Flirting in Italian by Lauren Henderson Read Free Book Online Page A

elegant, the roof sloping sharply to the right, exposed wooden beams with terra-cotta tiles lining the spaces between them.
    But the real star, for me, is the window between the beds. Long and low, beneath the eaves, it frames a view of blue skies, olive groves, and oak trees in the valley below, as beautiful as a painting. Sunlight gleams through it in a long refracted ray, bounced off the eaves, hanging in the air, tiny dust mites suspended in its golden glow, glittering like dots of mica. I run over to the window seat and sink ontothe stone embrasure, staring out at the panorama, for the first time really understanding what the expression “feast your eyes” means.
    “Oh
wow
!” Kelly echoes my feelings as she thuds into the room. Her case tips to the floor with a crash. “Piece of rubbish,” she mutters, kicking it. “Didn’t even last one blooming trip.” She clears her throat. “Um, d’you care which bed you have?” she asks politely, as screams of:
    “Mine!”
    “No, I saw it first!”
    “I put my bag on it!” shrill from across the anteroom.
    “My money’s on Kendra,” I say, grinning at Kelly. “And no, I don’t care which bed I have. Do you?”
    Kelly looks as if she doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Slowly, she walks across the room and sinks onto the far bed.
    “At home,” she says eventually, “I share with my two little sisters. They’ve got a bunk bed and I’ve got one of those sofa-cube things that I unfold every night. We’ve only got a little council house, and there’s six of us. This room”—she gestures around her—“is the size of our entire ground floor. Kitchen, lounge, everything.” She swallows hard. “So, no, I don’t care which bed I have either.”
    “You know something funny?” I ask. “I’ll bet these are the old servants’ quarters. Right at the top of the house, under the roof.”
    She’s thunderstruck.
    “You’re having me on,” she breathes, looking around the huge bedroom in wonder.
    I shake my head. “Of course, there’d have been a lotmore people in here, all piled in, lots of beds in rows. And there wouldn’t have been a—”
    More screams resound from the other side of the top floor.
    “Omi
god
!” Paige howls. “The bathroom’s like
huge
, and it’s all
marble
!”
    Kelly and I race across the room to look at our own en suite bathroom; luckily the doorway’s wide enough to let us both through. We gasp at the sight of the room, which is just as big as our bedroom: at the marble bath, the marble-walled open shower—there isn’t even a curtain, it’s so big it doesn’t need one—and the twin sinks set in a long white marble slab in front of a huge mirror.
    “Those aren’t real gold taps, are they?” Kelly says in a hushed voice, as if she’s in church.
    I’m trying not to smile.
    “No,” I say.
    “I might tell my sisters they are,” she says, shaking her head in disbelief as she looks around the room. “They’ll believe it.” Kelly sinks slowly to a squat, her head in her hands. “Flipping, bleeding hell,” she mutters slowly. “Buggering, bloody, sodding hell. Sorry. But if you
knew
where I started out this morning … what my home looks like … This is like—” She draws in a long breath. “Like waking up in
The Princess Diaries
or something.”
    I have no idea what to say to Kelly. I’m feeling very spoiled and privileged and undeserving when Paige bursts into the bathroom. She’s changed into a whirl of white lace cover-up over pink bikini over full-body tan, flip-flops slapping on the tiles.
    “Hey! Isn’t it cool!” she sings out. “Though I can’t
believe
we’ve only got single beds! I’m gonna keep falling right off it when I turn over! Anyway, we’re going down to the pool. You coming? Come on down! Jeez, I sound like a game show!”
    She swirls out again, leaving the dust mites whirling in her wake.
    We charge back into our enormous bedroom to tear open our suitcases. I realize that