Chapter 32
Toni fell silent, resisting a flippant answer like, Well, yes, I did think that.
Instead, she swallowed the misgiving pounding inside her and asked, ‘What is the reason then?’
‘Can you imagine me visiting? Your friends and family would see me. They’ll all know it’s not just friendship here – although it is friendship as well,’ he insisted forcefully, which wedged something warm inside her chest. ‘What would you tell Cillian?’
For the sake of her pride, she wished she had an answer for him. ‘I don’t know,’ she admitted.
‘The worst part is, it’s not even your friends or family – or your son – that are the problem here. It’s you.’
‘I’m the problem?’
‘Yes,’ he insisted, his chin up. ‘You’re the widow – you told me within five minutes of meeting me for the first time in person.’
‘Because everyone else always treats me like the widow!’
‘And why do you think they do that? Because of how you behave.’
She wanted to yell an answer at him, something childish like, You’re wrong! But he lifted a hand – slowly, as though she were a frightened animal – and smoothed his fingers down her arm and back up again, and down and up, until her heartbeat evened out.
‘I would never blame you for it,’ he said softly. ‘I love how loyal your heart is – that you don’t want to give him up, even nine years later.’
She still wanted to tell him he was wrong. Nine years of mourning was enough and she was sick of being limited by her situation. But she didn’t want to lose – or change – the memories of Miro. Gabri was right about that, as much as it pained her to admit it.
He lifted his gaze to the ceiling. ‘I know if I came to visit, if we kept in touch as… intimately as we have been, that I’d wish for something else, something I can’t ask from you.’
‘No, you can’t,’ she replied reflexively, her stomach churning. ‘This wasn’t what was supposed to happen,’ she blurted out. ‘You told me you don’t like kids. You’ve meaninglessly dated women across the island.’
He scraped a hand down his face. ‘I wouldn’t go that—’
‘We weren’t supposed to fall in love!’
Oh dear. She’d spoken those words. Now, she couldn’t pretend they weren’t true.
‘I know!’ The hint of a growl in his voice was as clear as I love you, too. ‘Do you still want me to come and visit?’
He meant it as a challenge, not an invitation, at least she thought so. She squeezed her eyes shut and whether she teetered towards him on purpose or simply because her balance was off with her eyes closed, her forehead met his shoulder with plausible deniability.
‘I will miss you,’ she said instead of an answer.
His hand in her hair was soothing and she’d miss that too.
‘I missed you already this week.’
He folded her up against him and she let it happen, the embrace, a solution of sorts, when there wasn’t anything else.
Maybe this was what she’d come here for today: not closure, but a few extra minutes of being close.
What she wouldn’t have given for a few extra minutes with Miro – not that she wanted to compare this goodbye to the ultimate one that had been forced on her.
‘I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you own the company that optimises electricity grids,’ she murmured without lifting her head from his shoulder.
‘Does it make any difference?’ he asked gruffly.
‘I’m not talking about money – not really,’ she began. ‘It’s the picture of you I’ve been forming. It was incomplete.’
‘It was a long time ago.’
‘Yeah, it was even longer ago that I got married, but that’s still part of who I am. I kind of wish I’d got to know you then, too.’ As soon as she said it, she realised how strange it sounded. ‘I mean, you were married, so maybe not.’
He smoothed a strand of her hair between his thumb and forefinger. ‘It’s like me wondering what you were like before you lost your husband.’
In the pause that followed, Toni felt all the pointlessness of these comments.
‘When do you have to go?’ he asked.
‘Oh, I—’ She glanced at her watch. ‘Soon. And you have to meet Rosalba to sign some documents.’
‘She can wait.’
She wanted to make a quip about his rudeness, but the silence gathering around them was too heavy with reluctant goodbyes.
‘Do we… kiss? Do you want to?’ he asked.
‘As an experiment?’ she said with a wobbly smile. ‘What do you think we’d prove? I don’t have time to accidentally fall into bed again, although that’s what my mum thinks we’re doing.’
Oops, she shouldn’t have babbled any of that in her nervousness; she shouldn’t have been nervous. She knew Gabri and had kissed him countless times. One more wouldn’t crack open the firmament.
‘Sorry – that my mum thinks we had a hot holiday fling. I couldn’t exactly explain—’ anything.
‘I already said I don’t mind being your bucket-list item,’ he said with a faint smile. His palm slid up her spine.
She looked him square in the face, appreciating one last time that all she had to do to meet his eye was stand straight. ‘You’re right, though. It wasn’t just a fling and if things were different—’
He shook his head. ‘You told me not to say that and I’m starting to see why. Just kiss me, Toni.’
Full of hesitation, she brought her face closer as he waited, closing his eyes until his golden lashes lay in contrast to his tanned cheeks.
She knew the exact texture of his face under her fingertips – her lips – and the familiar pressure of his mouth on hers.
But she didn’t know how to kiss him goodbye.
She managed a start, brushing her open lips over his.
But she wanted more than half a cautious kiss and a moment later, more was what happened, as the fizz of adrenaline and the spark of desire collided.
It was a travesty how good it felt to kiss this man, to have his fist tugging at her clothes and his fingers tangled in her hair.
She comforted herself with the thought that she could never have resisted this.
She didn’t want to resist it now. It was Gabri who eased away, his forehead forming a labyrinth of creases.
‘You have to go, Toni. You’re the widow, remember? Not the main character – that’s what you said.’
She was starting to think she could be the main character, but this film probably didn’t have a happy ending.
Her story was too heavy for that. It was one of those awful ones where the final scene shows the protagonist staring out of the window and remembering all of the wonderful things that had happened with a twisted, bittersweet smile. She didn’t like those films.
‘I—’ She didn’t know what she was trying to say. ‘Thank you,’ she muttered instead.
‘Don’t thank me,’ he replied gruffly, gripping her chin briefly between his thumb and forefinger. ‘Send me a message when you get home.’
‘Will you reply?’
He hesitated for long enough that it pierced Toni’s skin. Finally, he said, ‘If you want me to,’ on a sigh.
‘I do,’ she said firmly.
‘“I do”,’ he repeated with a faint smile. ‘I’ve heard that somewhere before. Good luck, amore.’
He allowed himself half an hour. Setting a timer, he dragged a chair near the old wall, folded himself into it and propped his feet on the bricks with slow, purposeful movements. Then he let himself feel it all: in his chest, under his skin, in his veins.
Before she’d come and disrupted his existence, he’d been peaceful but so lonely. Whether he’d deluded himself or simply never noticed, he wasn’t sure, but he didn’t know how to pretend any more that he was completely content. She’d teased him and challenged him and woken him up.
He wondered if she knew how fierce she was – fierce enough to defend her broken heart.
It was an unpleasant realisation, that he was jealous of a dead man. At least for a week, he’d touched her heart, not that it solved anything. Her normal life was a far cry from his island existence and the overlap was just this one magical week.
Gabri was not Cillian’s father, nor did he want to be, even though the boy had unexpectedly grown on him – even though he could picture Cilli growing on him even more, given time, and he kind of missed him as well. He was a part of Toni, after all – a small, gangly, strong-willed part.
When the timer sounded, he fumbled to swipe a finger over the screen, tempted to nurse the misery a little longer.
Obsessing over her, even if it hurt, was better than the emptiness of his house now she’d gone for good.
With a flinch, he thought that was probably how she felt about her husband.
She was sick of the ache of grief, but it was still better than a giant hole in her life.
It was one of those things you never got over, he suspected. She just got on with things, her life one big compromise, when he wished for her a gold-tinted existence with love and fulfilment. Preferably with him.
He shook himself to clear the tempting slide back into obsessive rumination. He couldn’t change the fact that she’d lost her husband and it was her prerogative if she didn’t want to rebuild her life differently.
Texting Rosa choked off his frustrated thoughts and gave him a nice distraction from the fact that Toni was probably on her way to the ferry by now. He couldn’t quite stop himself wondering what she’d told Cillian about where she’d been and whether he might have wanted to say goodbye himself.
It was best that he hadn’t, but Gabri wished he’d seen that face one more time.
Kissing Rosalba on both cheeks half an hour later, he took a seat at the beach bar at Marciana Marina. He didn’t remember a time when meeting Rosa was a pleasant distraction rather than a heart-twisting discomfort, but today seemed to be the day to admit something had changed.
‘Thanks for bringing this stuff to the island,’ he said, flipping through the contracts that had already been extensively checked by the people who actually ran the company these days.
He was satisfied they would have done a good job, but for the first time in a long time, he was tempted to read it in more detail, find out what they were doing in his absence. ‘I’m sorry it’s inconvenient.’
She studied him quizzically. ‘It’s all right. Your mamma wanted me to check on you anyway.’
‘I’ll go see her soon.’
With the signatures in place, they sipped their drinks in silence for long enough that Gabri’s thoughts strayed into dangerous territory.
‘Is everything okay? With the pregnancy?’ He didn’t risk looking at her, but he could feel the trauma they’d shared, a connection between them that would never break.
‘Not too bad,’ she answered carefully. ‘Baby is fine, it’s just becoming a strain on me, but it’s all looking okay.’
‘That’s good,’ he said with an emphatic sigh.
‘How are you doing?’ Her wary glance made him wonder how much she’d worried about him over the years. ‘How was your goodbye with Toni?’
Leaning his elbows heavily on the table, he answered, ‘Awful.’
That silenced her for a long moment, but perhaps that had been his intention. ‘Awful because you did a bad job with the flowers or awful because of what’s going on between the two of you?’
He answered that with only a dark look.
‘Was it my fault for interrupting?’
‘No!’ he rushed to insist. ‘Nothing to do with you. It’s just the usual mess.’
It was her turn to prompt him with only a look.
‘She has a son.’ That wasn’t where he’d expected to start, but that’s what came out.
When Rosa just nodded slowly, her expression grave, he knew why he’d started there. She would understand. ‘How old?’
‘Nine.’
‘And an ex-husband too?’
He shook his head. ‘He’s dead.’
‘Oh.’ More proof that Rosa understood his dilemma, although dilemma wasn’t the right word. A dilemma implied difficulty deciding between options, whereas he had no options for a relationship with Toni.
‘So, we said goodbye,’ he continued with a shrug, turning back to the view of the calm sea, the rocky headlands and the shadow of the island of Capraia in the distance. ‘And it was awful.’ Lifting his spritz in a sarcastic salute, he took a sip.
‘You’ll miss her.’
He didn’t react to that understatement beyond a lift of his eyebrows, hoping she didn’t ask any more questions.
A vibration in his pocket distracted him from his self-indulgent grump and he tugged out his phone without thinking. He didn’t receive many texts, so he peered at it critically, going still when he saw the first line of the message:
Cilli’s really disappointed…
Fumbling to open the message, he read it twice before his heart rate calmed down enough to take it in.
Cilli’s really disappointed he didn’t get to see the turtles hatch and he asked if you can send updates. Only if you hear something, of course. I’m sure he’s not expecting you to hold a vigil yourself.
His shoulders slowly returned to their normal position, not sure if he wanted to admit to himself his own disappointment that all Cilli wanted from him was an update on the turtles. He should be happy it was something he could easily deliver.
‘What’s the matter?’ Rosa asked. ‘She didn’t forget something at your house, did she?’
If only…
‘No, her son was just asking for turtle updates.’
Rosa’s brows shot up. ‘He was here? You met him?’
He nodded, rubbing his fingers over his eyes. ‘Accidentally. That was awful too.’
‘Oh, Gabri,’ she said, her voice full of censure. ‘What mess have you made?’
‘Better to ask what mess they made of me!’ he grumbled. ‘He looks like her. It’s the chin.’
Rosa was silent again. She’d been doing a lot of that. ‘You liked him?’
‘A lot more than I thought I would,’ he mumbled.
‘What’s the problem then?’
The answer to her question seemed self-explanatory to him, but forming it as words seemed to render his fears absurd. ‘I liked him so much, I hate that he didn’t get to see the baby turtles. He ran away to watch them and scared me to death when we couldn’t find him.’
‘So you’re happy they’ve gone?’
‘Of course not!’ His throat was thick, his mind too quick to miss the point she was making.
Giving his wrist a squeeze, she said, ‘I remember a time when you were entirely focused on fixing all the problems in the world. You did find a clever solution to quite a few, before the chaos of reality got to you.’
‘Your point?’ he asked, mostly to cover the leap in his chest.
Leaning close to him, she said softly, ‘Maybe one day, you’ll take on the world again.’
As though confirming her radical statement, his phone lit up a second time and he glanced down to see a second message from Toni:
And he says goodbye. He wanted to tell you in person, but we didn’t have time.
Gabri had to admit that there was a lot he’d change if it might make Toni and Cillian happy.