Page 30 of Tempted Hearts
“I guess.”
“Not a resounding show of support for poor Parker, but I’ll take it. Trust me.”
“It’s not you I don’t trust,” she said quietly. I’d have asked what she meant by that, but a part of me didn’t want to know.
13
COLE
It was as if the train to Florence had been charged by some rogue electric current I kept pretending not to notice. We sat in a four-way compartment facing Parker and Delaney, the former having fallen asleep with his fiancée reading a book on her e-reader. That left Juliette and me to quietly act as if everything was normal.
Which… it wasn’t.
Touching a woman’s arm with my own, sometimes accidentally, should not have been a turn-on. Never mind seeing her in broad daylight after all that we’d shared the night before. It had been a most unsettling morning, one I had no right to enflame by encouraging Parker and Delaney to stay in Florence.
It was reckless. Playing with fire. And I already regretted it.
“Wait a minute.” Juliette pointed out the window. “Is that snow? How is that possible this time of year?”
I knew before I even looked what she’d noticed. “No.” I leaned toward the window, toward her, and said, “Look closer.”
She smelled like raspberries. I imagined burying my face in her neck, her hair tangling around me. Would she taste as good as she smelled?
“You’re looking at the Apuan Alps. What looks like snow is actually Carrara marble.”
She leaned closer to the window. “Marble?” she asked, her voice full of wonder.
“Yep. The same white marble that Michelangelo used to carve various statues, masterpieces.”
Juliette turned back toward me. I leaned away, her closeness sending signals to my brain that had no business being there.
“Including David?”
“Including David.”
“How do you know all this?”
I glanced at Parker. If he were awake, he’d have commented something like “Because Cole knows everything” or something equally smart-ass.
The non-answer I’d have given Parker, or any of the guys, if they asked, sat on the tip of my tongue. But Juliette’s whispered words from last night came back to me.
I like deep conversation too, but only if the person I’m talking to trusts me. Otherwise, it’s just lip service. I’ve learned to keep my circle small in favor of real connections. Of course, I’m still fun at a party too.
It was a surprising answer from someone so young, though I was only a few years older than her. Insightful. And yeah, I bet she’d be fun at a party. Juliette was the walking abatement of fun, wrapped in chaos, of course.
“I took my sabbatical in Florence,” I said quietly. “To analyze the Medici archives, tracking the complex finance and logistical control required to transport the stone from the Apuan Alps. I argued that the decision to use the prestigious Carrara marble for works like David was primarily a strategic display of economic and political power.”
“Wait a minute. You studied this. For your work?”
“I did.”
“So you didn’t just look up a few Italian phrases on the plane.”
It wasn’t a question, so I didn’t respond.
“Why didn’t the guys know any of this? Know you’d come here for an extended stay? Delaney tells me all the time how close the four of you are. Like family.”
The Italian landscape whizzed by as I contemplated how to answer her question. Expecting Parker to pop his eyes open at any minute, and with Delaney glancing up from her book at us every so often, her headphones presumably preventing her from hearing us, I landed on the truth.
