Keira soon discovered that putting the past behind her was much easier said than done, and would involve a whole lot more than symbolically deleting contacts from her cell phone. Because the moment she made it to Newark airport the next morning, she was bombarded with memories of Shane, of Ireland.
Feelings of nostalgia whirled inside her as she walked through the concourse. As she handed over her boarding pass at the gate, she remembered with vivid clarity the emotions she'd had last time-the anxiety mixed with excitement and hope. It hadn't been that long ago but already she felt like a different person entirely, a sadder, more bitter person.
She boarded the plane and took her seat. Luckily, she was by the window, which gave her an excuse not to interact with the passenger beside her. She wasn't in the mood for chatting. Unfortunately for Keira, the man beside her seemed intent on it. As they took to the air, he leaned over and spoke.
"Name's Garrett. Ever been to Naples before?" he asked her, grinning jovially.
He was a middle-aged man, balding slightly. He appeared to be traveling alone. Keira noticed he wasn't wearing a wedding ring but that the skin was paler where a band had once been. A recent divorcee, she hypothesized, and groaned internally. It was going to be a long eight hours.
"No," she replied, monosyllabically.
"So why are you traveling today?" he added. "Business or pleasure?"
Keira hunkered down in her seat. "Business," she explained. "I'm-"
She stopped herself then, recalling what Bryn and Nina had told her in the coffee shop about playing with fake identities for fun. She could do with a bit of fun. "I'm a wine connoisseur," she said. "Top of my game. Heading to Italy to find some hidden gems for importing."
Garrett raised his eyebrows in surprise. "That sounds like fun. A darn sight more exciting than my job, anyway."
"Oh?" Keira asked. "What's your job?"
"I'm in accounting," he said. "Well, not completely. It's a bit hard to explain. It's easier just to say I'm an accountant for accountants. Does that make sense?"
Painfully so, Keira thought.
"Yes," she said aloud.
How typical that she'd be sitting beside an accountant. It was like fate was trying to tell her to give up the search for Mr. Right and settle down with Mr. Math!
"I'm sure you don't want to hear me drone on about my job though," the man added. "Yours sounds fascinating. How did you get into it?"
"It is fascinating," Keira continued, surprising herself with how easily she was lying and how much enjoyment she was getting from it. "My father was a wine importer," she added. "He loved his job so passionately I was even conceived in a vineyard."
She felt a little spark of excitement as the lie rolled easily off her tongue. She was really getting into the spirit of it. Her own father had left when she was very young and hadn't been involved in her life much at all, so inventing a persona for him was easy. Plus, all this embellishment was going to come in handy over the course of her assignment, she figured, since she was going to have to pretend she still believed in love.
"Oh my," the man beside her said.
"I know. He married there as well. But, sadly, he also died in that very same vineyard." She sighed theatrically. "It only made sense to have him buried there too."
Keira noticed the way the man moved to increase the distance between them. He was losing the will to speak to her, probably because of the way she'd steered the conversation toward the morbid. She laughed to herself as he tried to switch his attention to the in-flight movie.
The plane soared higher into the air. Soon the clouds were far below them.
Finally getting some peace and quiet, Keira took the opportunity to look through the itinerary that Heather had prepared for her. Immediately, it brought memories flooding back to her of her last assignment. Heather had used the same font, the same clinically organized layout with bullet points and headings. During the month in Ireland, Keira had defiled it, getting it covered in Guinness and bits of oil from the hearty Irish breakfasts she'd eat with Shane. There was no chance of that happening this time. She could already feel how different things would be with this second assignment. She felt older. More jaded.
Then, on the itinerary in her lap, Keira caught sight of a word that made her stomach drop. Tour guide.
Of course there'd be one, she realized now. Just because she'd fallen head over heels in love with the last tour guide, who'd then gone on to shatter her heart into a thousand pieces, that didn't mean there wouldn't be one for this assignment! Something about the thought felt dangerous to her. Was it just because of what happened last time? Keira wondered. Or because she had a spark of hope that it might happen again?
She shook the thoughts away and focused instead on the destinations. Touch down in Naples, and a night there before taking a train to the Amalfi Coast. A ferry to Capri. A gondola ride to a place called the Blue Grotto. Rome. The Vatican.
If she'd been going on vacation, Keira would have been thrilled with the itinerary. She looked at pictures of the places she'd be visiting on her iPad and they were all stunning. It was like the perfect romantic getaway. But that was just the problem. She'd be visiting some of the most awe-inspiring locations in the most romantic country on earth and she'd be doing it without Shane.
And to add insult to injury, she'd have to write about something she no longer felt. It would be like hitting herself over the head with romance day after day, rubbing salt into the wound of her heart, knowing that her own great love had been lost. It didn't seem fair. Poetic injustice, Keira thought to herself. She just couldn't get excited about the trip.
Feeling herself sliding into a depression, Keira called over the air steward and ordered herself a drink. Then she put her work things away and checked her social media accounts, which was always a great way to distract herself.
The drink arrived and Keira sipped it as she scrolled through Instagram, looking through a million pictures of cats, Bryn's photos from the disastrous double date night at Gino's, and Maxine's most recent sponsored charity marathon. Then she noticed that Shelby had posted something that had received thousands of likes. It was a simple photo of her hand, and there was a ring on her wedding finger.
"No way!" Keira cried aloud, almost spilling her drink.
Garrett, the man in the seat beside her, looked over, frowning. "Is everything okay?"
Keira waved his concerns away. She couldn't believe what she was seeing. Shelby hadn't said a thing about marriage being on the cards. In fact, she spoke so rarely about her partner, David, that Keira sometimes suspected they'd secretly called it quits. How wrong she'd been! The two had been together since college, after all, so had a good seven years under their belt already. Marriage was the logical step for them. And yet it still stung for Keira to see it.
She called over the air steward again. "I'll have another," she said.
She needed something to calm her nerves. The man beside her looked over suspiciously. Keira just gave him a cold look, and he returned his focus to the movie, pretending he hadn't been snooping in the first place.
She quickly fired off a congratulatory message to Shelby and David, though she was feeling closer to bitter than celebratory. It wasn't something she wanted to feel. She'd much prefer to be happy for her old college friend. But she was too miserable right now, her heart too bruised.
She checked her phone, wondering whether Shane would get in touch with her at all. It had been a couple of days since they'd last spoken and she'd had no contact with him at all. He'd promised they could remain friends but clearly that was just something he'd said at the time. She doubted he had any intention of fulfilling that promise. Not even a message to let her know how Calum was doing, or any of the sisters. So much for friends…
She downed the second drink and soon the effects of the alcohol started to work on her. Feeling drowsy, Keira settled down into her seat and allowed sleep to overcome her.
May as well sleep through the unhappiness, she reasoned.
Keira slipped into unconsciousness and began to dream. Her mind conjured up the images of Italy she'd been looking at on her iPad. In the dream she was dressed in marathon gear and covered in mud. She'd had to run all the way to the Amalfi Coast in order to attend Shelby and David's wedding. But when she finally got there, panting and covered in mud, she found that everyone was wearing a masquerade mask. And when David removed his, she saw that it was Shane standing there. The woman he was marrying? That was Bryn.
Keira staggered across the beach toward them.
"How could you betray me like that?" she cried, looking in horror at Shane. "I thought your dad was sick, that that was why we couldn't be together."
He shrugged nonchalantly. "I just made that up," came his cold response. "I broke up with you because your sister is way hotter."
Keira turned her gaze to Bryn then. "You've been lying to me all along! My own sister!"
But Bryn looked completely unfazed. "What was I supposed to do?" She shrugged. "He has a hot bod."
Overcome with emotion, Keira looked around her, desperate, panting. One by one, the seated guests removed their masquerade masks. The first to unveil himself, Keira realized with horror, was another Shane. This Shane's date was Julia, the girl Zach had cheated on her with. Beside that version of Shane, another Shane was revealed, this time with Maxine. And again and again and again, Shane with Shelby, Shane with Tessa, the girl from Ireland she'd thought Shane had slept with, Shane with her mom. Over and over again. Everywhere Keira looked the male guests morphed into Shane.
She fell to her knees and began to cry. But someone was suddenly gripping her elbow. She peered up, the sun obscuring her vision, and found herself looking into the most beautiful brown eyes lined with thick lashes.
"Keira, don't cry," the man said in a soft, musical Italian accent.
"Who are you?" she asked, allowing him to draw her to her feet.
"You don't recognize me?" he asked, smiling.
His face was perfect, Keira realized as she looked at him. He was so gorgeous she felt herself growing weak at the knees.
Suddenly, he swept her up into his arms. He cradled her against his chest, holding her easily like she was weightless. The sea was suddenly sloshing around his calves. They were standing in the ocean.
"You still haven't told me your name," Keira asked again.
The man laughed, a noise that was pure pleasure to her eardrums.
"I don't need to tell you, you already know it," he said.
Keira wracked her brains. Then the name came to her, suddenly and full of clarity.
"Are you Romeo?" she asked with disbelief.
The man smiled, his face alive with beauty. "Yes. I'm Romeo. Your Romeo."
He leaned in toward her, slowly, their lips just millimeters apart.
A sudden jolt made Keira's eyes ping open. She looked around, disoriented, startled to find herself on an airplane. They were descending through the clouds and the seatbelt sign was on. The final approach must have begun. She'd slept the whole journey.
The dream had left her panting. She touched her chest, feeling her heart fluttering beneath her shirt. Her head was still swirling with the effects of the liquor that she hadn't managed to fully sleep off.
"I think you were having a nightmare," Garrett said.
Keira rubbed her temples, recalling the strange dream she'd had. "Yes, I think you're right. At first. I was being haunted by my ex-boyfriend who was marrying my sister. And all my best friends. And my mom."
The man looked bemused. Keira wondered what he really thought of her. By his expression, she'd take a guess that he thought she was a nut job. A crackpot.
The plane touched down with a shudder, then began taxiing along the runway. When it eventually drew to a halt, the man beside Keira leapt up the second the seatbelt light flicked off.
"Avoiding the queues," he said, sheepishly.
"Of course," Keira replied with a quirk to her smile.
The cabin doors were opened and Garrett bolted for them. Keira laughed to herself. She'd enjoyed her fake persona. Maybe Bryn wasn't as foolish as she always thought!
She gathered up her things and unbuckled herself, then retrieved her purse from the overhead storage. Heading along the aisle, Keira thought about how the game she'd played with Garrett would now need to be put into real action. For the next three weeks she was going to have to pretend to be someone she wasn't, someone who still believed in love. Somehow, she had a feeling that doing so was going to be a whole lot harder than being the wine connoisseur had proven to be.
She stepped out of the plane and let the warm sunshine caress her skin. It was much nicer than the cold weather she'd left behind in New York City. There was something about the sun that always made her feel optimistic. It made everything look more beautiful, and though she couldn't see much of Italy at the moment besides the airport, the surrounding hills looked stunning in the bright light.
She followed the path towards the concourse, knowing she'd soon be meeting her tour guide. For the first time since leaving New York, she let herself imagine that her Romeo was waiting for her…
