Page 48 of The Roman Holiday Rule

I shake my head, mock mournful. “It was all a setup. Your photo is equivalent to a deep fake.”

“Looked pretty real to me.”

“My grandpa has no boundaries. I’m plotting my revenge.”

She laughs, and that zap pings through me again. This would be a natural time to give her the lira but I hold off. For no reason except I’ve lost my mind.

She slides her hands into her back pockets and the look on herface is so impish I’m already grinning. “Well”—she rocks on her heels and gazes up at the clear blue sky and then back to me—“you could always deface his favorite book.”

Ahh. She’s found my notes in her paperback from the plane, which was a stupid prank, but I wanted to leave a trace of our connection in the airport, despite our fight. I wasn’t ready to let her go. “I’m sorry about that. I’ll buy you a new copy.”

“It’s okay. I ... didn’t mind.”

“Are you sure?”

She pauses like she’s weighing two equal arguments of a critical decision. “I’m sure.”

A Spanish tourist group passes us, so large and oblivious we have to squeeze against the side wall to avoid being swept up in their party.

She’s so close her head grazes my chin and our shoulders brush against one another. The slight breeze blows a stray piece of hair across her cheek, tempting me to catch it. Her strawberry scent fills the air around me, and I try to hold my breath and inhale all of it at the same time. Being conflicted stinks.

She smiles up at me, and I choose a side.

I pull out my phone. “Hey, let me take your picture here. You probably aren’t getting many shots with you in them.”

She sets her hands on her hips and cocks her head. “Mark Russo is about to take a picture at an actual tourist site?”

“So rare it’ll be worth millions someday. Now stand over there with the light facing you.”

“Bossy,” she says, but she complies.

I angle her shoulders, then step down the stairs until she’s framed by the butterfly shape of the steps behind her.

There are people everywhere, and it won’t be a clean shot. If we came at night, I could get a photo with my good camera instead of my phone, of just her on the Spanish Steps, one woman climbing to reach something, determined and alone.

But that’s not Lexington, I realize. This is Lexington, who, whilesupposedly posing for her picture, is bent, giggling, coaxing a pigeon closer to a little boy who’s trying to catch it.

At ease with people. Kind. Fun.

I pull the phone’s camera away from my face and look with my own eyes. She grins at me, an invitation to join her delight.

Why would I begrudge her that?

Right now, just for a little bit, I want to forget the issues, the future, and my worries and have fun with Lexington.

Twenty-Seven

Lexi

Mark checksthe screen on his phone, amusement playing on his lips.

“These shots are good. Now how about one...” He points down at the step, so I sit, legs out and crossed at the ankle.

“Like this?”

He smirks. “Uh-huh.” He takes forever with the shot. Like three or four minutes, even though he has to apologize several times to people who have to walk around us, and I’m squirming on the uncomfortable, hard marble.

I shade my eyes, squinting at him. “What’s taking so long?”