“Heading out with lover boy again tonight?” Colette asked later that evening as she peeked around the doorframe of Annie’s room.
“Yep,” the other woman answered with a coy smile. “What about you?”
“Luca’s usually busy with work on weekdays...” Colette replied, settling herself on the corner of the bed.
Annie thought she noted a hint of hesitation in her tone, but then became distracted by the small purple box tied with white ribbon she was holding.
“What’s that?” she asked, expertly running straightening tongs through her hair.
“It’s a present.”
“From who?”
“Me to you,” Colette answered simply.
She laughed in surprise and delight, and went to sit beside her. “A present for me? Why?”
Colette shrugged. “You and Kim helped me so much after the accident, and with Luca, of course. I just wanted to get you both something to say thank you.”
Annie took the box in her hands and pulled the end of the ribbon to untie it. She flipped the top open and nestled among soft white satin was a gorgeous silver bracelet with a single oval-shaped turquoise stone at the center.
“You got this for me?” she asked in disbelief. Her life really was full of surprises these days. First Felicity’s bequest, then the three girls’ unlikely friendship. And Harry, of course.
And now lovely Colette was buying her gifts.
Unexpectedly, Annie could feel her eyes begin to sting and she became overcome with emotion as she ran her finger over the beautifully crafted piece.
“I picked them up in Sorrento earlier.” Colette raised her hand to show an identical bracelet adorning her own wrist. “I got one for Kim, too. Something we can all remember this trip by.”
“I love it, thank you. But you really shouldn’t have... There was no need.”
“It’s perfect, and so thoughtful,” Kim said, stepping into the room, a similar bracelet also on her wrist.
“Almost feels like we’re one step away from starting a girl band,” Annie joked archly. “The Runaways.”
The following morning, Annie paid the taxi fare, trying to ignore the driver’s knowing look as he dropped her off outside the villa entrance.
Evidently the walk of shame was a thing in Italy, too.
Though this was different, she reminded herself as she let herself into the courtyard. Harry wasn’t just some random one-nighter, he was much more than that.
Maybe she would get lucky and everyone would still be asleep when she got inside. Strangers or not, she didn’t want to advertise to the other guests that she’d spent the night elsewhere.
Typical Irish Catholic guilt. She’d got away with it so far but...
She slipped her shoes off to minimize the noise on the stone floor as she snuck in the back door, closing it behind her as quietly as she could before tiptoeing past the kitchen.
“Good morning,” Kim’s voice sang out knowingly, and Annie winced.
Caught red-handed.
“Hey,” she answered airily, popping her head around the kitchen doorframe to face her friend.
“She’s home?” Colette called out from behind her. “Thank goodness.”
Annie was trying her utmost to be nonchalant. “So what’s for breakfast?” she asked, breezing into the kitchen. She moved to the fridge and took out a jug of iced water, waiting for the questioning to start.
Now that it was inevitable, she’d prefer to get it over with sooner rather than later. She wanted a shower. She hadn’t intended to stay overnight and when she woke up forty-five minutes earlier in Harry’s hotel room, she’d been in too much of a hurry to get back before the others noticed she hadn’t come home to waste time on a shower.
“Things went well with Prince Charming last night, I take it?” Kim slid into a seat at the heavy wooden table and looked at Annie with a smirk.
“You could say that,” she replied, sitting down beside her and taking a long gulp of water. She was parched.
Kim chuckled. “I’d more than say that. This is the third night this week you’ve stayed out.”
Annie looked at her, surprised, and Kim winked. You couldn’t get much past her all the same. “Well, who’s to say it’s the same fella?” she boldly quipped with a wink back.
Colette sat down opposite, looking mildly shocked at this, and Annie resisted the urge to pat her on the head. She really was too sweet and naive sometimes.
“So you’ve slept with the guy you’ve been meeting?” she asked her timidly.
“I wouldn’t say that we...slept much,” Annie replied wickedly, and she and Kim guffawed as Colette turned a brilliant shade of red.
“But you barely know him...”
Her friend’s words stuck, especially in light of what she’d discovered (or thought she had—there could easily be an alternative explanation) at the restaurant the other night.
OK, Colette was right, she barely knew Harry, but yet it felt as if they’d known each other a lifetime.
“I know it may seem that way, especially since you guys haven’t met him yet,” Annie conceded, “however, he’s different. He’s together, more mature, and I suppose a little more serious than most guys I know. Most importantly, he’s serious about me.”
“How do you know?” Colette asked.
“Know what?”
“That he’s serious?”
Annie paused to think it over. She didn’t know how to explain how she felt or where to begin. She just knew. But if she’d known she’d be asked to prove why he was different, she would’ve made a list in advance to save her tired mind the effort now.
“Well, right from the beginning we had a connection—before you guys arrived, actually,” she said, reminding them that she had in fact known him even longer than them. “Just...the stuff he does and says when we’re together, I suppose. Even when we’re out with his friends his attention is still always on me. And when he looks at me...well, no one has ever looked at me that way,” she continued, smiling a little.
“But what happens when he or you go home? Won’t everything come to an end?” Colette persisted. But Annie got the sense that she wasn’t quite as concerned with Harry’s true intentions than perhaps with Luca’s.
Aha.
“He says he doesn’t want to think about that. He just wants us to enjoy now. What?” she asked, noticing Kim’s dubious expression.
“Nothing,” she replied, but Annie knew she wasn’t really buying it.
Well, she thought defensively, Kim will change her tune once she sees us together. Not that Annie needed to convince anyone. It was nobody else’s business after all.
“Nothing, my foot. What’s that’s look for?”
“It’s nothing, honestly,” Kim replied. “You’re a big girl and I’m sure you know what you’re doing.”
Annie’s gaze wandered from Kim back to Colette, who looked troubled. “Colette, why all the questions? What about you and Luca—have you two done the deed yet?”
Colette colored and Annie’s eyes widened. Well, who’d have thought it? It really was the quiet ones you had to watch.
“It’s just...” The younger girl looked uncertain. “It’s just we had this...amazing night, but I haven’t heard from him since.”
“Well, I’m sure he’s busy with work. Didn’t you already say he had to go to Rome on business?” Annie reminded her.
“Yes, but it’s not just that that’s bothering me.” Colette’s eyes shifted uncomfortably.
“Colette, spill. What is it?” Kim asked.
“Something happened that night on the boat...” Her eyes left Annie’s face and settled on a spot on the table. “We were having such a...romantic time together and then he got this call. He was really mysterious about it. He hates mobile phones but this time he answered. He jumped up away from me to take it and then immediately afterward we needed to go back. I felt weird about it, especially the way he went so...cold after. And now it’s been days since I’ve heard from him.”
Mysterious calls that ruined the mood when you were with a fella? Annie knew those situations all too well. And they usually meant the same thing—you weren’t the only one he was seeing.
She looked at Colette sadly. She could tell that her friend was serious about Luca, and that she cared about him.
She hoped for her sake that she was wrong about this, but there was no way to be sure. Especially when dealing with Italian men in summer resorts, where having holiday romances and multiple women on the go was almost expected.
Kim replied before she could. “Colette, if you felt something was strange, did you ask Luca what it was about?”
“I did. He just told me it was nothing to worry about and that he needed to get home,” Colette replied.
Another bad sign in Annie’s mind.
“Well, if you’re concerned that he hasn’t been in touch, why don’t you just phone him? No reason why you should have to be waiting on him to call you.”
“I don’t have his number,” the younger girl admitted simply. “As I said, he hates phones.”
Oh, come on...
“Seriously?” Annie said disbelievingly and Kim flashed her a warning look. “He hates mobile phones? Yet he was able to take a call on the boat that night—an important one, apparently.”
The writing was on the wall here as far as Annie was concerned. Colette was being played for a fool. And she was damned if she was going to let that happen.
“I know,” Colette admitted, with more than a hint of embarrassment. “But maybe I’m just imagining things. Maybe that call really was nothing to worry about—a business call or something.”
“At that hour of the night, though?” Annie mused skeptically. “Weren’t you guys out there well after dark? I mean, it’s possible, of course, but it’s also just as possible it was something—or even someone—else...”
Colette looked so crestfallen that Annie felt like a heel and realized that she should really keep her thoughts to herself.
Kim obviously felt the same way—staring daggers at Annie now, she put a comforting hand on Colette’s arm. “Sweetheart, I think that maybe Annie is trying to suggest that you should take a step back from this whole thing for a bit, just to be sure. It’s not that we’re saying that Luca’s playing a game or anything. We’re not. It’s just that maybe you should take your time on this?” she assured her.
Colette twisted her hands in her lap. “OK, but if there is someone else...then maybe I’m no better than he is.”
“What d’you mean?” Kim asked.
“I mean, I’ve kind of...met someone else in the meantime.” She peeked up from beneath her long lashes.
Annie yelped. “Holy feck, what? How the hell have you managed to snag yourself another fella?”
Colette’s face contorted in confusion. “It’s not like that,” she continued and Annie’s mind almost exploded when she told them about a guy she’d bumped into at the jewelry shop in Sorrento the day before.
She had to smile. How in God’s name did innocent little butter-wouldn’t-melt Colette manage to get two fine things chasing after her in a matter of weeks? Clearly, she and Kim were all wrong about Colette needing to sex-up her look; she was doing just fine without them!
“He was really nice and as we were saying goodbye he asked for my number,” she explained. “So I gave it to him. He was so nice. And we’ve been texting a little, and now he’s asked to meet up again for a coffee. He’s really sweet... Totally different to Luca.”
“That’s why you’re confused,” Annie stated, as the revelation hit her. “This other guy is paying attention, whereas Luca’s MIA and it’s got your mind questioning.”
“That’s the problem, you see. I’d feel bad for spending time with someone else—even as friends,” Colette said.
“But remember these Italian guys are very charming. You’ve got to be careful,” Kim cautioned.
“Ed—that’s his name—is not Italian, though. He’s a tourist, like us.”
“You know, I’m starting to feel kinda left out here,” Kim said, laughing. “The two of you have multiple guys crawling all over you and I haven’t even come across a single one that’s caught my eye.”
“That’s because you spend too much time sitting around here being zen, and not enough out there painting the town red,” Annie teased.
“Well, you know, maybe that’s no bad thing. I did way too much partying back home. I’m enjoying just soaking up life here and taking it all in.” She sighed. “Be happy in the moment—that is enough.”
Annie groaned inwardly at Kim’s words of wisdom. Good luck to Kim, but she herself didn’t believe in any of that inspirational mumbo-jumbo. She yawned. Hell, she really needed to go back to bed...
“So what do you think I should do?” Colette asked them. “If Luca didn’t ever really care about me and this was just a holiday fling, should I go and meet up with Ed, even as friends?”
Annie had to smile. Talk about a turn-up for the books. Who’d have thought shy little Colette, who wouldn’t say boo to a goose when she arrived, could now potentially have two men on the go? The change in her was a wonder to behold.
“Well, I know this isn’t easy to hear and it’s not easy to say, but maybe you have to also look at the big picture and think about what happens after you leave here. I know you like Luca and he seems to really like you, too, but, Colette, do you honestly believe it can be anything more than a holiday romance?”
“Same could be said for you,” Kim pointed out, and Annie knew she felt she was being a bit too blunt with the younger girl, but she needed to be.
Colette had to face up to reality eventually.
While Luca seemed nice enough, he was a player through and through, anyone could see that. Especially now after this whole thing about the mobile phone. Who didn’t use mobile phones in this day and age?
Someone who had something to hide, that’s who.
While Colette seemed to think all the little notes he left for her here at the villa when she wasn’t around were old-fashioned and romantic, to Annie her friend’s naivete was showing. She’d been around the block enough herself to recognize all the signs. And she truly didn’t want to see her get hurt.
If someone didn’t talk some sense into her, Colette could end up leaving Italy with a lot more than she bargained for.