Page 65 of In Italy for Love

She propped herself up on an elbow and ran her eyes down his torso with a small smile, following a moment later with her fingers. Brushing over a sensitive spot at his side, he flinched and snatched her hand away with half a smile.

‘Just wait until I can move again and I’ll get you back,’ he threatened – completely ineffectually in a breathy, exhausted tone.

Noticing the tattoo around his biceps, she lifted herself higher to peer at it. Outlined in black ink were two small leaves with jagged edges and veins drawn in lighter ink work. The image was simple and striking. ‘Bay leaves, right? Does it mean something? It’s the only tattoo you have.’

He nodded, his jaw tight. ‘I had it done when Laura and I got engaged. She didn’t want her name stamped onto my skin, so I got these – alloro, bay leaves. The scientific name is laurus nobilis.’

‘She didn’t mind the symbol instead of her name?’

‘She told me I didn’t have anything to prove,’ he said, his expression distant.

‘Wise woman.’ She meant the words wholeheartedly, but had to swallow a spike of unexpected discomfort as she said them. The woman was dead and Jules wasjealous? Urgh.

‘Very wise,’ Alex agreed, oblivious to her silent struggle. ‘But it wasn’t about that. I got it for me, as a kind of outward sign of something that had changed in me. To celebrate it, make it real. She was happy with that.’

‘You were envious that she got to wear a ring? I’m not sure diamonds would suit you.’

His only response was a narrow look that she completely deserved – for more reasons than he realised.

She gave his shoulder an absent poke to distract herself from what she was about to say. ‘When I asked if you were okay, I kind of meant are you okay with what just happened between us?’

He looked away, rolling his head so he could stare at the ceiling for a few breaths. ‘More okay with it than I probably should be,’ he said flatly.

‘Ah, well that answers my other question.’

‘Other question?’

She bit her lip. He was so adorably earnest with his brow low. ‘About the guilt. It’s strong and healthy.’ Lying down on her side with her head facing him on the pillow, she dared to ask, ‘Does it feel like you were unfaithful just then?’

‘No!’ His eyes fluttered with panic. ‘No, of course not. Why would you even?—?’

‘It does a little?’

His Adam’s apple bobbed as he considered his answer. ‘Yes.’

As she pressed a light kiss to his shoulder, he grimaced as though the gesture were difficult to bear. ‘I just wanted you to know it’s okay if you feel that. I’ve never lost anyone that close, but I know you.’ She trailed off, stumbling over the truth of that statement.

‘It’s not rational, I know. She’s gone and she wouldn’t have wanted me to become a monk, but…’

‘You want to be faithful. Alex, I admire that.’ Truly, she did, even if it made her throat clog up with something stupid like self-pity and he’d known this would happen, the sensitive, thoughtful bastard. She hoped none of this stuff showed on her face.

He glanced at her doubtfully. ‘I’m worried it’s more than that. I like to think that I keep her alive. If she’s still the only one for me, for the rest of my life, then she’s still there – in me. When I feel something good with you—’ He swallowed, hard. ‘A little place inside me writes over her memory and I can’t…’

Her hand gripped more tightly. ‘Nobody’s writing over anything!’ she objected. ‘You told me tonight that you don’t need any special rituals or anniversaries to make you remember. You’ll always love her and that…’ She ran out of words.

‘That makes you feel rejected. Right? We end up here again.’

Her eyes stung. She wished she could deny it, but this second-night stand had tipped her over into feelings she didn’t know what to do with and she only had herself to blame.

‘If it helps, I’m still glad we did it – again.’

‘I think I am too,’ he agreed faintly.

A sudden cry from right outside the window made Jules bolt upright. The shutters on the bedroom window were closed, but the cry sounded again – very close – a howling, plaintive sound. Alex sat up and placed a soothing hand on her arm. ‘It’s just Attila wanting to come in. I must have locked the cat flap.’

‘He has impeccable timing,’ Jules mumbled. ‘I’d better…’ She pulled on her underwear and tracksuit bottoms in a hurry, slipping her shirt over her head as Alex headed for the door in his boxers.

Standing in the hallway behind Alex as he opened the door for the cat, she caught a glimpse of movement in the courtyard, someone near the persimmon tree. ‘Confirming the neighbours’suspicions about us?’ she joked as she let Arco out of the kitchen. Attila hissed and escaped into Alex’s workshop.

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