River.

Chapter 41: Meeting a Roman

"Oh yea... sorry." I apologized.

He looked at me as if he didn't believe me.

I couldn't blame him though. I'm kind of known for freaking out all the time.

"Truth is..." He began. "I actually have done a bit of modeling before."

Remember when I promised him I wouldn't freak out?

Yea well I lied.

"I knew it!!! There's no way you're that attractive and have never done any modeling in your life!"

"It wasn't something I wanted to do though." He said.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"My wife kinda pressured me into it. Every now and then she drags me to work with her to do a couple of photoshoots. I'm still not a big fan of it though. I don't even like the fact that she models. She once stepped on a scale and started crying when she saw that she was 2 pounds over the normal weight for her job and I stayed up until 4 in the morning trying to convince her that she still looked beautiful. There's so many stupid rules and regulations for female models and just for women in general."

I reached in and kissed him.

Judging by the little confused sound he made he had no idea why.

"What was that for?" He asked.

"Because you're the most amazing guy I've ever met."

"I know right." He said as he pretended to dust away dirt off his shoulders.

"You're sooo conceited though." I added. "And wait- I just realized something.... You said that your son's at home with the nanny."

"Um, your point is???" He asked.

"You actually have a nanny?"

"Yes. Well- she's kind of like a nanny. She's actually an 'Au pair'."

He looked at the lost expression on my face and explained before I asked.

"An Au pair is someone from a foreign country thats hired to work in a home in exchange for room and board. We hired her because we're both so busy working all the time and we needed someone full time to watch over Rome. Not to mention she's from France like me so she's been teaching him French whenever I'm too busy to for quite a while now."

"But why do you need her full time? Don't you leave the university at around 5-ish?"

"Yes. But you forgot that I'm not just a professor. As soon as I leave the university I go down to Northway Hospital where I work another 5 or 6 hours."

"Wow." I remarked. "You're hardly ever at home then."

"Exactly. But I'm gonna cut back on some of my hours at the university for next year so that I can spend more time with my little guy. He's growing up faster than I expected him to."

"I bet he's spoiled rotten by you, isn't he?" I joked.

"Yep and he's just as stuck up and cocky as me, now come on so you can meet him." He said as he pulled me up and threw me on his back.

He took off running so fast I thought I got whiplash.

As he ran through the darkness I could only think of one thing: What if he ran into a branch and I got knocked off of his back? That wouldn't be a pretty sight. I held onto him tighter as more scary scenarios popped into my mind.

Soon we were back at his car and I was breathing hard as hell from all the running- even though I wasn't even the one running- meanwhile Mr. Professor/Doctor/Model wasn't even phased one bit.