Italian Kisses: A Billionaire Love Story(12)

"Not quite. So, where are we going?"

He shrugged a mysterious shrug and then started up one of Rome's prominent hills.

It wasn't long before the marble-columned facade of the Pantheon rose up, as if it had grown from the ground itself fully formed.

"Oh!" I said, unable to keep the gasp entirely to myself.

He pulled the BMW into a visitor parking lot and we made our way into the square in front of the ancient building. It wasn't exactly tourist season—it was a little too late in the year for that—but there were still a fair number of people milling about in that stone square.

Even from the other side, I could make out the letters hewn into the marble facade. "'Marcus Agrippa built this when he was consul for the third time,'" I said, almost inaudibly. A little shiver ran up my back, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand. I couldn't believe I was actually there.

"You read Latin?" he asked.

"A little," I said. It dovetailed pretty well with Italian to the point where if you puzzled over it for a bit you could figure it out.

"I'm impressed."

Almost unconsciously, I reached out and took Liam's hand.

"We can go inside, you know," he said.

I realized I'd been standing rooted to the spot at the end of the square for far too long. We went and passed the large fountain out in front of the main doors. And then we were in the rotunda. It was massive. The weight of history pressed down in the hundreds of tons of concrete making up the overhead dome. I could almost feel it on my shoulders.

"I get that every time I come here," Liam said.

I remembered then when he spoke about how he loved the history in the city, how it helped put his life in perspective. I could see why, now. How could anything I ever do compare to a place like that?

He led me around eagerly, taking me from one statue to the next, pointing out frescoes and paintings.

I had to say, I was impressed. I'd still been having the suspicions that this was all some big con to sleep with me again. That suspicion disappeared, changing into one that wondered how Liam came to know all this.

I spent almost as much time looking at him out of the corner of my eye as I did looking at the history around me.

More than once, I caught him looking at me, too. Our eyes would touch and then dart away from each other like when you forced the same pole of two magnets together.

"Raphael is buried here," I said, remembering something I'd read in my research.

Raphael, who'd left his studio to Giulio Romano. Who I was currently writing a paper about.

"Aha!" I said.

"Hmm?" Liam replied.

"Nothing," I continued, embarrassed that I'd said that out loud.

"No, really, tell me. I want to know."

"It's nothing... I'm just writing a paper on one of Raphael's students, and I sort of justified going out with you as a research trip."

Liam snorted, "I thought maybe it was something like that."

"You and your superpower again? Reading people and all that?"

"Hey, if you've got it, flaunt it, right?"

We spent maybe another fifteen minutes there, just taking it in. Having Liam there to share it with somehow made it more special. Knowing I wasn't alone in this strange land made it special.

Although my favorite part was when he pulled me into a quiet alcove and kissed me. It felt secret, clandestine. Tourists wandered around just a few feet away, oblivious to the two people who couldn't keep their hands off each other.

"Is this a tour of the city, or are you trying to take a tour of me?" I said before kissing the cleft in his chin I liked so much.

"Can't it be both?" he replied, putting a finger beneath my chin and tilting my head back so that he could kiss me some more.

Every nerve and fiber came alive at his touch. Who needed Mr. Drayton the art teacher's exercise when I had Liam's soft and warm lips to pull me into the present moment?

Of course, the problem with moments is that they come to an end. No matter how you try and hold onto them.

We both sensed that if we didn't quit now, we'd have to change the rating from PG-13 to R. Even so, it ached inside when we parted.

Drawing in a deep, shuddering breath in an attempt to calm the fires inside, I blew it out through pursed lips. "Wow."

Even in the shadows of the alcove, I could see Liam's jaw working, see the way he fought to regain some sense of control and composure over himself.

Although, I had to admit that I really wanted to see him lose control.

He took my hand and led me back out into the rotunda proper, back out under that dome and the hole in its center that looked like nothing except a great iris in the sky looking down at all the tiny mortals that dared pass beneath it.

"That's called the oculus," I said, Liam following my gaze.

"You seem pretty familiar with a lot of this already. Did you learn all this from school?"

"No," I smiled, my eyes still wandering over all this beauty that Liam showed me, "I've always wanted to visit Rome, actually, ever since I can remember. I used to read books and magazines..."

And I had so many of those books and magazines and documentaries. All cherished gifts and belongings. Except now their memory did nothing except send me on a downward spiral.

"Then this must be a dream come true, being here, actually seeing all of this in living color instead of in a glossy magazine spread?"

My shoulders slumped a little at that, and a sudden and intense sadness welled up from the pit of my stomach in a cold wave. "You'd think so, wouldn't you?" I said, barely a whisper.

My eyes drifted down until they came to rest on the polished marble floor. I am such a downer! I could practically feel my psyche scrambling for some sort of purchase as my mind slipped into that terrible and familiar rut.

Sensing my sudden change in mood, Liam gave my hand a reassuring squeeze. "What is it? Something's wrong."

The concern I noted in his voice pulled me from my sudden and unexpected slump. "Nothing, just something reminded me of some stuff I don't like to think about."

Liam studied me, waiting for more. I realized that I wanted to tell him more, that I wanted to tell him everything. Except I couldn't. Just thinking of putting my thoughts and feelings into words shoved a lump the size and weight of a bowling ball up my throat.

He somehow saw that, too, and thankfully chose not to press me for more information.

"I think we've seen enough of this place. It's been here a couple thousand years. It'll still be here when you want to see it again..." Before he could say anymore, his phone started buzzing in his pocket.

Taking it out, he glanced at the screen and then thumbed the button to send it to voicemail. I detected a slight frown before he smoothed out his expression.

A wave of guilt replaced the sadness in my gut. "You know, you don't have to do this. I don't want to mess up your job or anything." He was here for business, not for me. And no matter how much I wanted to spend time with him, I knew he had priorities ranked higher on his list than me.

"Again with this!" he said, tugging me along across the rotunda, heading towards the twenty foot tall double doors and the daylight spilling in through them, "I know I don't have to do this. I want to, though. There's a difference. If you're always doing what you think you have to, you never get to do what you want to."

That helped with the guilt. A little, at least. It also gave me a warm sensation that spread out over my stomach. Very few people had ever put me ahead of anything else in their life.

"So what's next?"

It turned out that the Capitoline Hill and its various museums were next. And it was such a beautiful day to see everything. The warm sunlight leant the bronze and marble a living heat and vitality not normally found in their cold and inert natures.

And Liam looked good, too, of course. Though I suspected he'd look good under any light.

We wandered the halls, looking at this fresco or that while I told him about how Michelangelo had designed the whole space.

Finally, we went out into the main square, the two of us holding hands and smiling like we were just another happy couple on vacation in the city of romance.

We stopped and looked up at the large bronze statue in the middle of the square. Its plinth sat in the center of a starburst laid out on the ground. The statue itself was of a wise-looking bearded man sat atop a horse, staring with unblinking eyes into infinity.

Of course, I knew all about it. And I started to explain it, but Liam interrupted me.

"It's Marcus Aurelius," he said. The way he looked at it told me this wasn't the first time he'd laid eyes on it. I got the impression that he'd come here often, trying to glean some sort of meaning from the statue of a man many considered the greatest example of a philosopher king.

"But that's not what's interesting about it..." I started again, bursting with desire to preen beneath his approving eyes when I revealed what I knew about this particular piece of art.

"No, what's interesting is that it's a total fluke that this statue exists at all. It only exists because people thought it was a statue of Constantine the Great. Otherwise it would have been destroyed along with all the other pagan artifacts back then. He only exists because people thought he was someone he wasn't."

"Also," I said, the words threatening to explode inside me if I didn't get them out, "This one's just a copy. The real one is getting restored."

"Yeah," Liam replied, his eyes taking on the look of the statue's, staring off into some great distance, his voice equally far away.