Chapter Thirty-Seven #2
‘Yes, it is.’ What was he saying to her? Her blood started to fizz around her body. She had to grab at the edge of the table to anchor herself.
‘I loved our kiss last night.’ His voice had dropped to a whisper.
Dismayed, she found herself responding, ‘So did I.’
‘I’ve loved every moment here in Venice with you. I’ve loved seeing you again.’
She almost couldn’t breathe. She remembered Stella’s question, back at the hotel, and her answer. She remembered every moment she and Leo had ever shared.
Leo scraped back his chair and stood up. ‘Would you like to go outside? To the balcony? For a chat?’ he asked her.
‘Yes.’ Her chair was already back, too. ‘Yes, please.’
Leo pulled open the door. The balcony was wider and more ornate than the one at Palazzo Tesoro and softly lit by struggling hurricane lamps.
There was a brocade armchair there, too, as though someone had pushed it out and then forgotten about it, with two capes draped over its back – both dark velvet with faux fur trims.
‘Would you like one of those?’ Leo asked her.
She nodded. ‘I feel like I’m in The Phantom of the Opera,’ she tried to joke, as he placed one gently over her shoulders, but her smile died away when she saw how he was looking at her.
‘Don’t you want the other one?’ she asked, her voice quiet and her body shivering in spite of the heavy garment.
‘No,’ he said. A phone started ringing. Leo pulled his phone from his inside jacket pocket and declined the call.
‘Is that your girlfriend?’ Olivia asked. ‘The person you keep speaking to?’ Why had he brought her out here if his girlfriend was going to be phoning him? she thought. What was she doing out here?
Leo shook his head. ‘No, it’s not my girlfriend,’ he said. ‘It’s my therapist.’
‘Your therapist?’
‘Yes, I’ve finished the official sessions, but we’ve been having catch-up calls. Every so often. I arranged for some calls between us while I was in Venice. I needed a little extra help, a little coaching.’
‘In?’ She was curious.
‘In how to deal with you.’
‘Oh.’ Olivia was taken aback. The call he’d taken at Harry’s Bar, and the one he went out to make at the bookstore. The one she’d caught him during on the rooftop of the Guggenheim. Leo was talking about her? ‘And what did he say?’
‘She,’ Leo corrected. ‘She’s called Catherine. She said to take it easy, to not scare you off. Go gentle. Historically, I’ve been a little spontaneous. I’ve rushed in. I didn’t want to do that this week.’
‘And have you stuck with it, Catherine’s advice? Have you dealt with me well?’ Olivia was still shaking. She wished she could stop.
‘Not all of the time. I was all over the place on the first day here, to be honest. And not last night.’ Leo grimaced.
‘As wildly enjoyable as that kiss was. But tonight I want to do it right. I want to say the right things. I’m ready.
Although maybe I do need that call with her first .
. .’ He grinned. ‘Are you OK?’ Now he was looking at her, concerned and tender.
The Leo she had almost loved. ‘Do you want to do this?’
‘I’m OK,’ she replied. ‘I’m really OK. You can say a few things.’
They were standing close to each other. She could see the restaurant’s sumptuous lights in his eyes; she noted the breeze playing at the edges of his hair, the set of his mouth.
‘You’re really ready?’
‘Yes,’ she replied. She had pushed back her chair, and she had come out on to the balcony with him. It was the Final Dinner. Last chance. She was ready to hear what he had to say.
‘Well, we’ve talked a lot since we’ve been here, but we haven’t talked about the things that really matter.
’ Leo put one hand in a trouser pocket, then took it out again.
He ran his other hand through his hair. ‘But I need to now, because we can’t get anywhere, we can’t move on, not without us getting into all of this.
’ He took a deep breath. ‘I knew you were going to be here,’ he said.
‘I mean, I didn’t know until I was booked, but then I did.
And I was curious about seeing you, about seeing how you were these days.
’ She nodded, bit her lip, tried to keep her eyes on his, which were shining, earnest. ‘And then that book blogger, Beth, said we’d written the same scene in our books, which was crazy.
So crazy, it just made me all the more curious . . . And I’d missed you.’
She shook her head. ‘You hadn’t missed me.’
‘I had, and I need to apologise to you. I really need to apologise to you. I couldn’t just bulldoze you with it, when we first met again. I had to take my time. I had to take counsel. But I can’t wait around any longer.’
‘Go on.’ He was so close she could almost touch him.
‘I want to apologise to you, Livs, for Tuscany, for Cressie, for not telling you about her, or the engagement. For taking you on a road trip without telling you. I’m sorry I said something awful about you not having a father any more.
I’m sorry for everything. I behaved so badly in Tuscany.
I truly was making such a big mess of my life at that time.
And it was after that trip I went into therapy—’
‘Because of what I said about Isaac . . .’ Olivia interrupted.
‘No. No,’ he said. ‘I mean, yes, I needed to hear that. I really needed to hear that. It was the truth – a truth I had been blind to, and I really ought to thank you for that, because things have changed now, after therapy. I see him for who he is. I’m not constantly seeking his approval.
I’m not running to him.’ Olivia almost winced at the memory.
‘And that little kid inside me came all the way out, and he was heard, and he was validated at last, which I so needed. Isaac can’t affect me now.
I can stand up to him. I have the tools to deal with him.
In fact, you’ll be surprised, but I’ve just bailed him out.
Given him the final money for the investment.
It’s for Mum, really,’ he added. ‘But it’s a nice bonus to have him sucking up to me for a change.
’ He grinned. ‘But that wasn’t what made me call someone. ’
‘So what was it?’
Leo sighed. Tugged at his hair. ‘What kind of man calls off their wedding at the eleventh hour?’ he cried.
‘A week before? Good God! What kind of man does that? What kind of man gets himself in that situation in the first place, about to marry a woman he doesn’t love?
Of course, it was all tied up with Isaac, and I went through all of that with Catherine – I really went through it, as I said – but Isaac wasn’t the catalyst for therapy, and neither were you.
It was me. I needed to find out what kind of man I really was, and what kind of man I wanted to be, and now I know.
Well, at least I know how to try to be a better man.
I’m taking the steps. I’m trying to be a grown-up.
And you were right.’ He stepped closer towards her and placed his hands gently on her wrists.
‘You were right to challenge me. I couldn’t marry Cressie because I loved you.
It’s always been you, Livs. I haven’t stopped thinking about you in three years.
It did affect me seeing you at that party at the V&A.
It was like a . . . thunderbolt. A thunderbolt I tried to pretend hadn’t just annihilated me.
’ He smiled. ‘I’ve missed you. I always miss you when you’re not around.
I just feel that we belong together, you and me.
That we need to be together. And I’m here now to tell you that I love you, Liv. I love you.’
Olivia stared at him. She vaguely registered the night-time slop of the canal below them. The low hum from the restaurant behind them. The night sky above them.
‘I appreciate that,’ she said quietly. ‘I really do.’
‘And I haven’t just thought about you since we last met here in Italy. I’ve thought about you for the past twenty years.’
‘Hasn’t all twenty years proved is that we shouldn’t be together?
’ She loosened the cape at her neck and let it fall from her.
The urge to flee, to run, had overtaken her.
She couldn’t do this, she thought. They had too much history.
Too many stories. Too many chapters, too many scenes.
They had been down roads together and the roads had gone nowhere.
They had been spontaneous, and careful, and hopeful, and sad.
And none of it had worked out. She didn’t trust this.
She didn’t trust his words. Words could be cheap and they could be wonderful, and they could save you, or they could destroy you.
‘You’ve always been on my list, Olivia Sackville!
’ Leo cried. ‘I’ve always been grateful you’ve been out there in the world.
’ But she was laying the cape over the back of the armchair, smoothing its velvet flank quickly with her hand.
‘Please don’t tell me you’re running out on me again! ’ he cried, eyes flashing.
‘I am,’ she said. ‘I have nowhere to go, but I am.’ Her hand was already on the glass door of the balcony.
‘I need time,’ she said. ‘I need space to think. I always believed, each time with you, at the close of each chapter, that we were at the end, and that we should have been at the end, but now I’m wondering something else.
That we’ve simply had too many beginnings. ’
She didn’t trust what he was saying to her. She didn’t know if she could unstitch her heart and lay it open to him again.
‘Olivia!’ He walked towards her.
‘Please give me time, Leo. A little time.’
‘Olivia!’
But she was already pulling open the door.