“Hey, that hurts.”
“Leave your poor mother alone,” I chastise, before turning to Maria. “I am so sorry for him; you can make anything for me. At any time. If you want, of course.”
“Such a sweet girl.” She clasps my hands in hers. “You know, they say that you can always tell how a man will treat you by the way he treats his mother.” She pauses and glares at Giovanni. “My nephew, Luca, the one I’ve been telling you about—he treats my sister like aqueen.”
I stifle a giggle. I wish I could bring his mom back to New York.
“My sister was telling me that Luca painted the cabinets in her kitchen,” she adds pointedly, wiggling her eyebrows.
Giovanni cuts in. “I ripped out the floors in your bathroom and put new ones in five years ago. And I fixed the sink right when I got here, Mamma. And the chair.”
“Mhm, Tesoro,” Maria says, brushing him off. “Luca also bought a bird bath and set it up in the yard so my sister could enjoy the birds. And yet poor Giuseppe goes without.”
“I built the bench in the garden with my own two hands and installed new windows for you. Giuseppe doesn’t need a bath. He needs to stop eating people-food, ” Giovanni says.
Maria rolls her eyes. “Sure, sure. What I’m saying is that I will introduce the two of you, since my son clearly has issues that?—”
“We’re done here.” Giovanni tugs me away from her with enough force that my ass backs up right against his upper thighs.
“Where are we going?” I ask as he pulls me down the hallway back to our room.
“We have to go see my friend, remember? I owe him a favor, and he’s cashing it in today.”
My eyes widen. “I thought we were just going to hang out with him. What is this ‘favor’ you speak of? Like afavorfavor?”
We reach the threshold of his room, and he drops my hand. “What do you mean by ‘favor favor?’ Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Like a ‘bury a dead body’ favor? Because I almost died once on this trip already, Giovanni, and that’s inching near my threshold.” I fold my arms.
“Gesù, Tessa. Of course it’s not… Wait. What do you mean ‘inching near’ your threshold? Exactlyhow manytimes were you thinking you’d almost die?”
I brush a stray flyaway out of my face. “I figured being your pretend girlfriend would give me at least two solid chances of dying on this trip.”
“What?”
“Don’t look so shocked. I’ve already reached fifty percent of my original estimate.”
He flexes his fingers and releases a heavy sigh. “No. It isn’t a murder favor. My friend, Enzo, is a photographer. His two models can’t make it to today’s shoot, so he called when we were in Milan to ask if we could fill in. The campaign is for a local gelato shop, and they’re looking for real couples to market their product.”
“Excuse me?” I squeak out. “This wasnotpart of the deal. And we’re not even a real couple!”
He shrugs. “He doesn’t know that, and I owe him one. When I was building my portfolio, he let me tailor garments for his models.”
“Does he knowI’mnot a model? I have no coordination.”
Giovanni scans my body, assessing me. I don’t miss how his eyes linger in certain places: my chest, my lips, my hair. A delicate tremor runs through me under his gaze, and my breath falters when his attention refuses to drift. Giovanni still has the capacity to get under my skin, but lately, it’s in a way that disarms me.
After a few moments, a small smile grazes his lips. “You’ll manage.”
I rub soothing circles on my temples as I grapple withThe Favor.
“So, we… we have to look in love while spoon feeding each other gelato?”
“There are worse things,” he murmurs.
I wring my hands together nervously and look down at my outfit. “Even so, I don’t have anything to wear.”
“What you’re wearing is fine, Tessa.”
