Chapter Twenty-Seven
I stepped out onto Via Tornabuoni, taking one last, longing look at the Gucci store and checking the directions the concierge had written down for me on the hotel’s headed notepaper: the pensione was over the river in Oltrarno. It should be about a ten-minute walk, he’d said.
As I slipped the paper into my bag, I pulled out my phone before I could check myself, opening my contacts, finding Aidan’s (now reinstated) number.
My thumb hovered over the ‘call’ button.
I badly wanted to talk to him, but I’d promised myself I wouldn’t do it until I got back to London.
I needed time to process everything, to work things through properly.
To be one hundred per cent sure, this time, that this was what I wanted.
I set off towards the Arno, deciding it was easier to walk in the road where there was more space, even if it was bumpy on the cobbles.
‘Need some help with that?’ said a voice I knew all too well.
I tried to keep my cool, glancing across at Aidan, who had fallen into step beside me. He was wearing a checked cotton shirt open at the neck and and he had the same sparkling, hopeful eyes he’d always had.
I’d done the right thing, I knew I had.
‘Pretty sure I can manage,’ I said, grinning at him.
‘Well, at least let me walk with you. Just in case. I hate to say it, but I reckon your suitcase has seen better days,’ he said, grimacing at its noisy, wobbly wheels. ‘Where are you headed?’
‘The Pensione Valentina.’
‘Very romantic,’ he said.
I daren’t look at him. I knew what he was thinking. I was doing my best not to think about it, too.
We turned left and then right, finding ourselves beneath a beautiful arched corridor underneath one of the former palaces that were dotted around on every other corner of Florence.
A flower market was packing up for the evening and I could smell the scent of the pretty wild flowers and olive trees as we passed.
Lanterns were hanging above our heads, bathing us in a warm, buttery light.
‘I’ve called off the engagement,’ I blurted out.
I marched off ahead, anxious, suddenly, that he’d changed his mind. What if he’d got carried away up on that roof, like I had at the top of the Eiffel Tower?
‘Maddie, can we stop a sec?’ he called after me.
I stopped, hesitating before turning around. Whatever he had to say, I was going to have to face it. I’d got over him before, I supposed I could do it again, if the worst came to the worst.
‘You’ve ended things with Nick?’ he said, looking as though he couldn’t quite believe it.
I nodded.
‘I wasn’t expecting that,’ he said.
‘Neither was he,’ I replied.
Aidan came closer, not stopping until there was hardly any space between us at all. He reached out and ran his fingers along the length of my arm, from my shoulder to my wrist.
‘Are you OK?’ he asked.
‘I think so,’ I said, melting into his shoulder, letting myself remember what it had been like to touch him. I breathed in the scent of him.
‘So what does this mean for us?’ asked Aidan, his voice low, his breath warm on my neck.
I didn’t care about the locals passing us, bulging bunches of flowers in arms, or the tourists taking photos of the pretty arches.
Following my instincts for once, I clasped his head between my hands, rose up on to the tips of my toes and kissed him lightly on the mouth, just for a second or two.
He put the flat of his hand on the small of my back, pulling me in to him, and kissed me back, first on my eyebrows and then on the tip of my nose and then, finally on my lips.
Harder this time, with no holding back, as though he was making up for the years we’d been apart. I never wanted it to end.
‘Is this really all happening?’ he asked, pulling back at last and looking at me with a kind of awe.
I nodded, laughing, breathless, also not quite able to believe it. ‘I think it really is.’