An Unexpected Romance in Rome

By Sam Power

In Rome, Ted Wolfram's evening led to him meeting an exciting woman called Natalie. The night suddenly became a very painful one for him, but with Natalie now in charge, their friendship soon blossomed into a heady romance. Sadly,Ted had concealed the real reason why he was in Rome and its dire consequences were soon to prove life changing.
A dramatic love story that ends with an unexpected twist.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sam Power
• Release date: Jun 19, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310349218

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An Unexpected Romance in Rome

By

Sam Power

Smashwords Edition

Copyright: Sam Power 2015

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Thank You

Sam Power

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This eBook has some true historical events; however, they have been fictionalized. All persons appearing in this work are fictitious or names used for dramatic purposes only. Any resemblance to real people, living or dead is entirely coincidental.

Love hides in the strangest places

Love hides in familiar faces

Love comes when you least expect it

Love hides in narrow corners

Love comes for those that seek it

Love hides inside the rainbow

Love hides in molecular structures

Love is the answer

With much love and appreciation to John, Ray, Robbie and Jim

An Unexpected Romance in Rome

It had taken ages to get to Gatwick Airport in that frustrating drizzly wet weather. The fine rain seemed to coat absolutely everything and made it slippery without even trying. There was an accident on the M25 motorway near Reigate that didn’t help matters either as it had slowed the traffic down to a crawl.

Eventually, he got past the annoying jam and managed to speed up in the hope of not missing his flight. That would be a real pain trying to sort another as it was never a pleasant experience dealing with airline ground staff that always had the right to screw over your day completely. Budget airlines were the worst and the staff could be quite officious, no matter how charming you tried to be.

He believed they made it tough on passengers because they’d been made to face the fact that they weren’t, or ever likely to be, quite good enough for cabin crew. That particular little nugget of reality got right up their noses and pissed them off royally. The only way to cope with this daily disappointment was to take it out on someone, namely: the powerless and chavvy, unwashed public that could only afford to fly on a shoestring airline. This often backfired and made it a tedious experience for all concerned.

Ted Wolfram hated flying on budget airlines but it was the only carrier that could find him a seat today at such short notice, regardless of the ticket price. The good thing was he didn’t have to check-in as he’d already done that online and printed off his boarding card before leaving home. All he was really hoping for was a smooth process and an unbothered flight. With just a regulation carry-on case that conformed to airline spec, he entered the aircraft but immediately felt his heart sink to the floor.

The two neat-looking flight attendants appeared more than a little harassed but still managed to say ‘good morning’ to him. Ted wished them a good morning in reply, which was something they rarely got from the plebs that usually just grunted when addressed or even made any response at all. It was a generally accepted fact that the ‘great unwashed’ considered manners as a sign of weakness, so Ted assumed he was flying with contenders for the Muscle Beach set!

He’d been raised to always show good manners, especially towards women. It may be considered ‘old school’ now but he found this attitude usually paid dividends whenever he needed help, even at airports, and it wasn’t unknown for him to get the odd date out of it either.

As he moved down the aisle; he had to stop several times to let a chatting passenger finish their conversation before they would move or allow some unruly kids to leap across the seats and whose conduct went largely uncorrected by their ‘guardians’. For who knew where their biological parents may be? At Her Majesties pleasure, quite likely!

Ted quite often despaired at how personal behaviour had deteriorated in the UK since he was a lad, even though he was only thirty-eight. Today, it was impossible for anyone to verbally correct other people’s little horrors as you were just as likely to be assaulted by their parents/carer’s or even be sued for hurt feelings while eagerly demanding to get their grubby little hands on their fully deserved compo!

Hoping for a seat without a passenger next to him would have been the ideal but Ted wasn’t going to be that lucky today because the flight was completely full. He found that the term ‘full’ was an understatement. It was heaving. Not only was it heaving but it was full of holidaymakers that had started drinking booze since breakfast time, which made them a barely tolerable rabble that was even louder than usual. It also made them childishly argumentative because they wanted even more alcohol and right now. The attendants tried to explain they couldn’t serve any until they were airborne but were treated to a bombardment of unkind expletives that often demanded they should go and tell the pilots to get their fingers out of their arses and get this ‘fooking thing’ in the sky. Nice!

Ted certainly felt some sympathy for those overworked and underpaid cabin crew as he knew their wages weren’t great considering the unsocial hours they had to endure along with the crap they had to tolerate from this uncultured clientele. If it were wartime, they would probably have been in line for a medal, stating: ‘For services rendered above and beyond!’

Finding seat 34B was a relief, well, sort of, because at one stage he did wonder if there were any left. On balance, and if it wasn’t so necessary for him to fly today, he wouldn’t mind waiting for a decent scheduled flight that transported only human beings but there weren’t any, so, it was game on.

He looked across the whole of the cabin and thought it depicted a scene from one that resembled the last days of Rome. Perhaps his thoughts were rooted in irony because that’s where this flight was eventually going. First it was Alicante in Spain, where the holiday-making Brits get off. Oh Joy! Onwards to Madrid; and if the gods would allow: finally into Rome.

Again, he’d continually need to remind himself that this trip was going to be worth it but was beginning to have his doubts. Regardless, Ted was to have his sensibilities tested further.

‘Ey oop, love; park yer arse down for a minute because my friend’s kids want to get by’ was the advice from the alarming looking obese woman in seat 34A and half of 34B.

Ted moved into the seat area to let those kids carry on by with their noisy recce of the aircraft before he moved back out into the aisle where he could try to stow his flight case into the already stuffed overhead locker.

It was only a moment later before the flight attendant was alongside and snapping them shut on her way to the head of the cabin. You could tell by her body language she was apprehensive about this flight and the sooner they were in the air and on their way to Alicante the better. Ted assumed she done this flight to paradise a few times and knew just what to expect!

Now it was time for the crew to demonstrate the in-flight safety procedures. It’s a sad fact that most people don’t pay attention to them but the din was so loud inside the aircraft due to the passengers talking and laughing loudly, which was added to by a number of oafish kids yelling and screaming so that no one could possibly hear those mandatory