“I know how you feel. When I realized it, I felt a great sorrow as well. But I am afraid it is true... No, do not cry,” he said.

This confused me. I wasn’t crying. I didn’t feel anything but shock. But he reached out anyway, as though to brush a (non-existent) tear off my cheek. I stepped back reflexively.

“Do not be so shy. You are beautiful. There is always a way for beautiful girls to get what they want. Perhaps there is an arrangement we could make?”

Despite the numbing effect of the shock, I grasped what he meant immediately. This was his chance, he thought. He could see what a bad position I was in, and he would help me out of it. For a price, of course. For something he’d wanted from me ever since I’d come to Rome.

Perhaps it was also that numbness that permitted my next lapse. Dr. Aretino reached out and squeezed a lock of my hair between his thumb and index finger. He rubbed the strands, feeling their texture, that greasy smile of his coming over his face again.

Since I didn’t immediately slap his hand away, he took that for some sort of tacit consent.

“Emma...” he said, trying to wrap his other hand around the small of my back.

My senses came back to me finally and I jerked away from him. The sudden move yanked at the lock of hair he held, and sharp pain exploded in my scalp. So sharp I thought he’d managed to rip the hair out. “Dr. Aretino!”

When I looked down and saw that his hand wasn’t filled with my hair, that he hadn’t pulled any out, I felt relieved. Thank God for small favors, I suppose.

“I promise you it will be worth it,” he said.

I took an involuntary step back, realizing just how alone the two of us were in this big, empty lecture hall. Why couldn’t someone from the next class come in already?

“I’m not that kind of person, professor,” I said, crossing my arms across my chest tightly. I tried telling myself it was a gesture of defiance, but I knew it was really because I needed some comforting, some security, from this. Maybe I’ll leave Rome after all.

I wasn’t willing to sacrifice my integrity for better grades.

“You will come around, Ragazza d’oro. You will.”

The double doors at the top of the stairs burst open, letting in the flood of sound from the  crowded hallway on the other side.

“Emma?”

My breath caught. It couldn’t be! But it was. I spun around and saw Liam standing at the top of the stairs. He wore casual clothes, the collar of his grey button down undone as a way to deal with the Italian heat.

I didn’t care why he was there, why he stood at the top of the stairs like some classical hero, a living representation of some beautiful marble statue. I only cared that he was there.

“Liam!” I said, feeling Dr. Aretino’s eyes burning twin holes between my shoulder blades. I whirled back on the professor, whose eyes kept bouncing between Liam and me like a ball in a pinball machine. “I’m sorry, professor, but I really have to go.”

“Emma, I really do not like this man. There is something about him. Something not honest,” Giuseppe said.

Liam walked down the stairs, casually scanning the lecture hall, one hand shoved into the pocket of his khakis. “She’s right, though, we do have to go. We have that thing.”

“Yes, that... thing,” I said.

Liam came up to my side and draped his arm over my shoulders. Immediately, I felt more at ease in my own skin. Skin that currently luxuriated at his touch. I’ve got it bad, I thought. That really wasn’t a one night stand. Isabella was right.

“You remember, that lunch date we set?” Liam said.

“No, no. She is busy!” Dr. Aretino broke in, waving his hands at Liam like he’d wave at a fly buzzing around his spaghetti. “He is no good. Emma, don’t you see? He is no dancing instructor! He is a liar...”

“I’m sorry, professor,” I said, that pool of acid in my stomach evaporating, making me feel light enough to lift up off the polished hardwood floor of the lecture hall, “But I did set that date. I know there’s a way for me to improve my grades. We’ll discuss it later.”

Dr. Aretino’s already swarthy complexion darkened further. The broad expanse of his forehead kept crinkling and then pulling taut. Finally, he fixed a greasy smile to his face that never touched his eyes. “Of course. I understand.”

“Nice to see you again, Dr. Aretino,” Liam said, his hand slipping from my shoulder. His fingertips brushed against the small of my back, making the skin there tighten. He took hold of my hand in his and started leading me back up the stairs and to freedom.

Chapter 4

We walked hand-in-hand down the broad hallway. It was a beautiful building, with marble floors and tall, arched windows that let in the light to play across the frescoes and decorations. But right then I only had eyes for Liam.

Other people had eyes for him, too, I noted. I squeezed his hand tighter and pressed my side against his while we walked, basking in the jealous gazes I felt from the other female students we passed.

Yes, he’s holding my hand. Yes, he’s as good a kisser as he looks. No, you can’t have him!

I put my giddiness down to the adrenaline rush of nearly being groped by my professor and then saved by the handsomest man in Rome. We continued down the hall, taking a turn that would lead us to one of the visitor parking lots.

“So, not that I’m not grateful, which I am. Very grateful, that is,” Stop babbling! The rational part of my mind said. But he’s so good looking. You should kiss him again!  The rest of me replied. Liam pretended not to notice. “But why are you here?”

His eyebrows knitted together and he glanced at me. “To take you to lunch.”

“We never had a lunch date.”

“Yes, we do,” he said, the corners of his mouth twitching up in a tiny, sly smile. I couldn’t help returning the expression.

“I think I would have known. Since when did we have this date?”

“Since you agreed to it in the lecture hall, of course.”

“Ah. Sneaky. Lunch does sound good, though,” I said. The crowd in the hall began thinning enough so that I could hear the sound of our footsteps off the polished floor.

“Yes, I’m quite sly like that, aren’t I?”

***

Ten minutes later, I again found myself sitting outside of a small Roman café. A large umbrella protected out bistro table from the noontime sun, which beat down hard enough that heat radiated in undulating waves off the patio stones.

Except there were several key differences. First, I’d never been to this place before (though the aged Italian waiter with the silver platter looked rather like Giancarlo, so much that I thought they might be brothers).

Second, instead of a beautiful woman sat across from me, it was a handsome man. When we sat down, he’d undone the buttons of his cuffs and rolled the sleeves up almost to his elbows. I had to keep myself from openly admiring his muscular forearms.

And when he smiled and turned that full wattage on me, it was like the afternoon sun dimmed in comparison.

It took every last straining inch of my willpower to retain something like a level head. Besides, I didn’t think Liam was the type who appreciated googly-eyed airheads. And I wanted to be the kind of girl that he appreciated.

Horns honked down the street, and two men climbed out of their tiny Italian cars and began waving at each other. Some children kicked a soccer ball around down the other way, stopping their game briefly each time a car drove through.

For probably the first time since I’d come to Rome, I felt like I was in a movie. The streets looked exotic. The food smelled delicious. I was Audrey Hepburn having an adventure with a handsome man I’d just met.

“So I don’t want this to come across the wrong way,” I said, “But are you stalking me?”