He slammed his laptop shut and stood up. It was past eight – he’d chosen to work late rather than face the music, but now it was time to undo the mistakes of that morning.
* * *
Elodie showeredand changed into a simple cotton nightgown, but she didn’t go to bed. She moved to the little balcony that overlooked Rome, she stared out at the city and tried not to think about herself, or Fiero. All day long she’d had him on her mind, weaving in and out of the grey matter of her brain, making her question everything, making her doubt, making her wonder what the hell she wanted from him.
She was sick of it. Sick of thinking about him in a repetitive loop; sick of the way he could take over her mind so easily.
She looked out on beautiful Rome and thought of the city’s origins, the ancient lives that had hummed between these hills, the lives that had been lived fully and long ago extinguished, lives that were a part of the fabric of this city’s memory. She was a part of that now too, her pain and ecstasies weaving into its ancient consciousness. There was consolation in that, somehow. As though knowing she was just a thread in an enormous fabric being stitched over time, it somehow lessened what she was feeling in that moment.
She stared out at Rome and studied the golden lights that shaped the city against the inky black sky, she listened to the far away hum and drone of traffic, so she didn’t hear the knock on her door at first.
A second later, it sounded once more, and this time, she spun around. “Yeah?” Her voice was soft, but he must have heard it because the door opened and Fiero walked in holding two glasses of wine. Her heart began to thump.
She arranged her features carefully, wiping any hint of emotion from them.
“You were right this morning. We do need to talk,” he said quietly, his eyes roaming her face in a way that spread goose bumps across her skin. Her chest felt a little like it had been cracked open to reveal her rib cage.
“I thought we already did.”
His smile was derisive, but it felt self-mocking. She tried not to look too hard; to wonder. His face was like quicksand – if she stared at him too long, she would get sucked in and not be able to breathe.
“Not really. Not properly.”
She bit back her instant response – that he could have stayed and talked rather than walking out on her. Instead, she focussed on her curiosity, wondering what he’d come to her room to discuss. He walked towards her and her tummy did the flippy floppy thing she was growing accustomed to. He held a wine glass out to her.
“I don’t know what this is,” he said, after a moment, moving towards the French doors and the balcony, taking up the exact same position she’d occupied moments earlier. “But I know what it’s not.”
She swallowed, moving to stand beside him but being supremely careful not to touch him. “What’s that?”
“Meaningless.” He spoke the word with no inflection. “You’re the mother of my child,” he rushed to add, even as something like hope was firing inside of her. “It’s impossible for us to sleep together and not have it mean something, for there not to be a ramification of some kind. We are parents to Jack. Sleeping together isn’t simple.” He angled his face towards hers. “It’s not meaningless.”
It’s not exactly meaningful, either, she added mentally.
“I’m not seeing anyone else.” He turned back to Rome, sipped his wine.
She ignored the strange explosion beneath her solar plexus, the sense that a part of her was flying into the heavens. “No?”
Scepticism sounded in her voice despite her state of partial euphoria and relief.
“No.” The word was heavy though with resentments.
“I suppose I find that hard to believe, given how we met.”
“Because you think I was married and hooking up with random women on the side?” He suggested, something dark moving across his features.
She worried her lower lip between her teeth and lifted her shoulders, not sure how to respond. Not really sure what she believed and felt, anyway.
“You were the only one.” The words seemed almost dragged from him against his will. She risked a glance at him but his face was stern, not revealing anything more of how he was feeling. Silence shifted around them. “Despite the fact we were as good as divorced, I did take my vows seriously, Elodie. I had no intention of breaking them until Alison and I were legally divorced. The night you and I met, my marriage was already over. It had been a long time since she and I had been intimate in any way, a long time since I’d been with anyone.”
Elodie digested this, a frown etching across her face. “So you were just desperate for sex?”
The rejoinder was rewarded with a lift of his lips, a hint of amusement breaking through his mask of austere reflection as the sun pierced clouds at the end of a storm.
“No.” His smile dropped; the mask of steel returned. “If that were the case, I would have been with dozens of women. It’s not as though I didn’t have opportunities.”
“Wow,” she muttered. “Arrogant much?”
He turned to look at her then and her heart pounded hard against her ribs. “I only meant I could have sought that kind of relationship at any point after Alison and I decided it wasn’t working. I didn’t. I could have gone to nightclubs and bars, but I didn’t. As I said, I took my marriage vows seriously and until they’d been dissolved with the full force of the law, I intended to uphold them.”