“How do I do that?”
“You told me not to give up on Maria, right?” He touched my shoulder and looked at me, his hazel eyes soft and warm. “Now it’s my turn to tell you to fight.”
“And what if I don’t want to fight?” I answered with a sudden bolt of anger shooting through me. “What if I want to give up?” Marco had jumped to conclusions about me. He didn’t trust me. Maybe I was the one who should be pissed.
“Maggie.”
I lowered my head and rubbed my hand over my forehead, scrunching up my brow in frustration. “He thinks I used him. God, he asked if you and I had slept together.”
“He’s angry and hurt, but you can’t run away.”
“And why not?” I cried out. “Why can’t I go back to New York and forget about Rome?”
“Because you’ll never forgive yourself. And baby girl, I know you too well. You’ll drive yourself mad with wondering what might have happened.”
I sat back down, defeated. “But we never had a chance.”
“Says who?” Will sat next to me and hooked his arm around me.
“Says me.”
“Well, I’m going to pull a Maggie. I’m calling bullshit.”
Twenty-Four
Will had said to give Marco time, but what time did we have? I gave Marco the night. Each hour that passed without hearing his voice created thick, rubbery bands of tension inside me until I was ready to snap.
A huge part of me—the part where my pride reigned—didn’t want to show up at Marco’s door. I didn’t want to beg to be heard. I wanted him to believe me, to seek me out and apologize for not trusting me. But the other part of me—the part that had spent years distrusting men, particularly athletes—whispered in my ear that I’d be a hypocrite if I didn’t make an attempt to speak with him before I boarded the plane.
Will had managed to change our flights, but I only had a few hours before I needed to get to the airport. I wasn’t sure what my fate would be once I returned to New York. Travis had said he was too angry to hear my side of the story. Who knew if I even still had a job?
I did some research on the brunette who had been following me. Sure enough, her picture online was captioned with the same name sported by the byline of the tabloid article.
I tried to get ahold of both the woman and magazine, but I got road blocked. I wouldn’t give up so easily, though. They had no idea with whom they were dealing. I wouldn’t go down without a fight.
Frustration crawled across my skin like tiny bugs as the taxi pulled up in front of Marco’s gated driveway. Thank goodness I had watched Marco punch in the code. I hadn’t meant to memorize it, but it had been simple enough.
“What would you like to do, signorina?” The cab driver peered at me through the rearview mirror.
“Could you stay here and keep the meter running? I won’t be long.”
He nodded, and I stepped out, my legs wobbly as I walked over to the security keypad. I punched in the combination with a grimace. I didn’t bother to hit the call button. I was afraid he’d ignore me.
Yes, I was technically trespassing, but I didn’t think Marco would have me locked up. Well, I hoped not, at least.
I walked down the winding driveway and approached the bronze, stucco home. His Lamborghini was out front, but an unfamiliar red Audi sports car was just behind.
“Shit,” I muttered. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to knock on his door if he wasn’t alone. But Will had been right, and I couldn’t just run away from Italy as if nothing had ever happened. I’d already faced my fears on this trip—why not face the man who had broken down those walls of fear, if not for one last time?
To hell with the consequences. There was nothing left to lose.
Your pride. You have your pride to lose, my snarky inner voice nagged as my hand hovered in front of his dark, wooden door.
“Screw it,” I whispered, and knocked.
Okay, was I in the 1920s? Why was I knocking? I jabbed the doorbell and took an apprehensive step back.
When no one came, I tried once more.
I went around to the front window to get a look, acting like a damn stalker and a fool, but the blinds were closed.
I contemplated my options. I could try and hop the fence, but that was just crazy. The garage was closed so I couldn’t get in that way.
There was one obvious thing I hadn’t tried. I almost laughed at myself for being so stupid. If I had actually tried to jump the fence before I even attempted to open the front door . . .
I touched the silver knob, and my heart skipped up into my throat. It was racing so fast I felt sick. I slowly turned the knob, both surprised and alarmed by the fact that it opened.
“Marco?” I called out after closing the door behind me. “Hello?”
No answer.
I moved with slow steps down the hall and entered the living room. The sliding glass doors overlooking the sea were parted, and I heard a faint noise outside.
Two voices.
I took a step out onto the balcony and peered down at the pool.
Marco was standing in his white swim trunks, his body pebbled with water, his hair slicked back, his hands tucked inside his pockets.
The woman’s back was to me, but I’d know that flowing mass of hair anywhere. Standing in a pair of tiny, bright pink shorts and a figure-hugging tank top, Sophia was talking fast with open palms in front of her.
I doubted Marco and Sophia were back together, but she was standing in front of him. He would talk to her, even though he wouldn’t talk to me. Did some part of him still love her? They had been engaged, after all, and Marco and I had only known each other for a few weeks. Of course he’d turn to her.
What was wrong with me? Why was I acting like a crazy jealous woman trying to stake a claim over a man who wasn’t—and would never be—mine. I’d probably lose my job, ruining my reputation over him. It would have been worth it, though. If only he had given me a chance to explain.
Yes, Marco most definitely would have been worth it.
But who was I kidding? Tabloid story or not, Marco and I were never meant to be. Right? I had to remind myself of that from now on.
I took a cautious step back, ready to flee the scene, but bumped into a chaise lounge chair, drawing Marco’s attention up to me. His lips parted in obvious surprise.
“Shit,” I said under my breath before turning to flee.
“Maggie,” he called out from down below as I entered the living room.
I had to get out of there. I had made a mistake in coming. I ran out the door and rushed down the long driveway, grateful that I’d worn my Converses.
“Go,” I yelped once I jumped into the taxi. “Please, hurry.” I tapped at my legs as anxiety sped through me like a bullet.
My breath hitched as my eyes landed on Marco. Breathing heavier than normal, he was now standing at the gate. “Maggie!” He started for the vehicle.
“You want me to stop?” the driver asked as he slowed.
“No. Just go,” I cried out, unable to take my eyes off Marco. I stared at him out of the back window, watching as he stopped moving and stood in place, his hands falling to his sides.
Twenty-Five
I sat across from Travis with my thumbnail between my teeth. My leg shook as I anxiously waited for him to finish reading my revised story. “So?” I dropped my hand from my mouth and stood when Travis lowered the pages.
He leaned back in his seat, still holding my article in his hand. “It’s brilliant. Gripping. Your best work yet.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“You’re kidding, right? You exposed all of the problems with the media and tabloids in regards to athletes. You confronted the stereotypes surrounding players. And the personal parts about you . . . it was moving.”
“But can we run it?” I moved to the window, admiring the bustle of people on 5th Avenue.
“Technically, yes. Marco agreed to the story and signed the necessary papers when you were in
Italy.”
“But should we run it?” I spun around.
“I’ll leave that up to you, considering the nature of the story.”
Great. How was I supposed to make that decision? “When’s Francesca’s last day?” I needed a distraction as I tried to figure out what I wanted to do.
“Friday, but I doubt she’ll show her face at the office in Rome.”
Thank God. I couldn’t believe she was behind everything. I mean, it wasn’t a huge stretch of the imagination. The woman had seemed like a villain in my mind since day one.
Francesca had been worried about losing her position for quite some time and had applied for an editor-in-chief position at a tabloid paper in Rome. She offered one hell of a deal if they hired her—she would deliver a news breaking story about Marco Valenti.
When Francesca gave her two-week notice, and we discovered she’d taken over at the tabloid that had broken the story, it wasn’t a great leap for us to put two and two together. Francesca had people at the tabloid stalking Marco and me, although I still hadn’t figured out how she learned about Marco’s mother.
The last memory I had of Marco standing at his gate haunted me every night. But the memories of our time together had been even harder for me to forget. I couldn’t seem to let them go, even though I tried desperately to push him from my mind.
I had been angry at first with how we left things, and then sad. Eventually, I began to blame myself for running away. But why hadn’t he called? Or even texted me?
Lori and Sean had attempted to reach out to me, but I wasn’t prepared to talk to them yet. I didn’t know what I would say. Their messages showed that they believed I was innocent, but what did Marco think?
Last night was by far the worst since I’d been back. I had recently upgraded the cable sports package at my apartment and was flipping through channels until I saw Roma playing.
I couldn’t change the channel. I watched the entire, Marco-free game, and I broke down in tears when it ended.
“Maggie?”
“Huh?”
I was staring at the floor of Travis’s office.
“I’ll let you decide if you want the article to run in next month’s magazine. I owe you that much after the shit I put you through, And about the Super Bowl story—”
“I can’t do this right now.” The Super Bowl story was the last thing I wanted to think about. I twisted a lock of my blonde hair between my fingers as I tried to sift through my feelings.
“Maybe you should talk to him. Ask Marco if he’d be okay with running the article.” Travis was in front of me now. He touched my shoulders, but I didn’t look up at my boss. I couldn’t. I was engulfed by the knowledge that I might have lost my chance at a happily ever after. I had never believed in fairy tales or romance until I met Marco, but he’d changed me. He changed my heart; he made it beat again.
“We’re not really on speaking terms. You know that,” I muttered as my cheeks bloomed red.
“Yeah, but he flew all this way to talk to you, the least you could do is—”
My head snapped up.
“He’s waiting for you in conference room ten.” He smirked at me.
All the blood rushed from my face, and my legs almost buckled. “What?” I gasped.
He tightened his grip on my shoulders. “Don’t be too hard on him. He’s a hell of a guy, according to your story.”
I blinked rapidly, not sure if I could believe what my boss was telling me. No, I had to see it for myself.
But why was he here? What would I say?
Travis patted me on the back as I turned around, and I moved with slow steps out of his office and down the hall. My mind drummed up a collage of images of Marco as I walked. I had spent the last week sorting through over a hundred photos Will had taken on our trip, and I’d secretly kept several of them. Last weekend I’d looked them over while drinking copious amounts of wine and eating loads of chocolate ice-cream.
Conference room ten had no glass walls, so I couldn’t see if he was really there.
Marco had said that ten was his lucky number when we’d first met. Little had I known at the time that he was the famous Marco Valenti, and his player number was ten.
I touched the brass door handle, my stomach in knots, my brain on emergency generator mode—just trying to keep the lights up and running.
When I pushed open the door, Marco’s back was to me, and he was standing in front of the window, his hands in the pockets of his black slacks.
I stood in the doorframe, part of me wanting to run away.
He slowly turned around and faced me. “Maggie.” He remained standing by the windows, but he untucked his hands and allowed them to drop to his sides.
My eyes were drawn to his wrist. The black leather band was missing.
“Can we talk?” he asked, gesturing to the long, rectangular table at the center of the room.
“I guess if you flew all the way here, the least I could do is talk.” I took a seat opposite him, needing some distance.
He kept his hands on his lap as his eyes gleamed at me. “I made new rules.”
Those were words I hadn’t expected from him. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat and drew my hands up to the table, pressing them on the wooden surface to ground myself. “Care to elaborate?”
His lips lifted at the edges for a brief moment. “Well, it is more like one rule.”
He was killing me.
“Before I tell you, first I want to say that I’m sorry.” His eyes cast down at the table. “I should have trusted you, as you trusted me. I lost my mind with jealousy about the pictures with Will, and—”
“Will?” What about his mother? My notebook? Wasn’t he furious about that?
His eyes flashed back to me, and I could see his cheeks warm with embarrassment. “I was cheated on before, and the thought of sharing you—of another man . . .” He shook his head. “I should never for even a second allowed such thoughts to come to my mind. You are not Sophia.”
We were also not officially together, but this didn’t seem like the time to bring it up. “I don’t blame you. Given the tabloid article and your history,” I forced out.
“There’s no excuse. I hurt you. And I am forever sorry.”
“I promise I didn’t tell anyone about your mom,” I blurted. He must have known, or he probably wouldn’t be in front of me, but I needed to say it anyway. “And I never had any intention of trying to convince you to change your mind about quitting.”
He lowered his head a tad, but he kept looking at me with hooded eyes. “Sean told me the truth. About his plan.”
Oh.
“And the day you showed up at my house before you left, Sophia had come to apologize.”
“Apologize?” I straightened in my chair.
“Apparently that editor, Francesca, approached her with images of you and me, trying to make her jealous. She encouraged Sophia to help her out, and Sophia told Francesca about my mother.” He pushed to his feet and dragged his hands down his face. “She regretted it after she saw the tabloid, and she came to beg my forgiveness.”
I should have been shocked, but I wasn’t. Not really. “I’m so sorry. It must be hard to have someone you care about betray you like that.”
“It’s not like it was her first time.” He shrugged.
“Why didn’t you call me? Text me? Why wait until now if you knew the truth the day I left Rome?”
“I had some things to take care of, and I wanted to see you in person to apologize. But I didn’t come to talk about the past. I came to talk about my future.”
“Future?” I had to stop echoing his words back to him.
He came around to my chair and crouched down.
Oh God. No. He wasn’t about to . . .
“I have one rule, Maggie.”
“Yeah?” I gulped.
“And that is to have no rules.” His dimples deepened as he angled his head and teased me with a sexy grin. “I was wondering, Maggie Anne L
ane, would you break your rules for me? Would you date an athlete?”
“Date?” I rolled my tongue over my teeth and stood up.
He pushed back to his feet.
“I think we skipped the dating part when we had sex,” I said, smirking.
“And I plan on doing that a lot more.” He brushed his knuckles over my cheek, leveling me with his heated stare. “I hope, at least.”
My legs clenched at his comment, and I stood up, moving past him. I walked over to the window and folded my arms, staring out the wall of glass.
“Maggie?” His eyes met mine in the reflection.
I needed a moment as chills dashed through me—waiting for the hair on my arms to stand down. “You’ve been like a wrecking ball in my head since I met you,” I whispered, echoing the song that I’d played over and over again during my ice-cream binge last weekend.
And here he was, fighting for me.
I didn’t want to play games. “I mean this in the best possible way,” I said, turning to face him, my mouth quivering. “What’d you say to me on the boat?” I took in a deep breath. “When you kept speaking Italian to me?”
His lips twitched and his hand came down to cup my cheek. “I said that I was falling for you.”
I wet my lips and narrowed my eyes on him. “Do you really think we can do long distance?”
He reached into his pocket. “Who said we’d be apart?”
My eyes went all squinty and confused as I looked down at the black leather band in his hand. He clasped it to my wrist, and I touched it as if he’d just placed a two-carat diamond on my finger. My eyes burned as liquid gathered beneath the lids.
“It took me a little while to come here because I had to tell my mother the truth, and I had to convince her to move to New York, at least temporarily.”
His words slammed into me, rocking me back and almost off my feet.
“She starts treatment at the hospital in two weeks.” His voice was strained as he spoke. “It will be hard and an adjustment, but the doctors have high hopes for her.”
“That’s great, Marco.” I rubbed my fingers over the leather band on my wrist, and Marco captured my hand and laced his fingers with mine. “But why are you giving me this?”
Forever Rome (Forever #1) Page 25