CHAPTER 1
Roman
I don’t like weddings.I don’t like wearing a tux, or the way the dress shoes pinch my toes. I don’t like being surrounded by people who have access to an open bar, nor the fact that I don’t evenknowany of these people. I especially don’t like the photographers flitting around, snapping what are undoubtedly horribly unflattering candid pictures of us. Of me.
Sighing, I shuffle forward and peek over the shoulder of the guy in front of me, trying to gauge just how much longer I’m supposed to wait before I can get a drink. Perhaps eight ounces of liquid courage surging through my veins will loosen me up just enough to have a smidge of fun. Unlikely, but I suppose it can’t hurt to hope.
“I can help you, sir.”
I glance over, somehow knowing I’m being talked to, and lock eyes with a man standing at the other end of the bar. He smiles and waves me over.
“Hi,” I greet him, cutting out of line, and stepping up to his corner of the bar. The previously alone bartender I was in line for shoots his new friend a grateful look. “Thank you.”
“I am sorry if you were waiting long,” the new bartender says, smoothing a pale hand down the front of his crisp black vest.
“Not long,” I murmur, fighting the urge to fidget. He’s cute—very cute. I would have waited a hell of a lot longer in that line if I knewthisman would be the one making my drink.
He has blond hair pulled up in a small bun, although several strands have already escaped and are tickling the back of his ear. A pierced ear, I notice—a little silver hoop in the cartilage to go along with the one in his nose. His eyelashes are dark. Too dark, probably, for someone this blond and pale, which makes me think he’s wearing mascara. I’ve never seen eyes that shade of blue before. Like the color of a robin’s egg, or a topaz.
“May I get you something?” he asks. I clear my throat and try to think of a drink. I came here for a drink, right?
“Uhm.” I pause, glancing around as though hoping a menu will magically pop into existence. This is another reason I don’t like weddings, or social gatherings of this magnitude. I’m just not good at it. I’m especially not good at it when confronted with a very beautiful man whose job it is to be friendly. To serve me. I glance back at said man and find him watching me, peering up through those dark lashes and smiling softly. “Uhm,” I repeat.
“I could surprise you?” he offers, tilting his head and leaning toward me.
“I like your accent,” I blurt out, like a fucking idiot. His smile goes from a closed-lip smirk to a full, teeth-on-display, dimples-in-the-cheeks, megawatt smile.
“Thank you. I am from Finland.” Reaching for a metal cup, he begins measuring and pouring things in. I’m barely paying attention. Neither is he, apparently familiar enough with the barand its contents to do it without more than a passing glance at his hands.
“I love Finland,” I respond, as a person who has never once visited Finland before.
“Yes,” he agrees, lifting his shaker and rattling the contents around. “And you are from America, but I will not hold it against you.”
He softens the dig with a wink, black lashes flitting down to obscure the blue. Oh boy.
“Guilty,” I admit. “I’m Roman.”
Because “lacking social graces” is my default state, I hold my hand out over the bar to shake his and then have to awkwardly wait while he sets the metal shaker down to free up his own. He presses his palm to mine, hand small and soft and slightly cool from the ice in the shaker. His thumb brushes along one of my knuckles.
“Niilo,” he says. Another soft stroke of the thumb and he lets go, sliding his hand from mine and going back to his job. “Roman—a fitting name for a wedding in Italy.”
“Citizen of Rome,” I agree. “And Niilo—what does that mean, I wonder?”
“Victorious,” he says immediately, pouring his concoction into a glass and holding it out to me. He doesn’t let go right away, our fingers touching around the cool of the glass and his eyes gazing coyly up at me through his lashes. “It means I am the winner.”
I don’t thinkNiilo was flirting with me. Well, hewasflirting with me, but he was probably doing it because it’s part of his job. Bartenders are flirty. They’re good listeners. They’repetite and beautiful and have a voice that sounds like a song. Or at leastthisbartender is.
But this is a wedding, after all, and I’m supposed to be having a good time. Right now a good time for me means pretending that Niilo was flirting with me because he wanted to, and not because he was angling for a tip. I glance over, sipping the drink he made me, and watch as he spins a glass around in his hand, flourishing it before pouring the liquor inside. He slides the glass across the bar in exchange for what is unmistakably a crisp hundred-dollar bill. The guest walks away, no longer obscuring Niilo’s view of the room. His eyes find mine and I fight the urge to blush. Okay, so maybe I should have spied on him from a little farther away. Maybe hid behind a potted plant.
He winks at me, before turning to help the next guest. Sighing, I set my empty glass on a passing tray and stroll off through the crowd, a little embarrassed to have been caught staring at him. I don’t know a single person here other than the bride and groom, so I’m able to weave my way through the bodies without anyone stopping me, leaving the grassy lawn and jogging down the stone steps.
The villa hosting the wedding is gorgeous the way most things in Italy seem to be gorgeous. The sandstone and terracotta are faded by the sun; red flowers trailing down from window boxes, offering bright splashes of color amid the beige tones. Rolling green hills surround the villa on all sides—Sangiovese grapes growing on the vines, waiting for the autumn harvest. The vineyard, I was told upon arrival, is most famous for their Chianti, although they produce a Montepulciano that is to die for, according to the bride.
The soft jazz and murmur of voices fades as I walk down the cobbled drive, away from the villa and the party. Taking off my coat, I fold it over my arm and tuck my hands into my pockets, breathing deep of the fresh Tuscany air.
I’ve never been to Italy before, and when I received the wedding invitation, my first inclination was that I wasn’tgoingto go. It was so like Olivia and Bailey to expect their family and friends to attend a destination wedding in Tuscany. So like Olivia to not have a single thought about just how expensive flights and hotels are when you don’t have a famous athlete as your fiancé. I’d opened the invitation and laughed, tossing it to the side and going back to my Chinese takeout. I wasn’t going to go.
But the hundreds of hours of unused paid time off mocked me every time I logged in to work. When I turned on the TV, a program about the Colosseum in Rome was playing. I started idly researching flights, still telling myself it would never happen, but curious all the same. In the end, I’d RSVP’d on a whim, booked a flight at 2 a.m. with a muttered “fuck it,” and asked for the time off of work. My boss had emailed back a time-off approval, granting me two weeks instead of the four days I’d asked for and telling me to have fun.
