and my sister. That’s about it.”
“You mean Valentina?” Parker hoped he was completely opaque bringing her up so casually.
“Please,” Lorenzo said. “You don’t have a thing for her too, do you?”
“I hardly know her,” Parker said. “I mean, back in the day, she was fine. But she was just a kid.”
Lorenzo slapped him on the back. “God, did she have it bad for you. Following you everywhere like a puppy dog, that desperate look in her eyes.”
Parker side-eyed him. “What?”
“There’s no way you didn’t notice it,” he said. “She was pathetically transparent. We all gave her so much shit for it too.”
Ahhh... A lone girl with all those brothers. Of course it was even harder for her to risk her feelings on him and for him to then shut her down... Why hadn’t he realized that on his own? Because he was a thickheaded young man, that’s why.
“Honestly, I hadn’t noticed much,” he said, lying through his teeth. “But poor Valentina. She must have been mortified.”
“Eh, she got over it,” he said. “She’s had enough boyfriends to show for it.”
Parker’s face fell. “She has a lot of boyfriends?”
“I can’t remember who she’s dating now,” her brother said. “Some guy named Dante, I think. I don’t know any details. Maybe he hired her to decorate his flat in Florence? Or was that Mario Lupetto?”
“Lupetto?” Parker said. “Doesn’t that mean ‘small wolf’? What’s your sister doing dating a guy who’s a little wolf? You should protect her from that.”
Lorenzo held up his hands. “Hey, I’m not in charge of my sister’s love life. I can’t even manage my own. If she wants to be with some guy who’s a wolf, so be it. But just because his name is that doesn’t mean he is, you know.”
Parker must’ve been hallucinating. Of course just because the guy had that name meant nothing. But then why did he suddenly want to go skin that little wolf so he wouldn’t sink his bloodthirsty teeth into Valentina?
Chapter Sixteen
After the sleigh rides ended, guests gathered around a bonfire for a short while and toasted the happy couple. Bit by bit, guests boarded the return bus, and just as Valentina was about to get on the last shuttle, she realized her phone must’ve fallen out during the ride. The drivers had just departed with the sleighs, so she decided to chase hers down so that she was sure to have her phone back before it was ruined by snow.
“I don’t think that’s a great idea,” Gisele said. “It’s getting dark and it’s really cold. Plus look at how hard it’s snowing. I’m sure someone can radio ahead to the driver to find it.”
“It’s fine,” Valentina said. “They just went down this path—they can’t have gone very far—it’s a bunch of sleighs and horses. Not like they’re race cars. Besides, I’ll hear the bells ringing.”
Gisele shook her head. “I dunno. I think you should reconsider that. Or at least—” She motioned for her brother, who was seated at the window of the bus. “At least get Parker to escort you. I think that makes much better sense.”
“Parker?” Valentina said, shaking her head. “Thanks but no thanks. I’d just as soon take my chances on my own.”
“What do you have against my brother? Why do you think so badly of him?” Gisele said. “He’s a really good guy. He’s got wonderful manners. He’s kind to others. He gives up his subway seat to old ladies.”
Valentina frowned. She didn’t want to embroil the man’s sister in this at all. But she’d asked; she was forcing her hand in the matter.
“Because long ago your brother humiliated me. He made me feel ashamed and embarrassed and it took forever to live it down and I swore there and then I’d never forgive him. Of course, I never saw him again, so that made it quite easy. But now he’s here and the facts are the facts, and I’m sticking to my original plan.”
“That’s not like Parker to embarrass someone, particularly a girl. What on earth would have prompted him to do that?”
Valentina could feel the rush of shame as if it were yesterday. Her on the beach, pining for him, yearning for the minute when he would bend to her wishes and they’d at last be together. Her stupid, idealistic teen-girl idiocy, front and center for all to laugh at.
“I was in love with your brother,” Valentina said. “And when I told him so, he embarrassed me in front of everyone, completely shunning me after inserting the dagger into my heart.”
Gisele knit her brow. “Wait a minute. So you’re telling me this happened like what, a decade ago? You were maybe fourteen? And he was, let me think,” she said, counting backward on her fingers. “So he was maybe twenty? And you told him you loved him and he told you no?”
“You make it sound sort of ridiculous.”
“Maybe because that does sound sort of ridiculous,” Gisele said. “Parker was a grown man, and you were a young teenager. Just about the same age as his sister at home. The one he worked so hard to protect from guys who wouldn’t be so respectful of age differences and vulnerable young women. And so rather than using you and discarding you—like a lot of guys would have happily done, mind you—he politely declined.”
“He hardly politely declined,” she said. “I barely have to paraphrase it because it’s so burned in my brain: ‘This,’ he said, pointing back and forth between the two of us, ‘will never happen, Valentina. I’m a grown-up and you’re a child.’”
“But he was speaking honestly. I mean, imagine how awkward it must have been for him—his own sister was the same age. And if some grown-up man propositioned his sister, he’d want to punch the guy. So of course he’d not pursue you. Besides, maybe he was embarrassed that somehow his actions might have led you on.”
Valentina paused for a minute as the snow swirled around her. “Look, I really don’t want to talk about this anymore. I need to go if I’m going to get my phone before it’s ruined. I’ll meet you back at the palace.”
With that, she took off into a white wall of heavy snowfall.
~*~
“Valentina—that’s crazy. Don’t do that!”
“What’s going on?” Parker said, hearing his sister yell at Valentina.
“I told her not to go, but she’s chasing the sleigh we were in because her phone is in there and she doesn’t want it to be ruined.”
Parker shook his head. “You have got to be kidding me. Sometimes I wonder...” But he didn’t finish the sentence as he took off after her. With dusk falling, this was no place for her to be wandering in cold and very inclement weather.
It didn’t take but a minute for him to catch up to her since the conditions weren’t exactly ripe to be able to run on the snow-covered footpaths.
“Are you on some crazy suicide mission or something?” he shouted at Valentina as he reached for her shoulder.
She shrugged him off and continued on, wrapping her arms
around herself against the cold.
“Why would you risk running after a stupid phone when you could get lost and hurt out here in the cold and dark? A phone is replaceable, but you’re not.”
She turned around and glared at him. “Like you care.” She knew as soon as she said it that it was the statement of a petulant child.
“Come off it, Valentina,” he said. “Of course I care. I’d care if you were the fourteen-year-old-girl with the mean left foot who clobbered all the boys playing soccer. And I’d care if it was the tempestuous but beautiful woman who knows how to leave a man wanting more while working assiduously to ensure that he not get it.” He cast a sheepish smile at her.
Valentina kept walking, veering off the path and cutting toward a grove of trees.
Parker stayed right on her heels. “Why do I get the feeling I’m somehow being punished with this crazy scavenger hunt for your missing cell phone?”
“You’re the one who insisted on following me,” she said. “I was perfectly fine doing this on my own.”
“I wouldn’t be particularly gentlemanly were I to have let you do this alone. Not that my mother’s around to judge me, but I can be sure she’d be deeply disappointed in me if I had.”
“So you get your manners from your mother?” she said, winding between trees so heavy with snow that branches were dropping piles of the white stuff on their heads.
“I can’t believe we’re discussing upbringing while we’re being turned into snowmen, but I suppose so,” he said. “Considering my father’s lack of good grace in the courtesy department, I’d hate to give him credit where credit isn’t due.”
“Sounds complicated.”
“Life’s complicated. And currently also quite cold.” He rubbed his arms, shivering.
“Look, I just took us on a shortcut that should let us head them off a little ways down here. In fact, I think I see them over there.” She pointed toward what looked like a clearing ahead and started running toward it but hit an icy patch. Her legs slipped out from under her, and she went down.
Parker ran toward her, shaking his head. “I’m afraid your cousin Luca failed to mention to me that you are a complete lunatic,” he said. “Because why else would you go on this wild-goose chase, risking life and limb? For a phone of all things.”
He helped her up, but he saw she was crying. He reached out toward her and wrapped her in his arms. “What’s the matter, Valentina? I can’t imagine your phone is this important to you.”
She nodded. “More important than you can ever imagine.”
“But whatever is on there is replaceable.”
She shook her head. “Not everything, unfortunately.”
He cocked his head and stared at her face. The snow fell now in large chunky flakes, resting on her eyelashes before she could blink them away.
“Is there a photograph on there you’re afraid to lose? I’m sure it’s backed up somewhere.”
“It’s not a picture,” she said, her voice resigned. “It’s the last voice mail I have from my papa before he died. I’ve held on to this phone for years because I listen to it every night before I go to bed. I need my phone back, and I’m not going to stop until I find it.”
Chapter Seventeen
Damn, women were complicated. Just when he thought he’d figured out that Valentina was a deranged nutter and he should keep very, very far from her, he discovered she was a sentimental fool, willing to risk her own safety to preserve a cherished talisman of her long-lost father.
Parker pondered what he would do if he’d been so lucky as to get one more phone message from his mother before she died, and it brought tears to his eyes.
“Okay, baby, I understand now why this is so very important to you,” he said. “But let’s think this through. First, I’m going to get hold of Luca and get him to have someone radio the drivers. They can search for your phone and then we can meet up with them somewhere warm and dry to reclaim it.” He held her tight as he spoke to her. “Next, I’m going to pull out my phone and figure out on a map exactly where we are and how far from a road, and then I’m going to call an Uber to come get us before we freeze to death. Because I don’t know about you, but I’m fairly certain the cousin of the groom dying a gruesome death in the Royal Gardens would pretty much put a damper on the wedding festivities. Am I right?”
He reached his arms out to her shoulders to give her a good, long look.
She frowned and nodded. “I suppose you’re right.”
“Can I get that in writing?” he said with a wink.
“Don’t push your luck. I’m still not exactly speaking to you.”
He didn’t want to point out that she already was speaking to him. No sense in getting her all riled up any more than she already was.
He pulled out his phone and located where they were in the park. “The good news is we’re in a city, so eventually you find your way back to civilization,” he said. “That said, it might be the difference between frostbite or a cup of hot cocoa. And I’m all for the hot chocolate and not so much for permanent flesh damage. You with me on that?”
She nodded, sniffling.
“So if we turn left and go about five hundred feet, that should put us on a road that borders the park. I’m opening my Uber app so that as soon as we’re there, I can summon a ride. All good?”
“But what about my phone?”
His text dinged, and he read the message. “Luca says the driver has the phone and will have it back to the palace probably before we’re even there.”
She smiled, her large, brown eyes wet from tears.
He reached for her hand. “Hang on to my hand so that you don’t fall. We’ll be in a warm car in a matter of a few minutes.”
They made it to the road and were able to get back to the palace in less than twenty minutes.
“Thanks for the adventure,” he said as they sat side by side in the back of the Uber car, trying to warm their icy hands with the heater vent. “Granted, I can think of more interesting ways to spend my time than turning into a human ice cube in a blizzard, but...”
The corner of her mouth lifted in a half smile. “I’m sorry I led you out there like that, Parker. I know it was a fool’s errand. I just panicked and didn’t know what to do.”
“Not a problem,” he said. “I would have done the same thing if I were you.”
“The thing is, no one knows about this. It’s like my own little secret with my father, some special little slice of him I don’t have to share with anyone. When he died, it was the thing that helped me through the pain of it, hearing him talk to me every night. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost that.”
“I’ll make a deal with you,” he said. “How about we figure out a way to back it up so that you can avoid having to run headlong into a speeding train in order to save it from being crushed on the tracks next time?”
She smiled. “Yeah, I’d like that.”
~*~
Sure enough, her phone beat her back to the palace, and she smiled, grateful, when it was placed in her palm. The drama of the afternoon had taken it out of Valentina. She just wanted to go hide beneath the blankets of her bed and sleep.
“You sure you don’t want to grab some dinner or something?” Parker said, sounding more than hopeful.
She shook her head. “I’m good, thanks. I think I need to just chill. And by chill, I mean warm up. And by warm up, I mean sleep.” She didn’t want him to think she was suggesting anything. She was tired and confused and had to reconcile the Jerk with the Non-Jerk standing in front of her, and she couldn’t do that with him right up in her face.
Once she got to her room, she turned on the gas fireplace and sat on the hearth for a while, just soaking in the heat. Damn, she had to remember to not do something so stupid next time. She was lucky Parker had followed her.
She finally retreated to the warmth of her bed, cocooned in a cloud of soft, downy splendor. As she drifted off to sleep, her mind was a blank slate, which was jus
t fine by her.
~*~
It was well after dark when she heard a knock on her door. Valentina pulled up her phone to check the time and saw that it was almost ten o’clock. She’d been asleep for several hours. Good thing she didn’t have any wedding commitments this evening, or she’d be in hot water. Though too bad she missed dinner because her stomach was rumbling, and it was probably too late to scrounge up a meal.
She dragged herself up out of the cozy comfort of her bed and walked to the living room, not even bothering to flick on the lights. The view from the floor-to-ceiling windows of her palace apartment revealed the brilliant, twinkling lights of the city decked out in her holiday splendor. She loved Monaforte, there was no two ways about it. This place always rolled out the red carpet for her, showing off her finery to help put a smile on everyone’s face.
Valentina peered through the peephole to see Gisele standing outside holding something, so she pulled open the door.
“Girlfriend!” Gisele said, shoving a box of pizza into her hands. “I figured you might be hungry, so I took advantage of the twenty-four-hour food service at this place and ordered up a pizza. Hope you don’t mind pepperoni.”
Valentina shook her head. “Americans,” she said. “You do know pepperoni pizza is decidedly not Italian.”
Gisele shrugged. “What can I say? I was a little homesick for New York pizza, so I ordered it up my way.”
“I can’t even believe they have pepperoni here.”
“Knowing this place, some poor under-footman or something had to blanket the mean streets of Porto Castello in search of some cured meat that could adequately pass as American pepperoni.” She grinned.
“At least you recognize the error in your ways,” Valentina said. “I have to admit I’m partial to pizza bianca myself. When I get down to Rome, I make it a point to visit Forno Campo de’Fiori for the best of the best. But I’ll attempt your less traditional version since you’ve gone out of your way to procure it for me.”
Gisele laughed. “I’ve got news for you, pizza elitist. This is about as generic a pizza as they come back home. Besides, it’s your only option right now, so here’s hoping you like it.”
Red Carpet Romeo Page 9