My eyes search his and I swallow the lump in my throat. I want to talk about him asking me not to marry Marcel. “About what you said….”
“Forget it.”
My face falls.
We stare at each other. “It doesn’t matter anyway…does it?” he says softly.
I get a lump in my throat.
This is goodbye.
“It was really good to see you again, Jules. I’ve missed you.”
He gives me a sad smile and nods.
“Thank you for coming to look after me.” I lean up and hug him. “I really appreciate it.”
He stands emotionless, his hands down by his sides.
“Hug me,” I whisper in his ear. “Please.”
He puts his arms around me and we hug, clinging to each other tightly.
He’s so strong and tall in my arms and damn it, I don’t want to let him go.
Not again.
He pulls out of my grip and steps back from me. “You need to get going.”
I smile, embarrassed that I act the way I do around him. “Goodbye.” I turn and walk toward my plane and up the stairs.
“Good afternoon, Miss Ferrara,” the captain says.
“Good afternoon.” I force a smile.
“Just this way.” The stewardess smiles. I follow her in and take a seat by the window.
I look out at the black Mercedes wagon and I know he’s in the back seat.
And I want to run to him and beg him to take me back to a time when we could be in love.
But I can’t…because he can’t.
The stewardess closes the airplane door and the sound of the airtight seal brings tears to my eyes.
It’s so final.
The plane begins to drive slowly down the runway and I wipe the tears from my eyes.
Goodbye, my love.
Again.
*
I ring the doorbell.
It’s been four hours since I left Giuliano.
But I know what I must do.
I know that we can never be together and I understand that this problem will never be fixed.
But in this lifetime, I want to feel an all-consuming love for my husband…and unfortunately, I just don’t have that with Marcel.
I wish that I did.
Being away from him this last few days has only cemented my fears into a reality.
I didn’t miss him.
Not at all.
I missed Giuliano…when he was sleeping just downstairs.
I silently wept the whole way to France because with every minute in that plane, I was farther away from him.
This isn’t right and I need to let Marcel go so that he can find someone who loves him as much as he deserves to be loved.
My grand love story didn’t work out, but I want Marcel’s to. I want him to be happy.
I would rather be single for the rest of my life than be forced to live a lie.
I can’t do it anymore.
The door opens and Marcel’s face comes into view. “Hey.” He smiles.
“Hi.” I smile sadly. “We need to talk.”
Giuliano
I stare up at the ceiling in the darkness, it’s the middle of the night and the room is quiet and still.
She didn’t call.
And I shouldn’t care, and it shouldn’t matter.
I drag myself to sit up on the side of the bed and pull my hands through my hair.
I feel like fucking shit.
“What’s wrong?” Amber whispers from behind me.
I turn to see the naked woman in my bed, beautiful and adoring, everything I should want. The sleeping pill that didn’t work, I run my hand up her thigh. “Nothing, angel. Go back to sleep.”
10
Francesca
I walk into the restaurant just on six and see Anna sitting at a table near the back, I give her a smile and a wave but as I get closer I can see that she’s been crying.
“Hey.” I smile as I slide into the bench seat beside her. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s over with me and Frank.”
My face falls. “What? Why?”
“We were in bed last night and he got up to go to the bathroom and a text came through on his phone.” Leaning her elbows on the table, she rubs her eyes.
“What kind of text?”
“It said, Missed you last night, come over.”
My mouth falls open in shock. “What did he say?”
“He denied it at first. I was going postal and crying, I knew something was going on.”
I watch her intently.
“He wouldn’t let me go home, was carrying on and saying that I was the love of his life and this was someone who fancied him, but nothing had happened.”
I fill our two glasses from the bottle of wine as I listen. “Yeah, okay.”
She exhales heavily. “So I stayed.”
“Did you sleep with him?”
She rolls her eyes and I know that means yes.
“Anyway, overnight I just couldn’t stop thinking about all the warning signs, you know?”
“You had been suspicious.” I sip my wine. “And you had good reason too,” I add.
“So, this morning I got up and I told him that we could stay together, but I wanted to read the messages between him and the number that sent the text. I had been with him all night and I knew he hadn’t had time alone to delete anything incriminating yet.”
“Good thinking.”
“And I knew that if he wouldn’t show me there and then on the spot, he was hiding something.”
I raise my glass to her. “True.”
She screws up her face in tears.
“Oh baby,” I whisper as I pull her into a hug. “What happened?”
“He wouldn’t show me his phone,” she whispers, “And then I told him that if he could just be honest with me, we could work this out. That I couldn’t go on if I don’t know the truth because I will never trust him again.” She wipes the sad tears from her eyes.
My eyes fill with tears too, I hate seeing her hurt. “What happened?”
“He finally admitted it, said that he met her at work and that she was so different to anyone he’d ever met, she’s Scandinavian.”
“Blond,” I whisper through dread. “He had been watching blond porn, hadn’t he?”
“And that….” She pauses as she collects herself. “He just wanted to sleep with her and that there were no feelings, that he loved me.”
I narrow my eyes. Fucking asshole.
“How long has he been doing it?”
“He wouldn’t tell me, he promised it was just once.”
“One is too many fucking times,” I gasp, infuriated. I tip my head back and gulp down my wine. How could anyone cheat on Anna, she’s the most beautiful, sweetest woman on earth.
Fuck men, I hate them all.
She cries as I watch her. “What happened then?” I ask.
“He wouldn’t show me his phone.”
“Which proves he was lying, it wasn’t just once, at all.”
“I know.” She rolls her eyes as if ashamed. “I just loved him, you know?”
“I know, sweetie.” I sigh.
“I told him it was over. Never to contact me again and he was crying and shit and trying to turn this back on me, that I wasn’t adventurous enough in the bedroom, and it was just a phase he was going through.”
I roll my eyes. “Is it over?”
She nods, her eyes welling with tears again. “How could I possibly have a long-term future with someone who cheated on me. He called someone and went and met her and had sex, and then came back to me professing his love. How could I ever trust him again?”
I pick up her glass of wine and pass it to her. “Especially since his admission wasn’t even honest.”
“Precisely,” she mutters dryly as she clinks her glass with mine.
“I broke up with Marcel.”
“Shit.” She winces. “I knew that was coming.”