Emily looked down to find Antoine’s hand on her own, making her let go of the fork she didn’t realize she was gripping.

“Emily thinks the next clue is in Rome.”

“What makes you think that?” Tyler’s interest had been piqued, enough for him to actually look Emily in the eye for the first time since his insipid girlfriend had arrived, unannounced, and put herself firmly in the middle of it all.

“Rome,” Phoebe said with an extravagant sigh, leaning into Tyler and stroking his cheek. “It’s just the most amazing city. Although the Colosseum is a little gruesome. My parents took us when I was a kid, and my brother spent the whole time pretending I was a lion and he was a gladiator.”

Emily rolled her eyes, busied herself with tidying away some of the plates.

“It’s where Gigi bought the necklace,” Antoine said, ignoring the warning look Emily gave him.

“The one you’re wearing?” Phoebe leant across the table, hand outstretched, and Emily pushed back her chair to stand, to get out of her way. “That’s just amazing.”

Please stop saying amazing. Emily closed her eyes, took two long, careful breaths. Please stop speaking altogether.

“How do we get there?”

Emily picked up a couple of empty dishes, found them taken from her by Antoine’s maid. Instead, she looked around for something else to busy herself with, to try to remove herself from the conversation. Not that she had been contributing much at all. It would seem as if her mouth, her tongue, had become tied into knots by Tyler’s very presence.

Phoebe popped a strawberry in her mouth just before Emily snatched her plate away. “I guess we drive.”

“No.” The word was out of her mouth before she’d even thought about whether or not to reply.

“But, Emily, honey,” Phoebe went on, resting her hand on Emily’s arm and simpering up at her, “the train would take forever.”

“I said no!” She slammed the plate back onto the table, watched it break clean in two before falling to the ground. “I’m sorry,” she whispered to Antoine, then turned and marched to the end of the garden, to where a gate opened up to take her down a sandy path toward the beach.

Tyler watched her go, seemingly oblivious to Phoebe’s exclamation about how she was only trying to help. He shrugged away her touch, then crouched down and started to pick up the broken pieces of china, not saying a word as Antoine looked over at him, then followed his friend’s granddaughter to the sea.

“I get it,” Antoine said, walking up behind Emily, who was throwing pebbles into the waves.

“Get what?”

“The car. The accident.”

Emily picked up some more stones, moved them around and around her palm, then sent them all soaring into the sea. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“No. I don’t suppose you do.” He wrapped an arm around her, gave her a kiss, breathed in the scent of lavender shampoo that Emily had been using ever since there was no one else to wear the memory. “So, did Catriona ever tell you just how rich I am?”