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Teo: Is everything okay?
Mia: Yes. But I need to meet.
Teo: I’ve got an appointment at eleven. I can meet you at one.
Mia: I need to see you before then. Where are you now?
Teo: I’m just leaving the hotel.
Mia: Wait in your room. I’ll meet you there. It won’t take long, and you’ll have plenty of time to make it to your appointment.
I glanced from my phone to Vittoria. “He’s making excuses not to see me. He’s still at the hotel but he’s about to leave. I need to hurry but I’ll be back after.”
“Of course. Go.” Vittoria shooed me.
I gave her a quick nod before standing from the table and hurrying out of the room as another text came through. I glanced down at my phone, but I barely slowed down as I hurried toward his room.
Teo: I don’t have a lot of time right now. I’m supposed to meet Alessandro before my eleven o’clock meeting. I’m already walking out the door. We can meet after.
I debated whether to respond back again. Each text slowed me down and it was obvious that I wasn’t going to convince Teo to wait on me. It was strange how adamant he was about not meeting. It only made the worry gnawing at my gut intensify. But my texts were delaying him too. I hit the little microphone button on my phone screen and spoke what I wanted to text as I broke out into an all-out run toward Teo’s room.
Mia: Please? It’s important and it can’t wait.
I turned the corner toward the hall where Teo’s room was. He stood just outside his hotel room, looking down at his phone while his free hand anxiously scrubbed at the back of his neck before he typed out a message.
Teo: I’m already in my car. We’ll talk later.
I looked up from the text before looking back at Teo. He stared at me like a deer in the headlights. He’d lied to me. He hadn’t just avoided me, or acted strangely, he outright lied about being in his car. He wanted to avoid seeing me so bad that it caused him to lie to me and that knowledge stung.
I let the pain fuel my anger. At the lie. At the picture. At what it all most likely meant. I stormed over to Teo, but he didn’t move. He didn’t take his gaze off of me either.
“What are you doing here?” Teo kept his voice low.
“I told you that I needed to talk to you.” I struggled to keep my tone even, but a bit of a bite slipped out.
Teo’s face hardened at my tone. “And I told you that I had an appointment to get to and that we’d talk later.”
“You also told me that you were already in your car so I think we can both agree that just because you say something doesn’t make it true.”
“I knew you weren’t going to let this go unless you thought I was already in the car and I’m heading to the car now. I can’t be late.”
“Is this really how you want to spend the day before we’re supposed to be getting married? With lies and secret meetings?”
“No. But I have something Ihaveto handle. I promise that as soon as I’m done with my meetings, we can talk.”
“Did you have a meeting last night, too?”
“Last night?”
“Yeah, at some hotel bar?”
“How—?”
“That doesn’t matter. Answer the question.”
Teo’s startled expression faded into his usual calm, business face. “Yes. Last night our meeting was cut short, so we are meeting today to finalize everything.”
“To finalize this?” I pulled up the photo of him with the woman from the bar and held the screen mere inches from his face.
