The Bad Boy Wants Me(63)

‘Well …’ he prompts.

I smile up at him. ‘I could eat a horse.’

We walk down the pavement hand in hand until we see Fabio’s car crawling up the road towards us. We get in and twenty minutes later we are in Via Santa Radegonda. There is a long queue that snakes all the way down the street.

‘Must be something pretty special judging from the length of the queue. What is it?’

‘It’s called panzerotti. It’s a pastry triangle stuffed with all kinds of filling. You can have it fried or baked.’

We join the back of the queue with all the other tourists and residents of Milan. It moves pretty fast and soon we are inside a nondescript shop that looks more like a takeaway joint. I have the fried Nutella version and Cash orders two, the classic with tomato and mozzarella and another with salami.

Clutching our beers and greasy paper bags of panzerotti we go to the piazza where we join other people who have the same idea. We find a sunny spot and sit down to eat our pastries.

Cash takes a chunk of his panzerotti and creamy yellow mozzarella oozes out.

‘Good?’ I ask.

He licks his lips. ‘Delicious.’

I bite into mine and chew slowly. It tastes like a cross between a donut and a pizza. The dough is soft and quite sweet.

‘Do you like it?’ Cash asks.

‘Yes. Very tasty.’ I take my sweater off. The sun beats down on my head and shoulders. It feels good to be eating out in the open sunshine with Cash.

‘Have you ever been betrayed, I mean in a big way, in like Last Supper fashion?’ I ask, licking a bit of Nutella from my finger.

‘No,’ he says biting into his pastry. ‘Have you?’

I shake my head. ‘I’ve lead a pretty sheltered life. I mean, my mom and dad would not even have let me come to England if my aunt was not living here. But it’s good that someone who has been all over the world and lives the kind of big and bright life you do has never been betrayed.’

He takes a swig of his beer and looks at me expressionlessly. ‘I’ve been betrayed many times, Tori. Not in The Last Supper category, of course, but ...’

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ I say sincerely.

‘Don’t be. It comes with the territory. You want fame and fortune, then don’t expect loyal friends as well.’

I stare at him curiously. ‘Don’t you have people that you trust?’

‘I trust my dad,’ he says simply.

‘No one else?’

He looks at me solemnly. ‘I kinda trust you.’

I swallow hard. The lies I’ve told, they are not a betrayal. They are not meant to hurt him or anyone else. I can sincerely say that I will never betray him. No amount of silver or gold can ever tempt me to betray him. I blush and smile at him shyly. ‘Thank you for trusting me. I will never betray your trust.’

The way he looks at me makes me feel as if I have stepped into one of my teenage dreams. My heart quickens as I take a casual bite of my pastry.

He gives a lopsided smile. ‘A guy could fall in love with a girl like you.’

His statement is so shocking that I accidentally swallow the food in my mouth. It slides down my throat and lodges at the top of my trachea, and before I can cough it up, my windpipe closes tightly around it.

I’ve attended life saver class. That death grip is called the drowning reflex. It means if you ever fall into water, the trachea closes in to buy you a few minutes so you can get out of the water. That life-saving reflex has now kicked in and formed the perfect seal. I’ve stopped breathing because oxygen cannot get in or out of my lungs, and because there is no air to vibrate my larynx with, I can’t even make a sound.

For a few crazy seconds my first feeling is not fear but embarrassment. I’m choking. Everybody’s going to turn and look. I actually think I can try to cough it up, or surreptitiously thump my midriff.

‘What’s the matter?’ Cash asks, his eyes narrowed.

I open my mouth. Of course, nothing comes out, but black dots suddenly appear in my vision. That’s when fear and panic sets in. Someone needs to do the Heimlich maneuver right now, or I’m going to die here. In a piazza in Italy where no one knows me.

‘Christ. You’re choking,’ he rasps and, standing up, pulls me to my feet.

He wraps his arms around me, forms a fist below my sternum, and makes a series of hard and sharp (and quite frankly violent) compressions, to try and force the obstruction out.

It doesn’t work.

The lump of pastry refuses to budge. The bright day is slowly morphing into a dark narrowing tunnel. So this is what dying feels like. As my knees buckle, Cash roars in my ear, ‘Come on, Tori.’ He gives a great big heave that lifts my feet clean off the ground and makes me think my ribs are cracking.