She laughed again. “I’ll do it. I love you, Liam, thank you for being such a good friend.”
“Good? What do you mean good? I’m your best friend!” he teased her. They said goodbye and she hung up her phone feeling better and stronger. She watched the waves rolling in still, and the colors of everything around her began to change as the sun started to set. A half moon started to rise up out of the sea, watching her with a little half smile, and she knew that Liam was right. When she got back to New York, she was going to tell Alexander how she felt, because she had nothing to lose and everything to gain. Even if they could just be friends, it would be something, and something was better than the misery she was in.
She pushed herself up from the stony beach and walked back to the bed and breakfast. It was almost time for dinner and she needed to freshen herself up for her dinner with Paolo, Marco, and Isabella.
Two hours later, she was walked out onto the balcony where dinner would be served. Marco greeted her and kissed her cheeks; one kiss on each side of her face as he embraced her lightly. He smiled at her and turned to introduce her to a tall handsome young man who was standing nearby. Paolo had big dark eyes, olive toned skin, and he looked fit and healthy. His black hair was curled loosely around his face, giving him a sort of boyish look, but one that was only hinted at, as if he had outgrown it but it wasn’t fully gone. He gave her a broad smile and reached to embrace her, kissing her cheeks just as Marco had done moments before.
She reminded herself that the Italian culture was a much warmer one that the culture of personal space that was so prevalent in New York. She smiled up at him and introduced herself.
“Ciao, I’m Mia,” she said with a sweet smile.
He smiled back and reached for her hand, lifting it to his lips to kiss it. “Ciao bella,” he said with a wink. “I’m very happy to meet you, but I’m sorry that my English is not very good.” He shrugged and looked at her with a sheepish smile.
He was cute, she thought, and he might be a fun distraction for her while she was there. Isabella may know what she was talking about after all. “Your English is really good!” she told him with a grin. “I just wish I spoke more Italian, but maybe you can teach me some Italian, and I can teach you some English,” she suggested, and he nodded enthusiastically.
“I would love that!” he told her with a grin.
They sat down to dinner and the four of them talked about where she was from and what New York was like, and they answered her questions about the village and its history, and the way of their lives there beside the sea, nestled into the mountain. They told her all of the best places to go along the coast and Paolo offered to take her out on his boat to see the coastline from the water, which he told her was infinitely better than seeing it from the shore. She agreed and they ate and drank long into the night, taking their time getting to know each other, and for the first time since she had set foot in Italy, she became so engrossed in what she was doing and who she was with that she forgot about Alexander for a short time, and she found some of the peace that she was looking for.
He returned to her thoughts as she was getting ready for bed, and as her head sunk down into the pillow, he was again in her mind and in her dreams, until the bright warm Italian sunshine woke her up in the morning and she remembered that Paolo was going to take her out on the sea in his boat.
The Final Chapter
Paolo was ready and waiting for her as soon as she finished her breakfast with Marco and Isabella. He looked good in his loose white button up shirt and his jeans, and as she went to him and kissed his cheeks in greeting, she knew that she was going to have a fun day, and that perhaps there was a chance that she might be able to get another few hours of peace when Alexander wasn’t on her mind.
He took her out into his boat and they pushed off from the shore where several of his friends were. All of them looked at her appreciatively and spoke to him in Italian, and she could see that they were teasing him and congratulating him on getting such a pretty lady into his boat. He took the teasing well, laughing with them, and waved them off.
Mia tilted her head and looked at him curiously as they drifted further from the men on the shore. “What did they say when we were leaving?” she asked lightly.
He blushed and looked down with a grin on his face as he steered the boat into the waves. “Oh… they say I am too lucky to have such a beautiful woman with me, and that I better bring you back.”
She laughed and he shook his head in mirth. He took her all around the coastal area, showing her the little villages that dotted the shoreline, from the island of Capri to Amalfi and Ravello, and then they stopped at a little hidden cove where they went ashore to the beach and had a picnic lunch that Marco and Isabella had sent with her for the two of them.