Page 38 of Italy Can Bite Me

This. This is the one.

Jared won’t see me coming. One glimpse of me in this dress, and he’ll be screeching into my parents’ driveway, begging for those wedding invitations. He’ll go into Door Dash driver mode and blow through stop signs in every zip code just to hand-deliver those wedding invites himself!

“You look breathtaking,” Aunt Deb says with a genuine smile and glassy eyes. “Now let’s fix these tragic undergarments. You can’t put Target under Valentino.”

“This is way too expensive,” I say, but I can’t look away.

“Consider it my gift, Katherine.” She adjusts my neckline slightly, somehow making it even more lethal. “This trip is about your transformation, your sexual awakening! Speaking of which…” Her eyes sparkle with mischief. “Be a dear and tell Howie I need help with a stubborn zipper.”

And that’s my cue to leave. I step out of the fitting room. “Um, Howie? My aunt needs your… assistance.”

He almost levitates from his chair, moving quicker than any man his age ought to. His mustache twitches with excitement. He zooms past like a silver-haired bullet.

That’s when I notice Matteo’s gaze. Fixed on me. He’s enamored.

His mask of indifference has cracked, replaced by something that makes my pulse race. The way his dark eyes roam over me is so potent, so intense—it’s as if this silk dress is charged, like I’m wrapped in a thunderstorm. I saunter over to him, amused by his eyes that keep ping-ponging between my face and my neckline.

“So?” I twirl, channeling my inner goddess(who apparently has been hiding under cardigans all this time). “Think Jared will be into this?”

“You look…” His voice comes out gravelly.

He swallows hard. Twice.

Trying to recover his cool, Matteo attempts to lean casually against what he thinks is a wall.

Spoiler alert: It’s not a wall.

Matteo’s body slams into a mannequin display.

CRASH!

The domino effect is spectacular—mannequins fall like, well, dominoes, and Matteo goes down in a heap of plastic limbs and Prada. He’s managed to get his head wedged between a mannequin’s legs while another’s arm is stuck down his pants. Each attempt to stand up only makes things worse.

“Merda!”THWACK.Another mannequin attacks.

“Cazzo!”SMASH.A display rack goes down.

“Porca miseria!”BOOM.Drowned in Gucci bags.

“Matteo?”

An American redhead in stilettos storms over, her heels as lethal as her glare. Matteo, still wrestling with his plastic companions, looks up and smacks his head on a fallen display.

“I’ve been texting you nonstop for three days!” she screeches. Matteo’s a hot mess, wrestling the plastic arm out of his pants as he stands to face her.

“Ah, Rebecca—”

“Sadie! My name is Sadie, you pig!” She turns to me, nostrils flaring. “Run while you can. He’s not even that good in bed. I didn’t even come the third time.”

Something possesses me—temporary insanity maybe? Or it could just be the sight of Italy’s hottest tour guide being attacked by department store fixtures.

“Wait,” I gasp, summoning my best over-the-top telenovela star. “He’s my boyfriend! Are you saying you slept with myboyfriend?!”

His eyes go wide.

“Matteo, howcouldyou?” I dramatically press the back of my hand to my forehead. “After all those promises of forever!”

SLAP.

---