24 Hours in Italy

Chapter Two

M

The next morning

In one more day Mira would see Jake Lewis for the first time in two years. Twenty-four more hours, yet her stomach was already in knots.

The uncomfortable feeling first stirred after breakfast, in the tucked away terrace of the charming B&B not far from the cathedral. And now, after hugging Sophie good-bye and turning the corner to a side street lined with boutiques, the nervousness had her keeling over.

She stood tall, smoothing out the skirt of her sleeveless linen dress. She then adjusted the straps of her backpack and the crossbody purse underneath it, reminding herself it was only a ten-minute walk to the train station.

Easy.

An overnight stay in Florence had not only been fun (up until the morning nerves), but sensible. Sophie needed to take a train to Rome, and Mira was headed even farther south to Naples. They could've traveled together until the first stop in Rome, but with Sophie's returning flight to New York not until late afternoon, she'd opted to spend the morning in Florence—a chance to roam a charming city tailormade for tourists.

Before long, Mira arrived at the central Florence train station. The platforms were lined up row after a row, an orderly sequence that made things easy for foreigners. When Mira checked the digital information board, everything was problem-free, the same as it had been for every one of her journeys via rail across Italy. If she did have a question, there was always a kindly local more than happy to assist. All of this was a jarring contrast to that chaotic day in Paris from a lifetime ago, when the train hadn't come, she'd missed her flight, and had wound up stuck in the city for an extra twenty-four hours.

With Jake.

That twist of fate was fresh on her mind as she took her seat in cabin eight of the train to Naples. If the train had run on time that day in Paris, Jake would've remained a stranger to her and she never would've known what she was missing. Maybe that was the real emotional torment—being blindly unaware of the magical possibilities. Not that being unaware was particularly painful. It was more of a daily disconcerting feeling, hard to place and even harder to cure.

I'd rather take the pain.

Doing her best to get comfortable with discomfort, she tried not to obsess (too much) about why Jake was coming to the wedding. He must've known she would be there too. But that hadn't deterred him. Or maybe it had been the deciding factor. Or maybe he was simply showing up for Dembe, and barely remembered her at all.

It was an overanalysis game she wouldn't win, so as the train eased forward and out of the station, Mira pulled a creased pocket paperback out of her purse. It was the third in a detective thriller series—her favorite genre for whenever she needed a distraction.

An hour and forty minutes and one grisly (fictional) murder later, the train arrived at Roma Termini. Passengers disembarked and new ones boarded, buzzed on espresso and ready for whatever their journey to the south had in store.

Mira glanced out the window to see how many passengers still needed to board. She was eager to get to Naples, and even more eager to see the Amalfi Coast for the very first time. Once there, she'd be joining in on the pre-wedding fun—unlike Jake who hadn't RSVPed for the day-before festivities.

As the crowd thinned out, she caught a glimpse of a strong forearm. And an unmistakeable mess of bedhead hair.

"Holy shit," she whispered.

***

He hadn't noticed her yet, but Mira wasn't imagining things: Jake was waiting to board cabin eight of the train to Naples. She surveyed the seats in her vicinity; seven of them were empty, including the one across from her.