“That sounds excessive.”
“You haven’t met my mother. Anyway, my point . . . it’s my turn,” Gio said.
“To get married?”
“Yeah.” They inched forward in line.
“You have a girlfriend?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“I’m confused.”
He looked around them, kept his voice low. “I’m not looking for just a . . . finish line. I’ve kinda sworn that off.” The words hurt to say. Especially with the way that Emma looked him up one side and down the other.
“You’ve sworn off sex?”
Gio looked behind them, smiled at the couple standing there.
“Uhm, y-yes.” He tore the word out of his lungs.
Emma rolled her eyes and took a big step forward.
“I have. I mean until I find someone I think could be the one.”
“The one.”
“You repeat my words a lot.”
“That’s because they’re bullshit,” she said, deadpan.
“I swear.” He placed a hand over his heart. “I want the house and the big family. And if I keep chasing finish lines I’m never going to get there.” Even when those lines looked like Emma.
“You’re admitting to being a player?”
He put both hands in the air. “Player is such a harsh way of looking at it.”
They cleared the door of the gelateria, and Emma started scanning the glass case.
Gio greeted the man behind the counter and ordered in Italian. The worker asked if they were together and Gio said yes.
Emma ordered in English, which the man understood, and Gio reached for his wallet.
“I got this,” he said.
“I can pay for my own ice cream.”
He shrugged. “Fine, you get the next one. It’s a long trip.”
Emma relented and accepted him paying for her frozen treat.
Gelato in hand, they walked back out into the piazza and meandered slowly back toward their hotel.
Why did simple sweet cream with bits of chocolate taste better in Italy?
“This is so good,” Emma said.
“I was thinking the same thing.”
The sight of her tongue licking the side of the tiny spoon shot a nerve down Gio’s spine.
“You’re really looking for a wife.”
“I am. I think it was turning thirty that really did it.”
Another spoonful went between her lips. They were full, someone might call them pouty.
“Your biological clock is ticking?”
“Do men have those?”
She shrugged. “Why not?”
“I guess. I want to date with purpose.”
“How very admirable of you.”
He wasn’t sure if she was teasing or serious.
Gio scooped another mouthful of gelato into his mouth, swallowed, and said, “Now that you know that, feel free to talk to me like you would our friends from San Francisco.”
“That’s a leap.”
He tapped his chest. “I’m safe. My family would vouch for me if they were here.”
“What about your best friend?” Emma gave him the side-eye.
Gio thought of Dante . . . all the trouble they used to get into. “Technically, my best friend is now family . . .”
“Yeah, but you hesitated.”
“Dante would still vouch for me.”
Emma sighed. “I don’t get a creep vibe off of you.”
He paused his steps, looked at her. “Thank you . . . I think.”
She kept walking. “But I still call bullshit on forced celibacy while you’re finding a fiancée.”
“You have a right to your own opinion.”
“When was the last time you had sex?”
Gio was pretty sure no woman had ever asked him that before.
“It’s been a-a while.”
“What is that? Two weeks? A month?”
He closed his eyes, shook his head. “Somewhere in there.” Right before his birthday, but he didn’t have to tell Emma that.
They made it to the hotel.
Emma tossed her empty cup into a trash can. “Well, Gio, you have three weeks on this tour. Let’s see how you hold up.” She patted him on the back and opened the door. “See you at breakfast.”
He let her walk away, a bit dumbfounded that the most intriguing and beautiful woman he’d met in a long time had somehow challenged him to stay celibate on his Italian vacation.
Gio lowered his hand holding the cup. “What the hell did I just do?”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Why is this so hard?” Emma looked like she wanted to throw her phone across the room once she stopped talking to the supervisor.
Nicole and Gio were staring at her.
The supervisor did speak English, they simply didn’t say what Emma wanted to hear.
“That bad?” Nicole asked.
“They are going to try and get the bag here . . . but aren’t sure if that will be tonight or tomorrow. They will call me when the driver is on his way.”
“We leave in two hours,” Gio stated the obvious.
“They won’t bring it all the way to you?”
Emma presented a comical wrinkle to her nose, something Gio thought reminded him an awful lot of his nine-year-old niece.
“No. It’s too far!”
“I can either stay here and wait for it, even though we don’t know when it will actually arrive. Or I can send it home. Not an option.” She pulled at the T-shirt bought from the last winery they’d visited. “Or, or I can keep going on the tour and when they call, rent a car, drive back, and pick it up.”
“Or we can get a rental car right now and go back to Florence and pick it up,” Gio suggested.
“Except it’s being picked up from our last hotel and will be on the van all day as the guy doing the deliveries gets everybody else’s crap to them.” Emma sucked in a breath and let out a low growl.
Gio checked himself to keep from smiling.
The growl was stupid adorable.
“Damn!” Emma’s face was turning as red as her hair.
Gio glanced at Nicole, who kept her lips shut.
“We have a what, four-hour drive today?” Gio asked for clarification.
“Probably five with the state of Jean’s bladder,” Nicole said.
The oldest of the Golden Girls did have the driver stopping more often than they expected to.
“And lunch,” Emma added.
“Right, but Claudio said it would be about four hours on the bus total.” Gio lifted his hand, showing four fingers.
Emma blew out a long-suffering breath. “Yeah.”
“It’s a complete pain in the ass, but it could be done. You’d miss all of tomorrow’s wine tasting in order to have your own clothes.”
“We’ll rent a car. It will be an adventure.” Nicole’s voice had Emma trying to smile.
“You’re right.”
They’d been standing in the lobby of the small hotel and Gio motioned toward the door. “Let’s grab some breakfast.”
“I don’t think I can eat anything,” Emma said.
“Have a cappuccino and a dolce. It’s Italy, not Texas,” he reminded her.