From Rome with Love: Escape the winter blues with the perfect feel-good romance!. Jules Wake
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Flying by herself, while absolutely terrifying, had also felt grown up and glamorous and ever so slightly daring. Will made it look like hopping on a bloody bus.
With a fixed smile, she focused on the sights around them, which looked rather industrial and run down, although every now and then they’d dip below an ancient viaduct running over the road. As they neared the city, the buildings started to become more interesting, the juxtapositions decidedly odd. There, next to a modern square electrical department store was an ancient bridge, the worn pointing making the bricks look as if they might tumble down at any moment. A huge many-tiered church towered over a square, the white marble making it look like an elaborate wedding cake. The numbers of pedestrians increased, gaily taking their life in their hands as they sauntered through the traffic, which had once again begun to back up.
Despite the touch of a headache from the liberal use of horns and the fumes, Lisa was fascinated by the good-natured chaos. Cars seemed to join the main arteries of roads from every side road, opening like tributaries flooding evermore into a river already threatening to burst its banks. Drivers threw their hands up in the air, tooting with exasperated exuberance, and it seemed like a contest as to who could toot loudest and longest. Giovanni seemed completely unconcerned about the early-evening cacophony around them, with the window open and his arm resting on the opening, he tapped along to the Europop blasting from the car’s radio. Most of the songs seemed to be English, to be fair, but the stream of Italian between, spoken at the speed of light, was yet another reminder that she wasn’t in Leighton Buzzard any more.
She squirmed in her seat, itching to get out and walk along the streets in the balmy air, along with the early-evening crowd, who all looked as if they had somewhere to be. It was infectious, that sense of a city on the move, heading somewhere important. Were that couple, arm in arm, going home to eat pasta? Was the handsome man with the briefcase heading to a rendezvous with a gorgeous brunette, already waiting with a double espresso in a café? Lisa sighed.
‘You okay?’ asked Giovanni. ‘We’re nearly there.’
‘I’m fine. Is the traffic always like this?’
He let out an uproarious laugh. ‘No, this is good. This is tourist season, remember. No one stays in Rome in the summer unless they have to.’
With a sudden lurch, Giovanni hauled the car into a side street, hurtling along the quiet road, racing through the gears before dropping back down, with equal drama, to throw the car around another corner, before screeching to a halt outside a gate. With a quick toot, it rolled open with slow grace.
After a short drive along a winding foliage-bordered road, Giovanni pulled up with a flourish, throwing his arm out of the open window to indicate the building nestled right between one of the ancient arches of the aqueduct.
‘Wow! This is the apartment?’ Lisa gasped. It reminded her of some crab or snail which had taken up residence in someone else’s shell.
‘Very nice. I wasn’t expecting this,’ murmured Will, as he clambered out of the back of the car, stretching as he did so. Lisa averted her eyes from the flash of stomach and dark-blonde hair above the waistband of his very low-slung jeans, irritated by the rapturous appreciation of her hormones. Since when were they in charge?
‘I didn’t know they were allowed to do things like this.’ Thinking about bricks and mortar was a good distraction. The planning departments at home wouldn’t let someone build within spitting distance of this type of ancient monument, let alone use the walls of it as part of the structure.
Will laughed. ‘Welcome to Italy. I think they take their history in their stride because there’s so much of it.’
‘Si, si.’ Giovanni pulled her case out of the back of the car and carried it to the door, before opening up with a large, old-fashioned key.
The entrance led into a high-ceilinged, cool, dark hall, tiled in black-and-white marble stone. To their left, an ornate wrought-iron railing edged a wide staircase, which curved up and around two sides of the room, the stone steps worn in the middle, smoothed away by many years of footsteps treading up and down them.
‘We are on the first floor,’ Giovanni announced with pride, leading the way upwards.
At the top, directly opposite the last step, was a rather imposing doorway, with highly polished and embellished brass knobs on each of the double doors.
Lisa had visions of the Lord of the Rings again, arriving at some Middle Earth palace. Giovanni opened both doors, throwing them wide and stepping back like Sir Walter Raleigh, ushering Lisa in.
After the dark hallway, they were bathed in light, which came flooding in from a series of windows, each dressed with full-length flowing drapes in some gauzy fabric, secured with silken tie-backs like willowy maidens in chiffon dresses belted at the waist.
‘It’s lovely,’ said Lisa, entranced by the beautiful room, which combined modern elegant comfort with period charm. Stylish plush-velvet sofas in deep plum faced each other across a contemporary glass-and-gilt table on a faded silk rug. Over by the windows, the sumptuous lines of a pale-grey chaise longue practically begged for someone to drop down and recline into its plump upholstery to enjoy the view out over the extensive gardens.
Giving the furniture a very wide berth, in case she succumbed to the urge to lie down and test the chaise, she crossed to one of the three floor-length French windows. Each one opened onto its own balcony, the central one being double the size of the other two and big enough to hold a small bistro table and two chairs.
‘Oh, this is gorgeous,’ she said, a broad grin taking over her face.
Directly opposite was a mansion-style house, perfectly placed in the centre of landscaped gardens, dotted with unfamiliar shrubs. The very grand entrance to the house had a twin set of staircases with cream balustrades curving up to meet each other at the imposing entrance, like a perfectly trimmed moustache.
‘Who lives there?’ asked Lisa, turning back to look over her shoulder, but either Giovanni hadn’t heard or didn’t know because he melted away with her case.
Will came to join on her on the balcony.
‘Hmm, very nice.’ He leaned on the railing and surveyed the grounds.
She waited for him to make some clever comment, but he seemed to be content to drink in the view.
The scent of pine teased the air and she tipped her face up to the sunshine, a sense of contentment filling her. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad with Will around.
‘Guess we’d better find out where we’re all sleeping. And what the price of the accommodation will be?’ With a barely suppressed smirk, he went back inside.
Who had she been kidding? Having Will around was going to be every bit as bad as she’d first thought.
Lisa unpacked quickly, stowing underwear in the shallow drawers of a French grey-painted dressing table and hanging a couple of dresses and pairs of trousers in the sort of wardrobe with little lace-dressed windows that ought to have some fancy name. Her jeans were sticking to her legs and she relished the cooler linen as she slid into a pair of loose trousers and yanked on a clean rose-pink t-shirt.
Thanks for letting me raid your wardrobe. Yay for linen!
She paused in her text to Siena and added Did you know Will was coming too??????!!!! He was on my flight. Sat next to me. Invited himself to stay at Giovanni’s place too. I could bloody kill him. Angry face, can’t find emoticons.
Crossing to the tiny dressing table, she plugged her ailing phone into charge. The battery was rubbish.
As she did, Siena’s response came back.
Nooooo! He said he was going away, but didn’t say where! Now I realise why he was being deliberately cagey. Obviously couldn’t bear to let you go! xxx
Lisa pulled a face as she read the text.
Ha! Yeah right. He says he’s got lots of business meetings,