Flirting in Italian by Lauren Henderson Read Free Book Online

Barbiano, your home for the next eight weeks,” Catia says shortly as she unclips her seat belt and swings herself deftly to the ground. “It is eighteenth century, built as a country home for my husband’s family, the Cerbonis. Their main palazzo was in Florence, but that has now been sold. We make our own wine and olive oil, and also some goat cheese, which is very popular.”
    “Goats! Eww! Smelly!” Paige mutters, not quietly enough; Catia shoots her an evil stare.
    “I will show you to your rooms,” she says coldly, “and then you may unpack and maybe have a swim in the pool before dinner.”
    We all perk up at the mention of the pool, dragging our cases out of the jeep and following Catia through the big double doors of the villa. Inside it’s immediately cool, the terra-cotta tiles of the floor and the white-plastered walls cutting the outside temperature. The house is half in shade, shutters at most of the windows, stripes of bright sunlight stippling the rust-colored floor and the stone staircase we climb. The walls are hung with elegant little watercolors of fruit and flowers, and each hallway we pass has an inlaid occasional table placed against the wall, one of those half-moonshapes with a perfect flower arrangement in a vase on top, like you get in five-star hotels.
    I’m amused to see that we have to climb right to the top of the house, under the sloping roof. Catia has put us in the old servants’ quarters.
    “
Ecco!
Here are your rooms,” Catia says as we arrive, panting because of the weight of our cases, at the top of the stairs. She’s standing in a wide, stone-floored anteroom with a roof sloping away on either side to long low windows, her arms wide, like an air hostess indicating emergency exits. “There are two beds in each one, and each room has its own bathroom,” she informs us. “The beds are made up, and you will find your own towels on them. Every week you will be responsible for taking your sheets and towels downstairs to the laundry. Please do not use fake tan, as it stains the towels and we have to bleach them, which is not good for the environment. There are beach towels by the swimming pool. Do not take your house towels out to the pool. And please do not put sanitary napkins down the toilet, as you will make a blockage.”
    She drops her arms, turns on her heel, and heads for the top of the stairs, picking her way past Kendra’s gigantic suitcase.
    “The pool is at the back of the villa,” she adds. “Dinner is served at eight-thirty in the dining room. We dress for dinner. No shorts, please. And no skirts so short we can see what you are wearing underneath. This is a course for young ladies, not ragamuffins.”
    We’re all so freaked out by this speech, delivered withthe weariness of a woman who’s trotted it out hundreds of times before, that we’re frozen in utter silence as Catia’s heels click down the stone stair treads, one flight, two flights, and eventually recede into the depths of Villa Barbiano. It’s our first bonding moment as a foursome, and it’s over in a flash: a swift, panicky glance exchanged by all of us, the realization that we’re stuck, for the next eight weeks, in a house with a woman who seems to actively dislike teenage girls.
    “You and me?” Kelly says to me as Kendra jerks her chin at Paige and heads across the antechamber to the door closest to her.
It’s Brits versus Americans
, I think, rolling my case in the opposite direction.
Scruffs versus glamour girls. Blue nail varnish versus French manicures
 …
    But all comparisons trail off as I enter the bedroom and goggle in shock. It’s like a suite, with the bathroom leading off one side, and it’s huge. There’s a single bed on either side of the room, a hooked cotton rug and white-painted night-stand beside each one. A big white cupboard and chest of drawers match the rest of the furniture, and a few black-and-white prints hang on the walls. It’s a blank canvas, simple and