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,