by Lily Zante
It hurt, being with a man sometimes, and it hurt splitting up with a man, and in between, in that gray area of wanting and wishing, it hurt most of all.
“Did you get called for an interview?” She needed to broach the topic. Couldn’t let it rest. Felt she had a need to know. Maybe it was a prick of jealousy, something which had been alien to her until now.
“I haven’t heard anything.”
“Oh, I thought that might have been good news.”
He looked at her as if he could see right through her, and she felt even more inconsequential than ever. “No.” He eyed her plate again. “Have you really finished?”
“Yes.”
“You said you were hungry.”
She placed her hand over her stomach. “I ate as much as I could. I’m full.”
“Do you want to take that back?”
She shook her head. Her appetite wasn’t returning anytime soon.
Christian grinned. “So you’d rather not see the dessert menu?”
She always had space for dessert but the idea of this nameless, faceless beauty had struck a severe blow. It had to be severe if she couldn’t even stomach the idea of something sweet. “No, dessert for me today, thanks.”
“I thought you always had room for dessert, or something sweet.”
“Not tonight.”
“In that case,” he glanced at his watch again, and it conjured up more images in her unsettled mind. Feelings she didn’t like having. “We should get the bill.” He raised his hand to get the server’s attention. “If you have time tomorrow, or later in the week, I can show you Trastavere, if you like. It’s beautiful.”
Where he lived? She pushed the idea away. “You don’t have to keep showing me around, Christian. You’re not indebted to me because I helped you with your résumé.”
He looked puzzled. “This isn’t about my résumé.” He leaned closer. “This is about the best ice-cream in all of Rome.”
She couldn’t help but smile. He was ridiculously charming. “Okay. I look forward to trying this so-called ice-cream.”
Chapter 14
He was on a high. This week was turning out to be not so bad after all. Even last night’s impromptu visit to the Colosseum had been fun. It was the least he could do after Gina Morosini had helped spruce up his resumé.
A pinging noise from his cell phone announced the arrival of a new message.
Need to see you! Had a meeting arranged last minute otherwise I would have been back tonight.
It was from Rachele and she was as horny as hell by the sounds of it. Christian pondered the request as he took off his tie and threw it into his briefcase. He could have met her, but he was busy, even though the best thing about him and Rachele was that they could meet just for 10 minutes, or an hour. They only met for one thing, and dinner and cocktails didn’t have anything to do with it. It was quick, and to the point and it suited them perfectly. It worked for both of them. No strings, no questions, no baggage; just raw, dirty sex.
The best kind.
Was he proud of himself? No.
Was he ashamed? Also no.
He wasn’t hurting anyone, and neither was Rachele. It was what it was. Convenient. When he met the right person, he would know, but until then, he could do without the hassle.
And besides, he wasn’t the type of guy to ever pay for sex.
But tonight he had other, more important plans. He texted her back:
Don’t worry. I’m busy tonight. Let’s stick with Friday.
Her reply pinged back barely a second after he’d sent his.
I can wrap things up quickly and catch the early flight so we could meet tomorrow?
Tomorrow? He wasn’t sure and tried to let her down gently.
Don’t rush to get back. I’m busy.
Her reply was almost instantaneous:
Too busy for me? Damn it, C, I’m getting desperate! NEED to see you. I’m definitely back on Friday. DON’T let me down!
‘C’ was her nickname for him. He grinned as he texted back a smiley face and slipped the cellphone into his pocket. Rachele calling unexpectedly last night had thrown him slightly and the idea that she would have come back early should have pleased him. Truth was, he suddenly felt uneasy about seeing her, especially after spending the last few evenings with Gina. It felt—how to put it—not right?
The sales team had signed off another big order for the company, and each time they did this, a night of celebration followed with Nesta footing the tab. The head of sales was known for being generous and the drink flowed all night. This time, because Emilio had been involved in the sales cycle, he had been invited and he, in turn, had asked Christian to come along. Not one to turn down an opportunity to make his mark, he grabbed his briefcase and walked out only to find Gina hovering around the door.
Did she not have a life outside of the training room?
“Hey, Gina,” he said, hovering around the door, ready to leave. “Everything okay?”
She had tied a huge silk scarf around her neck. It looked a little ostentatious on her. Made her look like a present all wrapped up, and he was certain she hadn’t worn it all day because something as big and as shiny as that, he’d have noticed.
“Great,” she replied.
“Good.” An awkward silence engulfed them again. “Do you want to use the room?”
“Uh—” She looked over his shoulder at the classroom, hesitating.
“I’m leaving, so it’s all yours.” Nesta and the sales team would be at the bar soon enough, and Christian wanted to be one of the first ones there before the bar turned rowdy and it was difficult to make conversation, before the drink flowed so freely, and words didn’t matter. He’d emailed Nesta his resumé and wanted to make sure he’d seen it. “The office closes at 6pm, so as long as you’re done by then.”
She looked at him as if she was about to say something. “I’ll be done by then.”
“Have a good evening.” He rushed out hoping it wasn’t too late. There was a chance he could still catch Emilio and they could make their way together. The more time the two of them had to talk about the sales opportunity, the better.
~~
She stared at the width of his shoulders, and his broad back as he walked away from her. With his height and build, the man had the commanding presence of a chief military commander. Christian Russo didn’t look anything like a project management trainer. He was all kinds of good-looking now that she noticed his face more and fixated less on his closely shaved head.
Overnight, she had elevated him only to come crashing down again. Did she expect him to want to go out with her again this evening? She tried to remember what he’d said yesterday. Maybe she’d got the message wrong?
Heat burned her cheeks as the humiliation sank in. He had completely forgotten. He hadn’t even registered a faint remembrance of surprise.
Nothing.
Her hopes deflated as he disappeared out of sight, and her hand reached her neck even as her mother’s laughter rang in her ears. Her hand flew to her neck and settled on the silk scarf she’d worn; the small effort she’d made to dress up.
Two evenings with him and look at her. How pathetic she was to let that type of attention go to her head. She had always prided herself on being sensible, on thinking with her head, of not letting her heart and emotions get the better of her, like they seemed to with most women.
But she had failed in this instance. Against her better judgment, she had made Christian’s attention towards her mean something. He would laugh out loud if he had any idea of what she was thinking.
She needed to get over it. Men like Christian Russo weren’t interested in women like her. If he had taken the time to show her around yesterday it had been because of two things: pity, he felt sorry for her and probably felt it was his fault she’d been mugged, and because she had helped him with his resumé.
It wasn’t because he had miraculously started to develop feelings for her.
Taking o
ne end of her silky scarf, she pulled it so that it slid along her neck like a slippery serpent. Shoving it into her knapsack, she took a few deep breaths and pulled herself back together again.
She would meet with her class friends at the Greek restaurant at 7 after all.
Chapter 15
Those sales boys guzzled alcohol like water.
“Crap.” Christian cursed under his breath as he turned the faucet. His head throbbed, and even the noise of the water trickling to a halt was too much. He wiped his face with his wet hands and contemplated calling in sick. A few more hours of sleep was what he needed especially with his head throbbing like it was going to explode. He could feel the pressure building up inside.
Never again, he vowed. Never again would he drink so much when out with the sales team. He wasn’t sure he would be able to keep up with their constant drinking and didn’t want to, either. Hitting the gym was more his thing. It was something Emilio constantly ribbed him about, but fitness, and keeping in shape, had become a habit for him.
And women liked running their hands all over him, marveling at his taut, hard body. That kind of admiration was a bonus.
At least he had managed to speak to Nesta and the guy had called him in for an interview—this was the beauty of one-to-one conversations, of networking, of sucking up when the need arose. It had happened so fast that it was difficult not to get carried away with the idea that he could be earning more money and doing something more interesting sooner than he expected. All he’d wanted was a foot in the door, and he now had it. In that respect, last night had been worth it, even if he felt like shit now.
He toweled off and forced himself to get ready. Taking the day off sick because of a hangover was unprofessional, and whatever else he was, he liked to think of himself as being a consummate professional. He couldn’t let his class down. Not only because continuity was important but because it caused all sorts of problems. Each instructor’s worth was based on the pass rate of the class and Christian was eager for his class to do well.
The higher the pass rate, the greater the bonus for each instructor at the end of the year. Emilio had been leading in this for months, but now it was getting to a point where Christian was often neck and neck with him for the highest percentage of passes in a given month. It was a source of friendly rivalry between the two men.
If Emilio asked him to come out again, he wasn’t going to for at least a week. Shock charged through him as he remembered. He was supposed to have gone out with Gina Morosini yesterday.
Or was he?
Crap. Crap. Crap. He had mentioned something about taking her to Trastavere. Something about the best gelato. He froze. That was why she had been hovering around after class yesterday. He grimaced at the recollection. She had been ready and waiting for him, and all he’d done was tell her to use the room and leave. He’d been so focused on speaking to Nesta, on doing the right thing for himself, that he had completely forgotten all about her.
“Idiot,” he groaned, recalling the evening at the Colosseum and their conversation over dinner afterwards. He and Rachele didn’t eat out much and the evening with Gina hadn’t been awful. She wasn’t such bad company. In fact, she wasn’t so boring to be around, and she didn’t deserve him completely forgetting about her.
It had been an honest mistake but she had clearly been ready, he was certain. For one thing, she’d made an effort to dress up. How could he forget that scarf?
He shook his head, knowing he would have to apologize to her. The throbbing inside his head reached a crescendo and he knew it would take a few pills to get him through the day.
By the time he arrived at his class, slightly late, his thumping headache had simmered to a more manageable pain level. He greeted his class as cheerfully as he could without giving away how rough he felt. A glance at Gina confirmed his worst suspicions. She stared back at him impassively. As much as he wanted to explain and apologize, with the lesson about to start, there was no way he would be able talk to her properly now. It would have to wait for break time.
Except that when they broke for coffee at 11, she rushed out quickly and he got held up by one of the attendees pestering him with questions. When he later wandered out to the coffee area, he found her talking to Emilio.
With a curiosity that gnawed at his gut, he walked over to them.
“Ciao.” He greeted them both at the same time. They were deep in conversation and mumbled in response but continued talking to one another. He bit down on his molars hard, feeling like a spare wheel and wasn’t sure if he was being paranoid, or whether it was deliberate, the way in which neither of them seemed to want to talk to him.
Not taking the hint, he stood his ground, refusing, like an obstinate child, to move. He listened to them discuss the merits of the software and how it was being used at the place where Gina worked. After a while, the two of them stopped talking and Emilio asked him how he was feeling.
“I’m feeling fine.” Except he was far from fine. He wished Gina would look his way at least once, but it was obvious she was determined not to. If only Emilio would leave then he could explain to her.
“Excuse me,” she said, and moved away from them.
She was avoiding him. He could read women like books and this was Avoidance 101. She was mad at him for forgetting and this was her way of letting him know. He slid his hands into the pockets of his pants and watched her laughing with a bearded guy who was as round as he was tall. The man was no competition for him but still Christian felt a stab of something in his gut. He didn’t like the fact that she had gone over to someone else and hadn’t even given him the chance to explain.
It made him all the more determined to catch her before she went to lunch.
“What was all that about?” Christian smoothed down his tie and feigned nonchalance. “Do you know her?”
“She works for the Cazales,” replied Emilio, as if that explained everything
“And you know them, how?”
“I went to Verona years ago with one of the sales men to demo the software when it had just come out. I had to show them how it worked, how to use it and how it could help them. He liked it, the old man, the one who started it all. I heard he passed away recently. He said he needed something simple and easy to use and we ended up selling them a multi-user license. Nice hotel, from what I remember.”
“Catching up on old times?”
“Carrying out research. Prospecting.” Emilio tapped a finger to his nose. “Her boss has opened a new hotel and has serious plans for more. That means more licenses. You have to always be thinking ahead, always be selling. You’ll need to be more savvy if you move into sales.”
Christian digested this information and put it away to think about later. Emilio was a shrewd man and he had already learnt a lot from him. He would have to make sure he still kept in touch with his friends in the training office when he moved over to sales.
“Thanks for the tip.”
“Anytime.” Emilio clapped his hand on Christian’s back. “I’d better get back.” As soon as Emilio disappeared, Christian walked over to Gina’s group but they all started to file back into the room.
Throughout the rest of morning, the opportunity never arose again. At lunchtime, she again slipped out with the same group of people she was with earlier and he had no chance to reach her.
But at the end of the day, as students started to leave, he positioned himself in front of her desk. “Could I talk to you, please?”
“What is it?”
He looked around feeling oddly uncomfortable with the rest of the attendees still hovering around. “A word in private, please.”
She looked at him with a puzzled expression.
“I’ll catch up with you,” she told a group of people who were getting ready to leave.
“We’ll be in the bar until 7,” one of them said.
“I’ll see you there.”
He waited for the classroom to empty, then closed the door and got straight
to the point.
“I’m sorry for yesterday, for forgetting.”
“Yesterday?” She flung her knapsack over her shoulder, and looked as if she was about to leave.
“We’d made plans to go to Trastavere and I completely forgot. I’m sorry.”
“Trastavere? Were we?” She looked surprised, and he almost believed her. “I thought it was just a suggestion you made. I didn’t think we’d actually finalized anything.”
That’s how she was dealing with it?
Denial and pretending that she hadn’t been waiting for him? He understood perfectly. “That was a pretty scarf you had on.” It was so obvious she’d made an effort and her cheeks flushing like that were a dead giveaway.
“I’d like to make it up to you.”
“Again?”
“I’d like to take you to Trastavere, if you still want to.”
“You don’t have to,” she said, making to leave.
“But we had agreed, and I genuinely forgot.” He stepped in front of her, blocking her exit. This thrill of the chase excited him. With Rachele there was no chase. No fighting for her attention.
This, even with someone as low maintenance, and as low on drama as Gina, made his blood heat up. “Why are you being so stubborn?”
“Why are you being so insistent?”
“I want to make it up to you, and because I have an interview with the sales team and I’m grateful to you for helping me.”
“I’d say you got that interview off your own ability. Congratulations, but I already have plans.”
“Going out with those guys?” Did she really believe that? “I’ll give you a better time than they will.” It came out as a growl, gruffer than he had intended but the problem was, she was so difficult to persuade and it made him all the more determined to change her mind. It was something he had never had much practice in before. It was something new. She wasn’t a dead cert, a given, an easy win.