The door closes behind her and it feels like I’ve been sealed inside a vault. Suddenly the library seems darker than before and my whole body is aware that I’m alone in this place with this smoldering, stupidly hot man.
“Please, take a seat,” he says, nodding slightly. I look behind me to see another desk against the wall, an even bigger stack of papers on top of it, as well as an Underwood typewriter. Thick dust has settled everywhere, and the desk looks like it hasn’t been touched in years. I walk over and pull a leather chair from it, and as I do my eyes briefly rest on a stack of paperbacks. They’re all the same book, Villa dei Limoni Tristi. I try to make out the author but the spines are hidden by the typewriter.
“If you please,” Signor Larosa says harshly, and I nearly jump where I’m standing. I shoot him an apologetic smile and immediately feel my face go red as I pull the chair to rest across the desk from him. I make a point of not sitting too close. I want to be able to run if I need to.
I sit down quickly, folding my hands in my lap and crossing my feet at the ankles. I can see now why Felisa’s brash demeanor changed when she knocked on the door. Suddenly, she seems like a ray of sunshine.
“I must tell you,” Signor Larosa says, pulling out a piece of paper from the desk. It’s a printed copy of my résumé and he already has a red pen in hand, as if he’s going to cross the whole thing out and tell me everything about my life is wrong. “I don’t think you are right for this job.”
Well, that’s encouraging.
I raise my brow. “And why is that?”
He gives me a sharper look. That is to say, he gives me an even sharper look. His eyes slice into mine like razor blades, but I refuse to look away. Telling me that I’m not right for the job is a surefire way to bring out all of my Taurus tendencies.
“I had asked Felisa to make sure the applicants were older and more mature. You seem very young.” His eyes trail down my body again and back up to my face. I try not to show the fact that my hairs are standing on end.
“I’m twenty-four,” I tell him.
“But you have no experience with children or teaching English,” he countered smoothly, his face a mask.
“I have a degree in English,” I say, raising my chin a little, “so I know more than most people do. I’ve been told I’m a natural teacher. And I have experience with children. There are many in my neighborhood.” Sometimes I yell at them to get off my lawn.
He glances at the résumé. “In San Jose, California?”
“That’s right. Have you ever been there?” I ask, hoping to enliven the conversation.
“No,” he says simply, looking over my résumé again. “I don’t want to have to trust Felisa on this one, though she hasn’t let me down before.”
I chip away at my neon yellow nail polish, not really sure what to say to that. I have a million questions and this man is going to be even more difficult to get answers from than Felisa was. Still, I have a feeling I should wait for him to say something.
Silence cloaks the room; you can really feel its presence in here. Meanwhile, the sun has started to descend to the horizon, the light through the radius windows becoming a pale gold. It’s beautiful. I wish I could open the French doors and let the breeze in. I wish I could just snatch the résumé out of his hand, leave the room, leave the house, and go back on the ferry to Positano. I wish I had the money to walk away.
“So you met the twins, did you?” he asks, finally putting my résumé away and folding his hands in front of him.
I nod. “Yes, outside.”
“And how did you find them?”
“They are very cute.”
“There must be a better English word than that. Try me. I know English very well.”
“Then why aren’t you teaching them?” I blurt out. I didn’t mean to say it but it has been on my mind ever since he opened his mouth.
He tilts his head, considering me. “I have a difficult relationship with them. You see, they are my brother and sister and they are in my care. I am all the family they have left. You have parents, am I assuming correct?” I nod. He goes on. “Do you think you would learn anything if your parents tried to teach you another language?”
I shake my head and make a face. I was traveling to escape my parents. “No way.”
“Well, then that is the same case here. Alfonso and Annabella . . . already our roles are too twisted. Besides, it is easier to learn from a native English speaker. There is less chance to cheat. With you, they will have to learn English or not talk at all. I assume you are not a great speaker of Italian?”
“I know some,” I tell him. And that’s true. It’s just hard to define what some is.
“Yes, some, of course,” he says in his jackass condescending way. It rankles me and helps me ignore how pretty his eyes are. “So, Miss MacLean—”
“You can call me Amber,” I interject.
“Perhaps,” he says. Still no trace of a smile. “So, Miss MacLean, give me the right word to describe the twins. In English.”
I sigh inwardly. “Do you want the truth, a lie, or a white lie?”
For a moment he almost looks impressed. “Give me all three.”
Here goes nothing.
“From what I observed of them, Alfonso and Annabella seem very precocious.”
“That is the white lie. Though also truth.”