Page 13 of My Dark Fairy Tale

I guessed it actually was.

“You look like shit,” she told me.

My hand flew to my hair, and I winced at the greasy, ratty mass of it.

“You smell too,” she informed me helpfully.

“Thanks,” I muttered. “I’ve been sick for days. What’s your excuse?”

She blinked at me, then threw her head back to laugh from her belly, deep and loud and long. When she recovered, dashing a tear from her eye with the back of her hand, she grinned at me. “Si, I understand now. My name is Martina.”

“Guinevere,” I said.

“Raffa told me not to bother you,” she said, and I got the feeling she didn’t often follow orders. “But I had to meet you. Also, I thought you might want a shower.”

“I’d love one, but ...” I wasn’t sure I was up to it energetically, which was incredibly sad.

“We can leave the door open slightly, and I’ll wait in the hall. If you need help, I’ll be there in a second,” she proposed.

I bit my lower lip as I considered her offer. It was just so ... strange to be relying on strangers when I felt so vulnerable and unwell. But there was nothing for it, and I decided to be grateful instead of suspicious. Most good midwesterners would have treated me the same in this situation, I was sure, so it shouldn’t be weird that Italians might too.

“Thank you. I do feel disgusting.”

Martina nodded emphatically to make it clear that I alsolookeddisgusting.

“Finish your food while you tell me about yourself,” she suggested, but it was more like an order, and I had to wonder if she was in the military or something. She just had a commanding aura, like you’d rather die than disobey her, and if you still managed that somehow, she’d kill you herself.

So I grabbed thecornettoand tore off the sugar-sticky end to pop in my mouth. “What do you want to know?”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-three.”

She seemed to find that amusing. “Oh yes.”

“Is twenty-three an exciting age for some reason?”

“Not really.” Her grin was sharp and wicked. “If you’re curious, Raffa is thirty-four.”

“Hmm,” I hummed noncommittally.

I hadn’t thought about his age or occupation or really any pertinent details about the man who’d become my reluctant rescuer. My injuries and illness had thrown me into a survival-state fugue that I was only now emerging from.

But I could admit to curiosity.

To thinking that an age gap that large was probablytoolarge.

I was a naive girl in a foreign land freshly graduated with my MBA from U of M, and Raffa was a man with a job and apalace.

Yeah, talk about out of my league.

He was helping me out because he felt sorry for me, and even though he was gorgeous and gracious enough to be a walking, talking heartthrob, life had taught me better than to hope for the impossible.

“He’s been very nice to me,” I admitted. “Not everyone would have helped me the way he has.”

“Not even Raffa would have helped someone the way he has helped you.”

I frowned at her quip. “Are you implying he isn’t usually a nice person? Aren’t you friends?”