28. Sophia
— ? —
Sophia
Alexander came to Florence the week after the archive.
He’d called two days earlier to say he had business in Milan, and Florence was barely an hour away, and he’d completely understand if I was busy, but if I happened to have an evening free, maybe we could get dinner. The careful casualness of the invitation made me smile into the phone.
“You’re asking me on a date.”
“I’m asking you to dinner. There’s a difference.”
“Is there?”
“Dinner is sustenance. A date implies romantic intent.” A pause. “Though I’m not ruling out romantic intent. I’m just not leading with it.”
“That’s very strategic of you.”
“I’ve learned to manage expectations. Especially my own.”
I’d said yes. Of course I’d said yes. We’d been talking almost every day since Paris, long phone calls that started as catch-ups and stretched into hours of conversation about nothing and everything.
The easy rhythm we’d lost during our marriage had somehow survived the divorce, emerging from three years of silence like it had just been waiting for permission to exist again.
But talking on the phone was safe. Seeing him in person was different.
The restaurant I’d chosen was small and unpretentious, a place I came to often enough that the owner greeted me by name.
Alexander arrived exactly on time, which was new.
He used to be perpetually late, always delayed by one more meeting, one more call, one more crisis that couldn’t wait.
Now he walked in at seven sharp, wearing a jacket I didn’t recognize over a shirt I did, and my chest twisted at the familiar unfamiliarity of him.
“You look nice,” he said, settling into the chair across from me.
“You look punctual.”
“I’ve been working on that.”
“I noticed.” I picked up my menu, more for cover than because I needed to read it. “I was starting to think punctuality was physically impossible for you.”
“It was, for a while. Turned out the problem wasn’t time management. The problem was thinking everything was more important than wherever I was supposed to be.”
“And now?”
“Now I’ve learned that very few things are actually emergencies. The rest just feel that way because I let them.”
We ordered. Wine, appetizers, the comfortable ritual of sharing a meal with someone who knew your preferences.
Alexander asked about the atelier, and I found myself rambling about a commission I’d been working on, a bespoke piece for a client who wanted to incorporate her grandmother’s stones into a modern setting.
He followed every tangent, asked questions that pushed my thinking, remembered details I’d mentioned weeks ago.
It was easy. Too easy. Like slipping into clothes that still fit perfectly despite years of hanging unworn in a closet.
His phone lit up on the table.
I saw the name before I could stop myself: Claire. A woman’s name, glowing on his screen, followed by the preview of a message I couldn’t read from this angle.
The old jealousy flared, hot and immediate, before I could talk myself out of it. Three years of conditioning kicked in, all the months of imagining him with other women, moving on, building a life that didn’t include me.
Then I remembered. He’d told me the truth outside that Paris restaurant, standing in the cold with wine on his shirt. He hadn’t dated anyone. Hadn’t touched anyone. Had spent three years alone, waiting for a future he didn’t believe would happen.
But the reflex was still there, the wound not quite healed.
“Your girlfriend seems determined to reach you,” I said, and the edge in my voice surprised even me.
Alexander glanced at the phone, then back at me with an expression that might have been amusement. “Claire runs operations for Whitmore Maison’s manufacturing division. She’s very good at her job and very married to a man named Bruno who makes exceptional sourdough.”
“I didn’t ask for her biography.”
“You looked like you wanted it.” He silenced the phone without reading the message. “For the record, I told her I was unavailable tonight. Whatever this is, it can wait until tomorrow.”
“What if it can’t?”
“Then she’ll call someone who’s working tonight.” He picked up his wine glass. “I’m not.”
The remark cut deeper than he probably intended.
I thought about all the dinners we’d shared during our marriage, the ones where his phone was always face-up on the table, always buzzing with crises that couldn’t wait, always pulling him away before we’d finished eating.
I thought about the empty chairs I’d learned to expect, the cold meals I’d stopped bothering to keep warm, the slow erosion of hope that he would ever choose me over the constant demands of Whitmore Maison.
And here he was, silencing his phone, choosing dinner with me over whatever problem Claire needed solved.
“You’ve really changed,” I said.
“I’ve tried to.”
“No, I mean…” I struggled to find the right words. “I used to sit across from empty chairs waiting for you. I used to watch you answer every call, take every meeting, let every crisis become more important than wherever we were supposed to be together. And now you make staying look easy.”
“It was never because you weren’t worth choosing, Sophia.”
“Then why wasn’t I?”
I hadn’t planned to ask, but it came anyway, carrying all the weight of years I’d spent wondering. Alexander’s face went through pain, then regret, before settling into an expression I failed to name.
“Because I was an idiot. Because I’d been trained to believe that the company came first, always, and I never questioned whether that was true.
Because I loved you but I didn’t know how to show it in ways that actually mattered.
” He set down his wine glass. “Because I took you for granted, and by the time I realized what I was doing, I’d already lost you. ”
“You didn’t lose me. I left.”
“Same result.”
“Not the same thing.” I leaned forward. “Losing implies it happened to you. I made a choice. I chose to leave because staying was destroying me.”
“I know.” His voice was quiet. “That’s the part I had to accept before I could change. You didn’t leave because you stopped loving me. You left because loving me wasn’t enough to survive on.”
The waiter appeared with our appetizers, breaking the tension. We ate in silence for a few minutes, the food excellent and entirely irrelevant to what was happening between us.
“I keep waiting for you to disappoint me,” I said finally.
“I probably will, eventually.”
“That’s not reassuring.”
“It’s honest.” He met my eyes. “I’m not perfect, Sophia.
I’m still learning how to be the person I should have been all along.
But I’m not going to pretend I’ve figured everything out, because that’s how I got it wrong the first time.
I thought I knew what I was doing, and I was completely blind to how badly I was failing. ”
“And now?”
“Now I know I don’t know. Which is terrifying, but at least it’s accurate.”
We finished dinner. Alexander insisted on paying, and I let him because arguing about the bill was a pointless friction we’d outgrown. He walked me home through streets I’d been walking alone for three years, his shoulder occasionally brushing against mine in a way that felt deliberate.
At my door, we stopped.
“I had a good time tonight,” he said.
“So did I.”
“Can I see you again? Before I leave tomorrow?”
“Maybe. Depends on what you’re proposing.”
“Coffee. Breakfast. Another dinner if you’re feeling ambitious.” He smiled, and it reached his eyes in a way that tugged at a wire behind my ribs. “I’m not picky. I just want to see you.”
I studied his face in the lamplight. The angles that were sharper now, the creases at his eyes that three years had left, the way his whole focus had narrowed to me, like the rest of the room had stopped existing.
“You keep looking at my mouth,” I said.
He blinked. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. Just tell me why you haven’t kissed me.”
The question landed between us, blunt and unavoidable. Alexander’s expression shifted, surprise settling into caution.
“Because I want to,” he said. “And because I don’t want to assume you want the same thing.”
“That’s very considerate of you.”
“I’m trying to be.” He looked off down the street, not quite meeting my eyes, just giving himself a moment.
“What if I told you I wanted you to?”
“Then I’d probably ask if you were sure.”
“And if I said I wasn’t sure?”
“Then I’d wait.” His hands found his pockets, and the boardroom polish dropped away until he looked younger and far less certain than any CEO had a right to look. “I’ve spent three years learning not to assume I know what you need. I’m not going to ruin that by moving faster than you want.”
The old reflex surfaced before I could stop it. “You apparently had no trouble kissing other women.”
The words came out sharp, accusatory, and I caught myself immediately. He’d told me the truth. There had been no other women. I was reaching for a wound that had already healed, trying to protect myself from a threat that didn’t exist.
“That’s not fair,” I said before he could respond. “I’m sorry. I know you told me there weren’t any.”
“There weren’t.” His voice was gentle. “But even if there had been, it wouldn’t have been the same.”
“Why not?”
“Because kissing you actually matters.” He took a small step closer, close enough that I could see his pulse jumping in his throat.
“You’re not someone I can kiss and walk away from.
You’re the woman I spent three years missing, three years becoming better for, three years hoping I’d get another chance with.
If I kiss you, I’m not going to be able to pretend it doesn’t matter. ”
“What if I don’t want you to pretend?”
“Then we’d both be in trouble.”
I should have said goodnight. Should have gone inside, closed the door, given myself time to think about what I was doing. This was Alexander, my ex-husband, the man who’d broken my heart in slow motion over eight years. Wanting him again was dangerous. Kissing him would be worse.
I turned to leave.
“Sophia.”
His voice stopped me, soft and rough at the same time. He hadn’t reached for me, hadn’t moved to close the distance between us. He’d just said my name like it was the most important word he knew.
I turned around.
And I kissed him.
I knew I should step back. Every reasonable part of me knew it.
This was the man who let me disappear, who held out his hand for my badge, the man I’d spent three years and an entire new life trying to unlearn.
I had a list. I had reasons. I had a rebuilt sense of self and a very clear understanding of everything he had cost me.
None of it reached my body. My mouth had gone dry the second he stepped close enough for me to feel the heat coming off his skin.
Heat, low and traitorous, pooled and pulsed, and I pressed my thighs together against it and hated that it changed nothing.
I was staring at the pulse in his throat and thinking about putting my mouth on it.
Thinking about the weight of him, the way he used to pin my wrists above my head, the sounds he made when he lost the last of his control.
Three years, and the smell of him undid all of it.
Don’t, I told myself. You know exactly how this ends.
I grabbed the front of his jacket and pulled him down anyway.
The familiarity nearly overwhelmed me. His mouth, his taste, the way his hands came up to cup my face like he was afraid I might disappear.
Three years of distance collapsed into nothing, erased by the simple act of pressing my lips against his.
He kissed me back carefully at first, then deeper when I didn’t pull away, and I lost track of where we were and why this was probably a terrible idea.
He pulled back first.
“Are you sure?” His voice was hoarse. “I need you to be sure.”
“I have no idea what this means,” I admitted. “I don’t know if we’re starting over or just proving we still can. I don’t know if this is smart or if it’s going to destroy us both.”
“Then why did you kiss me?”
“Because I wanted to. Because I’ve wanted to since Paris, since the restaurant, since you spilled wine on your shirt and adjusted your cuff like you were still the nervous man I married.
” I pressed my forehead against his. “Because wanting you feels like the most honest thing I’ve done in three years. ”
“That’s enough for me.”
He kissed me again, slower this time, like he was memorizing the shape of it. His hands slid into my hair, and my fingers curled into his lapels, and we stood on my doorstep kissing like we had all the time in the world.
I stopped us before we could go any further.
“You should go,” I said, breathless.
“I know.”
“If you come inside, I’m not going to be able to think clearly.”
“I know that too.” He stayed exactly where he was, hands at his sides.
“So go.”
He stepped back, his hands releasing me with obvious reluctance. “Can I see you tomorrow? Before my train?”
“Yes.”
“Coffee at nine?”
“I’ll text you the address.”
He nodded, already walking backward, his eyes still fixed on my face. “Goodnight, Sophia.”
“Goodnight, Alexander.”
I watched him until he reached the corner. He turned back once, lifted his hand in a small wave, and then he was gone.
I went inside and leaned against my closed door, my heart racing, my lips still tingling from the pressure of his mouth.
The most dangerous part of wanting Alexander again wasn’t the risk of getting hurt. I knew how to survive that. I’d done it before.
The dangerous part was realizing I wasn’t falling for the man I’d divorced. The careful, considered, present version of Alexander who chose dinner over work calls and waited for permission to kiss me, that wasn’t the man I’d married.
I was falling for the man he’d become without me.
And that, I had no idea how to survive.