Three weeks in Rome for work? Great.

Three weeks in Rome at the start of the American football season? No way.

My editor-in-chief didn’t seem to care about my opinion and sent me anyway, and I found myself in an unexpected mess – like I broke my cardinal-rule-kind-of-mess: never fall for a player.

He was an athlete. An Italian superstar. A Casanova.

Those were three strikes in my book.

But I kissed him! The Marco Valenti. In all fairness, I didn’t know who he was at the time, but still, I was there to write his story . . . and then he shocked the world by announcing his retirement the very next day. (That wasn’t my fault, by the way. I swear.)

The mysterious Italian was going to get me into so much trouble – including breaking my heart.