Page 55 of Problematic Summer Romance

I let out a scoffing laugh. “I’m surprised. That he speaks about me.”

“Are you?” Her eyes meet mine, knowing. Level. There’s a shared secret there. Her voice is low, for me only. “You shouldn’t be, Maya. I’ve known about you for years. Conor and I are very close. What’s important to him, he tells me.”

I swallow, heart in my throat. “Sometimes I wonder if I qualify.”

Suddenly, she looks sad. “He only—”

She pulls back when today’s breakfast appears in front of me, courtesy of Lucrezia. It’s the same brioche I had yesterday, but cut horizontally and stuffed with two large scoops of gelato and whipped cream.

“Oh my god.” I blink at my plate. “This is beauty. And grace. And what separates humanity from beasts. A Sicilian breakfast.”

“Colazione,” Lucrezia says, squeezing the ball of my shoulder with an affectionate strength that could easily dislocate my spinal cord, then leaving again.

Nyota sighs. “God, our country is so behind.”

“Is it?” Diego, whom I’ve never seen eat anything but sprouts, seems skeptical. “Is breakfast ice cream really the litmus test for societal development?”

“Shut up.” Nyota steals a fingerful of stracciatella from myplate, and makes a face that would earn her lots of money on OnlyFans. That’s when Axel enters the room, glancing around, as if suspecting that a sniper might be trained on him.

“No need to hide the knives, Axel,” Eli tells him. “No one wants revenge. You have been formally forgiven. We all agree that the dinner was a great start to this week.”

“Really?” Axel asks.

“Yup.” Eli nods. “Akillernight.”

Axel winces.

“Really put thediein diet,” Eli adds.

Axel groans and sinks in to the chair next to me, looking like a chastised puppy. Honestly, poor guy. “You think your brother is going to murder me in my sleep?” he asks.

“I don’t think so. But hewillprobably roast you for the rest of your natural life.” I pat his back. “Which, at least, should kill all remaining bacteria.”

By unanimous decision,the plan for the day is: beach.

I’d be a fan, even if it looked like one of the cheap, overcrowded, brown-water spots where my parents used to bring me when I was a kid. The private strip of coast right under the villa, though, takes my breath away.

I descend the stone staircase and realize that the sand starts out fine and soft, then turns into white pebbles closer to the crystalline blue shoreline. Lucrezia shows us around—the private cabana, the sun loungers and umbrellas—and is on her way back to the villa when she notices me taking off my clothes.

I grin at her, but she doesn’t reciprocate. Her eyes narrow further as she watches me tie my hair at the crown of my head. WhenI wave her goodbye and head for the water, she hurries toward me, signaling something with her hands that I cannot quite understand.

There is ano, somewhere in the sentences. And she’s pointing at my body. “Is it my swimsuit? You don’t like it?”

Lucrezia understands me even less than I do her. But a quick inspection of the rest of the group tells me that no one else has stripped down to their suits yet, and…maybe Italy is conservative, when it comes to swimwear? I mean, why not? The pope isright here. Catholics can be weird about sex, right?

“Should I cover up? Get changed?”

She points at my bare midriff, and I wrap myself in a towel, just to be safe. Then I glance around, searching for an Italian speaker.

“What’s up?” Conor asks, when I manage to catch his eyes. He’s still in his shorts and white tee, and jogs up to me, separating from the rest of the guys, who are busy drawing lines in the sandier part of the shore.

“Um, Lucrezia has been wagging her finger very insistently at me and…is my suit too revealing?”

I pull my towel open. Conor glances down at my bikini, a reflex, and freezes, like a wild animal caught in the light would, and—

It’s like it hadn’t occurred to him. That there would be a body inside the swimsuit.Mybody. His stare is heavy and blatant and profoundlystill. It lasts a hiccup of a moment. Then a seagull screeches over our heads, and he rips his eyes away.

Blood rushes to my cheeks. “I have another. A one-piece. I can go get it, if she…”

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