All Roads Lead to Rome by Sabrina Fedel

Author:Sabrina Fedel [Fedel, Sabrina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2024-06-18T00:00:00+00:00

Nineteen

We stop at the boys’ hotel on the way to dinner. Hodges is just bringing the suit Luca wants to wear back from the cleaners. “It’s lovely to see you again, Miss Story.”

“Thank you, Hodges, it’s nice to see you, too.”

“Thank you, miss, for the bookstore gift card. It was most thoughtful of you, but not necessary.”

“I appreciate you always making sure I’m on top of all this chaos.”

He smiles and nods before he disappears with Luca to do whatever guys like him do.

“You make a ghastly rich person,” Andrew says as he throws himself onto the sofa, legs outstretched.

I sit in a chair beside him and whisper, “I’m not really rich, you know. At least by your standards.”

“Really?” he says, fighting off a smile. “You had me completely fooled.”

“Besides, this way I stay connected to my people for when all this ends and Cinderella has to crawl back to her unlit hearth.” I say it lightly, but Andrew looks at me as if all the ways this experience could spoil my happiness have just occurred to him.

“Story—” he says as he sits up, but Luca comes out, and I shake my head for Andrew to let it go.

Luca takes us to an early dinner at a tiny restaurant my mom and I love on Via Urbana. It’s so early, we’re the only people there, but we still ask for a table in the back.

“This place is nice,” Andrew says as we sit down, chairs scraping.

“Wait till you taste the food.”

The place has a trendy, modern feel that would be considered cosmopolitan in any city. Luca relaxes in a way I haven’t seen at another restaurant, I guess because there’s no audience. A trio of older women come in before we finish, but they sit in the front and people-watch through the windows, so we’re alone except for the waiter.

“I think we should talk strategy,” Andrew says.

“Can we just not?” Luca asks. “For one meal, anyway. The situation is under control.”

Andrew pulls his lower lip in but doesn’t argue. When I order an eggplant dish, Luca asks the waiter if they can make it vegan for me.

“Yes, of course, signorina,” the waiter says.

“Grazie,” I say, and give Luca an appreciative glance. When I turn my gaze back to the room, Andrew is watching us. It makes me self-conscious, as if I’ve overstepped some boundary listed in the fake-girlfriend codebook.

After dinner, we drive up to the Villa Borghese gardens and walk around. Andrew takes photos of us by some of the statues and follies. We manage to agree that the ones at the Temple of Aesculapius give off the most who-wouldn’t-want-to-be-us vibes, so Andrew chooses those, and Luca takes a selfie of us with a tree-lined avenue in the background. Luca’s followers have increased substantially since he decided to date an ordinary girl.

“Everyone’s waiting to see the crash,” Andrew says.

Luca suddenly spins me around like we’re dancing. Andrew whips his phone back out for photos.

“I’ll set these to post tomorrow morning,” he says.

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