"Yes. Let's do it."

Chapter 6

Even though the car had air conditioning, neither of us wanted to use it. Instead Liam thumbed the button to roll the windows down all the way, letting the fresh Roman air spill into the car.

I hadn't grabbed anything to tie my hair with, so it whipped and lashed about my shoulders, streaming back over the headrest. And I didn't care. It felt wonderful, feeling the air like that.

"Where are we going first?" I said.

"Just trust me," Liam replied.

We came to a stoplight at one point, the wind stilling around us so that I could hear again. His phone started buzzing, and he fished it out of his pocket and glanced at the screen. He frowned at it. Something about his expression sent a sliver of worry through me.

Was it all over? Was he going to cancel as soon as our little adventure had begun? He was here on business, after all. I knew that much. And it would be unfair of me to monopolize his time when he should be going his job.

Even though it would be unfair, I still wanted him all to myself.

"Has something come up?" I said, trying to sound nonchalant about it.

The phone continued ringing in his hand. The muscles in Liam's jaw and temples worked. And then he thumbed the red button, sending the call to voicemail. "Nothing as important as showing an art history student some actual art history."

Putting the phone on silent, he shoved it into his pocket just as the light changed. As usual, the hyperactive Italian drivers in their tiny Fiats immediately began honking while Liam accelerated the BMW smoothly through the intersection.

"My hero," I said. It wasn't flowers or jewelry or a nice dinner, but it was somehow more romantic than all that. He'd chosen me over his job, put me ahead of whatever business he had here.

And it felt so good to feel important to someone again. It had been so long since anyone had done anything of the sort for me. And doesn't everyone need to feel important to someone?

"Don't worry about it. Really. I love this city, and I want to share its beauty with you. And your beauty with it. I just can't believe that you haven't seen it yet!"

Despite my well-honed flirt-shield, I couldn't stop the hot wave of the blush as it crept up my throat and into my cheeks.

"Stop it," I said, feeling foolish with a big smile spread across my lips. My hot cheeks hurt from that smile.

He glanced at me, then back to the road. "What? Complimenting you? I won't, thanks. Because it's true."

We passed a row of parked cars, and I watched my reflection flicker across their windows. Long blonde hair thrown into disarray by the wind. A goofy grin on lips I'd always thought were too thin and a face I always thought generous to call anything but slightly above average.

He couldn't really believe I was as beautiful as he claimed me to be. Yet I still saw nothing in his eyes to suggest otherwise. I wished I could see myself as he saw me.

At the next stoplight, a group of four young men chatting and laughing around a bench looked up and saw us. They started waving and whistling.

"Bella signora!" I heard one dark-eyed boy calling, blowing kisses at me. The heat in my cheeks intensified.

"You see?" Liam said. The light changed and we pulled away again.

"That's just what Italians are like," I said. It had taken some time after getting to Rome to acclimatize myself to that bit of culture shock. You had to be careful to avoid pinches to the rump and overenthusiastic, full-body hugs. And I'd long since learned to emulate the way the native Italian women ignored the catcalling.

Not that I didn't find it all entirely unflattering. You could be your own women, liberated and all that, and still appreciate a little attention.

Liam slammed the steering wheel in mock irritation, "You have an excuse for everything, don't you?"

"Not quite. So, where are we going?"

He shrugged a mysterious shrug and then started up one of Rome's prominent hills.

It wasn't long before the marble-columned facade of the Pantheon rose up, as if it had grown from the ground itself fully formed.

"Oh!" I said, unable to keep the gasp entirely to myself.

He pulled the BMW into a visitor parking lot and we made our way into the square in front of the ancient building. It wasn't exactly tourist season—it was a little too late in the year for that—but there were still a fair number of people milling about in that stone square.

Even from the other side, I could make out the letters hewn into the marble facade. "'Marcus Agrippa built this when he was consul for the third time,'" I said, almost inaudibly. A little shiver ran up my back, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand. I couldn't believe I was actually there.

"You read Latin?" he asked.

"A little," I said. It dovetailed pretty well with Italian to the point where if you puzzled over it for a bit you could figure it out.

"I'm impressed."

Almost unconsciously, I reached out and took Liam's hand.

"We can go inside, you know," he said.

I realized I'd been standing rooted to the spot at the end of the square for far too long. We went and passed the large fountain out in front of the main doors. And then we were in the rotunda. It was massive. The weight of history pressed down in the hundreds of tons of concrete making up the overhead dome. I could almost feel it on my shoulders.

"I get that every time I come here," Liam said.

I remembered then when he spoke about how he loved the history in the city, how it helped put his life in perspective. I could see why, now. How could anything I ever do compare to a place like that?

He led me around eagerly, taking me from one statue to the next, pointing out frescoes and paintings.

I had to say, I was impressed. I'd still been having the suspicions that this was all some big con to sleep with me again. That suspicion disappeared, changing into one that wondered how Liam came to know all this.

I spent almost as much time looking at him out of the corner of my eye as I did looking at the history around me.

More than once, I caught him looking at me, too. Our eyes would touch and then dart away from each other like when you forced the same pole of two magnets together.

"Raphael is buried here," I said, remembering something I'd read in my research.

Raphael, who'd left his studio to Giulio Romano. Who I was currently writing a paper about.

"Aha!" I said.

"Hmm?" Liam replied.

"Nothing," I continued, embarrassed that I'd said that out loud.

"No, really, tell me. I want to know."

"It's nothing... I'm just writing a paper on one of Raphael's students, and I sort of justified going out with you as a research trip."

Liam snorted, "I thought maybe it was something like that."

"You and your superpower again? Reading people and all that?"

"Hey, if you've got it, flaunt it, right?"

We spent maybe another fifteen minutes there, just taking it in. Having Liam there to share it with somehow made it more special. Knowing I wasn't alone in this strange land made it special.

Although my favorite part was when he pulled me into a quiet alcove and kissed me. It felt secret, clandestine. Tourists wandered around just a few feet away, oblivious to the two people who couldn't keep their hands off each other.

"Is this a tour of the city, or are you trying to take a tour of me?" I said before kissing the cleft in his chin I liked so much.