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“It’s your roommate, Calvin!” he adds for extra clarity, waving his hand like he’s trying to hail Positano’s very last taxicab. I don’t know what’s more striking: his bright yellow board shorts, his Hawaiian shirt, or the way his American accent cuts through all the melodic Italian like a machete through butter.

How…How is he…?

In a split second, we catch each other’s eyes, the wave of his hand growing impossibly larger as his flip-flops flap against the tile. The only way he could be more conspicuous is if he were shooting off fireworks from his ears.

My face goes almost completely numb.

How did Calvin know I was here? How’d he slip past the hotel gates? How’d he afford airfare to Italy, if he won’t even splurge for name-brand ranch dressing?

Those aren’t the questions I should be asking. I should be asking how to stop him from getting all-out dropkicked by half of the PM’s security team, who’re rushing with such speed, they make their own breeze. Thanks to pre-vetting, Roderick and his dog cruised past the guards. That isn’t going to be Calvin’s fate, is it? The ringing in my ears turns to a full-out alarm as, from over a dozen yards away, Calvin’s eyebrows crunch together in an inquisitive zigzag, like Oh, damn, maybe I should’ve texted first? I don’t see much else. Just a glimpse of it: guests scattering in the lobby as two officers charge, each man grabbing one of Calvin’s shoulders before slamming him to the ground. His back hits the tile in an almost cartoonish thud . I would say that Calvin goes down like a sack of potatoes. But really, he goes down like a flailing toddler wrangled into a car seat, and it’s all fast .

Chaos erupting, fast.

Sofia’s security pushing me into the elevator, fast, yelling, “Down, down, down!”

The last flash of an image I get is Calvin staring up at Lars with the wide eyes of an abandoned possum, as if to say: Dude, why? So not cool.

Then, Flynn’s at my side so quickly I didn’t even see him coming. The top of his shirt is haphazardly buttoned, a lock of his hair dangling over his forehead. He’s messy, sun-kissed, a tennis towel slung around his neck. Automatically, his hand is at my elbow, pulling me even farther into the corner of the elevator, shielding me as the doors start to ping closed. Flynn’s acting as if I actually am the prime minister, like protecting me is the most important thing in the world—and I am startlingly aware of his closeness, his power, the strength radiating from every muscle in his body. He has me securely pinned, all of him pressing against all of me. If we were lying down, he’d cover me completely.

I don’t want the touch of his hand, the press of his body, to send an electric current across my skin, but dammit , there it is. An undeniable, dangerous spark. From less than two inches away, I watch the steady pulse near the freckles at the base of his throat, and have to admit to myself that—in this little protective pocket—I have never felt safer in my life.

Having a bodyguard is one thing.

It’s another thing because it’s him .

The jolt of the elevator, starting its ascent, snaps me out of it. I cough, wiggle my shoulders a bit, implicitly signaling, I’m fine, honest . It’s just the two of us in this cramped space—much smaller than the tennis court cabana—and Flynn can take only a half step back, soft elevator music punctuating our jagged breaths, the warmth of his fingers protectively wrapped around my elbow, like he’s forgotten to let it drop. His skin is exactly as I remember. His scent is exactly as I remember, salted with the sea, and he’s—

He’s punched the emergency stop button with the palm of his hand.

The elevator screeches to a halt.

“Why’d you do that?” I say, voice coming out a little hoarse.

“Security needs time to reach the sixth floor,” he says, tone deeper than normal. His hand finally drops from my elbow, the absence of his touch making me cold. “And to contain the threat.”

“Calvin is not an assassin!” I whisper-shout, well aware that someone might be listening between the second and third floors, where we’ve stopped. I shouldn’t let anyone know that I know who Calvin is. “In case you’ve forgotten, he’s my roommate. He recently rescued a turtle. He cries during rose ceremonies on The Bachelor .”

“Mind telling me what he’s doing in Italy, then?” Flynn asks, thumbing the space between his eyebrows. Calvin, on top of Roderick, back-to-back, is probably a lot for any handler. Flynn hasn’t lost his cool, but I notice a hairline crack in his demeanor. The smallest touch of worry, slipping in. “Because it looks a little goddamn suspicious that he shows up, for no plausible reason whatsoever, on the same day that you show up, at the same hotel that you’ve just checked into, only to rush the prime minister’s body double, mimicking an assassin, in the middle of an assassination plot.”

“That is obviously not ideal.”

“How did he even know you were going to be in Italy?”

The question hits me like a dart in the ass.

The note. I remember the note. The one I scribbled for my parents and tucked under my pillow, right before I left my apartment: I love you both. I’m sorry. A knowing tingle works its way up my spine. Well shit, Calvin! No one was supposed to find that note until later. Actually, I’d hoped—nay, expected—that no one would find it at all. Is it possible that Calvin traipsed into my room immediately after I was gone?

Why would he?

“He might’ve…” I begin, wondering how to make this sound anything other than bad. “He might’ve read the note I left?”

Flynn’s eyelashes flick. “What note, Max?”

“Okay, listen, all I thought was if anything happens to me, I want my parents to know I love them. I didn’t give any specific details, besides that I was in Italy, and that was only so they’d know where to collect the body. Which I know doesn’t make much sense, but…the note wasn’t for Calvin! I figured someone else, someone official, would search my room, just not two seconds after I left.”

Flynn pokes his tongue into the side of his cheek, clearly digesting this, his hands now firmly on his hips. He still has a clear aura of calm, despite the absolute clusterfuck of this situation. “But how’d he know where you were staying? Which part of Italy, precisely, and which hotel? Kind of a big country, Max, and Gail turned off the geolocational services on your cell phone. Not to mention, we’ve triple-checked the guest list. Unless he booked under another name, and unless he’s good for three thousand dollars a night, which is the minimum spend here, up front, this is unexplainable.”

“Maybe he…” I begin, but I’ve got nothing. Literally nothing. I’m half expecting to hear him shout through the elevator doors, telling anyone who’ll listen that the woman in the tennis clothes isn’t the prime minister of a small island nation off the coast of Norway—she’s his roommate from Maine, the same one who makes electric-orange mac and cheese at two in the morning. And then what? Then where would we be? “I need to talk to him.”

“Absolutely not,” Flynn says with the ghost of a laugh. He tucks a longer chunk of hair halfway behind his ear. “Calvin’s a suspect, and this is different than with Roderick. Roderick thinks you are Sofia. Which is a little ridiculous, that someone who knows her intimately can’t tell the difference immediately, but…Calvin can blow up this whole operation. We need to contain this. Assure him he’s got the wrong person. Tell everyone from the lobby staff to the security team that the ‘Max’ thing was a mix-up. He was high, confused.”

My teeth worry over my bottom lip. “Do you know where they’ll take him?”

“There’s a conference room downstairs,” Flynn says. “Giorgio offered it in advance, as a holding station in case there was a perimeter breach.”

“I still think I should talk to Calvin,” I insist, stomach roiling as I remember the sound of him hitting the floor with an inelegant whack . “Flynn, he knows it’s me. He clearly knows it’s me. It would be much better to just tell him the truth and beg him to keep quiet, rather than try to gaslight him into—”

I’ve made a mistake. In the heat of my argument, I’ve leaned forward—at the same time that Flynn’s re-angled his body, reaching to un-press the emergency stop. We collide in a delicate brush, his beard grazing my forehead, my hand against the ridges of his stomach, and both of us just sort of…freeze. It’s like puzzle pieces snapping together.

Is he going to pesto this, or should I?

Flynn tsks. “We’re not great at following these rules, Starfish,” he says, right by my ear, voice husky and teasing. “Is there some sort of punishment for breaking them?”

I swallow hard, struggling to maintain my professionalism. “Why, Flynn?” I bat back, breath on his neck. “Do you want there to be?”

He chuckles at that, palming the button, like I’ve won this round for now, and once again we’re speeding along.

Back in the room, security swarming outside, the door shuts with an agitated click , and my CIA phone buzzes on the coffee table. Flynn and I reach for it at the same time, but I’m closer and just a hair faster. I answer, knowing it’s Gail. No one else has this number, right? “Hello?”

“I’m getting word that there was an assassin in the lobby?” Gail says, as if someone’s just forwarded her a picture of a flailing Calvin, half-knocked-out by the peeing-angel statue.

“He’s not an assassin,” I supply.

“Then why did he have a knife?”

“Jesus, what ?”

She’s quick after that. “He didn’t. I was just testing your reaction. Seeing how much you actually trust this man.”

A knot tangles even more tightly in my throat. “Is that standard protocol for the CIA? Hello, your roommate just tried to kill you, how does that make you feel? ”

“Not usually,” she says as Flynn whispers in front of me, twirling his finger to say Volume up , put Gail on speakerphone . I do, just in time for her to add, “We have a minor problem.”

“I’ll tell him to forget everything he saw,” I assure her. “To stay quiet and go back—”

Gail cuts in. “We’re on different pages here. Calvin is a pressing issue, so is the Roderick man—I got the security footage from this morning, from the tennis courts—but I’ve just received something else, a picture, in the seconds we’ve been speaking. I’m now talking about Agent Forester.”

Crowded against my side, Flynn jerks his head back like Me?

My left eyelid twitches for the first time since the flight to Rome. “What about Agent Forester?”

“He’s supposed to act as your bodyguard in your room .”

“And?”

“He was not in your room,” Gail says flatly, like I’m an idiot. “He was very much on full display, in the lobby, sweaty, tennis shirt unbuttoned like a pirate on the cover of a romance novel.”

“Hey-hey, I wouldn’t say that ,” Flynn interjects as I jump in to question the existence of Tennis Pirates, but Gail is far from done.

In fact, she’s picking up speed. “The paparazzi have obviously paid off someone from the hotel lobby. They have a shot of you and Flynn exchanging a weighted look, both of you glistening with sweat, before getting cozy in the elevator. We’re going to have to get ahead of the story—tell everyone that the prime minister has a new head bodyguard. Otherwise, the press will latch on to another narrative.”

“Which is?” I grimace, already half knowing the answer.

“That the prime minister has a new gentleman suitor.”

Flynn chokes out a laugh. “That’s ridiculous.”

His words shouldn’t sting. Objectively, I know he means that the press are ridiculous, that the situation is ridiculous, even the term gentleman suitor —especially in relation to a world leader—is ridiculous, but a vicious part of my brain hears: What, me and Max? Never. No way.

“That’s juicy ,” Gail corrects, even though I wouldn’t peg her—by any stretch of the imagination—as a person who’d use juicy in a sentence. I’m also now imagining her in pink velour sweatpants with the word JUICY bedazzled on the bum, and that could not be further from her vibe. “A woman in power—much less a single woman, leading on her own—always makes men itch. Speaking of, we have an update on ‘the Producer.’ The footage from the convenience store was too grainy to tell anything other than the fact that he’s around five foot ten, but Interpol flagged one of his aliases at a bus station outside Vienna. Two hours too late to catch him, I might add, but we’re on the trail.”

“Vienna.” The hairs prick on the back of my neck. “Austria. So he is on his way to Italy. What do I do?”

“Sit tight for the next four and a half days,” Gail says, “while we keep drawing him out of the woodwork. And try not to look like you’re about to have international relations with your bodyguard.”

The line disconnects. She’s gone.