Chapter 27

A knock sounded on the door. Sarah opened one eye, and the blurry numbers of her alarm clock came into focus. Seven a.m. She threw the covers over her head and let out a humph. Anna really was taking retaliation to a whole new level. So what if Sarah ignored her repeated texts? Since when was she a pillow-talker anyway?

The knock sounded again. Since when did Anna knock? Sarah flung the covers off her face.

“Sarah? You up?” Eduardo’s voice floated through the door.

She bolted upright. “Just a minute!” She slipped on a robe and stumbled to the door. “Eduardo, what are you doing here? How did you get—” She paused, her gaze down the hall. “Sister Maria?”

Eduardo shook his head. “Anna. Does that girl ever sleep?”

Sighing, Sarah opened the door a couple more inches. “She’s pretty much a vampire. A genius, but a vampire.” She motioned to enter.

Eduardo edged inside and shoved his hands into his pockets. His gaze shifted from his shoes to Sarah’s face. “Sister Maria isn’t here, anyway,” he said in a somber tone. “She’s gone with Matteo to the funeral.”

Sarah softened her stance. Eduardo’s eyes were apologetic.

“I called him last night. You were right, Sarah. Poor guy, he’s a wreck. Sending flowers was the least I could do.” He removed a hand from his pocket and took Sarah’s in his own. “I should have sent you some, too.”

Sarah’s grogginess abated. “You don’t need to do that.”

He squeezed her hand. “Yes, I do. I was an ass. Here I was, a few days earlier, lamenting my wrongs with Lucia and Roberta, and then I do the same thing with you.” He stepped closer and placed his other hand on her cheek.

His palm was warm and smooth, like the sensation coursing through her.

“I wanted to make it up to you. Make it up to us.” He kissed her quickly on the mouth.

“Right now?” The steeliness in her voice was cut by a mild quiver.

“In that bed?” Shaking his head, Eduardo gestured to the bed and smirked. “Is your bag still packed?”

Sarah followed his gaze to her bag, which sat next to the door and gave a weak nod.

He dropped her hand. “Good. Because the train leaves at the top of the hour.”

“Train? Where are we—”

“Florence.” He shrugged. “I figured you’d like that more than flowers.”

Florence! A shiver prickled her spine, and Sarah stopped herself from clapping her hands. The Uffizi? The David? The Arno? She planted a kiss on Eduardo’s cheek, smacking her lips for emphasis.

He grinned and picked up her bag. “Shall we?”

Sarah gazed at the bag, and she bit her lip. “Just give me a few minutes.” She ushered him out the door, ran to the bathroom, and brushed her teeth. She snatched her matching set of undergarments from the shower rod. Thank God she’d had sense enough to wash them. She threw them on, along with her favorite pair of jeans and a top, and rushed out the door.

****

The train eased out of the station, picking up speed, and Rome’s buildings faded in the distance. Suburbia slipped into rolling countryside, and Sarah relaxed in her seat. “This trip won’t put you behind on work?”

“Would it matter if it did?”

Sarah frowned.

“Relax.” Eduardo patted her knee. “I told you I worked late yesterday. I have the weekend free.”

Sarah fingered the soft fabric covering the seat. “So, if you don’t work late, does that mean you work on the weekends?”

With a sigh, Eduardo pulled back his hand and rubbed at a crease in his forehead. “Running a business requires a lot of work. It takes more than just managing the cases. I monitor cash flow and market for new clients. Hell, I even have to make sure the office gets cleaned.”

“Don’t you have an office manager who can take care of that?”

Eduardo lowered his hand. “I have a secretary, but she can’t handle those sorts of things.”

I’m pretty sure every secretary in America performs those tasks. “Can’t, or won’t?”

“Both.”

“Then hire someone who can.”

Eduardo pinched the corner of his mouth. “You sound like Sister Maria.”

“Come on, Eduardo, you’re talking about cleaning your office and getting receipts to an accountant, not adding spices to your bolognese sauce.”

“What’s wrong with my bolognese? That’s a family recipe.”

Sarah snapped down her tray table and extracted a paper and pen from her purse. “Payroll, marketing, cleaning.” She scribbled the words.

Cocking his chin, he lifted a brow. “What are you doing?”

“Writing a job posting. So, what else does this person need to do?”

Eduardo paused, leaning his head against the glass. He tapped a foot against the floor.

“Well?” Sarah prodded.

He shifted, squaring his shoulders so he faced her. “Well, the person would oversee the secretary and help with billing.”

Secretary. Help with billing. Sarah added the tasks to her list.

Eduardo picked up the disposable cup of coffee and raised it to his mouth. He stopped, the paper cup just shy of his lips. “And coffee,” he said. “The person would need to make a proper cup of coffee, because I’m spending half the day picking grounds out of my teeth.”

“Excellent! These are all good!” Sarah smiled. “Keep going.”

“Well, all right.” Sighing, he pinched his lips with his fingers and scrunched his brow.

But then he relented, and for the remainder of the short trip, he spilled out the requirements until Sarah had no more room on her sheet of paper. With a new employee, he could focus more on his personal life—spend more quality time with Lucia…with her. Was it too much to hope for?

****

One hundred and fifty miles later, Sarah arrived with Eduardo at the Uffizi just as the gallery was opening. The city was asleep, and the winter sun peeked through the arched stone entrance. The waters of the adjacent Arno trickled in the background. Inside, shoe heels clicked on checkered marbled floors, and busts and full-size statues decorated the halls leading to the galleries.

Sarah didn’t know what to look at first. She scanned the handheld map, her fingers trembling. She yearned to see everything at once. Botticelli? Da Vinci? Eduardo’s finger appeared on the edge of the map.

He lowered the map. “We have all day, Sarah. Take your time.”

All day? But she could spend an entire week and still want more. So much of the city was yet to be seen.

Behind Eduardo, the vibrant red of Raphael’s Madonna drew her, and she raced off to study it. The hours passed quickly; she was so preoccupied with the art works.

In the early afternoon, Eduardo went off to pick up a gift for Lucia in the museum shop.

Sarah circled back to the Botticelli exhibit. She wanted to take another moment with one of the museum’s most famous works, The Birth of Venus.

Bright reds and blues, vivid after some five hundred years, filled the canvas. The pale-skinned, blonde-haired goddess of love stood at its center, demurely covering her private regions as angels floated beside her. Sarah admired the delicate brushstrokes, the sharp contours of faces, and the shadows capturing the details of the human body. A blush crept to her cheeks. Did Eduardo find Venus’s curves attractive, or would he rather cover them up, like the nymph in the painting?

She dropped her gaze to the floor. Was that why she revisited the painting? To examine Botticelli’s capturing of human anatomy? To question what beauty really was?

Again, Sarah lifted her gaze. Even without the summary in the brochure, the title alone was enough to explain the painting’s meaning. The Birth of Venus. Love. Temptation. Choice. She studied Cupid, his dropped jaw and widened eyes as he took in Venus’s naked body. Two lovers whose course was meant to collide.

Sarah stiffened her shoulders. Was she ready to fall in love again? Or should she be focusing on her future, following up on the job application she’d submitted with a letter to the principal?

“Ready to go?” Eduardo asked.

Sarah turned to stare into Eduardo’s gentle eyes. Could people stop themselves from falling in love?

Eduardo cleared his throat. “Unless, of course, you need more time.”

“No. I’m ready. We’ve got to leave time for the Accademia.”

“And lunch.” He looped an arm in hers.

“Aww,” she teased, “you’re putting off visiting your twin?”

Eduardo scrunched together his brows.

“The David.” Sarah started toward the doorway. “Please tell me someone has commented on your resemblance. The dark, curly hair. The Greek nose. You even have a voice like an angel!”

Eduardo threw his head back with a laugh. “I don’t play the harp.”

“Well, there is that.”

He stopped at the doorway, unlinked his arm, and drew it to his shoulder, an imaginary slingshot at the ready. Puffing out his chest, he assumed the David’s stance. “But I do have his physique, don’t you think?”

Admiring his square shoulders and playful grin, Sarah smirked. She could get used to this carefree side of Eduardo. “Oh, really?”

“Maybe not exactly.”

Sarah laughed.

Eduardo peered over Sarah’s shoulder at the painting of Venus. “She really is beautiful, isn’t she?”

“Yes, she is.” She gulped and ran a hand over her waist and down her hip. Very soon, he’d study Sarah’s body—each curve and crevice. Would he find her as beautiful as Venus? Or would she turn him off?