“What happened last night—oh my goodness these are soft!” She lifts her hand to her face and sniffs at the leather. Her eyes close and she smiles. “My mom had a pair like this. They were maroon and I’d put them on and pretend to be a princess or a mime.”
“That’s quite the range,” I tell her, handing Marco the money.
“James! You can’t buy me these,” she says, rushing to pinch the top of her fingers and slip them off.
I put my hand on her back and guide her away from the tent before she inadvertently insults the vendor.
“I can and I did. Now put them somewhere that you won’t get chili peppers all over them,” I tell her, waving to a group of older women watching us from behind a table of handmade soaps.
“Seriously, you can’t be giving me gifts. It feels too much like—”
“You’re my mistress.”
“I was going to say like you’re my sugar daddy, but yeah. That works too.” She is still trying to get the glove off of her hand. I stop her, shield her from view with my body against a tent flap, and lift the glove to my mouth, carefully biting the leather fingertip and slipping it off.
She grabs it from my mouth, looking up at me with round eyes.
“What’s wrong with you being my mistress?” I ask, smiling at the amazing blush I’ve caused. I’m playing with fire. I’m almost certainly going to end up with third-degree burns.
She looks between my mouth and eyes, swallows hard.
“So many things,” she says. “Number one, this wasn’t part of the pl—”
“Don’t you dare say it, Ava. That word is no longer allowed here.”
“Number two, I have two weeks left here—”
I ignore the feeling in my gut and say, “We did this math last night. But I believe it was me with the reservations and you doing the begging.”
“Begging? Please!”
“Yes, exactly like that, but the please was breathier—”
“Your memory is broken. Number three, won’t you get in trouble for this?” she asks.
“Walking with you through the market?” I lift my hands.
She rolls her eyes so deep it hurts my head. “Sleeping with your assistant.”
“Did we sleep together? I think I would remember that—”
She elbows me in the exact place Nina caught me minutes ago.
“I’m serious. I don’t want to mess anything up for you here. At home, stuff like that can ruin reputations for life,” she says, her eyes on the side of my face while I lead us toward the smell of fried meat. Uvaldi’s food truck.
“Once again, we are not in America, Ava. Let it go. This is Italy. People here aren’t as stuffy and uptight about sex and lo—and affairs of the heart,” I finish lamely. Nothing like the L-word to send her into full retreat while she’s ticking off reasons not to be near me. And all of her reasons are just good sound sense—exact replicas of the good sound sense I let fly out the window after tasting her last night. That kiss opened the floodgates, and now there’s nothing to do but try not to drown until the water calms down. I lift the camera and take a few shots of a group of kids playing soccer in an alley to my right.
“You use your camera to hide,” she says in a matter-of-fact tone. “Shit gets real and you find something to photograph.”
I chuckle—lower it to my chest and take her in without the barrier. She’s looking straight up at me, chest puffed out with that know-it-all grin.
“And you are the essence of open and forthright? It took me a week to be able to have a conversation with you that didn’t raise your hackles and shut you down. Shit gets real and you start spouting off about plans.”
She purses her lips.
“You’re raising my hackles right now,” she says.
I grin. “Come on. Let me show you the best thing you’ve ever tasted.”
