Italian Kisses: A Billionaire Love Story Part 13

It wouldn't be good if I ended up sitting in my seat near the end of the lecture sweating bullets.

My nerves died when the lecture started. As usual, Dr. Aretino stuck to his normal style of the dynamic discussion, presenting us with slides and facts, posing questions, allowing the students to interject and to argue with him on points.

It was rather like that lecture I'd had with him after Liam's secretary had told me the truth. I'd studied well, and I knew everything Dr. Aretino touched on. I made sure to add what I could, to answer his questions when he posed them.

By the end, even I felt impressed with my performance. This is in the bag! I thought.

We reached that restless point about ten minutes before cla.s.s ended. That point where even the professor notices the clock and becomes eager for the ordeal to reach its conclusion.

Other students began packing away their texts and notebooks. I rifled through my clipboard until I reached my neatly-typed list. And then I had to fight to keep my hands off it. I knew it shouldn't be crumpled or creased when I handed it to him.

"Dr. Aretino," I said, approaching the lectern while he flicked the locks on his briefcase open.

"Emma, yes?" he said.

Something was different. Something that set my heart racing and tickled the nerves at the base of my spine.

"Do you have a few minutes? I have something I'd like you to look at."

"Yes, yes. I will see it."

He didn't tell me to call him Giuseppe, I realized. But that wasn't it. He seemed eager to leave. Usually every other cla.s.s he demanded I stay and talk to him.

Feeling considerably less confident than before, I handed him the piece of paper. "This is the list I was talking about. I wrote down 10 ideas for extra credit a.s.signments. I was hoping maybe you could approve one or two. I can have them all to you by..."

He waved a dismissive hand at me after glancing at the list. "These are no good."

If I'd had lead in my wings before this, his words sheared through them and left me plummeting towards the ground, vainly flapping my arms.

"Oh. Well, I can think of a few more possibilities. Or maybe there are other a.s.signments you have in mind?"

"No."

"But if you just give me a chance. You saw how well I did during the lecture..."

Dr. Aretino slammed his briefcase shut. "All of your grades are slipping, Emma. I know; I have spoken with the rest of the faculty. You cannot save your grades now. Not without my help."

My gorge started rising. That paper should have been an easy A. "You talked to them? Or you told them to lower my marks?"

Dr. Aretino shrugged, the corners of his mouth drooping. "I don't know what you mean."

His eyes lied, though. The look in them, the way they glinted and flashed, told me that it was a lie.

A cold sensation crept through me, starting in the pit of my stomach and slowly working its way up my innards.

He saw the realization spread across my face. "You know I will always help you."

"If I pay your price."

Another shrug. "It is not so much, is it, really?"

I couldn't take any more of this. Crumpling the list into a ball, I tossed it into the bin beside the lectern. Then I went for the doors.

Dr. Aretino's voice stopped me. "The exchange program board will review your progress in two weeks. If there is no improvement, you will be asked to leave the program. They will also revoke your student visa. You will have to leave Italy."

Then I ran from the lecture hall. Straight to the women's restroom where I splashed cold water on my face until my cheeks went numb and the pressure behind my eyes faded to a dull ache.

Two weeks, I kept thinking. What can I possibly do with only two weeks?

It took me fifteen minutes to get home after that. There, I sat on my creaky bed and let my messenger bag slide off my arm.

Two weeks.

Dr. Aretino knew he had me. I had two choices. I could give in, give him what he wanted. Which in this case was me. Or I could accept the review board's judgment, tuck my tail up between my legs, and run back to Missouri and the tatters of my life that I'd left behind there.

A mirthless smile spread across my lips when I realized a cruel irony. Wasn't it only a little more than two weeks ago that I wanted nothing less than to leave this ancient city behind?

And now that I wanted to stay, they wanted me to leave.

I'd finally begun to reconcile with my grief over my father, with my guilt over the money he'd given me to come here, to not make it so that it was given in vain. And now he may as well have burned that cash for warmth for all the good it did me.

Except for Liam, I thought, I wouldn't have met Liam if not for coming here. Except that multiplied the guilt. I'd have to tell him I'd be leaving the country soon, and why.

It was one of those times when your brain just doesn't want to deal with anything. Just shut down for a few blissful hours to remove your consciousness from reality, at least for a little while.

My lead-weighted eyelids started drooping shut. The thin, worn out pillows on the bed beckoned.

Normally I liked to pull my hair into a quick ponytail before sleeping. But this wasn't normal. My head hit the pillow and I waited for sleep to pull me away.

But then Liam knocked once on the door and came in. My heart lurched; I'd forgotten he'd be coming by.

"Hey, I hope you've been in suspense all day, because..." he started, smiling. The smile fell from his face when he saw me. "What is it? Tell me."

The bed groaned again when he sat beside me.

I started telling him, but then I cut myself off. An embarra.s.sed heat rushed up my neck. I wanted to Liam to think I was smart, a good student. A success in my field just like he was a success in his. What would he think of me if he knew that I'd just been put on defacto academic probation, and that my days in Rome were numbered?

He took my hand in both of his and squeezed it gently, surrounding me with the warmth of his palms.

"Don't clam up on me again."

Finally I nodded. I told him the whole story. He'd gleaned parts of it himself. He'd known about Dr. Aretino's interest in me since the night of the fundraiser. He hadn't, however, suspected that interest had blossomed as it had.

His expression tightened as I told him, his fingers squeezing my hand tighter. I finished with getting back to my flat. "And that's when you knocked on the door."

"That has to be illegal. Against school regulations. Something..."

I braced myself, waiting for him to offer to do something for me. Lately everyone wanted to intervene on my behalf, it seemed.

Liam's eyes searched for the answer in my tiny flat, as though my laptop or the text on paintings of the Italian Renaissance beside it could solve my problem.

"The dean," he said, "Go to the dean. Aretino will be out on his a.s.s before he can say, 'Leonardo.'"

"That might have worked before, when it was only him. But now that he's got my other professors in on it, the dean would probably just think I'm crying s.e.xual hara.s.sment to fix my grades."

In this battle of he-said, she-said the He side would definitely be the victor.

Then I saw it in his face, that desire to help me, to fix all my problems for me. Money could solve any problem, provided you threw enough at it.

However, he swallowed the words back down. He knew I wouldn't accept the help.

"What will you do?" he asked.

I shrugged, tried to look like it wasn't a big deal. "I guess I'll be on my way back to St. Louis in two weeks."

I tried smiling, but my lips started trembling. A combination of anger, frustration, and despair pushed hard against the back of my eyes.

Liam pulled me close just as the first hot tear streaked down the curve of my cheek. "Your jacket!" I said, trying to pull away. I didn't want to ruin his expensive suit.

"I don't care about the suit," he replied, pulling me close again. The silk absorbed that tear, the next, and the ones after that. "You know I'll help. All you have to do is ask."

"I know."

"You also know that I'll be on the first plane to St. Louis after you."

I couldn't help but laugh at that. There was something funny in that. That image of the ultra-rich, ultra-successful man chasing after the girl who couldn't even get pa.s.sing marks in an art history program, a bird course.

Except that Dr. Aretino had clipped my wings. Clipped them right from my wing bones with no chance to grow back.

"It's not funny. I mean it," Liam said. Then he drew my face away from his chest, plunged his hands into my hair so that he could tilt my head back, and kissed me.

I tasted the saltiness of my tears, knowing he could too.

When we parted, he run the pads of his thumbs gently over my cheeks, brus.h.i.+ng away the moisture.

"So I imagine that you've completely forgotten about that surprise I hinted at earlier?"

Mostly I couldn't stop thinking about how puffed up my eyes had to be, how red my cheeks were. Or the dark, irregularly shaped smudge my tears had left on his jacket.

"Is it a time machine so that I can go back to the beginning of the semester and drop Dr. Aretino's course?"

That got me a crooked smile. "Unfortunately, no. But I think it will take your mind off things for the rest of the evening. You can start thinking up a solution tomorrow."

A distraction? I could use one of those. "What is it?"

That crooked smile grew, and mischief flashed in his eyes. "If you want to know, you'll have to come with me."

"Then I suppose I have no choice but to stay here."

That earned me a couple confused blinks. Then the other side of his mouth quirked up, completing the smile. "Funny."

"I thought so. So, what is it?"

Chapter 11.

"This is incredible! I didn't even know you could do this!" I said.

My worries had receded to the back of my mind. They were still there, pressing against the envelope of conscious thought, but not quite able to sneak through.

Every now and then I'd feel their impression, and my guts started twisting up with the anxiety. But I found that if I concentrated on being in the present moment, being with Liam, managed to fight those sensations back again.

And how could anyone be anything but in the present with what surrounded me?

We'd driven over the Tiber river, the s.h.i.+fting water glittering below us. We'd rolled the windows down again, letting the city air flow through the cab of the grey BMW.

I'd closed my eyes, feeling the way the wind washed through my hair, making it stream back in golden waves over the headrest.

We arrived at our destination, which was a large square not far from the Vatican hill. I could see the pale domes of those palaces rising over the low buildings surrounding the square.

Water burbled from the upended basins held by twin cherubs that were the centerpiece of the modest fountain in the center of the square. The never-ending tinkle of water underscored all the other activity going on around it.

Specifically, the four hot air balloons and their accompanying trucks and trailers. Swarthy Italians swarmed the balloons, inflating them slowly with helium. All four were patterned after the Italian flag, green at the top, then white in the middle, and finally a ring of red around the bottom.

The buckets were larger than I thought. Like giant, uncovered wicker picnic baskets. I guess it shouldn't have been so surprising, since I'd never been so close to one before. I'd only ever seen hot air balloons drifting around through the sky.

"What do you think?" Liam asked. Even though we'd arrived late, they still weren't set up. Apparently even billionaires had to wait sometimes. We leaned against the side of the BMW.

"They're beautiful," I said, watching the balloon closest to us slowly lift off the ground and begin a.s.suming its final shape. It reminded me of a light bulb, the bulge at the top tapering down to a narrow neck that the operator could use to heat the balloon using the large burners mounted beneath.

There was something majestic about the balloons, something graceful and gentle.

The slowly fading sunlight helped with that, too. The dusky light made everything ethereal and timeless. As though everything around us had its own internal glow.

"I know you can just bring up a satellite image of the city," Liam said, "But it's not the same as when you're literally floating above it, looking down."

As the balloons filled, the men crewing them kept them anch.o.r.ed to the ground using bags of sand tied to ropes.

The balloons jerked against this resistance now and again, like animals becoming testy with their bonds, impatient for the freedom afforded by the open sky.

And that made me notice the sky. It had darkened from its afternoon blue to a purplish shade, a few thin streamers of cloud so high they hardly seemed to move topping it off.