Page 2 of Rome with Dad's Best Friend

I just have no idea where that restaurant is.

I’ve been following the map on my phone, but I guess I’m not really that great at reading it because I’ve managed to get myself turned around. I’m sure I should be standing outside the restaurant right now, but there’s nothing here, and the signal isn’t great right here for some reason. The map hasn’t updated in at least ten minutes, no matter how many times I try to refresh it to see my new position.

I turn around in despair, wondering if there is anyone I can ask for help. My Italian isn’t great, but I can try. I look up and see a handsome older man in a rich black suit, tailored exquisitely to his body. I can’t help my eyes from roaming over him, the fitted jacket around his body, the trousers that show off bulging muscles in his thighs – he keeps himself in shape. And judging from what I can see of his face behind the sunglasses, he’s also very good-looking.

I try to look past him and around, for someone who might help, but when my eyes pass back over him in a sweep in the other direction, he’s looking right at me. At least, his sunglasses are pointed in my direction. Who can say where he’s actually looking?

“Hannah?” he says, making my heart leap into my throat. “Hannah Greene?”

How does he know my name?

My heart is hammering inside my chest. I don’t know whether to be afraid, or surprised, or happy to see someone who knows me. At least if he knows me, he can help.

Unless, he’s been following me for a while with the intent of kidnapping me, or something.

Not that I know why anyone would want to kidnap me. It’s not like my Dad could pay any kind of significant ransom.

Then he takes off his sunglasses, and everything clicks.

It’s been a long while since I’ve seen him in person. I was only a kid then, and he was younger too, so the memories are hazy and don’t exactly match up. But it’s not like I haven’t seen him at all, because I’ve seen photos. Whenever my Dad comes out to Italy on business, he always takes the time to reconnect with his old best friend.

“Marco?” I say, the air leaving me in a whoosh. It’s one surprise on top of another, and for a moment I’m simply blown away. I knew that Marco lived in Italy, and I guess a small part of me probably knew at one point that he did business in Rome, but I never imagined that I would be bumping into him on my trip.

“It is you,” Marco laughs. His voice is deep and rich, full of that exotic and sexy Italian accent, though his English is perfect. “For a second I thought I’d got it horribly wrong.”

I laugh. “No, it’s me,” I say. “Before I recognized you I thought you might be about to kidnap me, though.”

Laugher dances in his eyes. They’re a very striking green, something I had always noticed in the photographs. But if I’m honest, the pictures never did him enough justice. If they did, I would have been paying more attention.

And he’s definitely a lot hotter than I remember. Back then I was so young I wasn’t even thinking about boys in that way. And even if I was, Marco was my Dad’s best friend – definitely relegated to the zone of disgusting adults. But now…

Now we’re standing across from each other in a back street in Rome, and even though there must be twenty years between us, I can barely see it. Instead, I’m looking at a man who could easily be a movie star, a James Bond, or a leading man in some drama romance, suave and handsome and beautifully dressed.

And something stirs deep inside me that I can’t ignore.

“I would never,” he says, grinning wide, showing his mouth full of straight, white teeth. From what I remember of Marco, he isn’t the stereotypical Italian playboy with strings of bikini models on his arm and a hard-living lifestyle. My Dad always liked him because he was laid back, didn’t get into trouble, worked hard. I can see that it’s paid off. “What brings you to Rome?”

I’m about to answer when I have to jump to the side, dodging a motorist on a Vespa who rams his horn repeatedly as he zooms past me. I catch my breath, realizing I was almost smashed into tomato sauce on the floor. If there’s one thing about Rome I’m struggling to get used to, it’s the roads – I can’t tell if there are any laws at all, or if Italians just take their lives into their hands every time they try to get to the other side of one.

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