Now #3
“Ah, so your plants are alive because you’ve hired professionals. That’s cheating. How many people work here?”
“There’s a groundskeeper who lives with his wife in a small house a little farther down the hill. With an estate this size, it’s necessary. And two maids, three times a week.”
“That’s it?”
“I don’t like being served all the time, just like you. When I’m here, I enjoy being alone. It’s the only place where I can be on my own.”
“Should I leave?” she impishly wonders.
I grab her waist and hold her in front of me. “No. I want to be on my own with you the whole week.”
When I lower to kiss her, she evades me to continue her exploration. She finds the door that leads to the paved patio, and beyond that, seemingly overflowing into the hills far away, the pool.
“An infinity pool,” she notes with a grin. “Was it already here?”
“No, I had the old one removed and this one built instead.”
“It looks great. It merges into the landscape.”
“Yes, it’s the best kind of pool.”
She returns into the house, and I keep following her. She finds my home gym next, the only room that has air conditioning. It gets very hot in the summer here, and having to train as much as I do is painful enough as it is.
The next room of importance she stumbles into is the main bedroom—ours. Of course, she notices the brick-colored armchair set by a window, its vintage design hard to forget. Curious, she enters the half-empty dressing room, and then the bathroom.
“Is everything to your liking?” I ask when she appears again.
“It’s all beyond gorgeous, Jax. I don’t know how you can travel so much. I’d want to stay home all the time.”
“Yes, it’s a beautiful house. But it’s very … empty. I’d definitely come home more often if I had someone waiting for me.”
She skeptically pouts, not fooled by my manipulative attempt. Remembering she still has more to explore, she passes by me and moves on to the next room. She’s at the door before I realize this might not be a great idea. Not yet.
“Evie, wait,” I say.
Understanding my urgency, she looks at the door, then at me. “Is this your torture chamber? Have you turned to BDSM during our years apart?”
“No, it’s … it’s her room.”
Humor falls from her face, replaced by melancholy and sorrow. Seconds stretch, the silence heavy. Once she’s done processing my words, she decides to open the door anyway.
At least she’s ready now when her eyes fall on the crib, along with everything we’d bought for her.
Evie doesn’t go inside, standing at the threshold, as if it would take it too far.
I understand the feeling. I rarely go in there myself.
It’s more of a sanctuary, a shrine. A reminder of what could have been—what was supposed to be.
“It’s all here,” Evie whispers.
“I told you. I kept everything.”
I’m right behind her, so I pass a hand around and splay it across her stomach, where our daughter once grew. She lays hers over it, pensive. We don’t talk. There’s no need. Instead, we reflect and remember.
After a long moment of that, I ask with a tight throat, “Do you want to see where she is?”
Evie nods and retakes my hand. I guide her through the house to a door that exits to the side.
We follow a narrow path that leads to an area where a few trees and bushes grow.
Then, we arrive at a small pond, about six yards wide, and planted right by it, a twenty-five-foot weeping willow.
Opposite it, a wooden bench, already worn down by the harsh Italian sun.
“My parents were here when we did it. We placed the urn in the hole, then the tree. It was about six feet tall then. I can’t believe how fast it grew.”
This place isn’t as well-kept as the garden. It grows a little wilder. But there’s a peaceful atmosphere here, with a couple of frogs croaking from the reeds, and the way the willow’s branches undulate with the wind.
Evie walks to the bench and grazes the engraved metal plate embedded in its backrest that reads, “In loving memory of Ophelia Reyes.”
She sits on it, leaving room for me, and I get the message. I join her there and wrap an arm around her shoulder to pull her in. Tucked into me, she lets out a long breath. We watch the tree together, listening to the surrounding sounds of nature as the clouds above us slowly turn orange and pink.
“Thank you,” Evie says after about ten minutes of this comforting silence.
“For what?”
“For taking such good care of her.”
“Of course.”
A bird chants somewhere, and we listen until it stops. Then Evie says, “When I walked away that day, I didn’t just leave you behind. I left her, too.”
I tighten my hold on her. “All that matters is that you found your way back to us, Evie.”
When her hand comes to my jaw, gently encouraging me to look down, I meet her misty eyes. “Thank you, Jackson, for pulling me in the right direction.”
The kiss that follows is like a seal. A promise. I’m not so sure this is still a trial. Something tells me she already knows that by the end of the season, no matter how this goes, she’ll stay.
There’s no walking away from this. Not a second time.