From Rome with Love: Escape the winter blues with the perfect feel-good romance!. Jules Wake
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snail’s pace up the hill had had her foot tapping non-stop in between anxious looks at her watch. Passport, phone. She opened her bag. Yup, still there, like they had been when the taxi lurched up the slip road off the M1 towards Luton. Zipped into the pocket. The messenger bag looped over her head across her body. She patted it. Safe and secure.
Hurling herself out of the cab, Lisa waited, her foot going into action again, as the taxi driver took forever to open the boot. With hurried thanks, she grabbed the handle of her case, grateful for the swell of people all headed in the same direction. Pulling the case along, she stepped into the slipstream of two girls who clearly knew what they were doing and followed them towards the terminal.
Thank goodness for Giovanni’s heads-up that she should check in online. The queues snaking round and round and back on themselves, as people filed up to the check-in desks, looked horrendous. She clutched her phone tightly, unconvinced that flashing a phone app at someone was going to be enough to get her on a plane. What if she’d lost it or the battery died, which it was prone to do?
Riffling through her bag she produced the little plastic bag of toiletries ready for the x-ray machines, and as she glanced up, on the other side of the cavernous hall, out of the corner of her eye, she spotted the back of a blonde head with a stubby ponytail rather like Will’s. The man was tall enough to be him and had that same confident stride.
She pinched her lips. A trip like this was for Will, Mr Sophisticated, no more stressful than popping out to the shops. He wouldn’t be checking he had his phone or passport with him once, let alone on the half hour, every half hour.
‘Everything in the tray, Miss,’ snapped an excessively grumpy security man. Why were they always so cross? Seriously? With her flushed red cheeks, two-year-old phone and sad collection of make-up, she looked like a major security threat? Flustered, she dumped everything into the grey plastic tray and when she looked up the Will lookalike had gone.
The departure lounge she could cope with, as for once there were plenty of signs with details of all the flights leaving, meaning there was absolutely no danger of her missing her flight, and, more importantly, it looked more like a shopping centre. Boots, Monsoon, WH Smiths, the familiar names and layouts made her breathing ease up. Despite being much later than she’d planned, there was half an hour before the plane left and the gate number for boarding still hadn’t been announced. Bags of time to pick up a guide book to read on the plane and check out the duty-free perfume. She could do this. She would be fine on a plane on her own. All she needed to do was keep breathing. Focus on one minute at a time.
How bloody stupid. Why were there two flights to Rome within twenty minutes of each other? And why had she been looking at the wrong one? They’d announced the gate number for her flight ten minutes ago! Duh! The horrible pull-along case, which had seemed so brilliant earlier, suddenly had a life of its own and did not want to partake in the hurried slalom through other travellers all heading down the same wide corridor. The damn thing kept twisting over. She could feel the patches of sweat pooling under her arms. Stupid bloody airline rules, the security people had deemed her deodorant too big and confiscated it. She’d have to sit, all hot and smelly, next to someone for the next few hours. How embarrassing.
When she finally got to the gate, it was a relief to see that although she was the last to arrive, there were still a couple of people ahead of her.
Thankfully the bright, shiny lady with perfect glossy lipstick at the desk had received some sort of ninja training because she caught Lisa’s phone before it dropped to the floor and smashed into a thousand, useless app-unfriendly pieces.
By the time Lisa arrived at her seat, a window one, there was lots of kerfuffle as the middle-aged woman who had the seat next to hers ponderously rose to her feet to let her get past. She felt hot, bothered, very flustered and totally out of sorts. Not herself at all. There was no room in the overhead locker and a frantic search ensued, trying to find a suitable space for her case, before the air hostess, a fake smile pasted on her face at Lisa’s incompetence, came and rescued her, by which time her flight neighbour had huffed and puffed and tutted enough times that Lisa was ready to curl up and die.
If it hadn’t been exactly the sort of thing Nan would do, she might have been tempted to shout at the top of her voice, ‘Give me an effing break! This is my first time flying on my own.’
Dropping down into the seat, feeling a fine sheen of sweat coating every limb, she grabbed the seat belt and secured it as tightly as it would go. How on earth had she managed to book a window seat? Another rookie mistake. Easy, she wouldn’t look out.
Damn! She’d left her book in the overhead locker and now her neighbour, dressed in an unfortunate tweed ensemble that gave off a slight whiff of damp dog, had sat down again. There was no way on earth Lisa would dare ask her to move. She’d have to make do with one of the leaflets the doctor had given her at the hospital, even though she’d read it several times over.
She swallowed hard, feeling heat racing over her skin. This was a nightmare. She. Was. Not. Going. To. Cry. This was supposed to be a holiday as well as a mission. An adventure. A half-smothered laugh escaped at the thought, which sounded more Tolkien than Lisa Vettese. At least she wouldn’t have to contend with a horde of Orcs or evil wizards, although her hostile neighbour might give them a run for their money.
It was easy. Giovanni would meet her at the airport. She tried hard to re-ignite the tremor of excitement she’d felt at the thought of seeing all the places she’d only heard of up until now.
It was no good, as the captain announced the fasten seat belts notice, her limbs had turned rigid and her rib cage felt like a stone sarcophagus with every shallow breath.
Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the stewardess talking to Tweedy-knickers. Breathe. And breathe again. Suddenly her neighbour had gone and someone else slipped into the seat beside her. Then the plane started moving, taxiing away from the gate. She closed her eyes. Breathe. It wasn’t even the serious stuff yet.
She opened her eyes. Faded denim-clad thighs next to hers.
‘Hey, Lisa, fancy seeing you here. Interesting reading?’
‘Will!’ She sat up so hard she banged her head on the head rest. ‘What the hell! What are you doing here?’
He lifted one eyebrow, in a studied move that immediately had her on the defensive. Why the fuck couldn’t she be icily sophisticated and nonplussed around Will? It bugged her that he was always able to raise a reaction from her.
‘Would you believe, taking a flight to Rome?’
‘Ha, ha very funny. I meant …’ What did she mean? Of course, he was flying to Rome, that was where the plane was going.
Lisa frowned suspiciously. ‘Why are you going to Rome?’
Will’s eyes twinkled with devilment and her stomach fell. No, please no.
‘Giovanni invited me.’
Her stomach contracted, like a balloon deflating, and for a minute she thought she might be sick before the longing to punch Will really, really hard in the solar plexus took over, leaving the knuckles of her cramped fists twitching with desire.
She’d been worried enough about spending time with Giovanni and keeping things cool, but tossing Will into the mix gave her palpitations. That was a balancing act she didn’t want to be involved with.
‘Don’t worry, I’ve got no intention of playing gooseberry. I’ll be doing some serious business. Sourcing some suppliers. Giovanni having a spare room was too good an opportunity to miss. The timing was perfect.’
‘Perfect?’ her voice pitched upwards in disbelief. Surely Will couldn’t believe that. Was he that thick-skinned? ‘What and you just happened to be on my flight?’
‘It made sense. Means Giovanni only needs to make one trip out to the airport.’
‘And when did you decide this?’ And why hadn’t Giovanni mentioned it?
‘Was a last-minute thing. I managed to set up a few appointments