Going Hard (Single Ladies' Travel Agency Book 2) Read online

  “That sounds great,” I tell her, my heart doing an excited leap in my chest. “I’ll be so happy to have a familiar face around that isn’t…his.”

  “Great. I’ll pop by when I get a chance. In the meantime, settle in, ignore all horrible men, accept the alluring ones into your life, and enjoy Rome. You know what they say…”

  “When in Rome?” I ask.

  “Do as the Romans do.”

  I let out a laugh, wondering if Romans ever throw projectiles across courtyards at sexually frustrating neighbours who once spurned them mercilessly. “What exactly do Romans do?” I ask.

  “Whatever the hell they want.” She winks. “You need to relax, woman. Open up, accept pleasure into your life. The Italians know how to enjoy themselves. You should figure it out as well.”

  “Aren’t you wise?” I ask.

  “Not wise, but I am a hedonist par excellence,” she tells me, flicking a lock of red hair behind her shoulder in mock-triumph. “I don’t believe in suffering for my past sins and I certainly don’t believe in punishing others for theirs. Whatever this man did to offend you, perhaps you should go easy on him. Time changes all things. Men grow up.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks.”

  When I’ve hung up I realize that I feel better already. Good enough to mosey around the apartment and check out all its nooks and crannies with fresh eyes. By some miracle, Katherine has managed to cleanse me of my stupid worries. All of a sudden I want to jump up and down, to let out a joyful shriek.

  A laugh bubbles up in my throat with the realization that after all this time, after being so frightened of what might happen if I ever saw Dylan again, I’m fine. I’m better than fine, actually. I’m good. And holy shit, I’m in Rome on my own. I’d all but forgotten that major accomplishment.

  With a determined stride I head over to my suitcase, wheel it into the bedroom, toss it onto the bed on its side and unzip it. This is going to be a good month. Nothing will weigh me down, damn it. Not Dylan, not even my mother’s morbid warnings that I’ll be murdered by every man I see.

  I don’t give a fuck about anything, and it feels great.

  The bedroom is gorgeous. Larger than I’d anticipated, with high ceilings, a set of windows looking out onto the courtyard. Vines drape over the glass like curtains, giving me a sense of privacy that I need after finding out that Dylan is so close by.

  The walls are white, uneven plaster that looks like it’s been repainted recently. Like all of Rome, I get the impression that this building could survive a bomb blast or a serious earthquake. It’s hardy, and has all sorts of stories to tell. Hopefully I’ll add to its repertoire by creating some tales of my own.

  After I’ve unloaded my clothes into the closet and dresser, I decide to shower, get dressed in some clean clothes and go out for a walk. I’m going to wander the streets until I find a nice-looking restaurant, and then I am going to eat the best Italian food ever, drink a little too much wine and stare longingly but distantly at handsome Italian men as they walk by me and show off their sun-kissed bronze bodies. I’m going to celebrate the fact that I’m totally over Dylan Emerson, maybe for the first time ever.

  If and when I see him again, I should probably thank him for the heartache he thrust upon me way back when. If it weren’t for the fact that he let me down, I probably wouldn’t have become the cynic that I am today. I might not have grown the balls to come to Italy on my own, either. I suppose he did me a strange, cruel sort of favour.

  Thanks, Dylan, for breaking my heart.

  You bastard.

  Five

  Dylan

  I’ve still got a big grin on my face as I stride down to my local café. It was pretty weird to see Lucy, but it was good, too. She’s still beautiful, sexy, and confusing as all hell. Just knowing that she’ll be here for a month is enough to revive my excitement about being in Rome, which has been waning recently.

  I don’t know if there’s any chance for us. I don’t know if this Giancarlo guy is anything serious. All I know is that I’m not letting her slip through my fingers again, not if I can help it.

  I’m still pondering how good she looks when I step into the Caffe Botticelli, about a block from the apartment. As my eyes begin to glaze over with thoughts of her face and body, I hear someone bellow my name.

  “Ciao, Dylan!”

  My smile only widens as my vision adjusts to the slightly dark indoor space around me. As I look around, I make out my friend Paolo advancing towards me from a far corner. He works with me at the architecture firm, and he’s also the guy who found me my apartment. Simply put, he’s been about my best friend in Rome for the past five months.

  “Ciao, Paolo,” I say as he wanders over and slaps me on the back. Italian men are big on touching, which is something it took me a while to get used to when I first arrived. Men kiss each other on the cheek or hug without thinking twice about it. They don’t have the hangups that males tend to have back home.

  “How’s everything?” he asks. His English has always been very good. Well, aside from the fact that he tends to mix up his expressions on occasion, which cracks me up. Of course, even with his frequent screw-ups, I’ve got to say his English is way better than my Italian. He and I have a deal: I correct him when he gets his wording wrong, and he teaches me the occasional Italian phrase. Fortunately for me, Paolo has a good sense of humour about the whole thing.

  “Everything is…insane, to be honest,” I laugh. “Like really insane.”

  “Insane?” he raises a dark eyebrow at me. I can tell that he’s trying to read my expression and failing. “What’s going on?”

  “One sec,” I say, looking over at the barista to give him a quick nod. He knows that the signal means the usual: an iced caffe americano in a take-away cup.

  Paolo and I step over to his small corner table to sit for a minute. “An old friend has just shown up in Rome,” I tell him. “Coincidentally, she’s staying in the apartment across from mine.”

  “An old friend,” he says, his tone full of hints that he knows the f-word is wholly inadequate to describe the subject of our conversation.

  “Yes, a friend,” I repeat. “All right, she’s more of a BFW.”

  “What’s a BFW?” Paolo asks.

  “A beautiful fucking woman.”

  “I see.” Somehow I doubt if he does. “So, you’re over Renata.”

  Renata, otherwise known as the walking nightmare. She’s a woman from the architecture firm, and I recently had the incredibly poor judgment to date her. In my defence, she seemed pretty sexy at first. Flirtatious, gorgeous, you name it. But as it turns out, she’s also a total lunatic. “I was never under Renata,” I protest.

  “Really?” asks Paolo, laughing at my discomfort. “She seemed to think you were.”

  “Well, I suppose I was literally under her a few times. But I can’t say I was attached to her. It’s hard to have feelings for a psycho beast from hell.”

  “Well, I don’t blame you. She’s a beautiful ragazza, but she is not so right in the head, that one. You’re lucky to be rid of her.” He narrows his eyes at me. “Of course, you’re not a man who gets attached to any woman. But maybe you have some desire to attach yourself to this woman you just saw? Something tells me there’s a story with her, no?”

  The barista sets down my iced coffee in front of me and silently stalks off. Clearly he knows that Paolo and I have important business to discuss.

  I lean toward my friend and speak quietly. “The last time I saw Lucy was at a party seven years ago,” I say. “I had feelings for her then. I suppose you could say I was attached to her, except that we weren’t together, not really.”

  “Things didn’t go well at this party,” Paolo concludes before I’ve actually given him any details.

  I shake my head. “No, not so much. Well, at first they went very well. I thought…well, I thought we were going to go home together, but we didn’t. She ran away just when things were getting good.”

>   “Ah, like Cinderella,” he says, pronouncing the C as a Ch. Chinderella.

  “Yes, sort of. But instead of leaving a glass slipper behind, she stole something from me.” Something I never got back.

  “Your wallet?” he asks, laughing. “Or maybe your balls.”

  “Not my wallet,” I reply. “I kept my balls, too. She didn’t get anywhere near those, actually. We shared exactly one kiss that night. That was it. It’s been a long time since I’ve thought about it. But I’ll admit, it’s all flooding back now.”

  “What do you remember?” asks Paolo, who’s as intrigued as someone watching a murder mystery unfold.

  I laugh. “Well, I was twenty-one, so naturally, I remember how horny I was. I remember wanting to fuck her so badly that I jogged off to get us a blanket when I realized there was a chance that it could happen.”

  “You wanted to protect her from getting sand in her lady pieces,” he replies.

  “I think you mean lady parts,” I chuckle. “Yeah. I didn’t really want to ruin the whole experience. I guess I thought I was doing something considerate, but by the time I got back to the place where I’d left her, she was gone.”

  “What happened?”

  I raise my shoulders in a shrug. “I never found out. I remember asking around to see if anyone knew where she was, but no one had a clue. I tried to be a decent guy, even called her place to make sure she was okay. I must have left her housemate ten messages over the following few days. But I had my damned pride. When she never called back, I gave up. I had to ask a mutual friend of ours if she was even alive, because I had no fucking clue.”

  “So you’ve never seen her again until today.”

  “Nope. I left California shortly after that night, and I never went back. My family lived out of state by then, and there was no reason to head back to the west coast.”

  “No reason?” Paolo asks, a knowing smile on his face.

  “If I couldn’t have Lucy, I didn’t see the point,” I admit.

  “But you still want her. And now you have a chance again.”

  Of course he’s right. Paolo has a knack for being right about stuff like this. “Yeah, I guess I do,” I tell him. “I wanted her back then, too, even though I was dating a woman—Chloe, or Zoe, or something—I actually broke up with her because I thought maybe I had a chance with Lucy. But Loose sure as shit proved me wrong when she took off on me.”

  “So she ran away from you, and now she’s here. She sounds a little like a—how you say—a” Paolo scratches his chin. “A tease. What’s so special about her that she’s making you smile so big?”

  “I’m not smiling big,” I say, realizing that I’m lying through my grinning teeth. It feels like a sign of weakness to admit that I’ve gotten so excited over a woman who basically ditched me with no explanation and left me with blue balls, but screw it. I’m okay with going a little weak in the knees over a woman as sexy as Lucy. “As for what’s so special about her, that’s easy: Everything. She’s amazing, beautiful, intelligent. She has the most incredible eyes. They always made me crazy back in the day.”

  “You are crushing her hard,” says Paolo.

  “You mean crushing on her? Yeah, I guess I am. She was what we call the one who got away. Only she didn’t, because I never actually had her.”

  “Bull dung,” he says, butchering another expression. “I can read you like a newspaper. Even if you didn’t have her, she had you. By the balls.”

  “You’re really obsessed with my balls, aren’t you?” I joke, and Paolo shrugs as if to say What of it? “Anyhow, she really is just a friend,” I insist, trying to convince myself that it’s true.

  “But you still want her, after all this time,” says Paolo. “I can see it in your face.”

  “Well, yeah.” I’ll admit that much, at least. “She’s still sexy as all hell. Any man who saw her would want her.”

  “Hmm.” Paolo rubs a hand on the back of his neck as he contemplates what I’ve been saying. “There’s something you’re not telling me about all this. Why did she take off that night? Did you do something to hurt her?”

  “Me? Hell no. The last thing I was interested in was hurting Lucy.”

  “So maybe Lucia was scared of sex. Maybe she got cold toes.”

  “Cold feet,” I correct. “Maybe. I suppose it’s possible. I’ve always figured that we were both young and stupid, and we both fucked up. But you might be right. Maybe she panicked when she realized that things were about to get serious. I’ve always wondered what would’ve happened if I hadn’t taken off to find that damned blanket.”

  Paolo leans his elbows on the table and stares at me. He’s still really into this, like he’s trying to sort out a puzzle. “How did she seem when you saw her?”

  “Just now?” I ask.

  He nods.

  “Strange,” I admit, much as I want to pretend she was happy. “Like she’d seen a ghost. I can’t say she was super pleased to see me.”

  “Hmm. She’ll come around,” he tells me. “You’re a good guy.” He leans back, draping an arm over the back of his chair. “You just need to win her back. Charm her. Convince her that she wants to be with you.”

  “I’m not sure that’s possible at this point,” I tell him. “I’m getting a serious friends-only vibe from her. Honestly, I’m not even sure she wants to be friends.”

  “Playing hard to catch,” he says. I consider correcting his English again, but think better of it. “You should tell her how you feel,” he says, narrowing his eyes.

  “So she can reject me again?” I chuckle. “I’m not sure my fragile boyish heart could take it.”

  “Yeah, but you want to do it. Fuck, man, I’m Italian. I know what lust looks like better than anyone. You totally want this girl. You should go for it. So what if she rejects you? What could really go wrong?”

  “She could run away and not speak to me for the next seven years?”

  He shrugs. “So what? You’ve already been through that. What’s it going to hurt to go through it again?”

  He’s right, of course. Worst case scenario, Lucy pushes me away. Best case scenario? Holy shit, I can’t even imagine it. My dick, on the other hand, is very, very good at imagining all of it.

  Before I find myself with an embarrassing hard-on that would be difficult to explain to Paolo, I rise to my feet.

  “Thanks, man,” I reply, picking up my iced coffee. “Listen, I’m going to pay up and head back to my apartment.”

  “Of course you are,” Paolo replies with a knowing grin. “La bella donna Lucia might be nearby. You should stay close to her in case she changes her brain.”

  “Mind. Changes her mind. And yeah, she might. She might not. What do I care?” I shrug as I move towards the cash register.

  “Denial isn’t attractive on you, Dylan,” he responds. “Enjoy your evening, Casanova.”

  “I will.”

  “By that, I mean go have some sex,” he all but yells, drawing stares from other patrons in the café. “You know. Bunga bunga. Bouncy bouncy. The dirty nasty.”

  I turn back to give him the finger as the rest of the café’s inhabitants glare at us both.

  Paolo is right about one thing. It’s time to head back towards Lucy. I want her, and I need to win her back before some young Italian buck named Giancarlo charms her pants off.

  Six

  Lucy

  Once I’ve dressed and pulled my brown hair back into a high ponytail, I throw on a pair of sunglasses, grab my purse and flit down the stairs like I’m Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday. If I’m lucky, maybe a Gregory Peck lookalike will come along and sweep me off my feet and drive me around on a vespa—safely, of course—while my boobs dig into his back. I could be a loose floozy, at least for the next week.

  Not that Audrey Hepburn was ever a floozy. She was a goddess. Those eyebrows. Those eyes. She was a beautiful doe, innocent and sexy at once. She always played women who seemed kind of shy and awkward, but you could tell that deep do
wn, they knew exactly who and what they were. I want to learn how to play one of those women, even if I can’t be one.

  After I’ve trotted down the arched tunnel towards the street, I turn right, striding along the sidewalk, confident, collected, convinced that I give absolutely no fucks about anything. It only takes me a few seconds to spot what looks like a row of restaurants in the distance, green vines trailing down their red and ochre façades. Keeping up my quick, smooth, Hepburn-like pace, I try to push my shoulders back, my chin high. I am the queen goddess of the universe in my white shirt and polka dot skirt. I am Audrey reincarnated. I am unstoppable. I am impervious to memories of Dylan Emerson’s lips and thoughts of his perfect body. I am…

  “Shit!” I yell as ice-cold brown liquid splashes over my chest.

  Wet. I am soaking wet.

  Someone—a man—has just slammed into me, his iced coffee in hand. I leap backwards, staring down at my very cold brown boobs before pulling my eyes up to my clumsy assailant’s face.

  Well, it turns out that I’m not Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday.

  I’m Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca.

  Of all the cafés in all the towns in all the world, you had to walk out of this one…and douse my breasts in iced coffee.

  Dylan. Fucking. Emerson.

  Seven

  Dylan

  I just poured my drink all over Lucy Horner’s tits.

  I mean breasts.

  I mean succulent.

  I mean nipples.

  I mean holy shit, I want to eat her alive.

  Somehow I never quite noticed how amazing her breasts were. Of course, it’s entirely possible that they’re even more spectacular now than when she was twenty. She’s patting herself down. Her nipples have gone hard and tight under her thin little (formerly) white shirt and bra, and I’m suddenly sporting such a raging hard-on that I wish I were the kind of man who carried around a purse so I could cover it up. For the second time in an hour, she’s made my body charge head-first into Lustville.