Obsession by Lena Little

2

Carolina

I bury my head between my knees, but the sound of my phone buzzing in my backpack keeps me from processing everything that’s happened in the last twenty-four hours. Or is it actually a reminder?

Rome Termini, Rome’s biggest train station, is completely empty…except for me and one older gentleman driving a floor cleaning machine, preparing the station for the numerous tourists that will swarm the city later today, and one who will depart it as soon as possible. Me.

Pulling the phone I look at the message from the nanny agency that hired me.

You’re fired. And *you will pay back the total cost of your ticket to Rome*.

With what money? The whole point of traveling nearly halfway around the world to take a job in a country I’ve never been to, can’t speak the language in, and don’t know a soul was to finally scrape enough pennies together to make some money. Because I clearly didn’t have any to start with.

Why am I fired?I shoot back.

Are you joking? You don’t show up for work on your first day and you expect to work for us. For our best client no less.

I swallow the knot in my throat. So that’s what he told them…that I didn’t show up, conveniently leaving out the part that I did indeed show up, but I quickly got the hell out of his house once his wife left, with his daughter no less, and he decided he expected duties very clearly outside the scope of being a nanny.

Well, let’s see what happens when he doesn’t show up for anything, ever again.

Hiding in the tall grass across the intersection where that man killed…murdered…my ex-boss should have terrified me. Not only might I be wanted, and tried Amanda Knox style, for a connection to or the actual crime I didn’t commit in Italy, but the man who actually did the crime is going to be after me too because I witnessed it. There’s nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. And even if I did have the money to fly anywhere, as soon as my passport got scanned at any airport the cops would be all over me.

I’m still in awe he wasn’t able to find me in the limited time he spent scouring the area before he drove off. And who knows what happened after I left. I highly doubt a man who kills that cold and calculated is flippant enough to leave a dead body lying around, especially when the corpse’s throat probably has his fingerprints embossed in it considering how hard he squeezed.

Strangely, what worries me most about this entire ordeal is why I was so quick to trust this random man so much. Just because he dresses well, has a nice car, and was at the right place at the right time? That pretty much sums up the man that hired me to be his nanny, too…minus the right place right time part.

But there was something just so…so protective about him. Sure I was scared and in hindsight, anyone with even half a friendly-looking face would have done, but this man had anything but a friendly face. He looked about as welcoming as the devil himself, yet something inside me called me to him…even though I couldn’t bring myself to raise my eyes to meet his. It was as if his masculinity put me into this immediate mental state of understanding exactly the kind of man I’d just had the fortune of meeting, even though never having met someone so powerful, and so short with his words, before.

Once I threw myself in his arms I knew I was safe, not only despite everything that had happened since I’d arrived in Rome but since I first made my way into this world. It was as if this weight had been lifted off my shoulders, even if for a split second, ever so briefly, and allowed me to exhale the breath I’d been holding my entire life.

And I don’t even know his name, but I could pick his face out of a lineup of men a million miles long. His piercing blue eyes in contrast with his dark hair. His smell of the Italian countryside and sawdust, while reeking of testosterone in the same inhale…if that’s even remotely possible.

I jam my hand in my backpack and count out the eighteen euro coins I possess, equal to my age in years and definitely unequal to the amount of effort I’ve put in to try and get my life sorted out.

Espressos are one euro each and in Italy usually come with a glass of water, sometimes a small cookie too. I could live on the caffeine, water, and cookies alone for a few days before I need to find a way to buy actual food again. I try and console myself with this fact, knowing I’m going to need to come up with a plan, and fast, but right now I need to sleep. I’m still jet-lagged from the flight. And after going straight from Rome’s Fiumicino International Airport, commonly referred to simply as "Leonardo da Vinci" to the house I was supposed to be working, and then the situation, followed by another situation I can’t get my mind to stop spinning. Walking an hour to the train station put my physical energy level on par with my mental. In layman’s terms, I’m shot.

I hunker down in a well-lit corner of the train station, not far from where the cleaning guy seems to be pulling out some supplies.

I close my eyes and remember the sound of my hero’s deep voice, his protective bass immediately cloaking me like a shield, his scent surrounding me like a wall of protection.

I should fall straight to sleep, passing out at that, but I picture his big, harshly masculine body…his commanding movements, and the robust way he holds his hulking frame as if he’s impenetrable. But it was as if something was always bothering him, the telltale grove of annoyance between his black brows.

I feel my knees spread slightly, as my mind takes me back to the way I wrapped them around him like a belt and the way his hands wrapped around me in an embrace in return. My sex clenches, which makes absolutely no sense because I’m in about the most unsexy place on earth, sitting on an unwashed section of train station floor. The only thing separating my private parts from me is a pair of well-worn thrift shop jeans.

But it doesn’t matter. Nothing in this world seems to but him. I wish I could have thanked him, but now I’ll never get the chance…unless he hunts me down and kills me first.

My eyes bat open and I wipe my forearm across my brow. Why can’t I stop thinking about him? I’m part agitated at this point but mostly still beyond intrigued. I pull my Kindle from my backpack and open it to a romance short story, almost as if I’m hoping to get some sort of clue, or advice. I exhale hard, a condescending gesture aimed at myself as I realize the only thing I know about love or romance for that matter, I’ve learned from this Kindle Short Reads. Because only in romance novels is the hero able to find the heroine after an unusual first encounter. But in this case, in a city of this size, it’s just not possible. There’s just no way.

And what would a guy with a Lamborghini and muscles want with me? “Stop with the negative self-talk,” I scold myself, but I can’t get the most important thought out of my head.

Happily ever afters only happen in books. That’s why we pay Amazon ten dollars a month to read as many of them as we can because they don’t happen in real life so we get our fix in the imaginary world that resides in-between our ears.

But at least I can hope. At least a girl can dream. Can’t I?

I shut my Kindle and stick it back in my backpack, before sliding the zippers together and securing them with a twisty tie. Then I slide the backpack between my legs, putting my foot through one of the shoulder straps to make it a bit harder to wrestle away from me in case someone sees me and thinks I’m vulnerable enough to rob at this ungodly hour. But it’s not whether I’m vulnerable enough, but more like valuable enough. Eighteen euros isn’t going to make anyone rich, and I’m suddenly got more baggage than an airport.

But I think of my savior and drift off to sleep, wishing we could have met in a different lifetime under different circumstances. So we will. My subconscious imagination will make sure of it.