Rin

My heels were unsteady on the cobblestone streets, but it didn’t matter—Court held me against his side, strong and steady and solid.

It was our last night in Florence, and the very last thing I wanted to do was go home. I’d spent the last few days in one of the most beautiful cities in the world with one of the most brilliant, beautiful men I’d ever known.

The change in him had been complete.

Everything with him was easy, from the conversations to the quiet, from the day to the night and every moment in between. I’d met some of his old professors and some of his colleagues, heard the stories about his studies and endeavors. The admiration in their eyes for him was mirrored in my own—he was a man of confidence and power, of charm and laughter, when he let himself be free.

“You know,” he said as we walked, “I’m not surprised that your mom has red hair.”

“Really? Most people are.”

“No. I can see the red when the sun shines on it.”

I smiled, my eyes on the street so I wouldn’t trip. “She’s almost as pale as I am and tiny, delicate like a bird. I get my height and coloring from my dad. My grandmother apparently had dominant genes—she kept the Korean line alive. But my grandfather was a six-foot-six blond giant.”

He chuckled. “I come from a long line of American. Somewhere two hundred years ago, we were French, but that’s been so mixed up, I can’t imagine much is left.”

I pictured him as French aristocracy in a cravat and tails, and my smile spread. “My heritage only really exists on the fringes—my dad was a San Francisco hipster who met my mom at Berkeley and knows absolutely zero Dutch or Korean.”

“My father only knows one language—power.”

I didn’t speak right away. “Has he always been like that?”

“Always. He dominates everything and everyone he comes in contact with.” He paused, and I waited for an explanation. “We should get gelato.”

I sighed. It was like this every time I tried to ask him about his past—an elegant hedging. He’d give me just enough to whet my appetite and then take a hard right, steering us away again. And I let him. He’d tell me more when he was ready.

“Gelato sounds perfect.”

“There’s a place just up here.”

I looked up to see a cheery shop, glowing and warm in the twilight, the sidewalk dotted with people enjoying their cones. My gaze wandered around the narrow street, breathing in the last night as if I could savor it forever, but when I glanced into a window, I stopped dead at the sight of a ring I recognized.

“Oh my God, Court—look!” I hurried to the window where the glittering display of jewelry sat. We stood outside the glass, looking down, our faces bright from the lights. “That one, right there. Johanna of Austria wore a ring just like that in the painting by—”

“Sofonisba Anguissola. Except this one’s—”

“An emerald instead of a ruby. Look at the detail on the setting, the golden filigree, even the cut is the same. I wrote a paper on female painters in the Renaissance my senior year, and I had a whole section on this piece. Because Johanna was a slave to her sex as much as Sofonisba. Sofonisba couldn’t learn anatomy because nudity was considered vulgar, and she was forced to marry, just like Johanna.”

“Except that Sofonisba’s husband cared for her, allowed her to study art at the college. Johanna was married to the most powerful man in Italy—Francesco Medici—and he all but discarded her.”

“For his mistress. God, it’s so tragic. And that ring is incredible,” I breathed, and I had to stop myself from touching the glass. “I wish they were open so I could try it on.”

He was watching me, I realized, and when I met his gaze, he held it, searched my eyes with a question behind his. But then he smiled at me, and the moment disappeared, leaving me wondering if I’d imagined it.

“Come on,” he said, taking my hand. “Gelato awaits.”

I sighed, my eyes on the window as I tucked back into his side. “I don’t want to go home.”

“Me either,” he said softly.

I looked up at him, pulling him to a stop.

He met my eyes.

I summoned my courage. Took a breath. Said the words that could be the beginning or the end.

“It’s our last night,” I started, and he nodded with understanding, sobering at the words. “We said we’d give it until the end of the trip. And here we are.”

He stepped in front of me and brushed my hair away from my face with his eyes on his fingers. “What do you want, Rin?”

The question felt like a test, like my answer would determine my fate, and I hesitated, not knowing how to answer. “I told you, I only want you.”

“And that’s still true?” He still hadn’t met my eyes—they remained on his fingers as he held my jaw.

I nodded, shrugging off my confusion. “This trip, Florence, you have been more than I imagined. It’s been perfect, and—”

“Then let’s not talk about this. Not yet. Not now.”

A shot of fear zinged through me. “But—”

“It’s our last night. We have all day tomorrow to make decisions. But for now, tonight, I just want you. I want you exactly like you are right now, in this moment. Let’s deal with New York in New York.”

And when he looked into my eyes, when I saw the shifting uncertainty, fear, desire behind his irises, I could only sigh. A day wouldn’t matter. We could deal with it tomorrow.

And I held on to the hope that his answer, whenever I got it, would be the one I wanted to hear.

“All right,” I said.

And his relief and deliverance were transcribed through his lips when he kissed me.

When he broke away, I leaned into him with a smile, grateful for his arm around me.

“Take a picture with me,” he said, reaching into his back pocket for his phone.

My smile fell like a bowling ball down a flight of stairs. “Oh no,” I said, unconsciously shifting away. But he held me fast against him.

“I’ll delete it if it’s bad. I promise. Look, I took one of you sleeping yesterday, and it was fine.”

I was full-on frowning at his phone screen as he pulled up a photo of me. I was lying on my side, wound up in the white sheets, though they draped over my hip, exposing my back. The shadows were deep, the light low, my dark hair against all that white striking, the light highlighting the curve of my shoulder.

“Okay, first, my face isn’t in that picture, which is why it’s not bad. And second, you are a fucking creep.”

He chuckled. “I woke up and you were asleep, just like this. And for a long time, I lay there and wondered just how someone like you existed in the world, how you were real. I took a picture to remind me. I’ll delete it if you want—I realized not long after I took it that I’d never forget.”

Warmth bloomed in my chest, in my cheeks, and I touched his face, kissed his lips.

When he broke away, he smirked. “Can I keep it?”

I laughed. “Yes.”

“Can we take another?”

I sighed. “Promise if it sucks we can delete it?”

“Promise.”

“All right,” I conceded, knowing it would be gone in a few minutes anyway.

He held up his phone and put us in the frame, the street curving behind us and soft shop lights illuminating our faces. Mine was frozen like a wax head at Madame Tussauds.

His thumb hovered over the button. “Okay, one…two…you’re beautiful.”

I swiveled my head to look up at him, smiling. And he looked down at me, kissed me again, wrapped me in his arms and let me melt into him.

When I broke away, his smile slid right back in place, and we turned to his phone.

“Wait, you actually took a picture?” I asked in horror.

“Yup,” he answered, flipping back through the photos.

He’d snapped one the moment he said I was beautiful, and my face was bright and smiling.

I’d never taken a photo that looked like me, and that was no exception. Because the girl in that photo was so happy, so free, I barely recognized her as me.

There were two more photos: one of us smiling at each other in profile and a final one of us kissing. And those three photos were the most perfect things I’d ever seen in my life. And I’d seen David.

He kissed me again on the streets of Florence, held my body to his with hope and devotion. And like a fool, I thought it would last.