Page 9 of The Summer You Were Mine

Ellie dropped her tote on the bed and started unbuttoning her blouse.

Her regular bra was totally not going to work, but the strapless that she’d packed was buried too deep in her suitcase to pull it out at this point.

She unhooked the bra and threw it on the bed with her blouse and yanked off her jeans.

The dress, in its current non-formation, pulled up over her hips easily and actually felt great.

The material was soft and light, perfect for summer and for dancing.

She pressed “play” on the video, and a woman named Danuta started explaining what to do with the different sections as techno music played in the background.

The first two options involved lots of twisting of the panels, but not much anchoring of the fabric beyond a precarious-looking tuck.

One wrong move on the dance floor, and she could easily send one of the elder groomsmen into cardiac arrest. The next one split her chest into what could only be described as boob tamales and lobbed the straps over one shoulder, threatening to strangle any wearer who had over an A-cup.

The fourth one involved weirdly drooping sleeves and a V neck to the waist that would make any bra at all an impossibility.

Finally, there was a kind of simple cross-back situation with a knot that looked like it ticked all the right boxes, so she set the phone on the bed at an angle and went to work.

She pulled one swath of fabric up over her right side and tried to wrap it around herself but couldn’t manage the same thing on the left.

After the third try, she was starting to sweat.

Maybe she should take it off for a minute and cool down before possibly staining it.

There was no way anyone would be able to see inside the window from below but she covered her chest with her hands anyway and wandered over to catch a breeze.

She walked back over to the bed to mute Danuta and the techno, which was giving her a headache, but did not make it before the bedroom door opened.

She screamed and instinctively grabbed her chest. “Ninnolo!”

Cristiano Conte stood filling the doorway, motionless.

His childhood nickname was the first thing that came out of her mouth and probably the last thing he wanted to hear, judging by the stunned look on his face.

Although it was hard to actually know what was happening on his face at all behind the dark pair of sunglasses and black baseball cap—and the facial hair.

Since when did Cris let facial hair grow, let alone the rest of it?

And did he get taller? Or bigger? And how much of this mattered while she was standing there essentially doing a striptease to Polish techno?

“ Perché sei nudo? ” he asked with a scrunch visible between the glasses and the visor of his cap.

“I’m not naked!” she yelled while at least half naked.

“But—” He raised his hand, gesturing in the general direction of her torso.

“Can you get out?!” she tried. He backed out of the room and closed the door without a word.

Ellie sat on the bed with her head in her hands, too tired to think beyond anything but: Why?

She knew she was going to have to deal with him eventually, but she didn’t expect to have to do it topless and sweating.

She turned off the video, pulled the dress down off her hips, and yanked on her shirt and jeans.

She could feel the shock of seeing him wear off and the panic start to rise in her chest. She had to calm down.

It was just Cris. Regular ol’ Cris. Buddy, pal, known-her-whole-life Cris.

Heart-breaking, soul-stomping, oblivious Cris.

She picked up her bag but just stood, eyeing the door.

“Hi,” she said, finally pulling it open as if everyone had always been clothed, forever. He was standing obediently in the hall against the wall, completely still.

“Hi,” he said at last. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know—” He shifted a large duffel from one hand to the other, making the muscles in his forearm flex with the weight.

His black T-shirt stretched across his shoulders and his cap was losing the battle of controlling the mop of wild hair underneath.

The last time she’d had an actual conversation with him he was in the middle of training for the World Athletic Games, a highly trained beast, and on the razor edge of lean and clean-shaven.

The guy in front of her was a different kind of animal altogether.

“It’s fine,” she interrupted. “You’re here. I mean, are you staying here?”

“Yeah. It’s just me. For now.”

“Yeah. I figured,” she said, wondering why these were the only words her allegedly genius IQ could come up with. “I’m going to the beach. Well, to our apartment, then to the beach, I mean.”

“Okay,” he said, and walked past her into the room to put his bag down.

How the hell were he and his girlfriend going to fit in that bed?

She pictured him under the coverlet with his feet hanging over the footboard and her on the floor.

There’s no way the woman who was the face of the latest Versace perfume would curl up on the hardwood.

Maybe they slept braided up like a muscular loaf of challah and had no need for personal space whatsoever.

Maybe she needed to get out of the house before she started picturing them squeezed into the en suite bathroom, tandem brushing their teeth with their arms intertwined.

“See you later,” she said, and turned to walk back down the stairs.

“Ellie,” he said in a voice so low and rich, the word hung in the hallway like a tapestry.

Her stomach flipped. She paused on the stairs but did not turn around.

What was he going to say to her now? Had he heard about what happened in New York through the family grapevine?

Or worse, would he actually start discussing ancient history right this instant?

Nothing was more terrifying than the thought of an unplanned-for emotional exchange when she couldn’t possibly have time to rehearse potential responses.

She wanted to disintegrate into the nearest ficus immediately.

Would it be bizarre to sprint out of the house and not stop until she hit the Gulf of Tigullio?

“Yeah.”

“It’s good to see you.”

She turned back slightly, enough to see him standing in the doorway looking down at her, enough to see that it didn’t look like he was being sarcastic or pitying her. In fact, it kind of looked like he meant it.

“You, too,” she said, and turned to head out. She let out a breath she didn’t know she was still holding. If the next eight days were going to be anything like the last eight minutes, she was in trouble.