Chapter 10 #2
I stare at the message.
Moises Bazán Bravo is a good man, which is a wildly inconvenient thing for him to be. It would be easier if he were careless. If he loved badly. If he treated me like a temporary Florence story with good cheekbones and a tragic backstory, he could frame it in a flattering light.
But no.
Moises loves practical verbs.
Coffee. Walk. Eat. Rest. Let me carry that. Did you sleep?
He knows which mornings my hand is worse. He knows not to mention it in public. He knows I hate being treated like porcelain, so he has perfected the art of helping me without making it look like help.
He knows many things.
He doesn't know the names.
Creed.
Halston.
One man who learned control so young he mistook it for virtue.
One man who watched the world as if violence might be the only honest language left.
One man who could buy a solution before anyone finished explaining the problem.
One man who would put himself between me and danger without asking whether I wanted a wall or a hand.
And me.
The idiot in the middle.
The overachieving, color-coded idiot who had loved them both with the sincerity of a woman who thought devotion was enough to keep people from leaving.
They left.
Creed never searched for me. According to Mom, Halston asked that I never contact him. Dad agreed. I never understood what happened back then, and it’s not that I can go ahead and ask my parents about the subject.
Before I lost them, they didn’t like to discuss my accident. After my parents died, there’s no point in even thinking about the life I had back there.
Mom did mention that with my issues, I was . . . not the kind of person Halston Saint Claire would like to have around.
Did I cry?
Alone, in silence, and then I learned to move on. That’s what my parents wanted, and it was a good thing I did it. Who knew they wouldn’t be around for long? Not me, but at least while they were around, I gave them all the attention I could and made them happy.
I type back to Moises.
If I say yes, will you judge how much sugar I put in it?
His reply comes quickly.
Always. With devotion.
I smile despite myself.
Then Bella twitches again.
The smile fades.
I set the phone down and look at my reflection.
“Don’t make this weird,” I tell the woman in the mirror.
She looks back at me with ten years of practice in making weird look functional.
“Excellent,” I say. “Inspiring.”
By seven-thirty, I am dressed, mascaraed into the illusion of alertness, and negotiating with Bruno outside my building.
Bruno is my scooter. He is temperamental, powder blue, older than any vehicle should be allowed to be in a city with hills, and absolutely convinced he is a horse in a historical drama.
I bought him six years ago from a man named Enzo, who told me Bruno had “character,” which I now know was Italian for “electrical problems and a deep personal grudge.”
“Come on,” I say, turning the key.
Bruno coughs.
A woman across the street looks over.
I smile at her with the serene dignity of someone not currently being humiliated by machinery.
“Don’t do this,” I whisper.
Bruno sputters, considers mortality, then starts.
“Grazie,” I say. “See? Growth is possible even for an old man.”
Florence in the morning is indecently beautiful.
It doesn't ease you into itself. It simply exists, golden and impossible, until you either surrender or become bitter enough to move to Milan.
The streets are narrow, the light is theatrical, and every corner looks as if a painter once stood there and decided reality needed better lighting.
I weave through traffic with my scarf tucked under my coat, the air cool against my cheeks, my mind trying very hard not to circle back to the dream.
It does anyway.
Yeah?
Creed’s voice moves through me again. Rough with sleep. Familiar in a way that feels indecent after all this time. As if I had called him and some part of him had been waiting. As if he would answer me from across the years with something close to, Where are you?
Which is absurd.
I know better.
I have built an entire life on knowing better.
Creed didn’t come when the accident happened.
He didn’t call. He didn’t send some polished Lafontaine solution with lawyers, doctors, first-class flight tickets, and an apology disguised as logistics.
Maybe he only ever cared because Halston cared.
Maybe I was a complication, or an indulgence, or entertainment for a bored hockey player with too much money and an appetite for impossible things.
Maybe I am overthinking this.
Which would be shocking and entirely off-brand for me.
I should forget about him.
Them.
My fingers tighten around the handlebars.
For years, I have waited for divorce papers to arrive with my morning mail.
Some elegant envelope. Some expensive stationery.
A note from an attorney saying, with perfect professionalism, that Halston Wolfe Saint Claire no longer requires the inconvenience of a wife he has not touched, spoken to, or chosen in a decade.
Sorry, Livia. He survived. He moved on. Please sign here.
It would be almost merciful.
Humiliating, yes. Devastating, obviously. But clean.
Instead, there is nothing. Just the knowledge that Halston is alive. That he found his way back into the Saint Claire businesses. That he returned to the world without returning to me.
I saw the article years ago. Accidentally, which is what cowards call it when they search a name and then act surprised by the consequences. There he was in a dark suit, face leaner, eyes colder, body held like restraint had become a religion.
He looked powerful.
Untouchable.
Perfectly restored to a life that had apparently made room for everything except his wife.
I should be grateful.
Isn’t that what love is supposed to be at its most selfless? Wishing someone alive even if they don't come back for you?
Bruno wobbles.
“Not helpful, Bruno.”
A taxi honks.
I mutter something in English that would disappoint several ancestors and continue toward the institute.
Moises is waiting outside the café two blocks from Bianchi Conservation, leaning against the stone wall with two coffees in hand, dark hair pushed back, camel coat open over a gray sweater.
He looks like a man women in travel essays meet by accident and then describe as quietly devastating for fourteen pages.
It is annoying how little effort he puts into this.
His dark eyes find me before I park.
That is also annoying.
Being known is lovely until it becomes inconvenient.
“Buongiorno,” he says when I step off Bruno.