by Lucy Lambert
Specifically, the four hot air balloons and their accompanying trucks and trailers. Swarthy Italians swarmed the balloons, inflating them slowly with helium. All four were patterned after the Italian flag, green at the top, then white in the middle, and finally a ring of red around the bottom.
The buckets were larger than I thought. Like giant, uncovered wicker picnic baskets. I guess it shouldn't have been so surprising, since I'd never been so close to one before. I'd only ever seen hot air balloons drifting around through the sky.
"What do you think?" Liam asked. Even though we'd arrived late, they still weren't set up. Apparently even billionaires had to wait sometimes. We leaned against the side of the BMW.
"They're beautiful," I said, watching the balloon closest to us slowly lift off the ground and begin assuming its final shape. It reminded me of a light bulb, the bulge at the top tapering down to a narrow neck that the operator could use to heat the balloon using the large burners mounted beneath.
There was something majestic about the balloons, something graceful and gentle.
The slowly fading sunlight helped with that, too. The dusky light made everything ethereal and timeless. As though everything around us had its own internal glow.
"I know you can just bring up a satellite image of the city," Liam said, "But it's not the same as when you're literally floating above it, looking down."
As the balloons filled, the men crewing them kept them anchored to the ground using bags of sand tied to ropes.
The balloons jerked against this resistance now and again, like animals becoming testy with their bonds, impatient for the freedom afforded by the open sky.
And that made me notice the sky. It had darkened from its afternoon blue to a purplish shade, a few thin streamers of cloud so high they hardly seemed to move topping it off.
"I like to remind myself to look up," Liam said, following my gaze, "It's so easy to let life and responsibility and worry anchor you down and make you forget that there's more out there than you and your troubles."
"And looking up helps you to forget all that?" I said, taking in Liam's wonderment and the way it softened his eyes and gave him a youthful cast.
"No, it's just as bad to forget. It doesn't make me forget. It gives me perspective, tempers me."
"And you swear you had all this planned before I told you about school?" I said, feeling like that message was directed squarely at me.
Then I nudged him in the ribs, bringing those lovely baby blue eyes of his down from the skies and onto me. He smiled at what he saw, a touch of mischief making one corner of his mouth quirk up higher than the other.
"I swear that I didn't. Though it is apt... They're ready."
Other people had arrived while we waited. Other passengers, waiting for their chance to board and grumbling at the whole show starting late. Mostly tourists, I thought.
A large man in a Hawaiian shirt, a black Nikon strapped to his neck, was the first on. The basket, floating a few inches off the ground, tilted alarmingly beneath his weight. The driver tugged the chain to blow more hot air into the balloon to compensate.
Liam had reserved a balloon all to us. And I mean only the two of us.
He held my hand as I stepped up into the basket. It shifted slightly beneath my feet, and a sudden, sickening vertigo curdled in my stomach.
It got worse when the thin Italian who I thought would be our driver for the evening stepped off, nodding to Liam as he closed the door to the basket.
The tourists in the other baskets noticed, and I could hear them talking confusedly and see them pointing.
"What's happening? What's going on?" I said, the hot blood my suddenly racing heart started pumping clashing with the cold, queasy feeling rising up through my stomach.
"Didn't I say I'd be your tour guide for the evening?" Liam said.
"You most certainly did not!"
"Oh, well then, allow me to introduce myself. I'm Liam, and I'll be operating this hot air balloon. When we've landed, if you wouldn't mind completing a brief customer satisfaction survey, that would be great. Before we lift off, does anyone have any questions?"
"How do I get out of this thing?"
He shrugged. Then he tugged on the chain and the little furnace snarled as hot, blue flames leaped up. I hadn't noticed that the man who'd gotten off had shipped the sandbags, and that we'd begun to drift.
The infusion of hot air gave the balloon lift, and then I could see the marble curls of hair on the heads of the fountain cherubs as we drifted over it.
"You'll have to wait until we set down again. Just enjoy the ride," Liam said.
It was a strange disconnect to not be on the ground. To watch it get slowly smaller and smaller beneath you so that it was as though you looked down on a living map of the city.
Anxiety tingled inside of me, but excitement was there, too, at the nape of my neck where the fine hairs began standing, in the way my blinking slowed so that I wouldn't miss a second of this experience.
Soon the entirety of the Vatican came into view. The city within the city. The only place in the world where Latin was still a living, spoken language. The many-columned buildings of the Piazza San Pietro came into view. Their windows seemed to burn with the dying of the light.
And we kept going higher and higher, Liam tugging on that chain that breathed hot air into the balloon.
The other three balloons had also launched by now, all at different heights. Cameras flashed, and on the breeze I caught the excited voices of the other tourists.
If I leaned over just slightly, I could pretend that I floated on the air itself.
"I didn't know you knew how to fly one of these things," I said.
"Who said I knew how to fly it? I just keep tugging this cord here," Liam said.
"Not funny. Not funny at all," I said, wheeling to face him. His joke had the effect of making me realize there were only a few inches of material between me and the open air beneath us.
And by that point that gulf of open air had become more than just a gap.
"I thought it was. But yes, I can fly this thing, among others." Then he nodded for me to look out.
It was the sunset. The sun had begun its slow descent into the Mediterranean. The sky had turned pink around it, sending out tendrils of color that painted the few clouds I'd noticed earlier into deep shades of imperial purple.
It took my breath away, and for those few moments I really did forget all my troubles.
And that sensation only grew stronger when I found the strength to peer down at Rome again. The glow I'd noticed before had only intensified, really making it seem like the eternal city many called it. Ageless, ethereal, and sublime.
The headlights of cars flowed along its streets, along the highways ringing the city. And there were so many people there. All tiny from up there.
I squeezed my eye mostly shut and held my thumb and forefinger out over the edge, holding the entirety of the Pantheon's rotunda between them. If I closed my fingers together, would it be crushed to marble debris?
It wouldn't, of course. But up there, it felt that way.
I could see all of the places he had taken me. And he was right, we hadn't seen all of it. And that reminded me of my impending dismissal. There was no way I could see the whole city in just two weeks. Sadness weighed down on my shoulders so heavily that it wouldn't have surprised me if the balloon started descending beneath that bulk.
"And here's the advantage this thing has over a plane," Liam said, giving the balloon one more burst of fire and then stepping away.
We hung there, suspended over the city. He wrapped his arms around my waist, clasping his hands together over my stomach. I leaned back against his reassuring solidity and closed my eyes, again getting that feeling of floating through nothing.
"This is amazing. Thank you," I said, smiling as the heat of his breath caressed my earlobe. "I hope it didn't cost very much."
It was a silly thing to say to a billionaire, but I had
to say it. I didn't want him to think that suddenly because I knew about him that I wanted to be his sugar baby. I didn't want to be some rich, pampered housecat.
"Oh? I thought we were going Dutch on it?" he said, his voice quiet and deep and resonant.
"In that case, will you take an IOU? Plane tickets are expensive!"
We quieted then, staring out at the vistas presented to us. The sky darkened from pink to purple, then finally black. It wasn't long before the stars began poking their ways out, as though they wanted to look down onto the city as well.
I did manage to get a glimpse of the mountains in the distance, like jagged teeth of the earth. But the darkness swallowed them, too.
Liam gave the cord on the furnace an occasional tug to keep us floating.
"Look, this is my favorite part," he said.
We watched the city lights blink on, the squares and plazas outlining themselves. The Coliseum and its spotlights. If I squinted hard, I thought I could see the glint of bronze that marked a certain statue in the plaza on the Capitoline Hill.
The water of the Tiber looked like polished jet, flashing and twinkling beneath us as it wove a sinuous course through the city. It contrasted with all the white.
I could see then what Augustus meant when he said that he'd come to Rome a city of brick and left it a city of marble.
It all tugged at me. So much to see and experience, and almost no time to do it in.
"I want to stay," I breathed, so quiet I didn't think that Liam could have heard.
He did, though. "So stay."
"I don't know how," I said.
"I believe in you. You'll find a way."
I loved him for not offering to fix my problems for me. Even though at that particular moment of weakness I probably would have said yes had he offered to.
Then I'd had enough of the city and the vista around it. I turned around in his arms, leaning back slightly while gripping the lip of the basket so that I could look him in the eye.
"What makes me special? What makes me different from all those actresses and models you dated before me?"
"Why are you asking this now?" he said, his head cocked slightly to the side, making his smile almost level.
"Because I can't figure it out. Surely there are other girls out there, prettier, smarter, drama and luggage free?"
He shook his head at that, "Everyone has baggage and drama, believe me. Anyone who says they don't is lying, probably to themselves, too. Do I really need to answer that question?"
"Yes. Now stop dodging," I said, belying my own statement by grabbing his shirt and pulling him to me for a quick kiss. I'd been without the touch of his lips on mine for too long.
He looked into my eyes, saw that I was serious, and nodded. "Fine, okay. It was at the fundraiser when I noticed it about you."
Already I could feel the heat rising up into my cheeks. I didn't take compliments well; it always felt like I never deserved them.
"What? Did I smell funny?"
"No, you smelled nice. You always smell nice. Now can I get back to answering the question you asked, or are you going to keep distracting me?" he said, lifting one eyebrow.
I nodded, a lump rising up my throat.
"The simplest way I can think to put it is that you're you... You're not trying to pretend to be someone or something else. There's no pretense. There's something about you that says, 'This is who I am, take it or leave it, but don't try to change it.' So many of the people I know, the people who are rich and beautiful and powerful and famous, it's still not good enough for them. They're all pretending, with themselves and everyone else."
He searched the horizon behind me, the starlight deepening the blue of his eyes until they were almost black. "You prove it again and again. Like this thing with that professor. Integrity is a rare thing in this world, and I hope you never lose yours. It's how I know if you stick to your guns, you'll find a way through this. It's why you’re special. It's why I find you irresistible."
Heat burned in my cheeks, but I ignored it. I bit down on my bottom lip, unable to stop my grin. "You had me at I always smell nice. Now are you going to kiss me or what?"
One arm went around the small of my back, pulling our hips together. The other hand shot up into my hair, drawing my mouth to his. Gooseflesh sprouted up and down my arms, my skin tingling, my heart buzzing.
"I think the ride's over," Liam said.
He set the balloon down in another square, this one on the same side of the river as his hotel. We landed in another square with another ornate fountain with the Capitoline Hill not far.
His BMW was waiting, and I figured he must have had someone drive it over. Despite the relative warmth of the air, I welcomed the heated seats. All of my warmth seemed to have migrated to certain other points in my body.
This time it was a slow burn back at his hotel. He took me on a thick fur rug thrown in front of the fireplace in the den.
His hot mouth explored my body as though for the first time, leaving me alternately groaning and shivering.
The orange light spilling from the fireplace soaked our bodies bronze. It moved liquidly over our writhing forms.
My back arched up off the furs, my muscles going rigid while Liam's strong fingers held my thighs tightly, his skilled mouth and tongue urging me over the edge of my climax.
I needed to be with him, then. Soon enough he lay on his back, the fur cushioning him, his hands clutching my waist as I sank down on him, both of us groaning, breathing through clenched teeth.
"You feel so good," Liam said, those strong fingers of his moving up from my waist to cup and clutch my breasts even while I rolled my hips, driving him deep into me again and again.
His eyes flashed with the light of the fire beside us.
Knowing that I made him feel good only deepened my arousal. I took him harder, faster.
His hands moved back down to my hips, pushing and lifting, forcing our bodies together. I cried out for him again, my muscles forcing my back to arch again so that I had to rest my hands on his thighs to keep myself upright.
Despite the heat, my entire body pebbled with gooseflesh as my climax shuddered through me, wringing me clean of all energy so that I collapsed forward onto him.
His hands stroked down my waist, clutching my bottom before shifting as he rolled us over.
I didn't think I had anything left in me, but Liam proved me wrong. I clutched him so tightly, my nails digging into his back as I went through the wringer for a third time.
Liam groaned, too, finally losing control with me. Then he collapsed beside me on the fur, his deep chest rising and falling as he tried to gulp down enough oxygen.
We both glistened in the burnt orange light of the fire. I could feel the way it matted the hair to my forehead, smell its sweetness in the air.
I didn't decline when he told me to stay the night with him, even though I had a class the next morning.
"I'll just stop by my flat before I head to the campus," I said.
"Don't worry about it. I'll give you a ride over. After I make you breakfast. And this time I won't burn it!"
"Is that a promise?" I followed him as he moved about the bedroom. He'd pulled on a pair of boxers and nothing else, and I was enjoying the show. He still had that Do Me hair from our earlier roll on the furs, and despite the deep ache in my body I seriously considered going for it for a second time that evening.
He grabbed his phone from the dresser and looked at it. Then he did a double take, frowning.
"Something up?" I said.
He locked the phone and set it back down, splaying his fingers on the glossy surface of the dresser for a moment. "Nothing to concern yourself with."
"If that's the case, can you get your cute butt into bed? It's cold without you!"
"We can't have that!" he said, climbing up onto the covers so that he pinned me beneath them. Then he kissed me. It was a sweet kiss, a goodnight kiss.
Except he didn't slide under the covers r
ight away. He went back to the dresser and checked his phone again, and only then did he come to bed with me.
He was nice and warm and a perfect big spoon and I remembered drifting off listening to the steady, calming rhythm of his breathing.
When I woke up the next morning, the sun cutting in through the gap in the drapes, I was alone.
Chapter 12
I panicked, the surge of adrenaline coursing through me clearing away any hint of morning grogginess.
Even when I saw the note beside me on his pillow my anxiety only calmed somewhat. I snatched it so quickly that some muscle in my back still tight from sleep knotted painfully.
Grimacing against that pain, I folded the note open on his pillow. It was thick, rich paper with the letterhead of the Forums Hotel across the top in a faux ancient Latin font.
Liam's cursive was flowing, loopy, and easy to read. He definitely would not have succeeded as a doctor with handwriting like that.
Emma, something has come up to take me away from you. Please believe that it was important, and that it couldn't wait. I'm sorry I left without saying goodbye, but you looked far too peaceful to wake up. I hope you'll take a rain check on the breakfast (I swear I'll cook a frittata for you some morning soon!). I won't be back until early this evening. Please feel free to order room service. I will see you later. L.
I kept looking at the graceful loops that made up the single initial of his signature. Instinctively, I pulled the sheet up to cover myself, wishing that he'd been here to wrap his arms around me instead.
It wasn't the best start to the day that I could have had, and a glance at the clock told me that I still had plenty of time to get to my flat and then to class.
Of course, it was my class on Raphaelite painters. The one with Professor Di Cenzo, the man who'd given my A paper a D grade.
Is it even worth going? I wondered. I found the complimentary slippers beside the bed and slipped my feet into them. They were big on me, clearly meant for Liam. So I shuffled over to the window and squinted out into the morning light.