Page 6 of Royal Valentine

My pulse hammered hard in my throat. He was the man I’d seen, the one who had inspired me to break away and experience real life for once. It seemed fated, like we were supposed to meet, even if it had been in a very strange way.

“I saw you,” I admitted. “I wanted to meet you.”

“Passing out in front of me isnae typically how women try to get my attention,” he said, and I laughed.

“And what do they typically do?” I asked.

“They take me to the Trevi Fountain,” he said with a wink. We came around a corner and I gasped, a reaction that happened every time I saw the fountain in person. It was so magnificent that it almost seemed unnatural. Larger than life, beautiful, astonishing, luxurious.

There were few things like it in the world.

And there were so many people standing in front of it that I was feeling a bit claustrophobic.

Callum took his camera out and started snapping pictures. I watched him, liking the way he concentrated so intensely.

As if he was aware of what I was doing, he turned his lens toward me.

I put my hand up in front of my face. I was so tired of being seen primarily through a camera lens, offered up as a commodity to be consumed by the masses. Not to mention that if I was going to be photographed, I at least wanted to look my best. I wasn’t wearing any makeup. I hadn’t brushed my teeth today or showered. I was sure my hair was a frizzy mess. “Don’t. I look terrible.”

“You look beautiful,” he said as he put his camera down.

Callum wasn’t trying to consume me or sell my image to the highest bidder. He was using his camera to celebrate this moment.

To celebrate me.

I forgot that we were in a piazza surrounded by hundreds of people, and I was struck with an overwhelming urge to kiss him.

From the way his gaze had dropped to my lips, I wondered if he felt the same way.

Someone shoved into me and I fell against Callum. His arms immediately went around me, both to protect me and to help me stay upright. I let my hands rest on his biceps, and some detached part of my brain noticed how big they were. I felt safe being held by him. My breathing was unsteady as I lifted my face up to his.

The intensity in his eyes, the fiery desire I saw there, made the air in my lungs solidify.

To my surprise, he released me and took a step back. “So Miss Art Historian, tell me about the fountain.”

Was I imagining it or did his voice sound tight? Like he was holding back? I sucked in a deep breath, desperately needing the oxygen. “It was designed by Nicola Salvi after his plans were chosen by Pope Clement XII. It’s a combination of baroque and classical design.” Regurgitating facts was helping to clear my mind so that I wouldn’t think about how warmand strong he’d felt. How badly I’d wanted him to kiss me. “The fountain is made of the same type of travertine stone used in the Colosseum.”

Then I explained what each of the statues was, the allegories of pure water and mythology represented, the papal coat of arms depicted on the Palazzo Poli behind the fountain, how the water came from an aqueduct created by Romans two thousand years earlier.

Callum hung on to my every word, but he seemed to already know everything I was explaining.

“Oh no, am I artsplaining this to you?” I asked.

He grinned. “I do ken quite a bit about it, but I’m enjoying how you explain it. I suspect that I could happily listen to you talk all day.”

“I feel the same way,” I confessed.

“All that knowledge. You must be fun at parties,” he said.

“Hey!” I protested and then laughed. “People like to hear about the history of things.”

“Only sometimes,” he said, but he was clearly teasing me.

“You like it.”

“Aye, you’re right. I do.”

I liked this, too. There didn’t seem to be any games with Callum. I wasn’t having to consider how our flirtation would play out in the press, or wonder about his motives. We didn’t have to dance around any royal politics or protocols or my publicist’s rules. He was attracted to me, I was attracted to him, we wanted to spend the day together in Rome, getting to know one another, taking advantage of our strange but serendipitous meeting.

---