Page 99 of The Roman Holiday Rule

I’d give up all this for an exciting move that would help my career, except Markisn’tout of that equation. He’d be there, which would mean running into him in awkward coincidences that leave me in fresh pain every time. High risk, and I’m not into risk.

After a while, Julie gasps. She’s staring at her computer screen. “Oh, wow.”

“What’s wrong?”

She slams her laptop closed and blinks at me. “Have you seen the festival web page lately?”

“Not since yesterday, why?”

“The photographer uploaded a gallery of photos. There are several from the reception and then a ton from Saturday and Sunday.” She’s staring at me, waiting.

“And?”

She shrugs. “Just thought you might like to know. There are a lot of good shots. It’ll be effective advertising for next year.”

“Okay. I’ll look later.” I’m not doing it in front of Julie. She already suspects I’m fragile, though outwardly I’ve been a rock of productivity and steadiness. Having her watch me relive the day Mark and I walked away from each other is a nonstarter.

Julie takes a loud, obnoxious slurp from her smoothie, still staring at me.

I turn back to my computer. The photo that got Mark’s attention on the airplane covers the screen as my wallpaper. I jiggle my mouse, scowling at yet another reminder. Plus, now I agree with his assessment that it’s an over-filtered, impossibly perfect portrayal of Italy.

Unrequited love is the worst.

“Julie, stop hovering and waiting. I’ll look when I get home.”

I lose myself in my work, despite her dramatic sighs every ten minutes. We grab sandwiches for lunch from the deli and lock up around four o’clock. My apartment is walking distance from the office, which is nice. We part ways at the Commons. Another day survived.

At my apartment, I drop my purse on the console table and slip out of my black slingback flats. I take my laptop to the guest bedroom that doubles as my home office, pausing in the doorway at the blank wall above the bed where I always thought I’d hang Mom’s temple painting, before I knew her plans to dedicate it to Rome. It’s good that it’s in Italy, I remind myself for the hundredth time. Maybe there will be a print-worthy photo from the festival photographer to mount above the bed instead.

Standing at the desk, I open up the festival website and navigate to the gallery of pictures, clicking through shots of families and couples enjoying the art and music around the city.

The items on display at all the exhibitions are each given their own close-up shot. An artisan kaleidoscope out of olive wood. A pottery bowl painted with blue flowers. Paintings of Rome’s bridges and the Italian countryside.

The next photo is the chalk sign above our bet display,Vote for the Heart of Italy.Then there’s my shot of Mark’s grandparents at the dinner table, a mother serving her family pasta as a tangible comfort from heartache. Blown up on display, my entry looks good.

I take a deep, shaky breath. The next one will be Mark’s bet photo. I swipe. It’s not one picture, but a collage—a grid of nine shots around one large one in the middle, half of which aren’t even of Rome.

What. A. Cheat.

That’s what goes through my mind, but I drop onto the desk chair with that heart-melting, tingling, weak-kneed sensation that keeps happening with Mark.

The pictures are not the heart of Italy.

A woman’s hand holding out a stuffed animal to a little girl’s chubby, eager fingers in the airport line.

An awkward-angled selfie—dark hair hiding a woman’s sleeping face, her head resting on Mark’s broad shoulder, a worn Jane Austen paperback fallen between them on the airline blanket.

A bright turquoise scrap of fabric tied to the handle of a suitcase in the lobby of his apartment.

A faraway shot of a woman’s tense jawline, her hand clasped around a necklace chain, Trevi Fountain in the background, Santino gesturing at the water.

A woman on the Spanish Steps, framed through the window of the Keats house, bent over a paper, with an expression of bittersweet longing on her face.

The side of a woman’s face as she giggles with a boy and a bird.

The back of a woman resting on the parapet of Mariella’s rooftop terrace, her head tilted with interest and care as she stares out over Rome lit at night.

Pink toenails peeking out through the top of an espadrille sandal.