11. Chiara #3
Except I’m still standing in the rain watching him walk away, and something in my chest feels like it’s cracking open.
“Come inside.” I step toward him before I can think better of the invitation. “Dry off. Then leave.”
He turns, and I see the question in his face. He doesn’t move toward me, doesn’t assume the invitation means more than it does. He just stands there, waiting for me to be sure.
I hold out my hand.
He crosses the distance between us and takes it. His fingers are cold and wet, but his grip is careful, not clutching. I could pull away if I wanted to. I lead him back through the mud and rain, up the steps, past the terrace, and through the kitchen door into the warmth of the house.
I let go of his hand inside the kitchen. Rosalia takes one look at us and fetches towels from the back hall. I ask her for the spare sweater on the shelf of clothes Lucia pointed out when I arrived.
“You can change in the back hall,” I tell Lorenzo. Rosalia leaves the sweater on the bench, then takes her book into the sitting room.
The back hall is a small space with hooks for coats and a wooden bench worn smooth from years of use.
I hand Lorenzo a towel and take one for myself, pressing the water out of my hair while he does the same.
He hangs his jacket on a hook, and water pools beneath it.
I hang my own beside the door, glad to have something to do while he unbuttons his cuffs.
“There’s a sweater.” I gesture toward where I set the spare sweater on the bench. “You can change in here. I’ll be in the sitting room.”
“Chiara.” He stops rubbing the towel through his hair. “I’ll be out of your way as soon as I’ve changed.”
“This doesn’t mean anything.” I make myself say it out loud, make myself remember all the reasons I left. “I’m still getting divorced. I’m still angry at you. I still don’t know if I can ever trust you again.”
“I know.” He doesn’t try to close the distance between us. “I’m not asking you to change your mind.”
“Good.” I gather the wet ends of my hair inside the towel before they can drip down my back.
“Because I meant what I said on the terrace. You failed me. You chose to protect her reputation while I stood in the doorway watching. You chose her comfort over my pain, and explaining why doesn’t undo it. ”
“It doesn’t.” He sets the towel aside and meets my eyes. “My father’s way of showing love doesn’t excuse what I did. I made those choices. I could have made different ones. I didn’t, and you paid for it.”
I wait for the qualification, the explanation that softens the admission. It doesn’t come.
“I want to earn your trust.” He moves his dripping jacket to a hook farther from my coat. “If that takes the rest of my life, I’ll keep trying. Even if you never take me back.”
“How?” The question comes out sharper than I intended. “How do you earn trust when you’re not here and I’m not there and we’re not even speaking?”
“By doing what I should have done while we were together.” He picks up the borrowed sweater but doesn’t put it on.
“Making sure the people who heard those accusations hear me say they were wrong. Letting the investigators follow the evidence wherever it goes. Those things don’t depend on you coming home. ”
I want to believe he’ll do it. I also wanted to believe him when he told me he’d handle things after the gala. I’m not going to help him turn another promise into a reason I should stay married.
“The message you sent me.” I lean against the doorframe, keeping the width of the narrow hall between us. “About the supplier.”
“Yes.” He sets down the sweater and retrieves his phone from the jacket hanging behind him. The screen is wet, but it powers on when he taps it. “I got a message from him this morning. He sent a written confirmation of what happened.”
“What happened?” I watch him navigate to his messages, my pulse quickening.
“Livia went back to him.” Lorenzo turns the phone so I can see the screen. “After you left the estate, she visited the shop. She asked him to change his records. To say that the purchase was made on your instructions, not hers.”
I take the phone from his hand and read the message myself. It’s from a number I don’t recognize, but the content matches what Lorenzo said. The supplier describing Livia’s visit, her request that he alter the counterfoil to show my name instead of hers, his refusal to falsify his records.
“He wouldn’t do it.” I scroll through the rest of the message. “He told her no.”
“He called me after she left.” Lorenzo watches my face as I read. “I asked him to put it in writing. You have the same message now. You can send it straight to your lawyer. It’s not proof that she contaminated the wine. But it shows she’s still trying to shift blame onto you.”
I read the message again. My copy of the receipt is on the sitting-room table, inside the folder I carried out of Lorenzo’s study. Livia knows I have it. While I’ve been here putting dates and facts into order, she’s been trying to change what those facts mean.
I hand him back his phone. I don’t need him to explain this part.
She isn’t finished with me.