In Italy for Love

Chapter 34

34

Jules felt like a ghost early Monday morning as she dumped her backpack into the boot of Alex’s tiny Fiat and fell on Arco for teary, doggy hugs. Her eyes were puffy and her heart was sore and this wasn’t how she was supposed to feel, to be finally on her way home.

She wouldn’t even have Arco to be lonely with at the other end of this flight. ‘I’ll see you soon, pup,’ she whispered, stroking his curly head heavily and letting him lick her hand.

When she’d closed him inside Alex’s apartment and headed for the car on shaky legs, his voice cut into her hazy thoughts: ‘I’ll look after him.’

‘I know you will,’ she muttered. ‘I’m just going to miss him.’

Alex had offered to drive her to Udine for an early train north, but now her stomach churned with nerves and she wondered if it would have been better to take that funny diesel train with the retro upholstery instead, even if it meant leaving at the crack of dawn. How was she supposed to say goodbye? All she could think about was the first time she’d kissed him goodbye and they’d ended up in bed together instead.

Actually, that didn’t sound like a bad idea.

‘Is there any way we could cross the Ponte del Diavolo? One last time?’

‘Sure,’ he replied in a clipped tone. ‘We’ve got time.’ Time was one thing they’d never had enough of.

Jules pressed her nose to the window as they clattered across the cobbled bridge for her final glimpse of the gorge and the Natisone river. The forest paths had been a haven for her, as they had been for generations of Furlans. It was strange to remember the twenty-seven-year-old who’d arrived in Cividale full of bitterness and obsessed with her own failure.

She’d stood on that bridge, clinging to her bitterness, while the river and the mountains stubbornly stole her breath. That woman had had no idea what she would find here. The middle of nowhere had become somewhere special and a week or two to lick her wounds had become five weeks to rebuild her life.

She hated how quiet they were on the twenty-minute drive to Udine, but her vocabulary seemed to have shrunk until it only included dangerous words like ‘love’ and ‘stay’. She wondered briefly what she would have done if Luca had gently told her she shouldn’t make a life-changing decision for him. She probably would have been embarrassed and walked away. She couldn’t imagine she would have been fighting the urge to shake him and make him change his mind.

God, she’d never cried this much over Luca. She had to face up to the truth: now she could finally leave the country, she wanted to stay, even if that made her a reckless fool, repeating her own mistakes.

He pulled into the drop-off zone outside the station in plenty of time for her train north for her final departure from Italy, first through Austria, Germany and then on an Airbus A380 to Singapore.

‘Are you coming in?’ she mumbled.

‘I wasn’t going to.’

She swallowed. ‘Okay.’ Her voice came out on a sniff and she gulped back a sob.

‘Jules.’ His voice was low and gravelly. ‘It’ll be all right.’

She tried to laugh, but it came out as a choke. ‘ You’re telling me it’ll be all right?’ Throwing open the car door, she stalked around to the back and wrenched open the boot, swinging her heavy backpack onto her back and tugging out her smaller day bag.

Slamming the boot wasn’t as satisfying as she’d hoped and she turned for the station mixed-up and lost. Why was she going again?

‘Are you going to say goodbye?’ The indignation in Alex’s tone made her whirl around.

‘I don’t want to!’ She watched him trying to make sense of her words, his brow twisting and his mouth opening to speak words that wouldn’t come. ‘I don’t want to say goodbye at all.’

‘I thought you didn’t like being dependent on me.’

‘I didn’t like being dependent on Luca.’ Her vision narrowed. Planting her feet in front of him, she licked her lips and allowed the words to tumble out. ‘Ask me to stay.’

He drew up straight, his expression going blank in surprise. ‘What?’

Her jaw wobbled as she repeated herself. ‘Ask me to stay.’ Cold seeped along her skin as she began to suspect that she’d made a difficult situation worse by pushing him. But if she’d already made it worse, she might as well continue. ‘Ask me!’ she said again. ‘I’ll say yes. Just ask me!’

Her vision blurred with tears as the shock creeping over his face made her confront the truth. He wasn’t going to ask her. He was content to keep her in the pages of a book where she couldn’t hurt him.

‘Your flight is tonight!’

Her eyes slammed shut, and in her mind his voice twisted until it sounded like Luca. Be reasonable, Jules . ‘You’re right. It was a stupid idea.’ She headed for the station, only daring to open her eyes when he was safely behind her.

‘Jules, wait!’

His footsteps behind her triggered a twinge of panic and she hurried for the station. Missing the train was one complication she didn’t need on top of confusion and rejection and failure – at least that was the excuse her pride came up with.

‘I want to ask you!’

She paused, the automatic doors swishing open as though encouraging her to take the next steps and leave him behind. ‘But?’ she prompted, stupidly hoping there wouldn’t be a ‘but’.

‘But what if it doesn’t work? It’s not fair to ask so much of you. I can’t be responsible for you?—’

‘It was stupid of me to suggest it,’ she called over her shoulder. She wanted to hit something. Why did she keep hanging around too long instead of making the necessary break?

‘No, it was brave?—’

‘I know you’re not ready. I never meant to get my hopes up, and I especially didn’t mean to push you.’ Forgetting she was supposed to be protecting herself, she turned back and caught sight of him, this gorgeous man who put old accordions back together but couldn’t do himself the same service. The flash of his blue eyes reminded her of the day they’d met, when she’d had no clue of what he would come to mean to her, but she’d sensed the magic already. ‘You don’t have to feel guilty. No expectations, remember?’

‘I’m struggling with that.’

Before she could process what he could mean, he gripped her cardigan and tugged her closer, reminding her of the many other occasions he’d done the same. Her gaze dipped to his mouth, her breath catching.

But instead of pressing close for one more mind-blowing kiss that she wouldn’t have trusted herself to stop, his shoulders drooped – and her heart wilted.

‘I’ll miss you,’ he whispered.

That was safe – and it was true, even though ‘missing him’ didn’t begin to cover the breadth of her regret. ‘I’ll miss you too.’

With a pained expression, he pulled away, his fist still clamped around her cardigan. ‘Text me when you land. I’ll be worried.’

‘I will,’ she promised. ‘Send me pictures of Arco – and Attila.’

The way his expression softened when she mentioned her dog only made her want to protest her departure more loudly. ‘Okay.’

For a long moment, he just looked at her and a hopeless smile stretched on her lips.

Lifting a hand to his face, she brushed his cheek and ran her hand over his mouth one last time. ‘Goodbye, Alessandro Mattelig.’ I love you .

The sudden hiss of a train startled her and she stumbled as she tried to shake herself back into the present.

‘I should?—’

He gave a single nod. She headed into the station forecourt in a daze, struggling to focus on the departures information. She glanced back to see him still standing there, frowning, his hands limp at his sides. She gave him a wave, which he half-heartedly returned, and then she gave a concerted effort to pull herself together, studying the board until she found her platform.

When she took one last look out of the glass doors, he was gone.