Giorgio smiles as he listens.
“We ended up spending the weekend together before I left for Sorrento. I’d arranged to meet my girlfriend Natalie there. Enrico and I agreed to meet up again two weeks later.”
“Natalie is your friend who is moving here?”
“She’s here already. She arrived on Friday.”
“Wow.” He swings on his chair, clearly happy for me.
“But get this; the day I left for Sorrento happened to be the same day his father and grandfather were killed.”
His face falls.
“I didn’t hear from him for the entire time I was away, and then when I got back to Rome, someone had planted drugs in my bags.”
Giorgio’s mouth falls open. “Was it him?
“I hope not,” I scoff. “But I didn’t know any of this when I was arrested at the airport.”
Giorgio’s eyes widen. “You were arrested?”
“Yes, and I saw Rico at the police station, but he left me.”
“What do you mean… he left you?”
“He organized for a lawyer to get me off the charges, and he called the embassy, but he never came back and saw me again. I was put on a plane home by his lawyer, not him.”
He presses his fingers against his lips. “Extraordinary.”
I shrug. “I mean, even if we were nothing to each other but friends, you wouldn’t just leave someone that you spent the entire weekend with in prison, would you?”
“I wouldn’t have thought so, and especially not him. His loyalty is his strongest trait.” He thinks for a moment. “So, you hadn’t spoken to him since?”
“Not until I ran into him when I was on my Tinder date and he went feral crazy.”
Giorgio’s fascinated eyes hold mine. “What did he say about all of this? How did he explain this?”
I shrug. “He said that he was dealing with the deaths and he just couldn’t handle me and drugs. He said he was in the grieving crisis.”
He frowns. “In all fairness, he was.”
“Did you see him back then?’
He nods. “He was very angry for a long time. He disappeared from the social scene altogether. His brothers both moved back home to help him.”
“Help him with what?”
“As the oldest child, he had to take over the family business. This would have been traumatizing for him.”
I frown. “What do you mean?”
He sits up and straightens in his chair. “Nothing really, just a lot to get his head around, I imagine.”
“I guess. Anyway, we had a big fight, and then he came to work and waited outside. I don’t know. We’re seeing how things go.”
“Oh, I love this story.” He claps his hands together. “It’s like Cinderella going to the ball.”
I roll my eyes.