17. Nora
— ? —
Nora
One Week Later
The hotel is small. Quiet. A converted palazzo with frescoed ceilings and windows that look out over the Duomo, and a clawfoot bathtub in the center of the bathroom like something from another century.
We’ve been here for seven days.
Seven days of walking Florence’s narrow streets, of eating pasta at tiny trattorias, of talking until our voices gave out and then talking some more.
Seven days of sleeping in the same bed without touching - not because we don’t want to, but because we’re both terrified of breaking whatever fragile thing we’ve rebuilt.
Tonight, something shifts.
“Let me?” Dante asks.
He’s standing in the bathroom doorway. The tub is full - steam rising, lavender oil he bought from a shop near the Ponte Vecchio scenting the air.
“Let you what?”
“Wash your hair.” His voice is quiet. Careful. “Like I used to.”
My throat tightens.
He used to do this when we were newlyweds.
Sunday nights in our tiny apartment before the money came, before the company exploded, before everything got complicated.
He’d run me a bath and wash my hair with his hands and tell me about his day, and I’d lie there feeling like the most cherished person in the world.
He stopped doing it somewhere in the cold year. Along with everything else.
“Okay,” I whisper.
I undress. Step into the water. It’s perfect - hot enough to ease the tension in my muscles, not so hot it burns.
Dante kneels beside the tub. His sleeves are rolled up, his feet bare. He looks younger somehow. Softer.
His hands dip into the water. Find my hair. Begin to work.
***
For a while, neither of us speaks.
His fingers move through my wet hair, gentle and thorough. The lavender steam rises around us. Outside, Florence glows golden in the evening light.
“I believed you.”
The words come out quiet. Barely there.
Dante’s hands still. “What?”
“That first night. When you came home and told me Vanessa kissed you.” I stare at the ceiling. The tears are already starting. “I believed you. I saw you push her away. I knew you didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Then why-”
“Because the kiss was an excuse.” My voice breaks. “I’d already decided to leave, Dante. I just didn’t know it yet. I needed something clean. Something I could point to. A reason that made sense.”
His hands resume their movement. Slower now. Waiting.
“I was starving,” I whisper. “For you. For your attention. For any sign that you still saw me. And I’d been starving for so long that when I finally had a reason to leave - a real, undeniable reason that anyone would understand-”
“You took it.”
“I took it.” The tears are falling freely now. “Because I couldn’t admit the truth. That I was leaving over a hundred small deaths, not one big betrayal. That our marriage didn’t end in your office that night - it ended somewhere in the winter when you stopped saying my name.”
Dante is quiet for a long moment.
Then: “I’m sorry.”
“I know.”
“No. Listen to me.” He moves so he’s facing me. His hands cup my face, wet and warm. “I’m sorry for every small death. Every canceled dinner. Every night I turned away. Every time you reached for me and I wasn’t there.”
“Dante-”
“I’m sorry I made you feel invisible. I’m sorry I made you starve. I’m sorry you had to find an excuse to leave instead of just being able to tell me the truth.” His voice cracks. “I’m sorry I wasn’t safe enough to be honest with.”
I pull him toward me.
He doesn’t resist.
***
The water sloshes as he climbs into the tub, still half-dressed - shirt soaked, pants ruined, neither of us caring. He settles against the porcelain and pulls me into his arms, and we stay there for a long time, holding each other in the steam.
“I need you to see me,” he whispers against my hair.
“I never stopped.” I turn in his arms. Face him. “That was the whole problem, Dante. I never stopped seeing you. I saw you pulling away. I saw you drowning. I saw everything, and I couldn’t reach you no matter how hard I tried.”
“I’m here now.” His hands shake as they frame my face. “I’m right here.”
“I know.”
“Will you let me-” He stops. Takes a breath. “Will you let me show you?”
***
The first touch is tentative.
His hand on my shoulder, sliding down my arm. My hand on his chest, feeling his heart pound beneath the soaked fabric of his shirt.
“I don’t know how to do this slowly,” I admit.
“Then we’ll figure it out together.”
He pulls his shirt over his head. The wet fabric clings, and I help him - my fingers clumsy, both of us laughing a little at the absurdity of it.
Then the laughter stops.
Because he’s looking at me like I’m something precious. Something he almost lost.
“Tesoro,” he breathes.
I kiss him.
It starts gentle. His mouth soft against mine, his hands careful in my wet hair. But something builds - a year of distance, a year of hunger, a year of reaching without touching.
“Wait-” He pulls back. “I need-”
“What?”
“I need to slow down.” His forehead presses against mine. His breath is ragged. “I’m not going to rush this. Not again. Not ever again.”
“Dante-”
“Let me look at you.”
He eases back. His eyes move over me - slow, deliberate, taking in every part of me like he’s memorizing something he can’t bear to forget.
“God.” His voice is rough. “How did I ever look away from this?”
“I don’t know.”
“I won’t again.” His hand traces down my collarbone. Stops at the swell of my breast. “I swear to you. I will never look away again.”
***
We move from the tub to the bed.
Wet footprints on the stone floor. Water droplets on the white sheets. His body covering mine, his weight so familiar it makes me ache.
“Is this okay?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“And this?”
His hand slides lower. I gasp.
“Yes.”
He takes his time.
Every touch is deliberate. Every kiss lands like a question, and I answer with my body - arching into him, pulling him closer, opening for him in ways I forgot I could.
“I missed this.” His mouth is at my throat. His fingers are moving in a rhythm that makes my thoughts dissolve. “I missed you.”
“Show me.”
He does.
Slowly. Agonizingly slowly. He brings me to the edge and pulls back, not to tease but to savor. To make it last. To make every second count for the year we lost.
“Look at me,” he says.
I open my eyes. His face is above mine, wet hair falling across his forehead, and he’s shaking - actually shaking, the way he shook on our wedding night, when everything was new and terrifying and perfect.
He slides inside me.
***
It’s not like before.
Every thrust is slow. Measured. He watches my face, adjusting his rhythm to match my breathing, my heartbeat, the tiny sounds I can’t hold back.
“Nora.” His voice cracks. “Tesoro.”
“I’m here.”
“Don’t leave. Don’t ever-”
“I’m not leaving.” I wrap my legs around him. Pull him deeper. “I’m right here.”
We move together. Two bodies remembering what they used to know. His hands find mine, lacing our fingers together against the sheets, and something about that small gesture - that simple intimacy - makes me start crying again.
“Is it too much?” he asks. “Should I-”
“Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.”
He doesn’t stop.
The tension builds like a wave, slow and inevitable. His forehead presses against mine. Our breath mingles. I can feel his heartbeat where our chests touch.
“I love you,” he says. “I love you, Nora. I never stopped.”
“I love you too.”
“Look at me when you-”
I do.
I keep my eyes open as the wave crests. As everything dissolves into light and heat and the sound of his name on my lips. He follows a moment later, his whole body shuddering, his face open and raw in a way I’ve never seen before.
We stay tangled together for a long time after. His weight on me. My fingers in his hair. The sweat cooling on our skin.
“Marry me again,” he whispers.
I laugh. It’s wet and broken and happy.
“Ask me somewhere that means we’re staying.”
He lifts his head. Looks at me.
“Where?”
“Home.” I touch his face. “Wherever that is now. Ask me there.”