by Lucy Leroux
Stop grinning like a fool and say something.
It was harder than he’d imagined. Every coherent thought had flown out of his head when their eyes met.
“Kelly said your English was good, which is a relief because my Italian is decidedly subpar. I’m terrible at languages. Anyway, I’m so glad I was able to catch you,” Sophia continued with a graceful wave of her hand before he could find his tongue. “I wasn’t planning on coming back to Rome yesterday, but when I heard you wouldn’t be able to get together later this month, I changed my plans.”
“You did?” he asked. Had she been in touch with his office, after all? He leaned in. “I’m glad I’m able to catch you, too. I was sorry to have missed you earlier this week. I was stuck at work and then in traffic.”
Her brow creased as if she was puzzled, but she smiled again, and he could feel his tongue thicken and a flush crept up his throat.
“It’s no problem,” Sophia assured him. “I’m relieved you made it now. Your interview is important to Kelly. Her project met with some setbacks, and she had fewer participants than first estimated,” she continued brightly, handing him a thick manila envelope.
“Interview? I’m sorry, what’s this?” he asked, opening the envelope and fingering the thick sheath of papers inside. Had Charles forgotten to mention a PR commitment?
She leaned in again. “It’s more intimidating than it looks, but if you like I can go through it question by question. Can you read English as well as you speak it?”
He met her eyes, his brow creasing. “I’m proficient,” he said, trying not to sound amused.
Sophia blushed and adjusted the neckline of her shirt. “Sorry, I assumed you spoke it regularly as part of your work, but didn’t know if you had occasion to write it often. The questions are fairly self-explanatory. Most are quick ones that can be answered in a sentence or two. The only involved ones are about your personal history—how you got started as a street performer.”
Gio’s mouth dropped open and he pulled out the papers from the envelope more fully. A small notecard was paper-clipped to the papers with the name Giovanni Berardi neatly printed on it.
“Oh,” he said dismayed. “There’s been a mistake. I’m—”
A sudden burst of loud German laughter drowned out the rest of his words. Sophia reached out and took his hand. A shock of electricity shot through him, startling him with its intensity. Across the table, he saw her eyes widen, and her cheeks flush. She must have felt it too. Quickly, she tried to take her hand back, but he took hold of it, refusing to let go.
It was an instinctive move, a compulsion born from somewhere deep inside him. And suddenly he didn’t want to tell her his name. He didn’t want to see that light in her eyes turn to wariness and suspicion when he told her the truth of who he was.
Didn’t you wish for a chance like this? An opportunity to get to know her without the cloud of Maria Gianna’s crap accusations hanging over him?
It could be a completely clean start. What if he waited to enlighten her? There was a chance he could make some headway and secure a favorable first impression before he told her his name. Remember the latte…
“Can I take you to dinner?”
The words were out before he could rethink them. Across from him, Sophia’s lips parted, but if she made a sound, he didn’t hear it. The noise of the people around them was too high.
“It’s too loud here,” he added in a near shout. “You can go over the questions with me,” he said, gesturing to the folder for emphasis.
She hesitated. Her eyes darted around the busy cafe, and her color was high, but she didn't say no. And she didn't take her hand back.
“I was only supposed to give you those papers,” she said, running her teeth over her full lower lip before continuing. “I’m taking the train to Florence tonight.”
He gave her his most winsome smile. “I know of an excellent Florentine restaurant.”
Chapter 3
Sophia couldn’t believe she was doing this. She was sitting across from one of the handsomest men she’d ever met, and he was trying to talk her into having dinner with him—in Florence, of all places.
Despite the noise, they had been talking in the cafe for nearly an hour, a surreal conversation where she’d been gently quizzed about everything she'd visited so far. And, for some reason, she answered every question, totally forgetting to discuss the extensive interview questionnaire in the process.
“It’s too far,” she protested with a disbelieving laugh when he suggested accompanying her to Florence.
But he persisted, prodding and teasing her gently about taking advantage of a native’s offer to act as tour guide.
Kelly had been right about Giovanni. Her best friend had warned her that the wily street performer was a born flirt. He relied on his charm to draw in an audience and make money.
According to Kelly, he made a lot of it compared to other street artists. Gio was practically an institution here in Rome. She was keen to include his interview in her study, a sociological comparison of the life of present day street performers to troubadours of old.
Mailing the documents had proved fruitless. Kelly had sent the papers twice, but Gio was not the kind of man to spend time on a mail-in questionnaire. When her friend had found out Sophia was going to Rome to accept her grant from the Morgese Foundation, she had recruited her to hunt down the elusive man in person.
And after seeing him in the flesh, finally, it wasn’t hard to see why he was so successful. The man was indecently handsome, with a square jaw and fine patrician nose. Behind simple wire-rimmed glasses were the most remarkable eyes—long midnight lashes framing irises the color of honey in sunlight. But his attractiveness wasn’t the most compelling thing about him. It was the way he looked at her, so earnestly, like she was the most interesting person in the world. That expression, coupled with his bright boyish smile, was completely disarming.
Gio was nothing like she pictured. He was clean-cut and fresh looking, as if the heat didn’t affect him at all. In contrast, she was covered in a sheen her mother would have generously described as a “glow,” when in reality she was a sweaty mess.
He was also a lot younger than she’d assumed. From Kelly’s description, she’d imagined a swarthy man in his forties or early fifties. But this man couldn’t have been more than mid-thirties, and he was almost fair for an Italian. With his wire-framed glasses, he looked more like a really attractive accountant, or someone she’d work with in the lab.
Someone you would have a mad crush on.
It was disconcerting, this instantaneous and visceral reaction to a stranger. Sternly chastising herself for her wayward thoughts, she tried to nip his flirting in the bud. He obviously tried to charm everyone—it was his bread and butter, after all. She couldn’t take this offer of dinner seriously. Although it was tempting…
His gaze was direct, looking at her with obvious appreciation when in reality there was little for him to find attractive. She was wearing a loose t-shirt with boxy khaki shorts that disguised her big body as much as possible.
She had learned long ago that wearing form-fitting clothes tended to attract the wrong kind of attention. Skinny women and a good number of men gave her a look when they caught an unencumbered view of her full bust and the exaggerated curves of her hips and ass.
Sophia would never be a size six, and she was okay with that. Most of the time. But there were moments when she’d catch a sly whisper or sideways glance full of judgement, and she’d cringe with something close to shame. Which was stupid. She couldn’t help her body type. God knows she exercised and ate right. But no Pilates class or diet could diminish her curves, no matter how hard she tried.
Kelly kept telling her that the Kardashians had made rear ends like her's popular, but she couldn’t bring herself to believe it. The unending criticism from her father, Jorge, about her weight coupled with her recent break up had ensured that. But Gio appeared to
see through her camouflage, his appreciation obvious. It was a definite boost to her confidence after the way things ended with Richard. And she was supposed to get that survey form filled out.
She reluctantly agreed to have a quick meal with him before her train, but he wouldn’t hear of it.
“Florence is a quick ride away, and the meals at Tratto Stivale are unforgettable,” he said, insisting that he had nothing better to do than go to another city to have dinner with her.
“I’m not sure how I feel about you going all the way to Florence just for dinner. And it would be just dinner,” she stressed, one brow raised for emphasis.
Gio gave her another boyish grin. “Of course it would only be dinner. And I have family in Florence. It would be a good excuse to see my aunt. I have to speak to her, anyway,” he said, a shadow crossing his face for a moment before his expression cleared.
Biting her lip, she stared at him indecisively for a minute. She couldn’t argue when he was going to visit family, could she?
Gio put his forearms on the table and leaned forward. “After dinner, I’ll take you to the best gelato place in Florence, possibly all of Italy.”
Huffing out a laugh, Sophia finally agreed.
They left the cafe and headed for the train station, detouring briefly to pick up her suitcase. He didn’t do the same. He hadn’t seemed bothered by the idea of spending the night in another town without a change of clothes, which was a good thing. If he’d asked her to go to his apartment to pick some up, she probably would have changed her mind about dinner. Maybe he sensed that, so he opted to head straight to the train after retrieving her bag.
Once Gio had bought a ticket to Florence—which she tried to pay for without success—Sophia started to have serious misgivings about letting him talk her into dinner. And the reason why made her hate herself…but the idea of a date with a street performer was a little difficult for her, as uncharitable as that was.
She was a highly educated professional, a medical doctor with a Ph.D. She could say, without conceit, that in her field she was near the very top. The thought of going on a date with someone who scrabbled in the streets for a living made her uncomfortable. Though Richard had been her one real relationship, she had gone on a few dates with other men here and there. Without exception, those guys had all been white-collar professionals or fellow students headed in that direction.
Her own snobbery shamed her, so she shoved down her misgivings and ignored them. After a while, it became easy. Gio was an incredibly efficient distraction.
The train ride passed in a blink. They sat close together while he asked about her work. Strangely comfortable around him, she described her research project. He asked insightful questions, and she was a little surprised at how well he understood the technical aspects of her job.
She’d never experienced this before—an instant sense of ease. The conversation between them flowed so naturally, she forgot her misgivings about Gio’s profession. It was only one dinner.
Once she had dropped off her bag at her hotel, they headed back out onto the sun-baked streets, strolling leisurely. Gio didn’t try to fill every silence, but the occasional lulls in the conversation didn’t feel awkward.
The restaurant he took her to was small and intimate, a family run place where the owner greeted him by name so effusively she was momentarily taken aback. After Gio exchanged a few words with the owner in rapid Italian, they were ushered to a charming table in a private nook—despite the crowd of people waiting to be seated near the entrance.
“I take it they know you well here,” Sophia said, blushing as he pulled her chair out for her. She sat down, feeling as if there were in much fancier restaurant. “I thought you were mainly based in Rome.”
Gio’s brow rose before smoothing. “Er, I am. But as I mentioned, I have family here. The owners are family friends of a sort. My father and I eat here whenever we’re both in town. They have the best white truffle pasta. It’s a specialty of the house.”
Sophia smiled. “Then that’s what I’m getting.”
After waving over a waiter and ordering two of the dish and a bottle of Chianti, Gio settled back in his chair. When the bottle arrived, he poured her a large glass, and she sipped the deep red wine with pleasure.
“Have you enjoyed your visit so far?” he asked.
She nodded. “I’ve always wanted to come here, ever since I was little. My mom loved all things Italian. She named me after Sophia Loren.”
His eyes lit in understanding. “That explains the spelling, with a “ph” instead of an “f” like the more common Hispanic version.”
She cocked her head at him. “Did I spell it for you?”
With a last name like Márquez, most people assumed it was spelled with an “f”. She used to have to spend a while fixing forms whenever she changed schools or jobs.
He pursed his lips and shook his head. “It must have been your friend, um—”
“Kelly,” she supplied.
“Yes, it must have been her,” he said after a slight hesitation. “So tell me about your mother, the Italophile.”
She glanced down at the table, a wave of sadness washing over her. “She was great. She passed away a little over two years ago. Actually, I am retracing her steps from her one trip here when she was a college student. I have a few weeks off work before I start a new phase of my research. I decided, since I had to come to Italy anyway, that this was the perfect way to honor her memory—by seeing all the sights she loved when she was younger. She always meant to come back here for another visit. We even talked about coming here together, but I was always too busy with work. And then it was too late. She was too unwell to travel.”
Her voice was low and thin by the end of the explanation.
Gio surprised her by taking her hand. “I’m sorry for your loss. I, too, lost my mother. It was a plane crash, when I was a teenager. It’s only me and my father now. Well, and the rest of my extended family, which is rather large.”
She met his eyes, grasping his hand before withdrawing it shyly. “Actually, my father also passed away a few months ago, but our relationship was…strained. We weren’t close. I didn’t see much of him after the divorce. I grew up with my mother in Portland and, though she has family in Mexico, I don’t see them a lot.”
Gio smiled wryly. “I’m sorry about losing your father, as well. Even if you weren’t close, it must feel like something of a missed opportunity.”
Surprised that he understood so well, she nodded. “That pretty much sums up our entire relationship, but we were in a fairly good place when he passed. As good as we were going to get.” She shrugged.
“Any other family?” he asked.
“None that I see regularly. They’re kind of scattered.”
“I sometimes wish I didn’t have to see my family as often as I do. They can be quite an obligation sometimes.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “You can’t fool me. You love them. It’s obvious.”
He laughed. “I didn’t say I didn’t love them. It's simply that they can be a handful. And they require a lot of time and energy. I sometimes feel like I’m constantly on call to mediate disputes and help them out of their difficulties.” He finished with a resigned shrug.
Tempted to ask what a street performer could do to mediate disputes, she blinked and bit her tongue. His family dynamics were none of her business. But his description made her wistful. It was nice to have people, even if they were troublesome at times.
“Still, it must be good to have them in your life. The closest family to where I live now would be some distant cousins in Spain. My father was Spanish, although he lived most of his life in England. My mother met him there, but we moved to the states after they broke up. I went back to England to be near him after she passed, but work kept us both so busy we didn’t see much of each other.”
That was mostly true. Her twice-monthly visits to see her father had been regular, but
they’d done little to bring them closer. All he had wanted to do was talk about his latest research study, but he hadn’t reciprocated in kind and discussed hers. The best she could do was tolerate the one-sided conversations.
Under Gio’s gentle prodding, she told him about her father’s position at the University as chair of the sociology department and how she first met Kelly when the younger woman had been a teaching assistant for him.
It was also how she’d met Richard, but she didn’t tell him that. The last thing she wanted was to do was talk about her ex. But Gio didn’t have that problem. Though he didn’t go into detail, he mentioned that he was divorced.
“Just the one divorce?” she teased since he seemed pretty casual about it.
“Yes,” he laughed.
“Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure. Why do assume there would be more?”
She gestured with an open hand up and down to encompass his whole body. “Cause this whole thing, this supercharged-testosteroney-charm-overload thing you’ve got going on must work on a lot of women. I can see you with a string of ex-wives. Like at least five. And those are just the ones you put a ring on it. Then there are the baby mama’s…”
“The what?” he asked, laughing.
“The baby-mamas. You know, the mothers of all your illegitimate children.”
It was an unfortunate timing that Gio chose that moment to sip his wine, because he choked on it, spraying it over his place setting.
Pretending the wine-spray was denial, she kept going. “Come on, there has to be at least three or four of those.”
Wiping his face carefully with his napkin, he tried to stifle his laughter. “No, there aren’t any children, illegitimate or otherwise. Not yet, anyway.”
“Ooh, not yet. Making plans, are we?”
Looking her up and down, he smiled. A white-hot panty-melting smile. “Maybe.”
It was her turn to choke on her wine. She managed not to spit it out and put her glass down carefully on the table. Heat crept up her face. “Hmm. That stuff is very strong. Delicious, but strong.”