Suddenly, an enormous explosion erupted outside, rattling the windows of the hotel. Sebastian grabbed me and pulled me onto the floor by the side of the bed, away from the window. He waited for ten seconds, then cautiously got to his feet, standing to one side of the window to peer out.
“Probably a car bomb – about half a mile away.”
I was still shivering on the floor.
“It’s okay, Caro. We’re okay.”
I’m sure we were both thinking the same thing: we were okay, but somewhere out there in the night, people had lost their lives, even now lying on the ground, bleeding into the dust. I wondered if Liz would be off to the site, to report on what had happened. Sometimes it felt important to be on the frontline, telling people back home what was happening in this far away war; but sometimes if felt like we were no better than war pornographers, capturing the misery of other people on film, or in photographs, asking them at their most desperate moment to give us a sound bite to file and send home. Job done.
It was a fine line to tread, and not one we always got right. But I still thought that what we did was ultimately worthwhile – I had to.
I stood up hesitantly, naked and feeling exposed.
Usually when I was on assignment in a dangerous location, I wore clothes day and night. You never knew when you might have to evacuate your hotel room in a hurry, when the time it took to put on pants and a T-shirt was going to be the difference between life and death.
But with Sebastian, I broke all the rules.
“Caro, are you okay, baby?”
“Yes, I suppose so. Just knowing that out there… you’ll be facing that soon.”
He strode over to me.
“Christ, I know that, Caro, and it kills me to know that you’ll be out there, too. Please, baby, please, go home while you still can. I’m fucking begging you, Caro!”
He held me tight against his chest, and I could feel his heart hammering as he buried his head in my hair.
“Please, baby. I need to know you’re safe. If anything happened to you now…”
My arms crept around his neck, and I pulled his face down to kiss him softly.
“I have a job to do, Sebastian, you know that. So do you; and I will worry about you every day. I pray to God that you’ll come home to me. Please, tesoro, promise you’ll look after yourself – no unnecessary risks?”
He sighed. “I promise, Caro.”
“Then come back to bed with me,” I said, tugging his hand.
Time was slipping away too fast.
He lay on his back and I snuggled into his arms, one hand on his waist, and my head resting just above his heart, listening to its firm, even rhythm.
I didn’t want our last night together to be filled with such sadness.
My fingers drifted over his muscular chest, across his ribs and down to his flat stomach. I pushed the sheet down, exposing his hair and the tip of something even more desirable and arousing.
“Sebastian, if that’s what I have to imagine every time you look at me, I’m not going to get any work done.”
He smiled and kissed my hand.
“Let’s go back to Signora Carello’s place for our honeymoon, Caro. We could fuck for days without getting out of bed.”
I could tell that he was trying to lighten the mood, too; I was happy to play along with the fantasy.
“What, you think she could just push food under the door so you can keep your strength up, because I have to say, Sebastian, you were getting a bit out of breath just now. I really thought the US Marines had higher standards of fitness: I might have to write about that in my next article. Of course, the research is incomplete: I’ve only documented one Marine’s fitness levels in detail…”
“And it’s going to stay that way,” he said, firmly.
I laughed. “Feeling threatened? Me alone with all those horny Marines, I’m quoting, of course.”
“Not funny,” he grumbled.
“Okay, I won’t tease you. Yes, we could go back to Signora Carello’s, but there are lots of other places I’d like to see in Italy. Florence, the open air opera in Rome – I’d love to do that. But you know, I really like the idea of taking your old motorcycle and seeing upstate New York. What do you want to do?”