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Chloe glanced at a locally made baby doll through a toy shop window. She smiled, pressing her open palm up against the glass. She remembered that she would still need to bring home gifts, little trinkets or souvenirs of some kind for each of her family members.
A model train chugged along on a track on the showroom floor next to the window. If only she could explore her childlike self, even if just for a few moments. She decided to walk through the store, appreciating the handcrafted skill of the owners who created the magic in the eyes of a child. The shop owners appeared to be a pair of older women with hunched backs and scarves swathed over their heads, tucked delicately around their chins with a little knot at the end.
They gave her gentle smiles and nodded their heads respectably. A language barrier prevented them from explaining to Chloe how all the toys in the shop came to be, but Chloe expected it was a magical story filled with wonderment and love.
She picked up an ornament, a figurine of a Cocker Spaniel chasing after a ball. Cocker Spaniel’s were Chloe’s mother’s favorite breed of dog. She pulled out her purse and paid for the ornament, remembering to say Grazie in thanks as she walked out the door, hearing the adorable bell trinket above her head chime as she departed.
She took a deep breath, stopping to explore a food cart with an animated and jovial vendor pushing it along. He was flamboyantly exclaiming Italian phrases left and right to pedestrians and tourists alike in an attempt to convince them to stop and putter around his delectable looking fruits and vegetable items.
Chloe picked up a few tomatoes that were so ripe and fresh looking that she was certain they were hand plucked from a Tuscany valley just that very morning. She bought some grapes, easier to eat than the tomatoes, and popped a few in her mouth as she browsed.
Walking along, she was in her element, nearly balancing the moment with the woes of her father’s sickness that still ravaged her mind. She was in her own little world, her guard left dangling and exposed.
She was enjoying the quality alone time, but she still had a heart flutter over missing her family and even Roman for that matter. He was away for the day doing press and promotions, something that came along with the territory of being in a traveling band on tour.
He had promised to meet up with her later, and when her phone buzzed in her pocket, she was excited and surprised to see that it was Roman ringing her.
“Hello?” She grinned into the receiver with an expectantly optimistic voice.
“Hey beautiful,” Roman’s husky voice curled through her ears like satin. “What are you doing?”
“Walking through Milan,” she professed, continuing to walk down a side street while she grazed her fingertips across the edges of a building with exposed red brick on the side.
“Alone?” Roman sounded discouraged.
“It’s the middle of the day,” Chloe reminded him. She could take care of herself. She always carried a container of mace in her purse, just to air on the side of caution.
“Okay...” he trailed, pretending to be unconvinced.
“Are you done with your press interviews?” Chloe quizzed.
“Yep,” Roman yawned into the phone. “Just finished up. I’m free as a bird.”
Chloe’s heart sang with a fresh batch of enthusiasm for their budding and blossoming relationship. “That’s excellent. Do you want to meet up somewhere? Maybe have an early dinner?”
“Yes,” Roman agreed. “Where exactly are you? I’ll have my driver bring me to you.”
“Aren’t you just entitled?” Chloe teased in a humored voice.
“Very funny,” Roman quipped. It sounded to Chloe like he might be chewing something on the other end.
Chloe gave him the address of where she was and decided after they hung up that she would linger around the area so that Roman would have an easier time spotting her. She walked into a pottery shop, marveling at the intricate details of the dishes ripe with Italian flare.
She picked up a set of red bowls with hand painted doves going along the border. It would be a perfect gift for her sister, Ashley. Now all she had to do was find something charismatic and charming for her father, to mirror and represent his personality and how much she loved him.
If only she could buy him time and health.
She walked out of the store, going up and down the perimeter of the street, being careful to stay in the general area because she knew that Roman would probably soon be on his way. She stopped to rest on a park bench, enjoying a tasty treat of frozen strawberry gelato that she had purchased from an ice cream shop sitting adjacent to the pottery store.
The taste of strawberry flavor exploded in her mouth and sent her taste buds into overdrive. She licked the delicious treat, never wanting it to end. She was pondering whether to walk back in the store and try out another flavor, perhaps coconut this time when she heard a noise from behind her.
Thinking that it might be Roman, she turned around with a smile. She opened her mouth to speak but stood up and hastily took a fumbled step backward when she realized it was not Roman, but a pair of aggressive and hungry reporter’s beelining directly for her as if she was the prey and they were the hunters.
“Can I help you?” Chloe still held the gelato in her grip but noticed that her bags full of purchases were sitting; looking displaced on the wrought iron bench she had been peacefully relaxing on just moments before.
“Are you her?” The blonde, eager-eyed woman pressed.
Chloe shook her head, feeling slightly perplexed and thoroughly ambushed. “I’m sorry?” She asked. “Who exactly are you trying to find?”
The blonde woman glanced at her partner with an enthusiastic grin. “It is her. I’m sure of it. Same haircut, same chic style.”
As keen as Chloe was to accept abstract compliments from total strangers on the street, she still didn’t understand who they were looking for.
The pair looked to be about forty years old, and they both had American accents which were slightly befuddling. The male had slicked back dark hair that appeared as if he had drenched his entire head in hair gel, perhaps even using an entire bottle. He was wearing a jet black suit and a red power tie with tiny white dots splattered across it in an intricate design.
“You are Chloe Adams, are you not?” He gave her a frenzied glance as if he had just struck oil out west and was still shocked to learn he had hit the jackpot.
“I’m sorry,” Chloe was starting to feel like a broken record, stating the same thing over and over. She shook her head guardedly. “Who are you?” She still was apprehensive to reveal her identity to this man with blazing, ravenous eyes. All reporters were sharks. He was starving for a story as he pushed his camera into her face, massively violating her personal space.
“We work for the Chicago Tribune,” the blonde woman wearing a navy pants suit with high shoulder pads chimed in a proud and boastful voice.
Chloe frowned. “What are you doing all the way over here, in Milan, Italy?” What the hell did they want with her?
The man edged closer to her. “My dear, we could be asking you the very same thing.”
Chloe was taken aback but held her ground. “Excuse me,” she pushed past them breezily retrieving her bags from the bench without allowing her shaky hands to show.
“Are you dating Roman Davenport, lead drummer for the popular rock band Infinity Prism?”
Chloe huffed, feeling her ears burn and her cheeks scorch with the heat of embarrassment. What nerve did these people have to fly across the world and fire rounds of questions at her?
She wasn’t going to entertain them with an answer. “No comment.”
“Is Roman Davenport your love interest?” The woman called out in a desperate attempt to get a rise out of Chloe, or at least attempt to make her stop in her tracks and give her the attention she was craving.
Chloe turned around, glaring at the woman while privately seething. “For your information,” she began coolly, “I work as a Marketing Assistant to Emelia Greene who is working on the European leg of the tour. And that’s my only connection to the band.”
Chloe spun around, already berating herself for spewing too much impulsive information on the spot. These obnoxious reporters were succeeding in getting her to commit to their wishes for a story.
She began brashly walking down the street, temporarily forgetting all about the fact that Roman would be searching for her. For now, all she could focus on was being hunted by these antagonistic reporters, bordering belligerent.
She huffed down the street, trying not to let her furious state of mind capture control of her mind or her physical actions. She pushed past an older couple wearing cameras around their necks and book bags across their backs.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized, becoming even more rattled by the second.
The reporters were gaining on her. She dared to glance apprehensively over her shoulder, noticing how they were narrowing the gap between them.
“We can’t believe how lucky we are to have run into Roman Davenport’s girlfriend on the street!” The woman chanted, inadvertently making a buzzing crowd form around them.
Chloe was cornered, encircled. There was nowhere else to go, no path of escape. She glanced to her left and right, trying not to panic. The vibrant blonde reporter shoved her microphone in Chloe’s face.
“We are in Milan following the band.” She elbowed her gel-doused counterpart. “Can you believe it, Richard?” She squealed.
“I can’t believe it, Susan.” Richard, the Reporter, gave Chloe a bedazzled smile. “Today is our lucky day.”
“You can’t believe everything you hear,” Chloe fired back. “You don’t know anything about me or my private life. Which, by the way, I intend to keep fully private.” Chloe had to insert that little tidbit of disclosure so that the sharks would stop wadding around her, just waiting for her to spill a droplet of blood so they could pounce on her.
She knew she sounded less than convincing, but she was literally backed into a corner. “Please,” she said in the most assertive voice she could muster, given the circumstances. “Leave me alone.”
Other bystanders besides the reporters had begun to flash their cameras in Chloe’s face, wanting to get a good look at the woman alleged to be dating the famous rocker, Roman Davenport.
Chloe wouldn’t appease them with a direct answer. It was none of anyone’s business. Besides, she couldn’t hammer in a title for her and Roman’s relationship in the first place. It was still in the baby stages, not even fully grown yet.
She noticed a break in the crowd and made a run for it. She observed a huge figure barreling towards her out of the corner of her eye and braced herself for impact. Was it the local police coming to capture her? Was it worse? Human trafficking? The scenarios blazed through her mind like wildfire.
The reporters were gaining on her, getting closer and closer with their cameras pointed directly at Chloe. She had never expected in a million years to be ambushed in such a highly populated area in the middle of the day.
The mysterious and huge man-centered himself between Chloe and the reporters. “Not so fast,” he roared.
Chloe recognized that voice at once. Tufts of blond hair emerged behind a baseball cap and huge aviator sunglasses. Roman had attempted to disguise himself under the scrutiny of being out on the streets in plain open sight.
He held his hands up in an effort to shove the reporters out of the way. “Stay back,” he warned.
“Roman Davenport?” The blonde reporter wasn’t even phased by the fact that Roman was practically growling at her in an effort to protect Chloe. “Have you come to be with your lady friend?”
Chloe knew that Roman would never hit a woman. However, given the way his eyes flashed with hostility towards the wet head reporter, he looked as if he were debating whether to clock him a nice one in the side of the cheek. Chloe noticed that he even went as far as to ball his fists and crack his knuckles.
She wished she could use mind tricks to mentally deter him from making the same rash mistakes as before, in a media frenzy. She didn’t want to see him assault this male reporter without cause, and then end up in even more trouble than before.
“Roman,” she hissed out of the side of her mouth. “Don’t do it.”
Roman’s face twisted in torment and conflict about whether or not he should punch the guy or let it go. Finally, he shoved past the reporter, making his way to Chloe. “Come on,” he said and gripped her gently by the elbow to tug her along faster.
“Let’s get out of here before I do something I’ll regret.”