Page 13 of Royal Valentine

CHAPTER FIVE

Lucia’s family lived in an apartment in Trastevere, a neighborhood filled with ivy-covered medieval buildings and cobblestone streets. We walked past multiple cafés and trattorias and through busy piazzas filled with actual Italians, who were smoking, drinking, and talking loudly to each other. There were no cars here and even fewer tourists. The twisting labyrinth of alleyways was lined with laundry and fairy lights.

We went through an open-air market, and Callum stopped to buy a bottle of wine to bring to Lucia’s uncle. He paid with a credit card instead of the euros that he’d been fishing out of his pockets all day. I couldn’t help but glance at the shoppers around us, wondering if anyone recognized me. But it seemed like everyone was happily ignoring us.

“What is Lucia’s family like?” I asked. I was worried that her mother would be there. That she might recognize me. “Have her parents been together for a long time?”

“They divorced when Lucia was little. Her mother moved to America a long time ago. Her father’s family are the ones who live in Rome.”

Relief bubbled up inside me. Hopefully there wouldn’t be anyone to tell on me.

Callum headed to another stall and bought a red rose from a florist.

“For me?” I asked in surprise when he handed it to me. I had thought he’d meant for it to be another host gift.

“Aye. As I keep being reminded, it is Valentine’s Day.”

I’d once had a boyfriend of six months end our relationship the day before Valentine’s Day because he didn’t want me to “get the wrong idea” about where things were headed.

And here was Callum giving me a rose to celebrate the day, without hesitation.

I buried my nose in the flower and smiled. “Thank you.”

“It’s my pleasure.”

We made our way through a crowd waiting to get into a lively bar while I told him about the Cavallini frescoes in a basilica not far from where we were.

“Aye, I’ve seen them,” he said, again surprising me. “They’re stunning.”

“How do you know so much about art?” I asked, but we had arrived at the apartment and he knocked on the door.

Lucia threw it open. “Callum! And Anne! You made it. Welcome!”

Approximately two dozen members of her family waited behind her, all kissing me and Callum hello, welcoming us to their home. There was so much warmth and love that it made me homesick.

Even if I had disappointed my parents in the past, I knew how much they loved me. I adored them and my entire noisy, enthusiastic family.

But then I looked at Callum and those pangs of homesickness faded.

I was right where I wanted to be.

I put my rose into my purse and set it down in the small foyer before I walked into the dining room.

We were seated at a large table, and after Lucia’s grandfather said a prayer, we began to eat. Lucia’s aunt kept offering me more and more pasta, and there was no way for me to refuse. I looked to Callum, who was seated across the table from me, for help, but he was laughing quietly to himself.

“You need to eat more,” Lucia’s aunt told me in English. “You are too skinny.”

I was doing my best to get down everything she put in front of me, but I suspected that I was going to throw up soon if I didn’t stop stuffing myself full.

Conversation swirled around me in Italian as people laughed and shouted and food was devoured. Lucia’s aunt had made enough to feed a small army.

Lucia was sitting next to Callum, and I heard her say in Italian, “Did you tell her the truth yet?”

“Not yet.”

“You have to tell her.”

That alarmed me. What did Callum have to tell me?

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