Page 64 of Prosecco with My Professor
Emma blinks, and the voices rise as they move past the stairwell and into the ground-floor hallway. “Where?”
“I have a house in the country.”
She closes her eyes briefly and takes a deep breath. When she opens them, I get the barest of smiles—slightly nervous but mostly relieved. “Yes, okay.”
The relief echoes through my body, tamping down the overwhelming lust. “I’ll message you the details.”
“Okay,” Emma repeats.
I step back again and turn to walk away.
“Santo?” Emma calls before I get too far.
I half-turn to look back at her.
“Oliver’s going to bark again.”
“Yes, yes he is,” I agree.
33
Emma
“So let me get this straight,”Jade says, and I brace myself. It’s the day after Santo’s proposal, and I’ve just gotten home from classes, and we’re video chatting. Tessa puts a hand over her mouth to preemptively stop a giggle, and Sara coughs. “The man who gave you the best orgasm of your life wants to take you away for a weekend so he can bang your brains out because it’s too risky to bang here in the city?”
“Um, yes, well, I don’t know if that was the best orgasm of my life?—”
“That’swhat you want to argue about?”
Tessa snickers. She’s in Paris visiting Luc this week, and I’m very glad that she has her earbuds in because they are living with Luc’s elderly grandmother.
“Don’t you think there’s some recency bias here? Like surely back when Bruce?—”
“No, no. I remember many nights where you were, frankly, agog at my bedroom shenanigans. Believe me when I tell you that there’s no recency bias going on.”
“Recency bias?” Sara asks.
“Fresh memories are more important than old ones in your brain, so you focus on them,” Jade explains. “And also, he has a house somewhere?”
“Yes, in Castel Gandolfo. He texted me the address so I could send it to y’all. And since it’ll be the end of the term, I miraculously don’t have any homework.”
“Right, because homework is a good reason not to have a weekend bang-fest.”
“I have to keep my grades up! And I have to decide my concentration soon and then think about internships and?—”
“You can do all of that while still having a weekend of amazing sex, I promise you.”
“Iknow,” I say, exasperated with Jade. “That’s why I’m going to go.”
“Hey, y’all?” Sara’s voice interrupts us. “Has anyone Googled Santo?”
“No, why?” Jade’s voice is sharp and concerned. “Are there, like, articles about how he’s a serial killer who is so good he’s left no evidence behind, and no one can get him convicted?”
“How would they know he’s a serial killer if there’s no evidence?” Tessa points out.
“There’s circumstantial evidence, but not concrete evidence,” Jade says. She loves true crime podcasts and has a weird fascination with unsolved murders. I know she’s teasing, and I can hear the clacking of her keyboard as she Googles in her home office. I’m cooking dinner, so I let them do the searching for me. “Just enough for the Italian FBI to know it’s him but not enough proof to put him away for life.”
“You’re imaginative,” Sara says with fondness.
