Page 23 of Rush
Savannah’s phone buzzed with another string of texts from her boyfriend, who had interrupted them multiple times already this afternoon. Marco sighed as she apologisedyet again. It wasn’t her fault, but it was damn annoying. She turned her phone over, so it was face down, and gave him her undivided attention. ‘I saw enough to know I wanted to be part of it, but I was busy focusing on my own career. Plus, I’d like to hear it from you.’
‘Okay… Uh, I was born in Italy and raised in Monaco.’
‘So is your mum Monegasque?’
‘Yeah. She may or may not be friends with the royals.’
Savi’s jaw dropped. ‘What, like the king of England?’
‘Savannah… Fucking hell, are you even on the same planet? You know Monaco has a royal family, right? As does Denmark, Bahrain, Malaysia… The list goes on. The Windsors are not the only ones. God, you’re so American.’ He laughed so hard her cheeks flushed.
‘So, your mum?’
‘Is not a royal. Just grew up with one of them. But she moved to Italy for university where she met my father. We were born and raised there.’
‘We?’
‘My brother and I.’
‘Ah,’ she nodded and smiled, ‘tell me more.’
‘My brother, Rafael, lives in Switzerland with his wife and kids. I try to see them all a few times a year, I take a lot of diversions in between work trips. The three boys are pretty into cars, so of course I’m the coolest uncle ever.’
‘You have three nephews?’ Her eyes widened.
‘And two nieces. Raf started young. Eighteen, actually. Caused quite the scandal.’
She grinned. ‘Scandals seem to run in your family.’
‘Yeah, well, I wouldn’t have resorted to my shenanigansif, you know…’ He frowned, finishing his bowl of penne arrabiata.
‘Spit it out, Monaco… Come on, still not over it?’
‘Do you think Thalia is gonna ruin Esme’s life?’ He leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms, annoyed with himself. The yacht groupies were a distraction technique which evidently had not worked. He still thought about Esme more than he should, even if he knew there was no hope for them.
‘Possibly. But you could say the same thing about Jesse and me, or about your brother and his wife, Faith and Julien, Lucie and Brett… You never know where life is going to take you. Just got to focus on yourself.’
‘What is it about Jesse Montalvo?’ Marco narrowed his eyes.
‘What do you mean?’ She signalled to the waiter that they wanted to order dessert, like she was hoping to steer the conversation towards tiramisu and away from an interrogation into the deepest, darkest parts of her relationship.
‘Sell him to me. Why are you with him, how do you know he’s the one?’
‘I don’t know if I believe in the one.’
‘Oh.’ He was taken aback. That was the polar opposite to his own beliefs, but he was a hopeless romantic and had been raised that way. ‘Well, still… why him?’
‘I… I love him.’ She swallowed. ‘I’ve never answered this out loud… Um, he makes me feel wanted, he’s ambitious, strong. He’s been through hell and come out the other side still standing, and he remembers the little things. He’s romantic and he still flirts with me to this day. Stillslow dances with me in the kitchen while we’re cooking dinner, still behaves like he’s trying to win me over.’
‘But he’s not the one.’ Marco gazed at her intensely, seeing right through her. The way she spoke about him sounded like the words of someone who did believe in soulmates, but maybe, as much as she liked to pretend she was, she wasn’t living a fairytale.
She lifted a shoulder, and the corners of her mouth turned up ever so slightly. ‘I don’t know.’
‘It’s okay to not know, Cowgirl. The spectrum of human emotion is complex.’
‘Can you order dessert for us? I need to use the bathroom.’ She grabbed her phone, cow-print case looking up at her, and headed inside.
Marco wasn’t afraid of hard topics, and he often worried it put people off. Sometimes he started conversations others weren’t ready to have, or he overstepped, and he spent the next few minutes stressing that he had just done exactly that. He wanted Savannah to trust him and feel safe with him, enough that she could tell him anything that was on her mind.
