to clutch her stomach to settle the straining muscles within.
Luca watched her in obvious confusion. But it took several moments for Gracie to be able to gather her breath. ‘My wallet has been stolen,’ she explained.
Luca took her by the arm and did the same wild search for the culprit she had done. ‘Please, my family owns a restaurant near by; let me take you to a telephone so you can cancel your credit cards immediately.’
‘No,’ she said back to him, clasping her hand over his to draw his attention. ‘It’s OK. All the poor guy would have found is a train ticket, less than one euro in coins, a photo of my friend’s scruffy Maltese terrier, Minky, a couple of cappuccino receipts and a video rental card. My fortune is stowed back at my hostel.’ Her remaining fortune consisting of some laundry that was overdue for a wash.
‘Your passport?’
Gracie slapped her thigh. ‘Tucked away in a hidden pouch with my airline ticket. Thanks to my clever friend Cara from back home, who expected nothing less from me than having my wallet stolen.’
Gracie’s body shook with the last of her dog-tired laughter. Luca took her hand; his palm felt so warm and strong and steady it made her feel suddenly weak in comparison. If she didn’t eat, and soon, she would likely not make it back to the hostel.
‘I was serious about the restaurant near by,’ Luca said, as though reading her mind. ‘I was about to take Mila for some lunch. I would be honoured if you would join us as our guest.’
Gracie’s mouth dropped open. She was ready to say no; she knew she should say no. She had to get back to the hostel to phone the airline, to call Cara for a lift from the airport when she got back to Melbourne and to scrounge up money from her fellow backpackers for a replacement train ticket. But she was starving. She hadn’t had anything more substantial than a cappuccino all day.
‘Come with us. Please,’ Luca insisted, his voice warm and encouraging, his smile even more so. ‘Let me buy you lunch.’ He shrugged his coat higher on his shoulders. ‘And soon. I fear I am beginning to get rather wet.’
He was right. The rain was coming down harder.
‘OK,’ she said, looking to the heavens. ‘I guess someone else made the decision for me. Thank you.’
Luca nodded, his dark eyes still upon her, and only then did he let go of her arm, his hand slipping away, leaving a tantalising trail of warmth where his sure fingers had been. Mila brought Gracie back to the present by chattering away to her father in staccato Italian.
‘Yes,’ he answered in English for Gracie’s benefit. ‘I am hungry too, as is Gracie. So we are going for lunch together.’
‘Yippee!’ the little girl squealed, pirouetting like a ballerina on the end of her father’s hand before pulling him away from the fountain and towards lunch.
As they wound their way through the ever-evolving crowd, Gracie caught Neptune’s eye and thought for one curious moment that he had a smile on his face that had not been there before.
Gracie shook the rain from her navy hooded jacket and Luca from his immaculate black coat as they ran the last few steps into the loud and busy trattoria. Several customers drank their espressos standing at the serving counter, thus saving themselves the exaggerated price of a drink-in coffee, but Luca showed Gracie to a booth deep inside the cosy restaurant.
Pictures of an Italian movie star Gracie could not put a name to lined the walls, and a television tucked high in the corner played the Italian version of an American reality TV show. It only reminded her how disjointed she felt so far from home; everything was at once familiar but just out of reach.
‘Your family owns this place?’ Gracie asked as Luca helped her remove her utilitarian jacket then hung it over a hook on the wall.
‘My late wife’s uncle, actually.’
Gracie remembered Mila saying her mother was in heaven and it felt cosmically unfair that the perfect man had lost his perfect wife.
She didn’t quite know what to say. She knew what it was like to be on the receiving end of constant sympathy and thus had no intention of bestowing the same. It was half the reason she had come to Italy, to distance herself from the burden relentless pity had brought into her life.
Before Gracie gave in to the overwhelming urge to regurgitate the fairly useless ‘there, there’, a large man in a tomato-splattered apron hastened to their table carrying a bottle of Chianti and two wine glasses. He placed them on the table before gathering Luca in a bear hug and bubbling away in effusive Italian. Gracie had the feeling they had not seen each other in some time; Luca’s cheeks even reddened under the obvious chastisement from the older man.
When he had finished berating Luca, he descended upon Mila, lifting her from the ground and hugging the life out of her. She finally wriggled free of his grasp and tumbled over Luca’s knees until she was safely ensconced between her father and the wall.
‘Gracie,’ Luca said, ‘this is Giovanni. Mila’s great-uncle. Giovanni, this is Gracie. She is from Australia, though she is half-Italian.’ He offered her a wink with his last comment and she could not help but smile.
The elder man blew Gracie an air-kiss and gabbled in Italian. She picked out enough words she recognised to know she was being favourably compared with Venus, the Roman goddess of love.
She tried to hide her snort of laughter behind a measured sip of the undemanding red wine, but Luca was too quick for her.
‘You understood that, I see. It seems your Italian is selective.’
‘Hmm,’ Gracie said as Giovanni left with their orders. ‘I did the Spanish Steps in my first week here, and I tell you, there I heard some things. The boys who trawl that place could make a packet writing Valentine’s Day cards. But, as compliments went, Giovanni’s was lovely.’
‘And yet not far off the mark,’ Luca insisted.
Gracie felt the same unusual warmth envelop her again.
‘Please,’ Gracie scoffed. She leant her chin on her palm. ‘You know what I think it is? Italian men are born with a flattering gene that missed Australian men altogether. Think Romeo. Think Rudy Valentino. Since landing in Rome, I have been approached and asked on a date at least once a day. It’s ridiculous. In my tatty old jacket and beanie hat, I am surprised they could even tell I was female!’
Luca’s eminently male mouth kicked up at one corner. ‘Ah, but that is the thing about we Italians—we have always been able to appreciate a work of art.’
Gracie knew from the twinkle in Luca’s eyes that he was baiting her, but her blush insisted on sticking around. ‘Please, stop it!’ she insisted. Then said, ‘But who am I kidding? I don’t think you could stop it if you tried. You are flirting machines.’
‘You are very pretty,’ Mila said to Gracie from out of the blue.
Luca laughed aloud, the sound deep and resonant and utterly infectious. ‘See!’ he said. ‘It’s an empirical reality.’
‘It’s a sickness,’ Gracie insisted.
Mila crawled over Luca’s lap, rounded the table and plopped herself onto Gracie’s lap,
