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‘Go on, Romeo!’ Kim insisted. ‘Be a gentleman and get in the photo with Samantha so she doesn’t look lonely.’

Romeo hesitated and his eyes darted from me to Kim and Timothy.

‘We should take a photo of the four of us together, no?’ Romeo said.

Oh. Seeing as he was supposed to be such a flirt, I thought he wouldn’t have missed a chance to snuggle up in a photo. Clearly I wasn’t his type, which was fine.

‘Spoilsport!’ Kim said. ‘Come on then.’ She stood next to me and I thought Romeo would stand on the other side, but instead he stood next to Timothy.

Jeez. Did I have BO or something? I didn’t realise the idea of being close to me was so repulsive that he had to create as much distance as possible.

‘Say cheese!’ Kim said as I plastered on a smile.

After the stuff I’d heard, I should be grateful that he’d acted so professionally.

Jasmine warned me to be careful around him which was what I was doing. And so far Romeo had been the perfect chaperone. He hadn’t been flirtatious or shown any interest in me, which was exactly what I’d wanted.

So why did I feel disappointed?

21

ROMEO

‘The views are amazing!’ Samantha said as she took in her surroundings. We were at Belvedere di Piazza Giovanni Pascoli, a popular terrace in Matera.

After we had finished taking photos with Kim and Timothy, I had invited them to join us (I wanted to create some distance between me and Samantha) but they said that they wanted to spend some time alone.

‘Sì, it is another great place to get a good view of the cave houses.’

‘It’s really pretty. Is this where you take all the girls then?’ Samantha grinned.

‘No.’ I rolled my eyes. ‘Why do you think that I have had a lot of women?’

That was the second time today that she had made a reference to me being a womaniser or as she would call it afuckboyand I did not understand why.

‘Er,hello. You’re not exactly ugly and no offence, but your name’s Romeo, so…’

‘Wow. Remind me to add “I am not exactly ugly” to the top of the list of my best qualities.’ The corner of my mouth twitched.

‘Well, I’m not about to say you’re good-looking, am I? If I said that, your head would never fit inside these caves!’ She laughed and I shook my head whilst I tried to fight the smile that had formed on my lips.

‘I did not choose my name, you know that, right?’ I cocked an unimpressed eyebrow.

‘No?’ She did a dramatic gasp. ‘You mean you didn’t come into the world and demand that you be given a name which implies that you love the ladies?’

‘Strangely not. It was of course my father that chose it. Originally he wanted me to be called Casanova.’

‘No way!’ Samantha laughed as I led her away from the terrace. We would return here later to watch the sunset with the rest of the group. In the meantime there were more places to explore, so we continued walking.

‘It is true, but Mamma said no. She was not keen on Romeo either because like you, she assumed it meant a man who was a womaniser, but Papà told her that it was given to someone who came from Rome and because that was where I was conceived, she thought it would be fitting. But I still think that Papà chose it because he wanted me to follow in his footsteps in all aspects.’

‘So washea womaniser?’

‘Unfortunately.’

‘But you’renot?’ Samantha pressed.

‘Believe it or not, I was happy to just stay with one woman for the rest of my life, but then she betrayed me.’