Page 79 of Tour Wars
He wiped his brow, suddenly aware the AC had shut off. “I didn’t say I was okay with it.”
“But you stayed and kept giving tours for Buon Viaggio? You’re a coward.”
He took a sip from his water bottle, hoping the liquid would quench the dryness in his throat. Over the past month, he’d harbored the exact same thoughts. That he was a coward who should have done more for Emilia. “Em told me to stay at Pompeii. She didn’t want me to ruin my future by quitting.”
Marie threw up her hands, further annoying the businessman next to her. “She might have said it, but she didn’t mean it.”
“She did. She made me promise not to quit. You know how Em is—she’s stubborn as hell. I was just following her wishes.”
Be honest. You were following your own ambition.
On the one hand, Emilia wouldn’t have appreciated him trailing her to California, unrooted and jobless. But on the other? He hadn’t considered any alternatives besides staying at Pompeii and working for the jerks who’d fired her.
Marie narrowed her eyes at him. “So…how’d that decision work out for you? Are you still together? Or did she ghost you after she left Italy?”
Ouch.He could have lied and claimed he and Emilia texted on a daily basis. But after sending her a few desperate messages, he’d gotten a terse reply from her, asking him to stop. She hadn’t even wanted to stay friends. “She cut me off.”
Marie smacked her hand against the metal bar. “You see? You blew it. Some boyfriend you are.”
TJ’s throat closed up as he remembered how distraught Emilia had been when she left Dr. Roberti’s office. “The thing is…even if I’d wanted to help Emilia, there was nothing I could have done. They weren’t going to take my word over Luca’s. When I tried to speak up on her behalf, they threatened to fire me.”
He almost wished they had. Or wished he’d been bold enough to defend the woman he loved. Instead, he’d backed down, all for a chance to keep working at Pompeii. But with every week that passed, he grew more and more resentful. He hated the way Dr. Roberti had him on the hook. How he constantly suggested—no,insisted—that TJ spend his days off giving tours of the site. Each time, he reminded TJ that the more effort he put in, the more likely he’d get to stay until June. TJ was starting to suspect his boss was lying, especially since none of the other archaeologists had heard about the project being extended.
“Why don’t you do something now?” Marie said. “When I worked with Dr. Roberti two years ago, he had a reputation for being vindictive. I heard a bunch of rumors, but I wasn’t sure what to believe. If he and his brother are really that bad, you should make them pay.”
TJ wanted to argue that he had no power, that he was an American working in Italy on a visa, that he was no one in the grand scheme of things. But Marie was glaring at him with such ferocity that he nodded quickly. “I can try, but I don’t know what I could do.”
As the train jolted forward, Marie gripped onto the bar beside her. “You’re a smart guy. I’m sure you’ll think of something.”
For the rest of the ride, she ignored him, choosing to scroll through her phone rather than make eye contact. TJ sat in silence, letting the guilt wash over him, as the train made its painfully slow journey to Ercolano.
That night, rather than join his cohort when they went out for dinner, he retreated to the hostel’s rooftop patio to be alone with his thoughts. Marie’s accusations buzzed in his head like a swarm of furious bees. Was he wrong for not leaving Pompeii after the Robertis had fired Emilia? Even though she’d asked him not to quit, he could have left in protest, as a show of solidarity.But even if he had, Dr. Roberti wouldn’t have cared. Not when he could easily find another archaeologist to take TJ’s place.
What TJ really wanted, more than anything, was to get justice for Emilia. To show the Robertis they couldn’t treat a woman so unfairly and get away with it.
But how?
As furious as he was at the Roberti brothers, he was too much of a professional to compromise the Via Stabiana Project. That meant tampering with the site or the labs was out of the question. If he wanted to make an impact, he’d have to take on Buon Viaggio Tours.
He tried to think of what would hurt Angelo the most. The answer was almosttooeasy.
Bad reviews.
For the first time since he’d lost Emilia, TJ felt a small glimmer of hope.
* * *
The following night,TJ met up with Cesca and Davis in Naples. They were seated outside at a table on the Via dei Tribunali—a popular street that cut through the oldest part of the city—and the area around them was packed with tourists and locals enjoying a balmy Saturday evening. Cesca had ordered drinks for all of them and a huge charcuterie plate piled high with mozzarella, prosciutto, salami, tomatoes, and olives.
Though TJ was desperate to hit them up with his plan for taking down Buon Viaggio, he didn’t want to come across as too self-centered. Instead, he asked Davis about his trip to Lake Como. Then, Cesca regaled them with anecdotes from her last excursion—a weeklong jaunt through Tuscany, complete with three wine tastings. When she was done, TJ was ready to present his idea. Before getting them on board, he filled them in on everything that had happened to him and Emilia after the end of their tour—their two nights in Rome, their blissful return to Pompeii, and her brutal confrontation in Dr. Roberti’s office.
“Well, fuck,” Cesca said after he’d finished setting the scene. “When I picked up Em in Ercolano, she was a wreck. She said she was leaving Italy because the Robertis fired her, but she didn’t give me the details. I figured it was bad, but not this bad.”
Davis swiped a hand through his floppy blond hair. “I’m so sorry. I liked hanging out with her, but I never intended to get her in trouble.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” TJ said. “It was that shithead Luca. He couldn’t get over the fact that she turned him down.”
“I never liked him,” Davis muttered. “He gave off stalker vibes.”
