Taking all your core classes up front in your first two years of teaching school had been a stroke of genius as far as you were concerned, but it did take a lot out of you, no doubt about it.
The first days of the week had been dedicated mostly to preparing for a major test. Passing that one test and a handful of other assignments meant one big step further to being able to skip end-of-semester exams—which, in turn, meant a longer summer vacation and hopefully an entire month off to spend with Ignazio.
But even after switching shifts with Laura and Alex to throw yourself into your studies and a more than welcome light schedule of classes, you felt overtired for some reason. Not to say irritable. Not even halfway through the week and it sucked already.
You'd like to think it was just test anxiety, but you knew it was a little more than that. It was those stupid photos of Ignazio and Camilla you'd seen earlier in the week.
Knowing how things were in his home country, Ignazio had already warned you about the more than likely gossip that would be tossed around him and his ex being spotted in the same place at the same time. Still, it felt like a punch in the gut every single time.
Your daily Google alert had led mostly to gossip blog posts with several shots of Camilla and Ignazio, in black pants and a black polo shirt, at the rehearsals for a live music event they were involved in. The captions speculated on the nature of their current relationship, and some noted that he and "girlfriend (Y/N)" hadn't been spotted together for quite some time, suggesting he might be single again.
There were also numerous articles with photos of Gianluca and Serena B hugging good-bye outside a restaurant where apparently they'd had dinner after the Mazza's garden party. The photos had gone viral shortly after, sparking rumors that the old tabloid-adored couple was back on.
What the hell do you all know?
People thought they knew Gianluca and Ignazio—or Piero, for that matter—and their private lives, but they didn't. They didn't know shit. In fact, they knew only one slice of them, and that slice they knew was really mostly their public personas. They didn't have a damn clue about the private men behind. And that's why all those continuous unfounded rumors kept pissing you royally.
All in all, you knew Ignazio couldn't possibly have been intimate with another woman. You knew he loved you. And that was the only thing that mattered, no matter what the tabloids speculated. So you did your best to force back that lingering distress, shoving it into a corner where you would deal with it later on.
This is definitely not the week for that.
With a fresh set of clothes for Alice in your hands, you rushed to the living room where you'd left her finishing her breakfast and walked in on a fresh hell. Alice was lying on the couch with her legs against the wall, watching the TV upside down, Paws clasped to her chest... and freaking fairy wings spread out across the cushion beneath her back.
Dear. God.
"What are you doing?" you asked her, your eyes lingering on the fake wings. "Let's move our butts, Thumbelina. School doesn't wait for fairies, no matter how cute they are."
She huffed and rolled to the side as the end song of Jake and The Neverland Pirates rang out. "Nobody ever tells Tinker Bell that."
Yeah, well, Tink was a stroppy little bitch in the original movies.
"Tinker Bell's older than you," you settled for. "Get dressed. Did you eat yet?"
"Yep. Plus a yogurt and the rest of the blueberries." She grinned after pulling her nightgown over her head.
YOU ARE READING
SHADES OF LOVE
ChickLit~Sequel to Boschetto's Fifty Shades Darker~ Little did you know that the mysterious and intense man who had swept you off your feet since day one, making you feel you were the light in his life, was a well-known figure in his home country and abroad...
