“That’s just incredible,” she breathed as we came in for our approach. Her hand reached over the divider between our seats to seek mine out. She wrapped her fingers around mine and tightened her grip, her nose still up against the small window. “Thank you for bringing me.”
“Anytime.” I turned my hand in hers so our palms fit together, then leaned over to look out of the same window. I’d landed here plenty of times before, but being here with Luna made me really appreciate the magic of seeing it for the first time again.
The expanse of water below was dotted with smaller islands until Venice City came into view, its larger landmass consisting of a plethora of red roofs and the legendary canals. Luna glanced down at the open guidebook in her lap, then lifted a hand to point at the city.
“Did you know it’s made up of one hundred and seventeen islands?” she asked, her voice filled with awe and disbelief.
“I didn’t know the exact number, no.” Unlike Luna, I hadn’t studied up much on the place before coming here for the first time.
Even though we were flying business class, Luna probably wouldn’t have noticed if they’d stuck us in the cargo hold. Her nose had been buried in that book since I’d picked her up at her place the day before, almost all the way to Paris, where she took a temporary break to marvel at the Parisian airport where we caught our connecting flight. If she hadn’t dozed off, I was pretty sure she’d have read up on Venice all the way to France.
As we’d sipped on French coffee for me and tea for her, she’d spouted off fun facts about Paris and its airport, then opened the travel guide again as soon as our butts hit our seats for the final leg of our flight.
Once we’d touched down and claimed our baggage, I whisked her through the busy terminal to the water-taxi dock. A man was waiting for us there, sent by our hotel after I’d made a booking online.
Luna’s blue eyes were wide when she noticed him. “There’s a person with our names on his plaque. How cool is that?”
“It’s awesome.” I grinned and felt a rush of genuine excitement I hadn’t felt for a long time.
Traveling and even being picked up by drivers carrying my name on their boards wasn’t something that had tickled my fancy for years, but it sure did now. “I booked us on a private water taxi to get from here to the hotel. It kind of makes you feel like James Bond, getting off a plane and onto a fast boat to zoom into an ancient city.”
“I can’t wait.” She laughed, the light scarf around her neck rustling in the breeze as we stepped onto the pier and greeted the hotel representative. He was dressed in a smart suit but wasn’t much for small talk.
After confirming we were the passengers he’d been waiting for, he nodded at an attendant waiting nearby and the two of them took our luggage from us. Luna wrapped her arm around mine and slid her sunglasses over her eyes.
“Assuming we don’t have any bad guys to catch once we get there, what are our plans for the day?”
“Getting lost in Venice.” It was something I hadn’t done yet and something that came highly recommended by every travel website. “We don’t have anything to do until tomorrow with the conference, so I thought we’d spend the day seeing the sights.”
I practically felt the thrill running through her body. “I’m so up for getting lost, but there are a few things we can’t miss. St. Mark’s Basilica and Square, Doge’s Palace and we have to see the Rialto Bridge.”
Nudging her hip with my own as we followed the men wheeling our luggage along to our boat, I let my own sunglasses drop to my nose. “What do you take me for? I’m not a tease or a sadist and only one of those two would bring you all the way here and not visit all those places.”
“I have it on good authority that you can be one heck of a tease,” she said, her voice low enough that only I’d be able to hear her. The corners of her lips pressed in like she was trying to hide a smile, but her little joke was forgotten when she laid eyes on the gleaming hull of our water taxi. “That’s just for us?”
“Just for us,” I confirmed, stepping in and holding out my hand to help her. “The driver will drop us off at a central point on the Grand Canal and take our bags to the hotel. That way, we can use our time to explore and only check in later when we’re ready.”
Luna’s jaw loosened. Then her arms were around my neck and squeezing me tight. “You’re the best fake husband ever.”
Something dark formed a pit in my stomach at her words. Truth be told, this was only supposed to be a business transaction, but I was still glad she was here and not just so she could play my wife to get Samantha to back the fuck off me.
I didn’t know how to tell her that without making her worry that I’d tricked her into coming, though. I’d been honest with her when I told her I needed her help, which was why she’d eventually agreed.
Now that we were here, though, I was also just really happy to have her with me. Watching the wind whipping through her hair as she gripped the golden railing at the front of the boat once we got underway, her head turning this way and that to take in all the sights, I couldn’t imagine having come here without her for this trip.
“Where to first?” she asked when we stepped off the taxi and got our first real look at the famous city.
“Let’s just get lost and not think too much about where we’re going.” I took her hand in mine and led her off on the cobbled streets, pausing when she did to take pictures of the quaint and rustic buildings. “The basilica and the clock tower are that way. I booked us on a tour later. Told you I wasn’t a sadist or a tease, so for now, let’s head off the other way.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Luna smiled and followed me as we walked in the opposite direction to two of Venice’s biggest tourist attractions. We lost ourselves in the maze formed by the city’s walkways, stopping for about a million photos along the way. “I love that your first plan for the day was getting lost. There’s so much to see here.”
She pointed toward artists sketching on canvas right there on the sidewalk and local produce sellers at a market we were walking past. “We’re really getting a feel for the place, you know?”
“That was the idea. It was recommended on just about every blog I read, so I figured we’d better do it.”
“Well look at you, Mr. I’m-so-cool-about-traveling. You actually read blogs before we came here. I’m impressed.”
I wagged my eyebrows at her. “Anything to impress my wife. You know how it goes. When you’re married and out of that newlywed stage, the sex starts to dry up if you don’t take action.”
She rolled her eyes, but her shoulders shook with laughter. “Leave it to you to use arguably the most romantic city in the world to spice up our imaginary sex life.”
“Unless I’m very much mistaken and have been having some very vivid dreams lately, our sex life is not imagined.”
“True, but if we really were married, would you have been hoping you’d be getting lucky tonight because you brought me here?”
“Absolutely, but come on. Like you said, it’s one of the most romantic cities in the world. Everyone would want to fuck here.”