I sigh. “Your father trying to ruin the town, the fact that you didn’t like me at first, the fact that I didn’t like you at first, my sordid past, my dead dream, Levi, my PG-13 sex scandal, your ex-girlfriend trying to make me mayor so she can have you all to herself back in London. Really, it runs the gamut. Anything else you want to throw in there, we can forget. We canEternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mindany and all unnecessary complications. We can do that.”
His face drops. “Wait, what? Sutton is trying to what?”
“That’s what drinks was about. She floated the asinine idea by me. You resign, I become mayor, you return to London to fulfill your destiny or whatever.” I wave it off. “Which probably includes getting back together with her.”
Benito rubs his hands together, digesting. I wonder what I can do to speed up the process and cut to the part where he agrees to a more laissez-faire perspective. It’s not too late for me to slip into a state of dormancy. Food, wine, sex with Benito—thatcould be my new purpose. Izzy Rhodes’s next big move. “I can’t believe she said that to you,” he finally says.
“She thought she was doing me a favor. She thinks what everyone at home thinks too, that I need a big life with accolades and glory, but I don’t. I really don’t.” I place my hand in his. This is taking too long.
“And you’re sure of that?” he asks.
I tilt my head back, frustrated that he keeps asking questions instead of unbuttoning his shirt. “I can’t have this argument with you again.”
He turns his body so he’s facing me, my hand falling off his knee in the process. “No, I know you want to be here. I understand why you left, I understand why you can’t go back to the life you knew, but are you sure this will be enough?” He runs his fingers through his hair. I remember the feeling of when I copied that exact gesture and my breath catches. “Eating pasta, drinking wine,Mamma’slunches every Sunday, theclosest city two hours by train. Can you honestly tell me you won’t get bored once the novelty runs out?”
My eyebrows furrow. Why are we discussing the intricacies of the future when I’ve just sworn to focus on the present? “You’re overthinking it,” I say, knowing the irony of how often I’ve done the same about everything else in my life. “I came here with a resounding intention to be nothing but a woman in Italy. It’s an added bonus that I’ve met you, I’ve met your family, Vincenzo, Valeria, Giac. Everything got so messy, everything’s been a mess since I lost the election, but it doesn’t have to be that way. It’s not too late to flit through the rest of my life.”
Benito’s eyes widen. He looks at me like he’s doing a scan, parsing through every part of my body looking for signs that I’m bullshitting him. If one hair’s askew or one muscle of my face not fully relaxed, it’d be enough for him to retreat. “I don’t want what happened today to ever happen again,” he says. His last line of defense. If he’s looking for reasons to push me away, it’s not a bad one. Valiant, even, to sacrifice his own wants over the need for my safety.
“If it does, we’ll handle it,” I say. “The last remnant of the life I left behind. A scar on an otherwise completely clean slate.”
He smirks. “You’re sexy when you speak in metaphors.”
I grin. I’m in. I move my hands to either side of his head and pull him to me. His lips meet mine and my stomach settles knowing the last time wasn’t the last time, and this won’t be the last time either. I’mgetting what I wanted. I’m getting everything I came here for.
Benito lowers me onto the bed and crawls on top of me, delicately pushing the hair out of my face. He smiles at me before kissing me again. This is what I wanted.
Chapter Eighteen
I wake up the next morning to my phone ringing. The sun is peeking through the curtains, but Benito’s still asleep next to me. He looks so peaceful, the worry lines on his face smoothed out without the stress of the waking world pestering him. I could get used to this. No plans, no stress, just lazy mornings with Benito after a long, good night.
Marisol is FaceTiming me, so I take my phone into the hallway and shut the door to the bedroom behind me. “Hey,” I answer, keeping my voice quiet so I don’t wake Benito.
Marisol raises her eyebrows when she sees me pop up onscreen. “What’s with the whispering?” She leans in to get a closer look. “And why is your hair so messy?” I raise my eyebrows. Marisol grins. “Good for you, Izzy.”
She spins in her chair, and I can tell from the turquoise tile detail on the wall that she’s in her district congressional office in Tucson. My stomachdrops, though I don’t know why. Suddenly, my skin’s itchy. “You’re working late,” I say, my voice breaking over the newly formed lump in my throat.
“Yeah, whatever. What else is new. I’m not done talking about your thing.” She props her elbows on her desk and leans her head against her hand. “How’s it going?”
I fixate on the degree hung up behind her. An honorary doctorate from the University of Arizona, where she attended undergrad, given to her last May when she was the commencement speaker. Mari won her re-election in a landslide, her opponent conceding a mere 15 minutes after polls closed. “It’s going good,” I say, leaning back against the wall because I’m a little lightheaded.
“Uh-oh,” Marisol says, picking up on my trepidation. “Is his penis weird? Does he call himself ‘daddy’?”
“He’s asleep in the other room, Mari. It’s not a good time for an info dump,” I say, an edge to my voice.
Marisol surveys my expression like she’s questioning if she should interrogate further. “Ok. . .”
I do my best to shake off the weird feeling that’s crept over me. “It’s good, though. I’m happy. I’m back on track to fade away into the Italian countryside. It’s good.”
“Only you would turn relaxation into a goal,” she says, rolling her eyes.
“Shut up. You would too.”
“No, I would never make that a goal.” She flips through a multipage document on her desk.“Relaxation is for the retired and people with office jobs who think they’re burned out.”
I try to read the text of the document as she scans through. I remember late nights like the one Marisol’s currently having. Reading, marking up documents, late-night phone calls trying to make a deal. It was a rush. I loved mining the chaos of a hundred different possibilities to find the best path toward ratification. Marisol puts the document aside and puts her attention back on me. “As much as I love a good morning-after debrief, that’s not why I called,” she says.
“No?” I ask. “What’s up?”
