Chapter Ten
CHAPTER TEN
Ivy frowned, folding a beautiful cream jumper with flashes of fuchsia woven into it. It was gorgeous. But would she wear it back home? The thought of it in her tiny little shared flat made her quite sad. And she told herself off for being foolish.
She’d take it because it was beautiful, pretty , and it would make her happy. But some of the others…the red dress she’d worn to their first dinner out, that would stay behind.
‘What are you doing?’
She felt his presence hover in the doorframe of the room she’d slept in only a handful of times while she’d been here.
Forcing a smile on her face, she turned and said, ‘Packing,’ with an ease she didn’t feel. He watched her with hooded eyes. He’d been like that since they’d returned from the glade yesterday. Guarded. Resolved.
She bit back the breath that shuddered in her lungs. The hurt. It wasn’t his fault that she’d fallen in love with him. He looked away as if he’d somehow read her thoughts, seeming to take in the clothes on the bed.
‘You’re not taking the red dress?’ he asked, stepping into the room.
‘No,’ she replied. ‘It’s not exactly suitable for an assistant librarian to wear to shelve books, clean up after kids and help people find their email accounts on the shared computers,’ she said wryly, before adding, ‘as much as I’d like to see it.’
‘And this?’ Antonio said, picking up a navy-blue jumpsuit with a deep V neck.
It had been her favourite piece, one she’d not got to wear. ‘It can go back,’ she explained. ‘It still has the tags.’
‘These were bought for you. You should take them with you,’ he said, as if speaking to a recalcitrant child. She didn’t understand why he was getting so upset.
‘They are beautiful clothes, I would love to keep them all. But I don’t have the space to fit them. Or,’ she said, placing a hand on his arm to try and soothe him, ‘the lifestyle to wear them.’
His gaze narrowed, as if he wanted to argue but couldn’t.
‘When will Ms Quell be here?’ she forced herself to ask.
‘About an hour,’ he said without looking at his watch.
She nodded and folded a pretty linen wrap skirt that she couldn’t bear to part with into the suitcase. It would come in handy in England, she told herself. On one of the rare hot days they might be lucky enough to get.
Already she had an extra bag to take home with her, and then she laughed as Antonio had arranged for her to return on his private jet, so it wasn’t as if she had to worry about baggage allowance.
‘What has you so amused?’ he asked.
‘Nothing. Absolutely nothing,’ she replied and went to the bathroom to get her toiletries, inappropriate tears pressing at the corner of her eyes.
Antonio paced the room, his hands fisting his hair. Why did this all feel so wrong? Ms Quell would come, they’d have the final assessment, he’d get the divorce he needed—for Maria. It was for Maria. He owed her that. For staying by his side when no one else had.
What about Ivy? She stayed by your side. Even from the UK. Even when you didn’t do the same for her.
He couldn’t keep his thoughts straight and an anger that had begun to build yesterday in the glade was near constant now, making his heart pound, making him flinch at any small thing, making him clumsy and drop things, break things.
He was spinning out of control. He just needed the divorce.
Just needed to marry Maria. Then he could figure out what to do about Ivy, could figure out a way to help her.
Not the library, not some other family member, but her .
He wanted her to have the security that she so richly deserved.
He wanted her to have the lifestyle where she could wear that dress.
He wanted her to travel the world, taking photographs of the people and things that caught her eye.
He wanted to see that world, the way she saw it…
Dio mio .
What was wrong with him?
Ivy came out of the bathroom and he couldn’t stop himself.
‘Do you have to do that now?’ he demanded, very much sounding like the frustrated husband he had never been.
She looked at him warily. ‘Yes,’ she said, putting her toiletries into the small carry-on she had brought with her.
‘Why?’ he asked, sounding petulant even to his own ears.
She turned to him, arms across her chest, and he wondered whether it was ironic that perhaps for the first time in their six-year marriage they finally looked like a husband and wife.
‘Because I think it’s better that I leave with Ms Quell,’ she said, levelling him with a gaze.
‘No.’
Ivy opened her mouth.
‘No, absolutely not,’ he repeated, slashing the air with his hand.
She huffed out a frustrated breath of air. ‘Antonio—’
He turned his back to her, more to stop himself sounding even more like an irrational ass than to silence her.
He heard the bed dip as Ivy sat.
‘Are you okay?’ she asked quietly.
He turned to stare at her. ‘ Dio mio , Ivy, sto bene . I just don’t see why you’re being difficult and why you have to leave,’ he said, unable to stop the words pouring out of him. He punctuated the whole thing with a dismissive shrug.
Ivy raised her brows the moment he accused her of being difficult and he knew he was messing this up.
‘You’re fine? Behaving like a child is fine for you? Because it’s not fine for me,’ she replied hotly. ‘I’m trying to keep things civil. I’m trying to do what we agreed to do, in order for you to get the divorce you want.’
‘Well, stop it. Stop trying to do all these things.’
‘Really? And what then, Antonio? What is this about? If you don’t want me to do this, if you don’t want me to help you get this divorce, what do you want?’ she demanded.
He couldn’t say it. He knew it. She knew it. She saw it in his eyes and nodded.
‘I’ll be down in a minute,’ she informed him curtly.
He had been dismissed.
‘Ivy—’
‘I’ll be down in a minute,’ she repeated, as if clinging onto the last thread of her patience.
By the time that Ivy came downstairs Agata was showing Ms Quell into the room where they’d first met.
She paused on the last step, inhaling slowly and deeply, trying to remember the run of the argument she and Antonio had planned and practised over the last few days in order to convince Ms Quell that they had done their best but still needed a divorce.
She thought that perhaps it wouldn’t be such a reach to ‘fake’ an argument between them right now.
She could see that Antonio was struggling, she knew that he didn’t want her to leave.
But that wasn’t enough any more. She could never stay here and watch him marry another person, even if he did ask her to.
Because it wasn’t really about the marriage.
It was about the fact that he would always prioritise Maria over her.
She understood why…oh, God, did she. But understanding didn’t make it any easier, and she had to choose herself this time.
Not her brother. Not the library. Not Antonio even.
She couldn’t continue to be the woman who’d waited in a hospital bed wishing things were different.
And she wasn’t. Not any more. Whether he had intended it or not, coming here to Italy had been…
liberating for her. Before, Ivy had lived in fear of stepping out of the unknown: she took the same route to work, she worked in the same place she volunteered, knowing the layout of the building, and with the people she liked.
She stayed in her flat, she watched her pennies, she lived within her means…
But she wasn’t really living . She’d always thought that after Jamie was settled, perhaps she’d travel.
She’d find something for herself. But then the accident happened and… she’d been scared.
But now? Okay, yes, she had been chauffeured around Italy without having to spend a single penny, but she had travelled.
She had seen Siena, she had visited a bustling market, she had swum in a pool and had her hair and make-up done at the fanciest of salons.
She was living again. So perhaps she didn’t quite have to go back to the same home she had left.
Perhaps she could begin to make small changes that led to travelling elsewhere one day. Perhaps she could start to live again.
Steeling her spine, she went to join Antonio and Ms Quell, who were sitting in stony silence, facing each other with a kind of grim resolve.
She pasted a smile on her lips. ‘Ms Quell,’ she greeted.
Ms Quell nodded. ‘Ms McKellen,’ she acknowledged, gesturing for her to take a seat beside Antonio, which instinctively she knew would enrage him in his own home. The sharp inhale only confirmed it.
Ivy made sure to sit further away from him than she would have chosen to, which drew a single flicker from Antonio’s jaw muscle.
‘How have you been?’ Ms Quell asked.
Ivy paused before answering. ‘Tested,’ she said ruefully. ‘By both this process,’ she said of the assessments, ‘and my husband.’ There was no heat in her words, only resignation. After all, this was a goodbye, whether Antonio willed it or not.
Ms Quell nodded. Ivy thought there was a flash of sympathy in the other woman’s gaze. And she wondered whether Ms Quell’s bluster was similar to Antonio’s—a form of self-defence. Instinctively softening, Ivy asked, ‘And how are you? I hope your flight here was okay.’
Ms Quell nodded, eyeing Antonio suspiciously. ‘It was very…quick. Thank you,’ she added belatedly, as if pained by it.
Antonio dismissed the generosity of making his private jet available for the assessments as if it were nothing, his casual display of wealth clearly irritating Ms Quell, as intended, Ivy was sure.
If it wasn’t that so much was riding on the outcome of this meeting, Ivy would probably have found their exchanges funny.
Two similar personalities butting heads.
There was no meanness or malice in it at all. Just both wrestling for control.
‘You attended the family event together last weekend?’
Antonio nodded, apparently clinging to his sulk and insisting on speaking as little as possible.