Page 82 of In Italy for Love

Jules choked. ‘Well that’shis— I can’t?—’

Maddalena sighed. ‘I know. As much as I’d like to, I can’t lock you both in a room until you find a way to be together.’

Jules tried not to let those words soak through her skin:find a way to be together. ‘Or force him to share his house with me, push us together during the harvest and then strand us in an isolated village,’ she joked, laughing to cover the fresh urge to cry. ‘Berengario did his best and it wasn’t enough. I can’t change Alex’s mind and if I could, it wouldn’t be right. I respect him too much.’

Silence stretched between them for so long that Jules glanced warily at her host.

‘But if he did change his mind?’

Jules shook her head vehemently. ‘Maddalena,’ she warned, ‘it’s no good even thinking about that, no matter what I feel—’ She cut herself off before she said too much, although the look in her friend’s eye suggested it was too late.

‘What you feel,’ Maddalena repeated softly.

Jules squeezed her eyes shut. ‘It’ll pass,’ she insisted. It had to.

As soon as Alex led Jules into the bar by the old Roman baths on Sunday night, he knew it had been a bad idea. If the curious looks from Salvino from the first night had made him uncomfortable, he discovered how much worse it was to have Berengario’s friend watching him with wary disapproval, as though it were his fault that she was leaving.

‘How was your birthday?’ he asked after they’d ordered their drinks – beer for him and a glass of lightly sparkling RibollaGialla for Jules, accompanied by a tight smile at the bittersweet reminder.

‘Busy,’ she said, smoothing her hair back self-consciously. ‘But that’s good. I wouldn’t have wanted to be lying around moping at h—’ She swallowed. ‘At your place,’ she finished, her expression wobbly. ‘I still have to pack.’

He felt the usual twinge at the return of their conversation to superficial topics, like turning back the clock to the time he’d fought this intimacy with everything inside him. Perplexed, he realised that in this case, he didn’t want to turn back the clock – stop it, perhaps, but not turn it back.

‘We don’t have to stay long. I just wanted to take you out for your birthday.’

‘I appreciate it.’

He couldn’t think of a thing to say. His chest was too heavy for banter and his mind was suffering under the weight of so many things he couldn’t express.

‘I still can’t believe your nearest major airport is Munich, not Rome,’ she said stiltedly. ‘Although, you know, I came here because it was as far from Italy as I could get without leaving Italy.’ Her laugh was strained. ‘But it is beautiful here. I’m glad I’m not leaving just with memories of Luca and how everything went wrong.’

‘You found your own way through and it worked out well for us, anyway – Berengario and Maddalena and… me.’ When he met her gaze, her eyes were dark and wary and he had to look away again. He felt, rather than understood, that he was on the very edge of hurting her and he wasn’t sure how to stop himself going over. She wasn’t supposed to get hurt.

But as the stiff conversation progressed, he became increasingly panicked that there was still time for their relationship to go wrong, even as his thoughts scrambled trying to avoid it.

‘I, ehm, I got you a birthday present, but it’s not much – sorry. I tried to think of something you’d like. And don’t take it as a suggestion that you can’t cook, it’s just something that reminded me of all the time we spent in the kitchen together and maybe you…’ He realised he was babbling.

‘If it’s a cookbook, I’ll love it,’ she said softly. ‘For the reminder, and not because I’ll ever manage to cook any of the dishes properly. You never really taught me anything…’

‘I enjoyed cooking for you.’

He could only say the wrong thing, it seemed, as her eyes were shining and she frowned deeply. ‘Are you going to give it to me?’

‘Ah.’ He rummaged belatedly in his rucksack and handed her the poorly wrapped book, feeling the inadequacy keenly.

She ripped the paper off to reveal the beautifully bound hardback from the antiques market, smoothing her palm over the jacket with its dated photos of gubana and sweet gnocchi stuffed with plums.

‘It’s great.’

He could tell it wasn’t – or that something was wrong, anyway.

‘Alex,’ she began, her expression pained, ‘can we go? I don’t think I want an… audience tonight.’

‘Of course.’ He shot to his feet, hastily thrusting some money at Salvino on their way out.

She was silent as they walked the narrow lanes under the wooden eaves of the old town. His thoughts returned to the first night they’d walked like this together. After the five weeks that had passed and everything they’d shared, he felt as though they were back at the beginning.

But this was supposed to be the end.

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