groaning as it cracks and brings some release to the stirrings of a headache threatening to form. The meeting with Sterling was a success. But I can’t enjoy the moment. My mind keeps skipping back to Dad. I spoke to him this morning before we checked out in Milan. He’s still adamant that Gabrielle and I marry. She’s back in London now. And Mum’s still arguing with Dad and sounding angrier with him each time I speak to her. Now, I’m equal parts scared that Dad’s going mad and equal parts hoping that he is, because it will explain what the hell’s going on.
At least if this headache does come, I have no more meetings today. I can relax at the house and try and get hold of Gabrielle. Sort this out once and for all. Spencer won’t push her into a marriage she doesn’t want when she tells him it’s a no, right?
It’ll all be sorted by the end of the week.
“Why did you put the price up?” Maddy eyes me across the backseat.
“Sterling can afford it. He wouldn’t have paid if he couldn’t.”
Her lips part, and she stares at me, wide-eyed. “That doesn’t answer my question. Twenty-five million is a hell of a lot of money to increase the offer by on a whim.”
She’s right, it doesn’t answer her question. But I can’t answer it. I don’t know why I put the price up on the spot. Gut instinct maybe? My subconscious must have tapped into something.
“It is,” I agree. “But the project’s worth it and Beaufort knows that. He’ll get back over ten times what he invests.” She’s still staring at me, so I add, “It’s just business.”
“Yeah.” She rolls her eyes. “Just business. Like I’d ever be able to understand.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
She leans forward to our driver and asks him to pull over to let her out.
“Where are you going?” I snap my head in her direction as she climbs out of the car.
“Sightseeing,” she replies as I jump out behind her.
“On your own?”
She rolls her eyes again. She does it a lot in my company and it’s starting to grate on me. She views spending time with me with the same amount of enthusiasm as someone who’s about to have a rectal examination.
“There are things I want to see, and I’ve booked a Vatican tour at four o’clock.”
“I told Drew I’d—”
“Ugh. Leave my brother out of this. I went alone in Milan, didn’t I?”
Yeah, and you had one of my security team following you discreetly the whole time.
“Rome’s busier,” I argue.
Maddy screws her face up. “You’re being ridiculous. I’m going and that’s that. Instead of worrying about what I’m doing all the time, why don’t you do something for you? Live a little.” She smirks. “That was the advice you gave me before this trip. Now it’s your turn.” She cocks a brow at me and then rummages inside her purse. “Go on your dating apps. I’ve not seen you use them since we arrived. Find a beautiful Italian woman to stroke your ego for a while.”
When I don’t reply, she glances up at me. “What? Lost the thrill of bedding a woman purely based upon looks?”
“Not now, Mads!” I snap with more force than I intend.
Her brows pull together, the line between them cutting deep into her skin. Only I don’t feel any delight in seeing it there this time.
Here comes the fucking headache.
“You can’t sightsee in those, anyway.” I look at the black stilettos on her feet. She’ll have to come back to the house to change them, and that’ll give me enough time to arrange a member of the security team to keep an eye on her for the rest of the day. Problem solved.
“Oh, darn it. You’re right.” She bats her eyelashes at me in mock sweetness as she rests one hand on the roof of the car. She pulls a pair of flat sandals from her purse and removes her heels one at a time, swapping them for the new pair. Then she hands her heels to me.
“Mads—”
“Bye, Logan. Don’t wait up!” She thanks our driver and then skips away, her head already spinning side to side as she looks up at the beautiful buildings in delight, a wide smile on her face.
“Sir?”
I glance at my driver, then at Maddy’s retreating figure.
Fuck’s sake.
“I’ll call you if I need you. But you might as well take the rest of the day off,” I mutter.
He gives me a questioning look as I hand him Maddy’s shoes.
Then I race up the street after her.
“Gelato. Mm, this is good.” Maddy grins and then wraps her lips around the ice cream again.
“I told you I’m a fountain of knowledge of the best places to visit in Rome. Including where to source the best gelato.”
“Yeah,” she scoffs and then carries on licking the cone as we walk.
After the initial eye rolls, huffs, and bursts of displeasure at me catching her up in the street, we’ve had an amicable time. We’ve been to the Spanish Steps, the Sistine Chapel, and the Colosseum. Maddy wants to see the Trevi Fountain, but it will have to wait until after the Vatican tour. Maybe it’s because we’re busy and she’s distracted, but her dislike for me hasn’t been voiced as passionately as usual. Or maybe she’s tired. Either way, I’m enjoying the reprieve.
“Such a fountain of knowledge, and yet, you’ve never been inside the Vatican.” She smirks.
I shake my head with a smile. She took great delight in the fact I’ve not made time to visit it properly before. But that changes today. I booked a ticket online as Maddy was gazing at the ceiling in the Sistine Chapel.
“Maybe I was waiting for the right bitchy woman to go with. Inspiring, historical places just aren’t the same if not viewed with a side of loathing. Adds to the atmosphere.” I lick my mint-choc-chip cone as Maddy fights back a smile.
“I can definitely provide that for you.”
“Like no other,” I muse as we walk into Vatican City. We finish our cones and join the end of a long line.
“You know this is the smallest independent country in the world?” Maddy says.
“Am I expected to tip the tour guide at the end?”
She tuts. “The best thing you could give me right now would be personal space,” she says, stepping away from me.
“In case you didn’t notice, the rest of the world seems to be visiting the smallest independent country at the same time as us.” I step closer to her again as I’m forced forward in the queue by a group of excited female students all wearing Sapienza, University of Rome sweaters and snapping selfies together.
“You can wait outside if you like? Or go back to the house?”
Her expression is hopeful as she looks at me. One of the students steps on my foot, then I look further down the queue and catch eyes with a guy whose friend is busy eye-fucking Maddy.
Heat flares across the back of my neck. “And miss tour guide Mads’ private one-on-one service? I’m good.”
Her face falls and she folds her arms. The movement pushes her breasts up beneath her blouse. I look back at the two guys. Eye-fuck’s friend has the sense to elbow him as he sees me watching them. Yeah, fucker. I’m onto you. Drew would be too if he were here. But he’s not, so I must be the biggest cock-blocking asshole there is for him. It’s what friends do for one another.
I glare at the two guys for another few minutes, making sure they don’t look our way again. When I’m satisfied that they will not carry on, I turn my attention back to Maddy. She’s got her earbuds in, but frowns as she pulls them out and shoves them into her purse.
“Something up?”
She chews on her bottom lip. “No. I thought they were broken, but they’re playing the guidebook I downloaded just fine.”
I nod as we move ahead in the line. Eventually it’s our turn and we make it inside. Maddy walks through the space in awe, her head tilted back looking at the painted ceilings. She gets this look of wonder on her face as she sucks in small gasps of delight. It’s kind of cute. Makes a change from her usual glaring and retorts.
We follow the group we entered with up and through winding tunnels and staircase after staircase. Then we walk across a narrow mesh-enclosed walkway that places us high in the roof space, looking down over the tourists filing in.
Maddy stops suddenly to stare at the intricate designs on the ceiling and the group of female students from the queue bump into the back of me with a giggle.
“It’s amazing.” Maddy grins at me, oblivious to the pile-up, then turns and carries on.
“This is getting narrower,” I say as we turn the corner and face yet another long, stone walkway that slopes upward.
“We’re climbing to the roof; it’s going to be narrow. And people were smaller when this was built.”
“Yeah.” I duck to avoid hitting my head on the low stone opening. “Fuck me, it’s getting warm.” I tug at my shirt collar as Maddy glances back at me, her eyes flitting over my suit.
“Wishing you’d gone back to the house?”
“Not at all. It’s all counting toward my cleanse.” I wink at her.
“God,” she groans. “You’re something else.”
“That’s what I’m told.”
She turns back around, but the shake of her head and snort is unmistakable.
“You rolling your eyes too?” I lean forward and whisper in her ear.
“What?” She bats me away. “Stop that! You’re too close, Rich. Get back.”
“Ooh, we’re onto surnames. You flirting with me, Harper?”
She raises her hand over her shoulder and flicks me her middle finger without looking back.
I laugh as we turn another corner and are at the bottom of a narrow spiral stone staircase with an old rope fixed to the wall as a makeshift handrail.
“Need a leg up?” I say as she pauses at the base of it, trying to peer around the older couple in front of us waiting on the steps.
“Logan, cut it out,” she snaps. Then she raises her voice and jabs me in the chest with her finger as she says, in pronounced Italian, “Hai un cazzo squisito, princepe del piacere!”
The entire cramped hallway falls silent.
Maddy blinks.
Then one of the female students behind me coughs out a strangled giggle before her friends join her and erupt into laughter. One pulls out her phone and snaps a picture of me and Maddy.
Maddy’s cheeks burn scarlet as she looks around at all the eyes on us. The group of students start chatting excitedly in Italian between giggles.
“Ooh, Prince.”
“Looks rather royal to me.”
“I’d do him.”
“Ew, Rosa! You always go for the ancient ones.”
“Yeah, he’s older than this building!”
“Ancient? I’m thirty fucking three.” I turn to face them, and they all stop talking and stare at me. One gives me a flirty smile, her eyes dropping to my suit pants. I’m guessing that’s Rosa.
“Logan?” Maddy tugs on my sleeve.
I turn back around and open my mouth.
“Ooh, he speaks Italian.”
“Even sexier.”
“Yeah, I’d do him too.”
“Shh, that’s his girlfriend he’s with.”
“She’s not my girlfriend,” I say over my shoulder, but realize I’ve said it in English.
“Hell no!” Maddy peers around me at the group of girls as one pinches my ass, and I jump forward.
More giggles.
The entire corridor is watching the exchange with more interest than they have given the sights on the tour.
The older woman from the couple ahead of us turns to Maddy with a chuckle. “Maybe he should be.” She gives me a once-over appreciatively. “He sounds like my husband.” She smiles at the man she’s with, then whispers to Maddy, “You’re a lucky girl.”
“Um… I’m not sure lucky is the word I have in mind,” Maddy replies politely, her accusing eyes holding mine.
“Logan, what the—?” she hisses as the group start climbing the stairs again and new chatter breaks out.
No idea, I mouth, feigning ignorance.
We carry on with the tour, going out onto the roof and I suck in a breath of fresh air, despite the space still being limited.
“Thank fuck no one farted in there. We’d have all choked to death.”
“Please don’t talk to me,” Maddy says as she snaps a picture of the view with her phone.
“Shall I take one for you?” the older woman from earlier offers.
She takes Maddy’s phone out of her hand before waiting for a reply and then motions with her hands. “I can’t fit you in unless you move closer.”
Maddy’s eyes narrow at me. “Don’t even think about—”
I wrap my arm around her waist, and she bristles as I pull her into my side, my hand clasping her hip.
“Are the shudders because you’re turned on?” I whisper in her ear as our picture’s taken.
“God,” she groans at me before thanking the lady as she takes her phone back. “More like violated. Don’t mistake physical contact for a blossoming friendship. We aren’t going to ride off into the sunset together now, you know?”
“Shame. I bet you’re good at riding.”
“Ugh, please stop.” She turns and glares at me. “I preferred it when you were being a moody jerk on the yacht over this version of you.”
“I wasn’t moody.”
She scoffs. “You were.”
I purse my lips, then pluck her phone from her hands. “Would a moody jerk make you smile like that?” I turn the phone around, and Maddy snatches it, staring at the screen.
“That’s not a smile.” She squints at the photo of the two of us, me with my arm around her, her with the hint of a smile on her lips.
“Looks like one to me.” I stand behind her and rest my chin on her shoulder to study the image.
She reaches up and pushes me away with a flick to my forehead. “Get off before I throw you off this roof.”
I chuckle, resisting the urge to mess with her more.
She’s still staring at the photo as I stand and take in the view over Rome, all thoughts of home, Dad, and weddings temporarily gone.
And my earlier headache has vanished.
