Page 16 of The Fall Affair

She tapped the box she’d set on the counter. “You pay me sixty-three euro.”

“I’m sorry. I pay you? I owe you money?”

She nodded. “Your nonna. I found piece of her tea set.”

I felt like I’d missed half of a conversation. “Her tea set was missing?”

“She collect. I help her look for the pieces.” She waved her hand around. “It must-a be here somewhere.”

“Oh. Okay. I guess I didn’t come across it yet.” My wallet was upstairs, but the cash register was right next to me. I pushed a button to open the drawer, and not surprisingly, there were bills inside. So I counted sixty-three euro and held it out. “Here you go.”

“Grazie. Ciao!”

I looked down at the taped box after the woman walked out. Great, my only customer today sold me something. But whatever. The garden-weeding project had turned out to be much bigger than I’d expected, so I went back outside to finish up. The sun was just starting to cool down when the automatic sprinklers turned on and scared the crap out of me. A blast of water smacked me in the face, causing me to topple over into the dirt, and by the time I could get up and run for dry land, I was dripping wet. Mud sluiced down my arms instead of clean water, and when I got a look at my reflection in the mirror in the entryway, I realized that bathing in the sink in the antique shop’s half bath wasn’t going to cut it. In addition to the mud, every time I’d brushed sweat from my brow today, I’d apparently added dirt to my hairline. And that was now baked into the front of my hair.

I looked out the window, over at Matteo’s driveway. I couldn’t see the house from here, but there was no car. I probably should just do the best I could in the sink to clean up, but I really, really needed a shower. It was a mental need, not only a physical one at this point. So I said screw it and gathered my stuff to go next door.

I had one hand on the doorknob when I remembered what Matteo had said about Lupo. I whistled. “Hey, Lupo! It’s me, Allegra. How are you, buddy?” I creaked open the heavy wooden front door and found my grandmother’s loyal lab standing on the other side of the room. Sadly, he was facing sideways, but his tail was still wagging a million miles an hour. I went to him and dropped to my knees to scratch his ears. Some of the whiskers on his face were now white, but he looked otherwise the same. “Hey, buddy. How are you? It’s been so long.”

His response was to howl. It made me laugh. It had always made me laugh. Lupo was a howler when he was happy. A good pet, dinnertime, chasing other big dogs in the park—it didn’t matter. He sang. I set down the bag with my clothes and spent five minutes petting him before I needed to take a break from the noise.

Since I was alone, I took a quick look around Matteo’s kitchen. Dark cabinets, matte-black handles, white marble countertops. Pots and pans hung above the center island—all cast iron. It had been hours since Matteo had left, but I could still smell whatever he’d cooked in the skillet that sat on top of the stove. The room was neat and tidy, but the decoration was limited to the hanging cookware—definitely a bachelor pad. A lone wine glass sat drying near the sink, along with a corked bottle of merlot and a couple of cookbooks stacked next to a fancy espresso machine. Remembering my thought earlier about how Matteo would take his coffee, I glanced through the front window to check for any sign of his car before opening the refrigerator. Finding no cream or milk, I smiled.

But I needed to stop screwing around and get in the shower before the man who lived here got home, so I went in search of the bathroom. I found it down the hall, along with two towels laid on the counter next to some girly bath salt set. The latter made me wonder if there was a woman in Matteo’s life. Maybe a girlfriend who wouldn’t be happy that another woman took a shower here? For some reason, that made me smirk almost as much as finding out I was right about him drinking his coffee black.

The shower was piping hot, and the pressure incredible. I took a few minutes to let the pelting water massage the achy spot above my shoulder blades. Tension I didn’t even realize I’d been carrying started to release—from my job, from the flight, from being at Nonna’s house without her here. As the tight muscles in my back loosened, it made me greedy to unwind even more. Tuscany was a vacation spot where people rented villas and got pampered while drinking wine. Surely I could get a massage around here somewhere, right?

I spent longer than I’d intended enjoying the shower, and by the time I got out, my fingers were pruney. I towel-dried my hair and wrapped it into a turban, then dried off my body. It wasn’t until I went to get dressed that I realized I’d left the bag I’d brought with me in the living room where I set it down to pet Lupo. Crap. I listened at the bathroom door for sounds that Matteo had come home. Relieved it was silent, I tippy-toed barefoot out to the living room. But of course, the moment I grabbed the handle to my bag, the front door pushed open.

Matteo took two steps into the house, looked up, and froze. He blinked once and then very obviously looked me up and down.

“I, uh…” My face went hot, and I lifted my bag from the couch. “I forgot the bag with my clothes here when I went in to shower. Sorry.”

The corner of his lip twitched. “No need to apologize.”

I made a beeline back to the bathroom and shut the door, dressing in record time. When I came out, Matteo was sorting through a pile of mail like nothing had happened. He didn’t look up when he spoke.

“How was your shower?”

“Pretty amazing. You have great water pressure. It was like getting a massage.”

“I’m glad you enjoy yourself.” Matteo studied me. “Your hair. It is curly?”

I touched my ringlets. “It is before I spend an hour blow-drying it.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because otherwise I look like little orphan Annie?”

He smiled. Well, sort of. “Do you like drying it for an hour?”

I scoffed. “Definitely not. My hair is the bane of my existence. We have a long-standing love-hate relationship.”

“So why do you do it?”

“Because it looks better straight.”

His eyes swept over me. “I think you look fine just the way you are.”