Page 42 of It's All Sun and Games

‘No!’ Leonardo says, his disbelief palpable as he holds onto the word for a beat too long. But then he smiles warmly and says something else.

‘He says you must really love me, to have chosen mine,’ Andrea translates, with a mixture of pride and amusement.

‘I like yours best too, Andrea,’ Lucia adds after tasting them all too. ‘But do not tell my husband, or my dad, or my cousin.’

‘Okay, okay, basta, enough,’ Andrea declares, waving off the competition, but you can tell that he is pleased to have come out on top. ‘Let’s go and eat – that is, if you’re still hungry, Robin.’

‘Oh, I could do this all day,’ I say with a contented sigh.

And, honestly, I think I really could.

18

After, honestly, such a wonderful evening – and what was technically a really great (if not really intense) first date – it seems a shame to mention the elephant in the room. It needs bringing up, though.

‘Thanks for everything this evening,’ Andrea tells me – for maybe the twentieth time, so I must have done a good job. That makes me happy, though, because he is working wonders for me on my side, so I want to return the favour as best I can.

We’re currently back at the resort, sitting in the hotel car park. It was so good of Andrea not to drink, so that he could drive me back here, even though he’s going to have to drive straight back to his parents’ place, where he’s currently staying.

I suppose the problem, when you work project to project, is that you never know where you will be next. It must make it hard to put down roots.

‘I had a great time,’ I tell him. ‘You have such a lovely family, really. I’m trying to imagine my lot being such great hosts. I say “my lot” but there’s nowhere near as many of us, and we’re mostly made up of grumpy northern men, and women who would love you.’

‘Maybe I would be okay then,’ Andrea says with a smile.

Okay, now it’s even harder to bring up our break-up, now that we’re having hypothetical conversations about our life together.

‘I, er… I was thinking about our plan,’ I start, trying to get the right words together.

‘Oh, yes?’ Andrea replies.

‘Yeah, I was thinking about our “break-up”,’ I continue.

I’m not looking at him but, I swear, out of the corner of my eye I just saw his face drop. Way to ruin a good night, Robin. I guess we are having a lot of fun, though, and it seems a shame to think about the end.

‘Do you have a plan?’ he asks curiously.

‘I suppose, once it seems like Rick is considering me for the promotion, and I’ve attended Lucia’s wedding with you, I don’t know – that might be a good time?’ I say. ‘If we play it right, we can probably spin it to our advantage. I could tell Rick that you weren’t supportive of my career – make it seem like I’m choosing my job over you. He’ll think I have a ruthless work ethic after all, so I won’t need to keep up the family woman charade.’

‘Wow, you can tell that you work in advertising,’ Andrea points out, seemingly amused by my cynicism. ‘I suppose, the best thing for me… If I tell my family that all I wanted was to settle down with you, but that all you cared about was work, then they would think you had broken my heart.’

‘And that would buy you some time, as long as you wanted, to “heal”,’ I point out with a clap of my hands – ew, that was a bit too much like Rick for my liking. ‘Andrea, you’re a genius.’

‘So, that’s our first argument out of the way,’ he jokes. ‘Back to being in love?’

‘Back to being in love,’ I say with a laugh. ‘Time to go to sleep in our separate beds – wow, we really are like an old married couple.’

‘I don’t know, my parents have been married for a long time, and they still sleep in the same bed,’ Andrea tells me. ‘Unless my uncle is visiting from Bologna, then he sleeps in the bed with my papa.’

Andrea pulls a face.

‘I guess that’s normal here?’ I reply.

‘No,’ Andrea says with a laugh. ‘No, it’s weird everywhere. My mamma, she sleeps in the guestroom, because it’s next to the kitchen, and she likes to get up early and do chores, and make breakfast – she doesn’t want to wake anyone. Dario was right. They are old-fashioned, and it’s not really like that any more, for the younger generations, but when you think about it, if they weren’t old-fashioned, we probably wouldn’t be sitting here right now.’

‘That’s a good point,’ I reply.

Honestly, my mum is definitely the one who does the cooking and the cleaning in my parents’ house, but if my dad even suggested she might sleep in a different room so that she didn’t wake him she would probably cook him one last meal – and poison it.

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