Page 58 of Royally Roma
“I look forward to it,” he said flatly.
“There you go looking tragic again. Cheer up. Your holiday isn’t over yet. Besides, when you leave Rome, aren’t you headed to Helsinki?”
Please don’t remind me. “That’s right. Can’t wait.”
But it was most difficult to forget, especially when an entire team of men had descended on the city to drag him away.
He glanced around the piazza in a panic. How long had his entire focus had been on Julia just now? Five minutes? Ten?
Too long. That’s for certain. He couldn’t afford to be preoccupied for even a second.
The mob of tourists seemed to have doubled since he’d last checked his whereabouts. People pressed in on every side, which was alarming on multiple counts. He couldn’t get a good look at the crowd. The faces seemed to blend together.
Even if he somehow managed to spot one of the palace’s security officers, he wouldn’t be able to flee.
“We need to go,” he said without preamble. “Now.”
Julia’s gaze narrowed. “What’s the rush?”
Oh, nothing important. I might be an outlaw now. I’m not even sure, actually. “It’s a bit on the crowded side, don’t you think?”
She shrugged, but still eyed him with a large dose of skepticism. “Sure, I suppose. I guess I’m accustomed to it...”
She was cut off midsentence by an older woman with a shawl pulled tightly around her head, who was waving two shiny silver coins in Niccolo’s face. “Mi scusi, signore. Per favore prenderli.”
At first, Niccolo assumed she was asking for money, but oddly enough, it seemed the opposite was true. The woman took him by the wrist, pressed the two coins into his hand, and motioned toward the fountain.
Niccolo stared at the change in his palm. He couldn’t take money from a stranger. Not even a half-euro, which was about what the coins amounted to.
“No,” he protested and tried to give them back to the woman.
She wagged a finger at him. “Gettarli! Gettarli!”Throw! Throw!Then she smiled and nodded at Julia. “Per lei. Per la vostra sposa.”
Julia’s soft brown eyes widened in alarm. “No. You misunderstand.Io non sono sua.”
The woman shook her head, let loose a stream of Italian, and began gesticulating wildly.
Niccolo’s Italian was passable. It was one of four languages in which he’d been tutored before he’d begun crisscrossing the globe representing his country. He’d also been schooled in French, German, and Spanish. On a recent trip to the Scottish Highlands, he’d even picked up a bit of Gaelic. But he wasn’t 100 percent fluent, and the old woman spoke so rapidly that he couldn’t keep up. Not with all of it.
But he’d understood Julia’s words perfectly.
Io non sono sua.
I’m not his.
He frowned. “What’s going on?”
“She wants you to toss two more coins into the fountain,” she said.
“But I’ve already done the coin-tossing thing.”
Io non sono sua.Why couldn’t he seem to get those words out of his head?
“I know. This is...something else.” Her cheeks went pink the way they always did when she was flustered. Niccolo was growing more curious by the second, and the woman hadn’t budged.
“Julia?”
She sighed. “It’s silly. If you toss a second coin into the fountain, you’re supposed to find romance. A third coin means marriage.”
