After catching her husband ‘in flagrante delicto’ with his secretary, Avery Bardot flees to Rome, Italy to lick her wounds and spend the summer with her best friend…only to come face to face on her very first day there with ‘the one who got away’, a man she has not seen for almost a decade. And he is not too happy to see her. My blogger sister Vilma Iris and I are so excited to share with you one of our favourite scenes from the upcoming novel Roman Crazy, a delightful story of second chances at love and at living life to the fullest.
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Excerpt
He’d brought us to St. Peter’s Square.
I was never very religious. We went to church when I was a kid, because it’s what you did for the social aspect. Same reason I went with Daniel. You dressed in your best and brunched with the worst. Nothing about it had to do with the church.
Here you felt . . .I don’t know . . .I won’t pretend it was some sort of divine presence—or maybe it was. Whatever was happening made me feel something. It was the art in my bones, the history I’d studied for so long hunched over long wooden library desks in the fading light. Seeing it in person was some- thing altogether different. Magnificent.
“Come.” He nudged me, holding out his arm for me to take. Such an old-fashioned gesture, but for him, it t. He led us to a gap in the queue rope where a flood of people were streaming through and I stopped, mouth agape, with a nearly crippling need to sketch it.
I didn’t know where to look First. The tall, noble pillars that circled the wall above us. e huge majestic statues lining the top like sentries guarding their little city. We walked around the square, my phone filled with photo after photo. I spun, trying to memorize every inch of it, but there was too much. As if he knew what I was thinking, Marcello placed his hand on my back and guided me to one of the black folding chairs.
“You know the way here now, so you can come back. Bring your chalks or pencils, make it your own.”
He was beaming, handsome, and my heart ipped.
“I feel like I could sit here for weeks and not capture a frac- tion of the beauty of this place.”
“I hope to see them when you have finished. I’ve missed your work.”
We didn’t chat at all once we left St. Peter’s. By the time we reached home, night had swallowed up the city in a magnificent navy hue. I was lost in thought, contemplating all the things I’d seen on our walk, and all the places I’d still yet to visit. Walking with him tonight really drove home how compact this city was. You could see a dozen landmarks in just a few miles.
On our way home, Marcello seemed to be getting text after text on his phone. He apologized several times, and I tried not to think about who might be blowing up his phone. We’d yet to talk about Simone, the woman he’d been sitting with (and kissing) the night I’d arrived in Rome. Was she still in the picture? How serious were they? Should he be out on the town with me? With my heart full of joy and my head full of questions, we climbed the stairs to the apartment.
I turned, and Marcello was right behind me. Close enough that I could feel the fabric of his shirt on my bare arms. So many of our early dates in Spain had ended this way, him looking over my shoulder at my door, wondering whether he’d be invited in. I thought about Daisy’s note. He technically wasn’t a boy . . . would I ask him inside?
“Today, well today was perfect,” I said. “Thank you for showing me some of your Rome.”
“This makes me happy, to know you liked seeing my city.”
I knew he was telling the truth. He’d always liked to make me happy, to nd out what I liked, and what I loved. Emboldened, I looked up at him. “I’m thinking right now of something I’d like.”
His eyes changed instantly, I held my breath, turning my lips up in silent answer.
He cupped my face and lowered his mouth to each of my cheeks.
“I was thinking somewhere else,” I admitted, licking my lips when his eyes flickered to my mouth.
“I’m afraid if I kiss you the way I want to, I won’t stop.”
I nodded, not quite agreeing, but unable to say the words that would give him the okay, the “let’s make this real again.”
“Good night, Avery.” Marcello held my eyes as he walked down the steps.
I thought back to each time today when he almost or I almost. When we were crushed together in the crowd outside the Colosseum. When he wrapped his arm around me as we walked along the Tiber. And the night before, when he’d picked me up as though I weighed nothing to lift me over the velvet rope and I almost let him kiss me the way I was desperate for him too.
And I hadn’t let him.
“Marcello,” I whispered, not loud enough that I thought he’d hear me.
Oh, but he did. And in three strides he was back up the stairs.
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Thank you this was great