17. Beatrice
— ? —
Beatrice
He asked me every day.
Every single day after that conversation in Celia’s living room, Kenneth found a way to ask.
Sometimes it was a phone call, his voice warm and hopeful on the other end of the line.
Sometimes it was a text, simple and direct.
Sometimes he showed up at the door, always with something small - not grand gestures, just thoughtful ones.
A book I’d mentioned wanting to read. Pastries from the bakery I used to walk past on my way to the hospital.
“I found a restaurant that serves the soup your mom used to make,” he said the first day. “The one with the dumplings. Please.”
I said no.
“There’s a concert in the park,” he said the next day. “Nothing fancy. Just blankets and stars and maybe terrible wine from a plastic cup. Please.”
I said no.
“I’ve changed my mind,” he said on the third day. “I have a better idea. Something special. Please, Bea.”
I said yes.
The restaurant is the same one where we had our first date. Checkered tablecloths. Candles dripping wax down the necks of old wine bottles. The same booth in the corner where he fumbled with his menu and ordered wine before remembering I preferred beer.
I stop in the doorway, taking it in.
“You kept this place?”
“I bought it.” He pulls out my chair, that old-fashioned courtesy I used to tease him about. “The owner was retiring. Going to sell to developers who wanted to turn it into condos.” He sits across from me. “I couldn’t let our place disappear.”
“Kenneth-”
“I know.” He holds up a hand. “I know what you said about grand gestures. But this isn’t about impressing you. This is where I fell in love with you. This is where you told me I was stuck up and pretentious and I realized you were the first person who’d ever told me the truth about myself.”
That night comes back to me. The nervousness thrumming through me, convinced I’d say something stupid in front of this polished billionaire who’d somehow asked me to dinner. The moment I accidentally insulted his taste in art and he laughed instead of getting offended.
“Your watch probably costs more than my car,” I’d said, three glasses in and past the point of filtering.
“Actually, it probably costs a bit more than three of your cars,” he’d replied, grinning. “But who’s counting?”
I couldn’t decide if I wanted to slap him or kiss him.
Kissed him, eventually. Right here, in this booth, after a debate about hospital funding that turned into a debate about everything that mattered.
“Start from the beginning,” I say quietly. “That’s what I told you.”
“That’s what you said.”
I pick up the menu, even though I already know what I’m going to order. “So tell me about yourself, Kenneth Sinclair.”
We talk for hours.
The restaurant empties around us, other diners finishing their meals and drifting into the night, but we don’t notice. We’re too busy excavating the past, pulling up memories I’d buried under all the hurt.
“Do you remember what you ordered?” he asks. “That first night?”
“Spaghetti al Pomodoro. And I spilled wine on my dress within the first ten minutes.”
“You were mortified.”
“I wanted to crawl under the table and die.”
“I thought it was the most endearing thing I’d ever seen.” His smile is soft, unguarded. “You apologized four times. And then you made some joke about how at least the wine matched your lipstick, and I knew.”
“Knew what?”
“That I was in trouble. That you were going to ruin me for anyone else.”
My chest tightens. “Do you remember our honeymoon? Santorini?”
“The villa with the infinity pool overlooking the caldera.”
“You canceled a board meeting for that trip. A board meeting, Kenneth. Your assistant called seventeen times.”
“I turned off my phone. Threw it in a drawer and didn’t touch it for three days.” He laughs, low and warm. “My mother nearly disowned me.”
“We stayed in bed until noon every day. Ate breakfast on the terrace. Watched the sunset every night from that little balcony.”
“You wore that white dress. The linen one.” His eyes darken. “It drove me absolutely insane.”
Heat rises in my cheeks. “Kenneth.”
“I bought you those earrings. The blue ones, from that tiny shop in Oia. You said they were too expensive.”
“They were too expensive. Everything you ever bought me was too expensive.”
“Nothing was too expensive. I would have bought you the whole island if you’d let me.”
“I didn’t marry you for your money.”
“I know.” His voice drops. “That’s exactly why I wanted to give you everything.”
The word hangs between us. Married. Present tense. Still true, despite everything.
“We used to take the yacht out,” I say quietly. “Just the two of us. No captain, no staff. You’d sail and I’d sit at the bow with my feet in the water.”
“You’d read those terrible romance novels and pretend you weren’t crying at the endings.”
“They weren’t terrible. They were emotionally resonant.”
“You threw one at me once because I laughed at the cover.”
“You deserved it. You called it ‘literary assault with a bare-chested weapon.’”
He grins - that real grin I haven’t seen in so long, the one that transforms his whole face. “We’d anchor somewhere private and swim until the sun went down. And then…”
“And then.” I look away, but I’m smiling too.
“When did we stop doing that?” His voice is quieter now. Sadder.
I don’t answer. We both know when. The promotions. The longer hours. The deals that couldn’t wait. His mother’s constant presence, her opinions seeping into everything like poison through groundwater.
“I missed it,” I whisper. “I missed being your priority.”
“You were always my priority.”
“No.” I meet his eyes. “The company was your priority. Your mother was your priority. I was just there. Waiting. Always waiting for you to remember I existed.”
He reaches across the table. Takes my hand. His fingers are warm, familiar, and the contact sends a jolt through my entire body.
“I’m so sorry.”
“Do you remember the penthouse?” I ask. “When we first moved in?”
“You hated it. Said it felt like a museum.”
“It did. All that marble and glass. I was afraid to touch anything, like I’d leave fingerprints on your perfect life.”
“But then I came home one day with that blanket.”
“The fuzzy one.” A laugh escapes me, unexpected and genuine. “God, that hideous fuzzy blanket. Orange and purple. It probably cost ten dollars and it clashed with absolutely everything in that million-dollar apartment.”
“You laughed for ten minutes straight. Couldn’t breathe.”
“You draped it over that designer sofa - the one your mother picked out, the one that cost more than my medical school tuition - and you said…”
“‘There. Now it’s home.’” His grip tightens on my hand. “And it was. Not because of the furniture or the view or any of that. Because you were there. You made it home.”
A tear slips down my cheek. I don’t wipe it away.
“We used to have a thing,” I say, voice breaking. “When one of us was upset. Do you remember?”
“Three squeezes.”
I nod. My throat is too tight to speak.
“One squeeze for each word.” His voice is rough. “I. Love. You.”
“You stopped doing it. Somewhere along the way, you just… stopped. Your hand would be in mine and I’d squeeze three times and wait for you to squeeze back, and you never did.
And I knew.” The tears are falling freely now.
“I knew I was losing you. I knew you were slipping away and I didn’t know how to hold on. ”
“Beatrice-”
“I would lie in bed at night, holding your hand while you slept, squeezing three times over and over, hoping you’d feel it. Hoping you’d remember. Hoping you’d come back to me.”
He’s crying too. This man who was raised to believe tears were weakness. This man who barely cried at his own father’s funeral.
“I felt it.” His voice breaks. “Every single time. I felt every squeeze and I knew what it meant and I wanted to squeeze back. I just… I didn’t know how to come back to you. I didn’t know how to be the man you needed me to be.”
“I didn’t need the penthouses or the yachts or the private jets.” I’m sobbing now, and I don’t care who sees. “I just needed you. Present. Here. With me.”
“I know.” He brings my hand to his lips, presses a kiss to my knuckles. “I know that now. I know that too late.”
The waiter approaches, hesitant, and offers dessert. We both shake our heads without looking away from each other.
The silence that follows isn’t uncomfortable. It’s just full. Heavy with everything we’ve said and everything we haven’t.
“I missed you,” Kenneth says quietly. “Not just since the separation. For months before that. Years, maybe. I missed you even when I was standing right next to you. I missed who we used to be together.”
“I missed you too.” The words come out barely louder than a breath. “I missed us.”
He stands. Holds out his hand.
“What are you doing?”
“Dance with me.”
“Kenneth, we’re in a restaurant. There’s no music. There’s no-”
“I own this restaurant. I can do whatever I want.” He keeps his hand extended, waiting. “Dance with me. Please.”
I take his hand.
He pulls me close. One hand on the small of my back, careful of my belly. The other holding mine against his chest, where I can feel his heartbeat, steady and strong.
We sway together in the empty restaurant, barely moving, and it’s like being transported back in time. To the deck of the yacht under the stars. To the terrace in Santorini at sunset. To all those stolen moments before everything went wrong.
“I never stopped loving you,” he murmurs against my hair. “Even when I was terrible at showing it. Even when I let my mother’s poison infect everything. I never stopped.”
I press my face into his shoulder. Breathe him in. The familiar scent of him, cedar and something warm underneath.
“This doesn’t mean I forgive you.”
“I know.”
“And it doesn’t mean we’re okay.”
“I know.”
“But I’m willing to try.” I pull back, look up at him. “To see if we can find our way back to something.”
He cups my face in his hands. Brushes a tear from my cheek with his thumb.
“That’s all I’m asking for. A chance.”
I take his hand again. Squeeze once. Twice. Three times.