Shocker number two.
Dad’s exact words are, “Surely, since you’re being hosted by the Prime Minister himself, you won’t get into any trouble.”
Eyeing Dante from across the room, I suddenly sense that my stay here will be very educational. But I can make no promises about not getting into trouble.
Shocker number three.
Chapter Four
The next morning, I consider my options before I even get out of bed. And this is a bed that is surprisingly uncomfortable considering that Napoleon himself once slept in it during a visit to Valese. I lay still for a moment, my arm dangling over the side.
The bed is gigantic and I briefly wonder how little ‘ol Napoleon even climbed into it at all. It’s a gigantic carved mahogany monstrosity, really. But thinking about Napoleon and his size or lack of or even the ugliness of this bed isn’t helping me decide what to do with my day.
I can tell from the cheerful sunlight streaming in my windows that it is beautiful outdoors. Although, I imagine that it’s always beautiful here in Caberra. Because of that I should do something outside, like sight-see.
Maybe.
But my problem is, what do I do about Dante? I’m a guest in his home. Am I supposed to wait until I am summoned before I leave my bedroom? Or can I just get up and search him out? This is a Capitol building so I’m pretty sure that I’m not allowed to just go poking around.
The room phone ringing from my bed stand interrupts my quandary.
“Reece?”
Dante’s voice fills my ear, husky and beautiful. Yes, beautiful. He’s a boy and he’s beautiful. It’s a fact that I am constantly reconciling myself with.
“Good morning,” I tell him. Why is my tongue instantly tied?
“Good morning.” I hear him smile through the phone as he speaks and my heart picks up. “Did I wake you?”
“No,” I answer. “I’m just laying here trying to decide what to do with my day.”
“So you’re still in bed?”
I look at the clock. It’s only 9:00am. I don’t need to lie so that I don’t seem lazy.
“Yep. But I’m getting ready to get up.”
“Perfect,” he smiles again, I just know it. “Would you like to spend the day at the beach? It’s going to be a beautiful day.”
“Are all days beautiful here?” I ask.
He laughs. “Yes. You’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto.”
I cringe. “I’ve heard that one before, you know.”
“I’m sure. So, how about it? Do you want to spend the day with me?”
More than anything, I think.
“Sounds good,” I actually say.
“Then it’s a date,” he answers. “Wear shorts and I’ll pick you up in thirty minutes.”
A date.
The line goes dead and I sit limply for just a second before I leap from the bed and fly into def-con-five-hyper-speed. I have a lot to accomplish in thirty short minutes. I have to go from looking like a rumpled farm girl who just woke up to looking like an ultra-glam, sexy siren.
It’s not happening.
It’s impossible, in fact.
I decide this twenty-eight minutes later as I stare into the mirror.
I do, and always will until the end of time, look like the girl next door. It is my curse. My eternal fate. They’re probably going to put it on my tombstone.
Here lies Reece Ellis, the cute little girl next door.
There’s nothing I can do about it. I’ve tried a thousand times to be a bombshell, but it’s just not going to work for me.
My blonde hair is a pretty color with high and low lights, but it’s not sleek and sophisticated and doesn’t even have sexy round curls by any stretch of the imagination. It’s wavy. Just wavy. Like it couldn’t make up its mind what it wanted to be. And for lack of something better or more creative, it’s clipped back in a barrette right now. My hair straightener is in my checked luggage which is still being held at Schiphol airport. I only have what I was carrying in my carry-on.
And it’s true that my eyes are a pretty blue. But they always seem to sparkle, which makes me seem young. And pair that trait with the smattering of light freckles on my nose, and I will forever be the dreaded girl next door, not a glamorous Marilyn Monroe type of girl. I sigh. Oh well. I’ll just have to resign myself to being more like Doris Day. That’s okay. There are worse things in the world, probably.
And why am I comparing myself to classic movie stars, anyway?
A knock on my door interrupts my ridiculous musings.
He’s here. Right on time. Right outside my door, actually. My heart picks up again as I open my door and then I inhale deeply, trying not to hyperventilate.
Dante is more beautiful than he was before and he practically fills my doorframe. Was he this tall yesterday? He’s wearing a pair of khaki shorts, a white t-shirt and a white button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled up.
He’s casual and smooth and sophisticated, everything that I want to be but am not. I’m a farm girl, born and raised and I have never been more aware of that fact than I am right now. I fight the urge to stuff my hands in my pockets to hide my peeling purple nail polish.
“Good morning,” Dante tells me again. His smile is radiant and dazzling and my knees literally grow weak from staring at it.
Trembly knees, much?
“Good morning,” I smile what I hope is a confident smile.
“You look lovely,” he announces, his blue eyes warm. “Did you sleep well?”
“Like a baby,” I lie.
He cocks his head and the light catches the gold in his hair.
“Do you know that saying that would actually indicate that you slept horribly? Babies wake up a million times in the night. It’s the same thing as when people say that they eat like a bird when they mean to convey that they don’t eat much. It’s not accurate. Birds actually eat half their body weight every day. They have such a high metabolism that they need all of those calories.”
I stare at him.
“Thank you, Encyclopedia Brown,” I tell him with a smile. He is a refreshing change. Where I come from, guys don’t think it’s cool to be that smart.
“Who?”
I’m astounded for a second, then remember that kids might not read the same books in Caberra as I did growing up.
“A fictional character,” I answer. “He was a kid who was super smart and solved mysteries. Never mind.”
Dante looks amused. “Do you think I’m super-smart, or are you making fun of me? American humor is sometimes lost on me.”
“I wouldn’t dream of making fun of you,” I exaggerate as I grab my purse. “Unless you do something truly hilarious.”
He looks amused again. “I’ll take that under advisement.” The corner of his lip twitches. “Just for clarification, though, how would you define ‘truly hilarious’?”
I consider that.
“Um. If your drawers fell off while speaking to the Prime Minister of Britain, maybe. That would be pretty hilarious, especially if it was televised. Or if you accidentally texted your mom a private text meant for your girlfriend. That would be hi-lar-ious too.”
Nice. I’m probing to see if he has a girlfriend and he won’t even realize it. I’m the definition of smooth operator. Not.
He rolls his eyes.
“Well, there’s a couple of problems. First, I don’t wear drawers. I wear underwear. I wear trousers. I wear pants. But drawers? You Americans and your crazy-talk.” He pauses to grin. “Second, I don’t have a mom. Or not anymore, I mean. She died when I was a baby. But even still. You seriously think those things are funny? You’re a mean-spirited little thing.”
He smiles and nudges me, but I am appalled. His mother is dead and I made a joke about him accidentally sexting her? Did I say that I was a smooth operator? Not hardly. More like WorldClassFreakingIdiot.
Before I can apologize or say anything at all, he continues.
“Now then. Are you ready for a day
on the most beautiful beach in the world?”
He smiles his gorgeous smile and I nod mutely, like the WorldClassFreakingIdiot that I am.
Dante holds his elbow out for me to take and I realize once again that boys are different here. They have manners. Real manners. Not just the “I’ll hold the obligatory door for you so that I can get into your pants later” manners like the boys do back home. I grip his elbow lightly and we wind our way through the Old Palace. I try not to act overwhelmed at its size and fanciness again today.
I’m casually aloof.
I think.
As we spill out onto the cobblestone sidewalk in front of the palace, I look around for a car.
“Did you lose something?” Dante asks in concern.
I shake my head. “I was just wondering where your car is.”
He stares at me for a second, then smiles. “We don’t need a car today. The beach isn’t far. But first, I thought we’d stop and get a gelato on the way. It’s the best in the world here, better than even Italy. You’re going to die.”
“Gelato for breakfast?” I quickly scan my memory for what gelato actually is. It’s clearly something Italian.
“Why not?” Dante shrugs. “I think we should always eat dessert first.”
So gelato is dessert. Got it. I make a mental note.
We wind our way casually along the busy sidewalks of Valese. I can’t help but notice that women literally stop what they are doing to gawk at Dante. Then they stare at me curiously, probably wondering who the heck I am. I can hear pictures being snapped and I realize that Dante is a celebrity here.
Gulp. I slightly tighten my hold on his arm.
So, to recap, Dante is a gorgeous, beautiful son of a Prime Minister who happens to be a billionaire. And these things combine to make him a local celebrity. He’s like the Caberran version of Princess William or Harry.
Good Lord.
I am so over my head here.
Breathe, I silently instruct my lungs. I suck in a mouthful of sea air. It smells really good here. Like salt, sun and…something else. I can’t put my finger on it.
“Have you ever been clam digging?” Dante asks conversationally as we cross the street. Traffic literally stops for him. We don’t even have to watch where we’re going. They are watching for us. I shake my head.
“No. I’m from the heartland of America. There are no oceans where I’m from, trust me. Just fields and fields of wheat and some sunflowers. They’re the only things hearty enough to survive the soul-sucking heat.”
“That sounds charming,” Dante laughs. “You paint a lovely picture of your home.” He speaks in Caberran to a street vendor, who scoops two scoops of fluorescent fuchsia-colored gelato into two bowls and hands them to us.
I study mine.
“I’m pretty sure ice cream isn’t supposed to be this color,” I announce to Dante.
He rolls his eyes again. “It’s gelato, not ice cream. Try it. You might faint from the sheer deliciousness. Trust me. Prepare yourself.”
He scoops a huge spoonful into his mouth and I hear more pictures being snapped of him. Dante seems oblivious to it as he stares at me, waiting for me to try the unnaturally colored ice cream.
I will never let it be said that I am a chicken so I take a tentative bite. And Dante was right. I almost swoon from the sheer deliciousness.
“Holy cow,” I breathe as I stick another huge bite into my mouth and savor the explosion of cold flavor as it melts on my tongue. It’s like a little frozen piece of fruity heaven. In my mouth.
“How have I lived seventeen years without gelato?”
Dante laughs and we continue walking, looking into quaint shop windows and dodging the people who keep stopping directly in our path to stare.
“Do you ever get tired of that?” I ask quietly as we round the side of a store and walk down a worn path toward the beautiful sandy beach. The ocean yawns huge and blue in front of us. I kneel for a quick second to pick up a perfect white seashell.
“Get tired of what?” Dante glances at me as he scrapes the bottom of his bowl with his spoon already, before tossing it into a nearby receptacle.
“That,” I motion behind us at the people still clustered in groups watching our backs. “They watch you and take pictures of you.”
“Oh, that,” he shrugs. “It’s been that way since my father was appointed PM. I guess it just comes with the territory.”
I glance over my shoulder. “Do they follow you?”
He looks pained. “Sometimes.”
But right now, they aren’t. They are still staring though, as we descend into a sand dune and out of their sight. I breathe a sigh of relief. It’s slightly unnerving to have so many people watching. I stoop down and slip my sandals off. Walking on the soft sand feels wonderful on my feet. Plus, it might exfoliate my rough soles. Bonus.
As I look around, I realize something. All of a sudden, we are alone. Truly alone. This beach is empty. It stretches out like a long, silvery ribbon and I turn to Dante.
“Where is everyone?” I ask curiously. “It’s beautiful here. Shouldn’t there be surfers out or something?”
“They don’t use this beach,” he tells me. “There are too many sharks out here by this coral reef. There are better surfing spots on the other side of the island.”
Sharks?
I freeze and Dante notices the instant fear on my face, put there as a result of seeing Jaws at a very young age. He picks up my hand and holds it, letting our adjoined hands dangle loosely between us. The jolting sensation of his skin against mine is an effective distraction.
“Don’t worry,” he assures me. “I’ll never let a shark get you. While you are here with me in Caberra, I give you my word that nothing bad will happen to you.”
Not two minutes after his promise, I step on a jellyfish.
Chapter Five
Within five minutes, my calf has swollen to five times its normal size. Apparently, I’m very allergic to jellyfish. But seriously, how would I have known this before? Being from Kansas, it has never been on my list of life experiences until now.
And now I look like I have some strange version of Elephantiasis.
And the most beautiful boy in the world is carrying me back to a bench.
And I am mortified. Utterly mortified.
Omigosh. Just kill me now.
Right now.
“Are you feeling alright?” Dante asks and his breathing is only slightly labored even though he’s been carrying me for five minutes already. I weigh 124 pounds. I am no feather. But he’s not even breaking a sweat. Impressive.
“I feel fine. Except for my leg. Why do you ask?”
But even as the words exit my mouth, I feel the waves of nausea coming on. I am instantly overwhelmed by sickness, by the uncontrollable need to vomit. Saliva pools in my mouth and I know it is coming.
“Put me down. Oh my gosh. Put me down,” I practically claw at his arms and he sets me quickly down. I drop onto my hands and knees and before I even know it, I am puking at his feet. Not on them, thankfully, but at them.
I retch until there’s nothing left in my belly. A horrible, bright fuchsia-colored vomit. Even when there is nothing left to vomit, I dry-heave over and over until I am resting limply on the sand.
And now I really want to die.
Right here.
Right now.
I can’t even bring myself to look up at Dante, but as my wits slowly return to me, I realize that he has been holding my hair back for me.
OhMyGosh.