“Tell me.”
He angled us toward a semideserted corner. “Catalunya.”
It’s incredible how one word can evoke so many memories when said by the right person.
Hearing Marcello whisper it took on an entirely different meaning. “The museum. That was a magnificent structure. I remember the Romanesque frescoes well. Have you been back?”
I was going for casual but it sounded overeager—but with good reason. The Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya held so much significance for us. It was the spot of our first official date in Barcelona.
He shook his head. “Someday . . .” Let’s go now, I thought, mentally calculating the distance by train.
A waiter breezed by, bumping Marcello’s shoulder and pushing us together. His hand slipped to my side, his thumb smoothing the fabric of my skirt at my hip.
His eyes swept the length of me; maybe he paid special attention to the cut of my blouse. It was fitted, but not too come hither.
“I wonder,” he said, leaning back against the wall. What was he up to? “Would you like a tour?”
“A tour?”
He nodded. “See the work that we’ve done? That you’ve done?”
“The vase?”
“It is here,” he replied.
I looked around, seeing Daisy still caught up with patrons, playing the part of lead architect and project manager. I saw dozens of people milling about, sipping champagne, tasting tiny treats, enjoying the party. I looked over his shoulder, around the corner where he was now headed, looking back at me questioningly.
There was no party in the direction he was headed. Not another soul.
“Lead the way.”
* * *
“DAISY WAS THE LEAD on this,” Marcello explained as he headed down the narrow hallway, our steps leading down across the ever-sloping cobblestones, deeper into what was originally a monastery. The farther we went, the more narrow the corridor, the closer we got. “It is beautiful, yes?”
“Beautiful, yes,” I agreed. I was trying so very hard to look at impeccable woodwork, the pristine condition of the ancient stone walls, but all I could see were his fingers trailing along those walls and that woodwork. All I could think was what those hands would look like on my body, what they had looked like on my body, once upon a time. A nervous laugh bubbled up, and I pretended to cough. I couldn’t get my bearings around him.
I could feel his eyes on me. Moving over my face, skimming over my body, which was already beginning to show the effects of an entirely carb-based diet. Here, that didn’t matter. Here, men loved curves. I remembered how much Marcello had loved mine, my semester in Spain adding at least fifteen pounds. When I came home, Daniel had lightly suggested I start taking spin classes at the BU gym.
Marcello stepped closer, standing right in front of me. My heart beat harder.
“Do you want to see it?” He leaned in again, his body nearly flush with mine.
“What?” I sputtered, nearly choking on my champagne.
“Your vase. I will show you. Vieni qui. Follow me.”
“Right. Sure,” I mumbled, following blindly behind him, praying for a cool breeze.
We reached an ancient archway with painted vines that twisted and turned up the sides and across the plaster. Down here it was still old Rome. And now, in this space that was so ancient and so beautiful, I was finally in my element, and even the sight of Marcello couldn’t take my eyes from the beauty of all this . . . antiquity. To me, even old, cracked walls were masterpieces here. Who had crafted these, how long had it taken? What had they been thinking about when they built this hundreds of years ago, often with bare hands and limited tools? Those kinds of things had always fascinated me.
I could see how strongly Daisy’s team tried to preserve the original structure and design of the building while bringing in the new features. What was incredible was how they merged the old and new together so seamlessly. I had trouble spotting which was which.
I circled the room, taking in the colors, trying to decipher the story from the wall art. The old, musty smell filled me with memories of Barcelona, where the two of us had explored museums and churches and structures like this. Since seeing Marcello again, nearly everything was bringing up a memory.
Walking hand in hand down a Barcelona street as we laughed. Sitting in countless cafés as he patiently tried to teach me Italian. On my tiny bed, curled around each other with the sun slanting across our naked bodies.
I turned, looking for Marcello, and found him leaning casually against a wall, studying me. His arms were crossed over his broad chest and the knowing smirk was back, along with that sexy, knee-buckling grin that had me immediately scouting for available horizontal surfaces.
“What are you looking at?” I asked, feeling the blood fly to my cheeks.
“Nothing,” he said, pushing off the wall. “Everything.” He circled me like prey in the jungle. “You,” he said with an honesty so bare that my hand flew to my neck, where I knew my skin was now flushed.
I was aware of every step he took; I could feel him as he walked around me. Having seen, touched, and tasted every inch of this man, I knew what I was dealing with. His voice was dark, husky, and goddamn it washed over me in the best possible way.
Reaching out, he took my hand in his. “Come,” he said roughly. He cleared his throat and led the way out of the antechamber and into another small room that was blocked off with velvet queue ropes and a sign in Italian that I assumed meant barred entry, but that Marcello ignored.
He lifted a leg and hopped over the rope. Turning, he held a hand out for me.