Page 83 of In Italy for Love

Passing under a wrought-iron street lamp attached to the crooked wall of a house, he noticed her cheeks sparkling withtears and panic shot through him again. When they passed the persimmon tree – now completely bare – and finally closed the door behind them, she sank into him, bowing her head and pressing her face into his chest.

Wrapping his arms around her, he kissed her hair, her forehead, her cheek – and then, when she lifted her head, her mouth. This much still made sense.

It took him a long time to fall asleep that night, startling awake again every time he began to drop off, his hand fumbling for her, as though she’d just dissolve without saying goodbye. He heard his own heartbeat loudly in his ears and the old panic seized him.

He felt adrift – again – examining his choices obsessively and cursing that life didn’t come with an instruction book. For a moment, he was gripped with fear that he’d spiral, he might find himself back in the dark places he’d been. But as he waited, forcing himself to breathe – in and out, as slowly as he could – there was no pull down into despair. Jules snuffled softly next to him, the faint scent of her herbal shampoo reaching his nostrils.

She was very much alive. She was just leaving. His heart rate sped up suddenly and he grew restless. Trying not to disturb her, he held himself rigid on his side of the bed, but he couldn’t keep his eyes off the blurry silhouette an arm’s length away and she stirred enough that he worried she could sense his gaze.

After a frustrated hour of shifting under the covers as gently as he could, he sighed, staring wide-eyed at the ceiling as he accepted what he was going to do. He rolled over and slung an arm heavily over her, tucking himself tightly against her. He shouldn’t use her as a teddy bear, but she could catch up on sleep another night.

He swept her hair aside so it wasn’t in his face and nuzzled her gently, pressing a kiss beneath her ear. She sucked in a sleepy breath and stretched, tipping her head forward as thoughinviting another kiss. He couldn’t resist giving it to her and she snuggled back against him.

Then she opened her mouth and, in a tone that was all drowsiness, more asleep than awake, she murmured words that most definitely sounded like ‘Love you.’

He froze, his blood rushing as he waited for her to roll over and look at him, expecting a reaction – waited to see what his reaction would be. But with a soft exhale, her breathing returned to normal and she slept on. Alex slowly relaxed his body, his heart still beating an absurd rhythm.

Was that what she really felt? Was that even possible, when he was half a ghost and she was so alive it hurt? But it would hurt just as much – more – when she was gone, even though she wouldn’t be as gone as Laura was. Resting his forehead against the back of her head, he held on tight, confused but knowing he had to let her go and make her own life instead of trapping her in his.

Even if this was love, she wouldn’t stay for him and he couldn’t let her.

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’retelling 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.

---