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When my eyes blink open, the first thing I see is my face. I’m hovering above myself, my jaw clenched in mild concern. Light blue irises, narrowed pupils, a dusting of freckles on my cheekbones. The collar of my suit is impeccably ironed, my chestnut hair pulled into a sleek, meticulous bun.

“Am I dead?” I ask, out loud, only my lips don’t move. Why aren’t my lips moving? What’s wrong with them? They’re set in a solid line.

“I certainly hope you’re not dead,” I say above me, lips forming around the words this time. “If you’re dead, that means I’m hallucinating, because you just spoke to me. Max, you’re in the hospital. You’ve been in the hospital for over twenty-four hours, but you’re going to be perfectly fine.” The woman who looks exactly like me pauses, her gold-and-silver necklace winking under the bright white lights. “Well, you have been hit head-on by a Vespa, and one of your ribs has seen better days, but overall, you’ll be good as new by…the press conference, let’s say.”

My head’s spinning as I inch myself up in bed, pillow propped behind my back, and my mouth is so dry, it’s like I’ve eaten a boxful of amaretti cookies without a sip of water. Water. Desperately. Need it . I reach for the glass by my bedside, fingers surprisingly steady, and take a few glugs.

“I was run over by a Vespa ?” I get out, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand; I can’t believe it. The Vespa thing. It actually happened.

“Painfully Italian, isn’t it?” Sofia says, realization hitting me in a thick burst. It’s Sofia . She’s here? She’s okay? Her hands clasp at her waist, the demurest smile working its way into the corner of her mouth. “That’s like saying you’ve been concussed by flying biscotti.”

I have so many questions for her. Too many questions. They tangle and jumble in my brain, competing to get out of my mouth. “Where…where’s Flynn?” I have a fuzzy image of him, climbing on top of that car, waving his arms, drawing attention to himself. A rush of love—and, honestly, pain medication—swells up in me.

“Ah, so you remember your handler,” she says. “That’s promising. He’s completely fine. How’s the rest of your memory? Who’s the prime minister of Eswatini?”

“Is that supposed to be a question I’d know how to answer regularly?” I ask, shifting again in bed. The fuzziness in my peripheral vision is diminishing, and the room has stopped its funky tilt. Cream-colored walls come into focus. White curtains. Hospital machines. “Which assassin ran me over?”

“None of them.”

“I thought you just said I was hit.”

“I did,” Sofia confirms, perching at the edge of my hospital bed. “Do you remember Giorgio? From Hotel Giorgio? He’d come up from Positano for a hotel conference, just around the corner from Orto Botanico di Roma, and saw you on La Visione Italiana . He dropped by the broadcast to say hello, witnessed the chase, and wanted to help. Ended up circling around the scene frantically, only to run you over. Accidentally, of course.”

“That is so… random ,” I manage, running a hand over my broken rib.

“If it makes you feel better,” Sofia says, “he feels just awful about it.”

“Well, if it makes him feel any better,” I say, cringing, “it’s probably adequate payback for hitting him in the throat with a tennis ball.” The lights flicker above us, and it strikes me—with a quick glance out the window—that it’s dark outside. Maybe the middle of the night. It’s registering more and more that Flynn isn’t here, isn’t with me. “Gail…you might not know her, but she lied to me before, about Flynn, so—just tell me. Please. My handler, has he visited?”

Sofia gives me a reasonably soft look, and it’s still so strange—that her nose is my nose. That her eyebrows are my eyebrows. “Of course he has. Really, he’s fine. Technically speaking, visiting hours are just over.” She leaves it at that, diving into the details of the last twenty-four hours. How her brother was arrested by Italian police, outside of a private airport in Rome, after booking a one-way plane ticket to Colombia, less than a minute after I exposed him on live TV. Not exactly the action of an innocent person. Apparently, Sofia had her doubts about Jakob, which is why this mission was always more dangerous—a threat from the inside. She explains that she was reluctant to put me in harm’s way, especially since she already had a plan in motion to stop Jakob: turning one of the assassins he’d commissioned.

“I was having rather good luck with the elderly Lithuanian duo,” she says, frowning, “but then they went dark on me.”

I guzzle more water. “The Lithuanian duo, too? How many assassins did he hire ?”

“All of them, apparently. Jakob has always been, how do you Americans say it? ‘Over the top’?”

“No kidding.” I sit up farther in bed. “Where’ve you been, then? Here I was thinking that the crime family might’ve gotten you.”

“Oh, they did,” she says, unblinking. “Yes, the youngest brother, Aksel. He decided to use all his resources to kidnap me, so that we could talk things over. He was desperate for me to know that his family wasn’t behind the assassination plot. Quite a gentleman, actually.”

I don’t…I don’t even know what to say at this point.

“Little did I know,” Sofia adds, not entirely unpleased, “you’d be playing me while I was gone. You threw a lobster at my blackmailer.”

And the hits just keep on coming. “Roderick was blackmailing you?”

“He was trying,” Sofia says. “He said he’d leak some completely falsified documents about an unsavory trade deal, if I didn’t agree to go out with him again. I was planning on having him arrested for extortion after my holiday.”

“What a way to win a woman’s heart.” I snort. “When he asked me to play tennis with him, he made it seem like you were in love.”

Sofia scowls at me. “I have loved grocery store pastas more than I ever loved that man.”

Over the next few minutes, she ties the last remaining threads of the investigation: how Jakob persuaded a low-ranking member of Sofia’s security to plant the explosives at the restaurant; how the Producer did hire a decoy, in order to misdirect and evade capture; and how he was eventually caught after hurtling himself into the river outside of Castel Sant’Angelo.

“He was a bit soggy,” Sofia says. “His name’s Bruce, by the way. He very much looked like a Bruce. And that’s that! Although…if I forget to say it later, I suppose I should be thanking you.” She tucks a lock of stray hair behind her ear. “For saving my life, and inhabiting my life, and everything in between. The way you went about it, though, especially at the end, that was absolutely mad. It could’ve gone sideways so easily. Which leads me back to the lobster-throwing, and the kissing an agent of the CIA on the red carpet, and all the pictures currently circulating online of me, in the world’s most outrageous suit, splayed out on the pavement, under the wheel of a Vespa.”

My face bunches up. “Do we have to go back to that?”

She nods, tilting her head in my direction. “How soon could you be ready for a press conference?”

···

The carpet at the St. Anantara Hotel is a rich, velvety green. Alongside the far wall of the conference room is a table swathed in spotless white cloth, like a fancy restaurant buffet. A pitcher of sparkling water rests next to crystal clear glasses, and I’m running my finger nervously along the rims, two hours and fifteen minutes after my hospital discharge.

It turns out, one of the biggest challenges of my simple job in beautiful Italy —besides the assassins, besides pretending to be the prime minister of a foreign country—was stepping into a conference room as me , the true Max, with a hundred flashing cameras, reporters shouting my real name.

At first, I’d said no.

More specifically, I said, “ Absolutely no way, Sofia.” Why would she even want that? I thought the whole point was that I was supposed to be disguised, undetectable. “You told me, and I quote, ‘What will my people think, mmm? If this ever gets out?’?”

“I see you’ve been practicing the accent. Impressive.” Almost pleading, she placed a hand over mine. “The truth is, it’s already out. People are already speculating, and they love you. My poll numbers are up. And it’s probably better for my nation to believe I was under threat of assassination, that I used a decoy at the utter behest of my intelligence services, than for them to believe I threw a lobster at a diplomat at a children’s birthday party.”

It was, admittedly, a fair point.

But as we rode up to the venue, just down the street from the hospital, my rib aching, the morning sun streaming through tinted windows, I started wishing that Flynn was there, in my earpiece, telling me, Breathe . I told myself the same thing. Breathe. Breathe . And I pictured that night, on the floor of Calvin’s hotel room, when I stared up at the ceiling and asked, What would make you feel like a survivor, Max? What would make you happy? I might hate the spotlight, but I want to feel capable of impossible things.

“Reporter in the red dress, from la Repubblica .” In the conference room, the head of the prime minister’s communications team sits between me and Sofia, calling on raised hands. “Please go ahead.”

We rotate through the sea of them, questions flying about my background, where I’m from, if Summerland is giving me a medal for my service, if I’ve otherwise enjoyed my stay in Italy, how it’s possible that I look so much like Sofia Christiansen. Are we related? Are you going to keep in touch after this? What’s next, Max, for you?

I’m just about to answer the final question when the doors at the back of the conference hall hinge open. I can peek through the mass of reporters well enough to see them: my parents. My parents? Both of them, together, suitcases in hand, luggage tags clinging, fresh from the airport. My dad’s in his best shirt, the blue polyester one that he wore to his brother’s wedding, the look on his face a mask of pure relief when he sees me. I feel all his love from across the room. All his joy and all his worry. Same for my mom, who has a hand over her heart (and over her crocheted summer sweater). She reaches out for my dad as they glance my way, and it hits me—really, finally hits me—that despite every mistake I’ve made, they want the same happiness for me that I want for myself.

Calvin’s chatting happily with my mom, while Flynn—he’s leading them to a row of seats. Did he call my parents and relay the whole story? Did he pick them up from the airport? Is that where he was this morning? I stare at him intensely as he weaves through the crowd. The movement’s drawing attention. Cameras start to flash when they recognize who he is, the guy who cupped the prime minister’s cheek on the red carpet. The guy who seemed so in love with the body double.

The reporters’ last question is still hanging in the air.

What’s next, Max, for you?

I tap the microphone and lean forward, feeling brave. Blood pounds in my ears, my heart lifting as more cameras click. From across the room, I catch Flynn’s gaze and hold it. His face looks exactly like home. “I’m going to take a simple vacation…and spend some time with my bodyguard.”

Around fifty heads whip toward Flynn at the same time. He’s running his teeth over his bottom lip, trying to contain his grin, but it’s no use. We’re beaming at each other.

“American,” Sofia says, almost laughing. “American smiles.”

···

This part of the trip—it actually is simple. Simple strolls through Positano with my parents, snapping photos and hiking up the Path of the Gods. Taking in the views by cliff and by sea. We hire a boat and sail around the coast, Flynn captaining, Calvin as a surprisingly handy first mate, the five of us snacking on pecorino, plump grapes, and fresh-baked crackers. I feel my sense of taste coming back. I hadn’t entirely realized it was missing. But over risotto dinners and creamy desserts, I’m waking up. I’m remembering. I loved this once, and I can love this again.

At the very end of the vacation, we go back to Hotel Giorgio, at Giorgio’s insistence. He books Flynn and me into a room overlooking the water; in the evenings especially, it’s like a watercolor painting: cerulean at sunset.

“I’ve been thinking,” Flynn says on the terrace, taking my hand, kissing the middle of my palm, “about going for a swim.”

This time, there’s no beach umbrella, no book. No other tourists. We slip down to the water under the cover of darkness, speckles of moonlight on Flynn’s skin. He peels off his shirt at the edge of the water, not even bothering with the buttons, and I’m already stripping down to my bathing suit. We touch fingertips as we wade into the water, splashing, warm, and even though this is a city that never sleeps, it does feel—just a bit—like we are the only two people in the world. We’re on a much more secluded part of the beach. It’s rockier. The sea is quiet. No sounds except for the lapping of the water, and the waves we’re making as we breaststroke out, beyond where our feet can touch. Pausing at the same time, Flynn and I face each other, treading water. Tiny droplets shimmer on his face, catching the edges of his beard—which is regrowing, after the gala.

Close, so close to him, I run my hand over his jawline, feeling the bristles. “I never told you how much I like this.”

“I like everything about you,” he says, so earnest that it makes me blush.

“Everything?” I joke back, brushing up against him, my bare stomach to his. “No pet peeves?”

“Unless you actually start baking sleepy chicken,” he jokes back, a smile playing in the corner of his mouth, “I think we’re good.”

I flick a speck of water at him, treading backward as he follows me. I can’t imagine it—leaving him again. Returning stateside and us going our separate ways. But I’ll be damned if we hash this out over an email. “So what happens now?” I ask, tucking a wet strand of hair behind my ear. Sofia’s tight bun is gone. I’m free-flowing. “After the vacation? Where are you going to be stationed next? Am I even allowed to know that, or come visit you? Are you allowed to come visit me? How does this work if—”

“I quit,” he says lightly.

I blink at him, beads of water on my lashes. “You’d be willing to do that?”

“Not just willing,” he says, tracing my lips with his thumb. “I already did. The CIA kept putting you in dangerous situation after dangerous situation, and I’d been thinking about quitting for a while. I didn’t want to be in some station house in Belarus while you were thousands of miles away.” The outline of his Adam’s apple bobs up and down, his neck shiny and wet in the moonlight. “I’m yours, Max. If you’ll have me, I’m yours.”

I puff out a breath. “Well, when you put it that way…”

He laughs, my arms wrapping around him, his mouth catching mine. We’re keeping each other afloat, suspended there, kissing. His lips taste like limoncello and sea salt, his tongue warm as it meets mine, and I want to be kissed like this forever: tenderly, like he’s been waiting for years and years. I guess, in a way, he has.

My legs wrap around his waist for a second as the sea lifts us up, the thin lining of my bathing suit meeting his belly. He growls a little under his breath. “You have no idea what that does to me.”

“Oh, I think I do,” I tease.

He snickers. “What about the ground rules, then? No touching?”

My hand slips along the wet silk of his back. “Broken.”

“No reminiscing?”

“Forget that one, too.”

His teeth nip at my bottom lip. “And the code word?”

“Now, that’s a keeper,” I tell him, coy. “I think that could come in handy if we’re, say, exploring things in the bedroom?” I’m saying it like a joke, but the mischievous spark in my eye—and the fire in his—tells a different story.

“You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you, Starfish?” he says, voice like velvet.

“Nicknames,” I say, directly into his mouth. “I’ll allow it.”

Half of me wants to be completely reckless, to map his body right there in the water, but our faces are still splashed all over the papers; no matter how secluded this beach is, you never know where paparazzi are hiding. Add to that, we have late-night dinner reservations—at a cliffside restaurant that Flynn selected, a short walk from the hotel.

Reluctantly, with a groan at the back of his throat, he says, “Okay, come on,” and we dry ourselves with plush cotton towels, wringing out our hair onto the sand. We get dressed, cold bathing suits falling to the floor; I apply a swipe of mascara, a slash of tangerine lipstick, and then we’re out the door, rushing to catch the reservation.

It’s just after ten o’clock. Lamplight dusts the street.

I think the restaurant’s going to be quiet, too, a few evening diners and us, but two minutes later, when we round the corner by the cliffside, a small cache of photographers is waiting on the patio. One of them shouts to the others, “ Sono là! Seguiteli! ” Loosely, this must translate to something like chase them —because all of a sudden, the mob’s coming for us. Fast.

“Run for it?” Flynn says, as I say, “Go!”

By now, we’re experts. We dodge them, dipping back into Hotel Giorgio, crashing into the elevator, barely making it back to our room before our hands are finding each other.

“I actually wasn’t that hungry,” I say, pawing at his shirt.

“Food’s overrated,” Flynn says, unzipping my dress.

“I wouldn’t go that far.” He hoists me over his shoulder, and I yelp, laughing, as we travel toward the bed. “But I wouldn’t mind room service? Staying in for the night?”

“Staying in sounds very, very appealing,” he says, laying me down on top of the sheets, planting soft kisses on my neck. “In fact, I can’t think of anything I’d like to do more.”

“Scuba diving?” I venture. “A tour of the herb garden? I hear this place has an exceptional piano bar, if you’re into that type of—”

He tsks playfully, stopping my mouth with a kiss. Our bodies connect, hips pressing against each other, warmth growing in my belly. We’re picking up where we left off in the water, stripping off our clothes; he unclasps my bra, one-handed, and I quick-trace my fingers down the slope of his shoulders, winding my way to his belt. I fiddle with it, half-frantic in the heat of the room, until the buckle breaks free and I have him in my hand, stroking up and down. This makes him only kiss me harder, our mouths colliding. “Good god, Max,” he manages, gruff.

“You’re—not so bad yourself,” I pant as his fingers glide against me, trailing down my stomach, settling between my thighs. And those are all the words I can get out for now. Everything else is just movement. Gasps. Him rocking against me and me rocking against him. The thick groan in the back of his throat when he slips inside me. How I bite down gently on his shoulder as he hits all the right spots. Again. And again.

When we’re both close to the edge, I echo the words he told me in the water. “If you’re mine,” I whisper, “then I’m yours.”

“I’ve always been yours,” he says, cupping my face, as a wave arches up inside me; I ride it, trembling, until we’re collapsing into the sheets.

In the morning, the sun rises over Positano.

And I feel brand-new.