Page 18 of The Roman Holiday Rule

To prove it, I give him a once-over. I’m not so sure why he’s uncomfortable—it’s expertly tailored to fit his broad shoulders and long limbs. Anyway, the point is, I’m unmoved by both the suit and that trademark side-smile he depends on to win people over.

To clarify, my emotions are unaffected. Mentally, his wry teasing triggers the unfiltered version of Lexi. The sarcastic one with the randomStar Warsquotes I keep hidden from everyone else. “The logic is strong with this one.”

He groans, long and low. “Are you misquoting on purpose as some kind of torture?”

“That’s the movie line.”

He takes a deep breath and raises his eyebrows. His half-amused, half-annoyed expression says,What am I going to do with you?and in this moment, my motivation to win our bet rises so high I can’t even see the top of it. I’ll show him what he’ll do with me: lose. That’s what.

“It’sthe force, not the logic. You either knowStar Warsor you don’t. I don’t even understand how you exist in the in-between—context-appropriate quotes at your fingertips but slightly wrong every single time.”

I plumb the deep well of self-discipline to restrain from scowling. Details are my thing. And now Mark is telling me my grasp of details is bogus, just like he did with my plan for Italy.

That poor woman he talked to on the phone, I assume his fiancée. I wonder if Katie knows he’s a dream-crusher. Not yet, I’m guessing. Mark’s voice was soft and tender with her, and his questionabout honeymoon ideas held teasing affection, not the skepticism he’s reserved for me.

We’re still enjoying a frown-off when someone rings a bell from the balcony.

One thing I’ve noticed about Mark, for good or bad, he overfocuses on things, seeing the world through a narrow camera lens. The way he doesn’t react or even glance toward the villa where Gia is announcing we have ten minutes before the program starts, I know he’s oblivious to everything else around him except our conversation, the same way he talked to me in Boston with all his attention. Katie should tell him that when he does that, it makes women think—whatever. Not my problem.

I clasp my hands together, cool and professional. “As we established earlier, I’m on the job. That’s my cue for a sound check at the mics.”

He lifts the thick-papered, gilded program from his pocket and flicks it around to face me, lifting his eyebrows. “Ah, I’m assuming this game was also your idea, Miss Competitive?”

He’s still playing this push-and-pull game we have going, but I ignore it because the artwork on that program jolts me to my core. A hot air balloon with gray, green, and white stripes. The same clouds I traced with my finger in Logan airport on the envelope my mom painted in the hospital. The one I’ve kept safe in my nightstand drawer for over a year.

For the second time in twenty-four hours, I grab his wrist—and yes, thatwillstop happening, I swear—and stare at the program, frozen. “Where did you get this?”

He doesn’t take his eyes from me, searching my face as if to find the reason for this sudden shift, and points behind me with the arm I’m not gripping. “At the entrance, when I presented my ticket.”

Seconds before the first guest walked in, I’d handed the box of hot-off-the-press programs to the woman stationed at the door, but there hadn’t been time to look at them for myself.

What I see now in Mark’s hand is impossible.

Eleven

Mark

There’s atiny sectionon the Venn diagram where maddening and captivating overlap. Lexington owns that spot.

Case in point (and don’t even get me started on her grasp ofStar Wars): She steals my program and walks off without a word. But her face is stricken and her hand shakes, so there’s more going on than her sudden, baffling stiffness toward me. Something upset her, but when I return to the edge of the lawn, filled now with all the guests ready for the official start of the evening’s events, she’s smiling from the upstairs balcony with all the calm composure of a woman comfortable with people.

I sit, ankles crossed, on the stone half-wall at the back of the crowd.

Next to Lexington, a woman in a black sheath dress with tight, busy curls taps on the microphone. “Welcome artists, musicians, and logistics team, to the first event of the Roma Festival: L’arte della vita!” She waits until the thunderous applause dies down. “My name is Gia Castelli, and this is Lexi Walker. We’re both excited to have you here. The goal tonight is to get acquainted, to make sure everything runs smoothly on the festival days, and lastly”—she bends close tothe mic and lowers her voice, her Tuscan dialect pronounced—“to have fun.”

Gia thanks the mayor and the volunteers for their help, reminds us that we should deliver our pieces by Wednesday to the individual venues where they will be on display, and then introduces Lexington.

Lexington steps forward and holds her mic like she’s done this a thousand times. Her Italian is almost flawless as she thanks Gia, and her smile lights the evening sky. Whatever she did with her distress, it’s nowhere to be seen in her demeanor now. Impressive compartmentalizing skills.

“Thank you so much for coming. Our hope is that tonight you’ll meet many other artists and promote one another before and at the festival. Culture survives when the arts thrive, and I think we can see evidence of that throughout this stunning city.”

Which she hasn’t seen yet. And despite all her plans and research, Rome won’t be what she’s expecting.

She beams at her audience, and then her gaze snags on me. For a split-second, she loses her confident ease and stops to clear her throat. She grips the mic stand with the slightest tremor and shifts her attention to the front of the audience. The whole pause takes less than a second and likely no one noticed a thing, but I recognize it for what it was—a tiny crack in her public persona.

Which intrigues me more than it should.

“So here’s how the rest of the evening will go. We’ll hear a few previews from our talented musicians and see a slideshow of the art we’ll have on display. Make a note of who you want to meet. Before and after dinner, you’ll use the scorecard on the back of your program to get a signature from as many festival participants as you can. Each signature earns you an entry in our giveaway. The prize is a pre-festival vernissage of Reena Brooke’s last painting.”