Chapter 51
Fifty-One
Lexi
It doesn’t take long to find the display labeled Russo Family Construction, Restoration, and Interior Design. I move straight to his reconstruction plans, anxious to see his vision for the gardens.
There are several pages on display from different perspectives—front, back, side, above. It takes a bit to get my bearings. I’m not familiar with blueprints.
Approaching footsteps distract me. I take a quick glance to make sure no one wants to peruse Mark’s work since I’m hogging the space, my face practically pressed against the designs.
The couple from the Colosseum who interviewed Mark—who were on my mom’s envelope—still hold hands as they walk down the hall toward me. “Mr. and Mrs. Gallo!”
They beam at me, and Mrs. Gallo winks. “Well, I can’t say it’s a surprise to find you here at Mark’s display.”
I feel my cheeks flush as if she’d caught us kissing in the park. “And you—this is your palazzo, right? Mark told me there was a temple on the property, but I’m having trouble finding it.”
Mr. Gallo tilts his head. “You mean the pavilion? Sure, but it’s not on the reconstruction blueprints of course.”
“Of course?” There’s a split-second where I think I should run. Just pelt down the hall and not hear what it is he’s about to say, because I don’t want to know.
But I stay, because I need to understand the plans Mark made, and I want—
“They’ll tear it down. It’s a piece of junk.”
Junk.
The blunt word hits me like a rock. I step back from the display, wishing I were alone. Home. Anywhere but here.
It hurts to know this about the site of my parents’ first kiss. But it hurts, almost worse, that Mark knew. The second he saw the painting, he knew his company would be demolishing it if they won the bid.
I have been so clear about how much it means to me. Even if he doesn’t know why, he understood that. He could have said something. Warned me. Been more urgent about taking me there. Promised to change his blueprints and keep the temple. Done something.
All my suspicions from the morning have shifted to something hot and dry, like the moment you realize you’ve enjoyed the sunshine too long and everything is turning sharp and prickly. The warning sting of excruciating pain to come.
I wish I’d never come to Italy.
“Lexi, are you okay?” Mrs. Gallo asks, a hand on my shoulder.
Her eyes are so kind, I almost give her an honest answer.
But it’s day one of the festival. There is no room in the schedule for a breakdown.
“Of course.” My voice is too bright, my eyes blinking too fast. “Would you two like to come to the Reena Brooke gallery at the Palazzo Colonna museum? We’re revealing her last Italian painting, never seen before, and I’m giving a speech about her work. I’d love to have you there.”
Maybe the famous painting will convince them to not tear down the temple.
But it might come at the cost of Mark losing the bid he wants.
The Gallos promise to try to make it to the painting reveal, and I leave them as soon as I politely can. I cross the museum to where I left Mark. I need to understand.
I find him on a bench, staring at nothing.
He locks eyes with me, then stands, and his expression nearly breaks my heart. Like he’s already lost something precious. “You saw the renovation plans.” It’s not a question.
I search his face. “When were you going to tell me?”
“Not today.” His voice is unapologetic, but heavy with something that sounds like compassion. “This is your big weekend. I know how hard you worked on this festival, and I wanted to keep the bad news from you until after your speech.”
“That temple is everything to me, Mark, and when you saw it in that painting, you didn’t think to mention you were planning to tear it down?”
“I tried to save it. I fought for it. That’s what I do—I restore, not tear down. But it’s unstable. The Gallos and the city permit offices put their foot down. It has to go.”
My heart clenches, and it feels like my chest wall has caved in. “Since it’s the subject of Reena Brooke’s final revealed painting, it should be a national treasure. Can we appeal that decision?”
“Lexington, I’m sorry. It’s private property, and the structure has been deemed unsafe. My hands are tied. Even if another company gets the bid, the pavilion will be destroyed.”
“Do you need the money?”
“No, but—”
“Then let another company get the bid.” Tears fill my eyes and I blink. “Don’t do this to me, Mark. Don’t be the one who tears down the site of Reena Brooke’s painting. Don’t take this job.”
His face crumples, and he runs a hand through his curls and down his neck. “You don’t know what you’re asking,” he rasps.
But I do.
My mother-daughter trip is finished. All my letters are opened. I’m losing the painting to Rome.
I’m asking him to not be who destroys the last tangible piece of my parents’ relationship.
It’s not just an old temple or the site of their first kiss.
It’s knowing there’s a piece of her here.
It’s seeing that painting come to life. It’s breathing the air where my parents stood together.
I have nothing left of them but memories that are loosening with every passing day.
The temple won’t bring my mother back. But it can’t be Mark who erases that piece of her, not if there’s any future with us.
“Don’t do it,” I plead again.
He takes a half-step toward me, and for a split-second, he looks like he’d give anything to say yes.
But then his gaze lands on something in the exhibit behind me and his face closes.
“What does it matter? Italy isn’t a staged photo or a painting frozen in time.
It’s real life, where cars break down, people break up and move on, fathers miss their estranged sons every minute of every day, and where structures don’t pass code.
We all have to follow the rules, even when that’s the last thing we want to do. ”
His voice breaks, and I close the distance between us, grabbing his hands, trying to understand why he’s pulling us back into the disagreement we had on the plane, why he’s referencing what happened with Zoe, almost as an excuse to push me away.
“You’re not restoring the past—you’re letting it dictate your future.
I’m not sure how this—” I point between the two of us—“would even work, but I’m sure that if you take this bid and the temple is destroyed under your supervision, there is no us.
” Almost afraid to ask, I whisper, “Is that what you want?”
His gaze sears me—longing, regret, and determination—as he pushes his next words out. “My dad promised he’d come to Italy if we get the job. It’s the only thing I’ve wanted for the last five years.”
The knockout punch. It takes everything in me to stand still and upright.
“Oh, Mark.” I let his hands fall from mine.
He told me about Santino’s health issues, the ticking clock on reconciling his dad and grandfather.
I understand wanting something so much you’d give anything to get it.
He won’t give up the bid, even for me, and I can’t let go of the temple, even for him. “Then we’re at an impasse.”
We stare at each other, breathing hard and nearly spent. I don’t know where to go from here.
But I’m certainly not getting on a Vespa with him to see the temple he’s going to tear down.
I can’t look at him or I’ll break down and not be able to deliver my speech. I turn away but hear Mark’s quiet response, “Goodbye, Lexi.”
His final words suck the air from my lungs. I reach for the lira hanging on my necklace like a lifeline, glad I’m not facing him or I would lose the tears I’m barely holding in.
My shoes click on the marble floor as I exit the museum.
There is something in this moment that makes me feel lonelier than I ever have in my life.
Maybe it’s that I’ve opened all Mom’s letters and there will never be anything else she says to me.
Maybe it’s that I’m leaving our Italy in two days, knowing her temple won’t survive.
But I think, more than those things, it’s that Mark just called me Lexi for the first time. The public name that everyone calls me. He’s undone the secret rapport we established and announced that there’s nothing special between us.
I push the doors open and walk away.