Page 29 of The Roman Holiday Rule

“Please tell your grandma thank you.” My voice cracks on the words. I take the pastry and focus on the luggage. “So how did you know that one belonged to me?”

He sets my navy suitcase upright and fingers the scrap of turquoise fabric tied around the handle. “I noticed you with it at check-in.”

My mouth opens but nothing comes out.Beforehe found my passport, which disappeared so suspiciously? “Was I a mark?”

I expect a flippant pun about him being the Mark here.

He shoots me a quick look I can’t read. “The airline lady at the counter was having a rotten day and you made her laugh. She wasmuch more pleasant with the rest of us than all the people in line before you. That’s all.”

I was not prepared for that honesty. It’ll take an hour of processing to know how to respond. At least.

He yanks the handle of his suitcase and heads for the door. “Bye, Lexington.”

My hand clenches, crinkling the cannolo’s wax paper. He keeps using that name. It’s too personal and tender for someone who wishes I was a continent away.

“It’s Lexi,” I remind him, but he’s already out the door.

Eighteen

Mark

Late inthe night,Luca texts me that he’s just gotten off work and is stopping by my apartment.

I’m up with jet lag so I buzz him into the building and open the door.

“Hey,” he says in English. Luca always grabs a language at random. He plops down on the couch, arms spread across the top, without another word.

“Everything okay?” I grab him an orange Fanta from the fridge and toss it over before pulling a chair away from the table and straddling the seat to face him.

“That’s what I came to askyou.” He takes a sip and then swipes his long mop back. He’s lucky Nonna hasn’t slipped into his apartment at night and buzz-cut his hair while he slept.

“I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”

He picks at the label on the plastic bottle and doesn’t glance up. “Did you talk to Mariella about the bidders?”

Oh, that. My ex-girlfriend and her big, conglomerate corporation competing against me for my dream job. Yeah, I’m not okay with it,but I haven’t given it a thought since Lexing—since the reception. “I’ll manage Zoe.”

Luca laughs without mirth. “You’llmanageher? Have you forgotten everything?”

No. I haven’t forgotten a thing, despite my best efforts. How Zoe insisted we apply for the master’s program in Italy. How blindly I followed her. How completely it gutted me when she made me choose between her and Italy.

But I was aimless then, unlike now. “I don’t think the owners will pick a foreign hotel company to partner with on the palazzo. They’re not all about the money. And you don’t need to worry about me, if that’s your concern.”

“You fell apart, dude.”

“I have the family now. I’m not the same guy I was then.” I point to my chest. “Smarter. Older. Wiser.”

“Will that be true when you run into her? The bids are due in person a week from tomorrow, and the design mock-ups are supposed to be on display at the festival at the architecture exhibition. She might already be in Rome.”

I nod. “Good point. She might be here ...roaming.”

Luca snorts but shakes his head. “Be serious.”

Zoe’s old haunts in Rome—Hard Rock Cafe, Starbucks, etc.—are not places I frequent. “I’m over her, Luca.”

He looks me in the eye a moment, then nods. “Okay.”

I grab a stray rubber band off the table behind me and hook it on both sides of the chair top. “Got my luggage back.”