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I chew the inside of my cheek all the way to the second floor. We pass a sign that proclaims Chiuso Per Una Festa Privata . Closed for a private party ? I’m guessing.

“Just be yourself,” Flynn tells me out of the side of his mouth. “But also, you know, be her.”

“Very helpful, thank you,” I bat back.

Leaving the security team outside, Flynn and I enter through a set of ornate wooden doors, and I clock Sofia right away: back turned, arms crossed, hair in a low chestnut bun. She spins at the sound of heel-steps, and once again, the sight of her—this close, this similar —is enough to snatch my breath.

If I didn’t know better, I’d think we were twins, separated at birth.

“Prime Minister Christiansen,” Flynn says, greeting her with a dip of his head, and he is like the mirror between us. We pass our stares through him, looking back at our reflections, and part of me thinks this is about to be a lovely, Parent Trap –style moment. Alone in this empty restaurant, with curtains yanked over the windows, we can laugh, finally, about the strangeness of our similarities. Have a good chuckle about the randomness of genetics, and how the hell we ended up here.

Instead, Sofia’s lips thin to a solid line. “And what will my people think, mmm? If this ever gets out?” She’s speaking in my direction, but mostly—it seems—to the man several feet behind her. A middle-aged guy in a beige suit, the head of her special protection group, is quietly assessing the situation with intelligent blue eyes. “That Sofia Christiansen is a coward. That she’d let a civilian—an innocent and a foreigner—step into her shoes and die for her? No. No, absolutely not. If I die, then I die on my feet. My feet.” She punches two fingers into her chest before snagging my eye. “And you . Why would you agree to this?”

I’m so caught up in her gaze—her quiet, quiet wrath—that my first instinct is to defuse the tension with a joke. Like, I’m here for the free tagliatelle at the fancy hotel .

“Don’t do this,” Sofia says, shaking her head. “Please don’t do this.”

I genuinely can’t fathom what to say, standing there, sweating through the silk lining of her designer pantsuit. Isn’t it already done? Haven’t I already committed, partially out of my respect for her ? Flynn, to my shock, looks mildly flabbergasted; he isn’t even trying to hide it. “Forgive me, Prime Minister,” he says to Sofia, perfectly composed, even after all those peppers, “but the CIA was under the impression that you requested the body double.”

Sofia laughs in a completely unfunny way, neck whipping to glare at the man behind her. “This is what you told them?”

“We want to see you safe, ma’am,” says the man behind her. He’s calm, his accent even thicker than Sofia’s. “Ma’am, if I may speak plainly, you can be a bit bullheaded sometimes.”

“Bullheaded,” she sniffs. “Perhaps you’ve been listening to Jakob too much. You’re starting to pick up his verbiage.”

Here’s where I chime in, “Jakob. Your brother. He keeps calling Hotel Giorgio.”

Sofia eyes me. “How did he sound?”

“He mentioned something about a joint-party resolution?”

“No, how did he sound ?” she repeats, like I’m an idiot. “Angry? Perturbed? Insolent?”

“Oh. All of the above.”

The man behind her picks up where he left off. “The rest of the security team and I, we floated the idea of a decoy with a few strategic members of intelligence services. They’re the only ones who know, ma’am. Our country can’t—”

“You think that this woman’s life is any less valuable than mine?” Sofia says, pointing at me. She lays into her head of security like he’s an opposing politician, blocking her in the halls of parliament. “Intrinsically less valuable? You let our team and the United States think that of me? That I requested for someone else to lead our country, our people?”

Whoa, whoa . I want to interject that I’m not leading a damn thing. I’m reading a book on a beach. I’m eating some cheese in a hotel room. “That’s not really—”

But she doesn’t leave a moment to spare. “I suppose you want me to cut my hair to look like her? Bangs? Tell me, what world leader has ever had bangs?”

“Boris Johnson,” Flynn supplies, then holds up a palm, backing down with a “Sorry, sorry.”

More words arrive in my mouth, and I push them out fast enough this time. “I promise you that I’m taking this very seriously. I might be a ‘foreigner,’ but my grandmother was from Summerland, and I truly respect your policies.” Tentatively, I step toward Sofia, chestnut hair sweeping across my shoulders in the exact same way hers does. “I’d never do anything that would put your reputation in jeopardy.”

“You wouldn’t?” Her lips purse. “Then what’s this I’m hearing about someone calling out your name, your name, Max, in the hotel lobby? Or—wait a moment. Et minutt .” She turns on her heels, digging into a bucket-size leather bag before extracting a fresh newspaper. Swishing over to me, she slams the paper onto the nearest table, flat-palmed, with a jolting thud . “Care to explain?”

Inhaling sharply through my nose, I scan Positano’s local paper. Tomorrow’s date stares back at me. She must’ve gotten an early copy. Above the fold, two men pedal happily on a tandem bicycle. “They’re…enjoying a nice ride by the sea?” I venture, knowing this can’t be what she’s talking about.

Sofia gives a tidy scoff before flipping the paper below the fold—and there she is. There I am. In the lobby this morning, right after Calvin rushed across the tile, my face outlined in newspaper ink. Beside me, Flynn lingers, his hand resting tenderly on my elbow, and we’re exceedingly close. I could lean forward and tuck my head into the crook of his neck. His shirt’s half-unbuttoned, his hair wild. Both of us are glistening, like we’ve just had a nice roll across the tennis courts, in the euphemistic sense. No one else from the security team is present; the angle is just right.

I get it. It’s suggestive.

If you’re a particularly gullible person, you might misread our body language, believe that Flynn and I are going back up to my suite to, as Gail put it, have international relations . The Italian photo caption is gibberish to me, but the whole package is clear: This isn’t a piece about Sofia’s foreign policy. This is a gossip article speculating about her sex life.

“See the way he’s looking at you?” Sofia says, tapping Flynn’s eyes in the photo. “He must never look at you like that in front of the camera again, do you understand? When you look like you’re in love, I look like I’m in love.”

Flynn moves to interject, but I get there first, agitated, ready to brush this under the rug. “I don’t look like I’m in love.” Really, I don’t. In the photo, my teeth are mildly gritted, my eyebrows gently creased together. “If anything, I look constipated.”

Sofia does not laugh. Neither does her head of security, standing stoically in the background. “And you, Agent Forester?” she asks. “Would you say the same thing?”

Would he say that I look constipated?

“You know this photo was the result of a once-in-a-lifetime security breach,” Flynn offers, examining the paper. “It’s not repeatable. It won’t happen again. And if I may add, Prime Minister, Max’s part in this is already a fifth over, at least. I have every confidence that, between the CIA and your intelligence services, we’ll find the original assassin and neutralize the threat.”

“What about your smiling?” Sofia asks, turning back to me.

“My…smiling?”

“In the other photos,” she clarifies. “From when you arrived at the hotel and you were waving. You smile too American.”

I study her face, which is my face. “How do you smile like a nationality?”

She does it, wide and big, like she’s just caught a fly ball at a summer game, a box of nachos in her other hand.

“Okay, yeah,” I say. “That’s fair.”

“Every move you make,” she adds, “it’s captured, even at the beach. For me, perhaps especially at the beach. Then the newspapers will pick apart my physical appearance, and that will be the narrative for months. Not my work with advancing educational opportunities, not my crackdown on Summerland’s crime families. Funny how that never happens to male presidents or prime ministers on holiday. ‘Has Emmanuel Macron gotten pectoral implants?’ No.”

I almost smile at this, at her sharpness, the cool way she delivers a line. It’s like watching a bolder version of myself.

“Sofia, we don’t have much time,” says her head of security, glancing at his watch. “We need to—”

“Go to the bathroom,” I interject, my pulse pounding thickly as I put our meeting into motion. “I need to go to the bathroom. Is there a powder room nearby?”

Sofia glances at me like, American woman, is that the smoothest segue you can offer? And yes, honestly, right now it is. I’m not a spy. I’m not a politician. Clandestine meetings with world leaders in Italian toilets aren’t something I’ve practiced.

Sofia sucks her teeth. “I’ll escort you.”

Her head of security puffs out a breath like Women! Always going to the bathroom together! But Flynn isn’t buying it. He passes me an odd look ( Was it the peppers? Or are you lying? ) before smothering the expression, leading us out another set of double doors, down the back stairwell. Side by side, matching Sofia’s steps, I feel an immense pressure to break out my small talk before diving into a few questions about Roderick. Are you two currently together? In your mind, would he ever accept money to kill you?

At the bottom of the stairs, Sofia pauses for a fraction of a second, as if deciding something. “I apologize if I was harsh with you back there. No, not if . I was, and I’m sorry.”

“I thought prime ministers weren’t supposed to apologize,” I say gently.

“Only when we’re wrong,” she says with a slow blink. “My annoyance was misplaced. I’m angry at a system that bestows certain value on people. I am no more inherently valuable than you are, Max. To be honest, you remind me of that cat that the French shot into space.”

She’s lost me with the last part.

“In the 1960s,” she clarifies. “Space race. The Russians sent a dog, the US sent a chimp, the French sent a stray cat. They’re always strays. Do you have much family?”

A cord tightens in my throat. “My parents.”

“Relationship with them?”

I think about versions of the message I’ve yet to send: Hey, it’s Max, I’ve won the lottery. Hey, it’s Max, I’m in Europe for you . “Strained.”

“Family is tricky.” Sofia nods, then glances back at Flynn. “Do you mind?” We’ve reached the powder room door, and she’s asking for space; Flynn obliges, stepping farther away. I shake out the tension from my fingers. Once I’m alone with the prime minister, who knows what she’ll tell me? Who knows how I’ll react?

Her hand barely grazes the handle, brushing the door open half an inch, when Flynn shouts behind us, “ No, wait! ” It’s an urgent plea. A throaty, strained yell.

His voice is the last thing I hear before the boom .