“THIS,” SAID AUBREY as she and Viv—and Frank, with little Max in his arms—turned the corner into the laneway that had become one of her favourite places in the world, “is Via Alighieri.”
“How charming. Named after Dante, no doubt.” Viv had clearly decided to take her retirement decision to heart, forgoing her smart business suit for jeans, a T-shirt and hair in soft waves. As if she’d looked up Helen Mirren street style.
Aubrey wore a floaty halter dress. After the cardiologist had declared her molto salutare, in excellent health, the day before, and perfectly able to stop her meds, the OB/GYN had given her a heads-up that loose clothes might help with her unsettled tummy. Because she was most definitely pregnant.
She had a photo in her backpack. A video on her phone. A strong little heart beating away.
Her own heart picked up the pace as they neared the smoky glass window where the name Malone’s was etched in gold in a heavy vintage-type font across the glass.
Sean was meant to meet them there in half an hour or so, giving her time to find her feet. Find some words. Let go of Viv.
Not enough time, she thought, her heart beginning to race. Once he knows, time might be about to run out, for good.
“So this is my Sean’s joint,” she said.
Viv noticed, for Viv noticed everything, but she kindly didn’t make a big deal about the “my Sean”. Her sophisticated eye took in the original inlaid mosaic floors, the minimalist smattering of heavy, sculpted chairs, made to look lush and touchable under perfectly angled spotlights. Elegant, modern, secure, with a nod to the old ways. So very, very Sean.
It had been nearly three days since she’d seen him. The longest amount of time apart since they’d met.
They’d messaged back and forth dozens of times. She’d sent him a picture of the sad little coffee she’d made in her room. Decaf now, alas. He’d sent her a photo of the mosaic on the floor of a fancy restaurant in which he was meeting a client.
She’d sent him a picture of Frank, labelled “Cheese!” Frank had not smiled at all. Sean had sent her a drawing of Elwood another client’s four-year-old daughter had made for him in bright purple crayon. The caption, “Now this is art.”
That one had cut. Deep. That he found that charming. That a little girl liked him enough to have made him a picture.
“What do you think?” she asked, her voice a little high.
Viv turned to Aubrey, silver brows raised. “I never saw you as the type who needed a beard, my dear.”
“Sorry?”
“Am I to be a distraction for your young man when you tell him your news?”
“No! I just—” She lost her nerve pretty fast. And leant her head on Viv’s shoulder. “No. But you can hold me upright till then.”
Viv patted her hand. “Even the strongest of us are not strong all the time. There is no light without dark. No power without vulnerability. No—”
“Aubrey!” Enzo’s voice called from down the way. “Bella ragazza. It has been days since you have graced my humble bistro. How are my Flora and Angelina? Le mie belle figlie. And how is—?”
Enzo stopped, his gaze alighting on something wondrous over Aubrey’s shoulder.
Aubrey turned to find Viv walking towards her, her cheeks pink, eyes shining. She even lifted her hand to check her hair.
Frank, sensing changing strange currents in the air, stepped in.
Aubrey stilled him with a look. “It’s okay. I’ll vouch for the man. Give her a moment.”
Frank frowned. Max panted. Enzo stopped, bowed from the waist and held out a hand. “Enzo Frenetti. At your service.”
Viv took his hand. “Vivian Ascot.”
Enzo smoothly tucked her hand into the held-out crook of his arm. “Per favore, bella signore. Do you care for tiramisu? Or cassata Siciliana, panna cotta, babà, tartufo di Pizzo…?”
They’d just eaten, yet Viv, a hand to her décolletage, said, “Surprise me.”
Aubrey looked to Frank with an eyebrow raised. “Ever seen its like?” she asked.
Frank shook his head, then lumbered after his employer, her little sausage dog in tow.
Aubrey took her phone out of her backpack to check the time. To find a message from Sean. No photo this time, only a pin in a map.
She recognised the destination. It made her smile. Then her stomach lurched. Reminding her what she was walking into.
It would be a miracle if he took the news well, and she’d used up her one miracle already. She only wished they’d had more time. More time simply being them, before they were about to become something neither of them had gone into this thing prepared to be.
She sent a message to Frank to let him know she was heading off to meet Sean. She’d catch up with them later. Much later, if the look in Viv’s eye was anything to go by.
Taking a quick sip of the lemon water from the bottle in her backpack, she wiped a little extra across the back of her hot neck, and set off.
* * *
Aubrey stood looking at the David.
He really was a marvel. All sinew and glorious musculature. She’d totally paint him on something one day. Maybe just his hand reaching for a door handle, looking as if it had torn through the metal.
But the urge to touch him was no longer there. Not when she’d already had the real thing.
A security guard walked by. Different from the one she’d befriended her first day in town. What was that, five weeks ago now? Six?
She gave him a smile. He gave her a nod. It was enough. She wasn’t sure she had it in her to make new friends today.
She was too wired. And tired. And hot. And nauseous. And terrified to the bottoms of her sandals that Sean, for how far he’d come, would turn to stone the moment she said those life-changing words.
What if his demons were too great? His determination not to care much too entrenched? What if his feelings…? She gulped. What if his feelings simply weren’t on a par with hers? Even considering his colossal heart and her busted one.
Feeling a little soft in the head, she moved to the edge of the room and leaned against the wall. Her forehead felt tight, as if it was trying to break out in a sweat.
It was hot out there today. And she’d not ambled. Her desire to see him, to hold him, to kiss him, to absorb him, greater than her fear about what came next.
“Aubrey?”
Aubrey spun, and the world kept spinning.
“Hey, stranger!” Her voice sounded odd to her ears. As if it were coming from far away.
But her joy at seeing Sean kept her upright.
Fresh from a meeting, he wore black suit pants, a pure white button-down shirt tucked in, tie tucked into the pocket, top buttons popped open, and sleeves rolled to his elbows. He looked healthy and blue-eyed and beautiful.
He had a small basket in hand and a picnic blanket under his arm. And she knew, she just knew, his plan was to set up a little spot in the middle of the floor for as long as they could before they were kicked out.
It was the single most romantic thing anyone had ever done for her.
She laughed, or at least she tried to. She no longer felt as if she had control over her mouth. Or her face. Then her vision started turning black at the edges.
She saw Sean’s face, his beautiful face, come over anxious before he dropped everything and ran towards her. But only in slow motion. It was the weirdest thing.
The second last thing she noted, before the world turned black, was the wretched fear in his eyes. As if his world were crumbling before his eyes.
The last was how much she loved him for it.
* * *
Audrey woke with cold bright light shining through the backs of her eyelids. She opened them, slowly, to find herself looking at a utilitarian ceiling. No chubby cherubs. No David poster behind her bed. No chandelier.
But there was a woman in a lab coat writing on a chart, and another taking her pulse. An IV dripped into the back of her hand.
She was in a hospital. A language she couldn’t catch murmuring around her. As situations went in Aubrey land, it was about as bad as it could be. The flashback to the months spent in a hospital in Copenhagen brought her out in an instant cold sweat.
“Aubrey?”
She blinked to focus on the woman in the lab coat. It was the cardiologist she’d seen the afternoon before. Her voice shook with relief as she said, “Dr Ricci.”
“Sì. Hello, Aubrey. Do you know why you are here?” she asked.
And a brand-new panic set in. “I… I fainted. Near the David.”
“I do not blame you; he is one fine specimen of man. I know, I’m a doctor.” Dr Ricci smiled, then placed a hand on Aubrey’s shoulder. “You are fine. Your heart is strong. The baby’s heartbeat is pumping away beautifully. We need to make sure you are fit enough to walk out of here, but the signs point to it being dehydration. By the colour in your cheeks, on your shoulders, I’d suggest you were overheated. Were you out in the sun today? Walking?”
Walking fast. To get to the David. To get to Sean. Sean. The look on his face when she’d begun to fall. The full-blown terror. She had to let him know she was okay.
“Sean?” Aubrey tried to sit up but her head swam.
Dr Ricci pressed Aubrey back into the bed. “Stay. Rest. I’d like to keep you in here a few more hours, just for observation.”
Aubrey slumped back onto the pillow and closed her eyes shut tight. Observation. That’s what they’d said last time. When hours had become months.
Before panic took over, she inhaled deeply. Placed a hand over her heart, another over her belly. Checked in. Reminding herself they were both fine.
“Now,” said Dr Ricci. “This Sean. He is the dashing gentleman who brought you in?”
Aubrey nodded.
“He claimed he was your friend. Or more than a friend, if I remember the nurses at reception speaking correctly. They were in quite the twitter.”
“He is super hot,” Aubrey managed, her head feeling a little swimmy again before she felt herself dragged under.
“Rest,” Dr Ricci’s voice came from a long way away. “I’ll check on you again soon.”
* * *
When Aubrey woke again she felt much better. The light had changed. She felt cool and clean and rested.
She opened her eyes and tipped her head to find Sean, seated upright in the chair by her bed, asleep. She wondered what he’d said or done to force his way in here. She wished she’d been awake to see it.
She watched him for a few moments, remembering the last thought she’d had, just before she’d blacked out. Knowing it hadn’t been due to a lack of oxygen.
She loved this man.
She was in love with him.
He was a mile from the nice, docile guy she’d imagined she’d end up with. A man she now knew would have bored her silly.
She still wanted the same things she always had. Love. And family. And joy.
But the form it took? That wasn’t something one could prescribe. Done right, it was organic and tempestuous and joyful and hard. It was a process. An awakening. It took work. And for two people to find one another at just the right time, when they were ready and raring to go on the same journey together.
She’d come on this trip with the burning desire to figure out her future. There was a strange relief in knowing it was something she’d could never have known till it happened.
She dragged herself to sitting. When the bed sheets rustled, Sean opened his eyes, and moved to her side in an instant, his hand wrapping around hers, his lips going to her forehead. She dragged her hand into his hair and held him there.
“I’m fine,” she said eons later.
“I know.” Sean’s voice was rough. Raw. “Still, that was not fun. Seeing you collapse like that. I thought—”
“I know.”
Ending up in hospital was right up there with Aubrey’s worst nightmares. Seeing someone he cared about collapse was Sean’s. And while he might not be in love with her, not the way she now knew she loved him, he did care.
Only now the time had come to see how much.
Aubrey let her hand fall to his chest, and said, “There’s more.”
He breathed in long and slow through his nose, the slight flare of his nostrils giving away the fact that he was still on edge.
“You might need to sit down for this one.”
“I’d like to stay right here, if that’s okay.”
She nodded. Wished she’d figured out the exact right words to say this. Then in the end went with the simple, unadorned truth.
“I’m pregnant.”
A shadow passed over Sean’s face. “I know.”
“How?” she asked, her throat tight. Her eyes darting over his face, trying to pick up any kind of sign as to what he might be thinking.
“I listened in when the doctor was talking to the nurse.”
“How devious,” she said.
But Sean didn’t laugh. He didn’t move a muscle.
“Uh oh,” she said, her tone light, even as her insides twisted.
“What?” he said.
“You took a Sean moment.”
“A—”
“You take a breath or blink before speaking, as if lining up your words just right before releasing them into the world. Especially when they are words you think I might not like.”
This time a muscle twitched in his cheek. And she felt him pulling away from her.
No, no, no, no…
She gripped his hand tighter, using it to pull herself to sitting. “Look at me, Malone. We have to talk this through. Sean.”
His eyes snapped to hers and she held his gaze. Hoping he might see the feelings in her eyes, that she was too scared to say with her words.
“I’m pregnant. With your baby. It’s inside me right now. Its tiny heart beating. I think it’s miraculous, but you have every right to feel shock. Or fear. Or concern. Or delight. Happiness. Celebration.”
Still nothing.
She looked around for her backpack. Her phone. “I have a photo. And a video—”
Sean stepped back as he made a sound, something like a hollow laugh. Or a groan. “No.”
Her hand paused on the mouth of her backpack. Her voice reed thin as she said, “No? You don’t want to see?”
His hand went over his mouth. His chin, his throat. His eyes beseeched her. “Aubrey, what the hell happened?”
If only she knew what those eyes were truly asking for. Comfort? Solidarity? Absolution? Without a map, without a clue, she swallowed and played to her strengths. Said, “When a man and a woman make love—”
He cut her off with a look. Okay, so he wasn’t after comic relief.
But right now, humour was the only thing stopping her from breaking down completely. From begging him to stop moving away. To tell her how he was feeling. To yell at her, or cry with her. To just hold her. To know she was scared too. And to reciprocate her joy, her love. For ever, if he could. That would be fabulous.
“You said…” he began. “You told me you couldn’t.”
“I was told it would be nearby impossible. Clearly a huge amount of hanky-panky helps beat the odds.”
There. Finally! A flicker of heat. Of understanding that she was doing her best here.
He knew her. He knew this was her way. If he could bend, just a little, rather than fall back on the stoic inability to let people in that had been his benchmark before she came along, they might find a way through this.
But then he rubbed his eyes and wiped all evidence of a connection away. “Look. Can you be serious, just for a second? Tell me, convince me, that all this has not put you in danger. Your heart.”
A strange haze came over her then, some ancient mother instinct. “All this? If by that you mean the peanut growing inside of me—”
His eyes flared then. As if he’d been readying for the fight. Itching for it. To step back behind the ramparts, back inside his comfort zone. A place she didn’t belong.
“If the doctors thought it was nearby impossible, can your body even handle this?”
“My cardiologist and OB/GYN have assured me everything looks as it should. No evidence of side effects from my meds. I stopped them immediately, which is fine as their levels were as near to a placebo as it was possible to get.”
She hoped to see a measure of relief. Instead, even more barricades came crashing down.
“You’ve known about this long enough to see doctors? Plural?”
Aubrey swallowed, though it felt more like a gulp. “Not that long. It all happened so fast. The discovery. The check-ups. I didn’t want to concern you until I knew it was real. That it was possible. That it was all okay.”
“All okay,” he repeated, his tone incredulous, as if it was anything but.
Feeling too tender to control herself, she shot back, “As for the rest, how it affects me as the months go on, I guess the only answer is We’ll see.”
It was the truth, but she’d chosen not to soften it. She’d wanted the reaction, wanted to shake him out of his stillness. The look he shot her was hard, hot, and dismayed. But dammit, she was scared too.
“I don’t want your pity, Malone.”
“I don’t pity you. I’m…in shock. And concerned. And in a position I never planned to put myself in.”
She was getting that. “This is all very new to me too, okay? I’m still trying to come to terms with it myself. I’m pregnant. After having been told it was not on the cards. You know how devastated I was. Yet here I am, with what might be my only chance to do this. But I believe, truly, it doesn’t have to change anything between us. Unless… Unless we want it to.”
“Aubrey,” he said, rearing back. “You can’t be serious.”
Wow. Like a dagger to the chest. He couldn’t have aimed more squarely if he’d tried.
“I am. I am serious. Can you honestly say, when we first met, that you had a single clue that the past few weeks were even possible?”
Something flickered behind his eyes then.
“No? Me neither. Yet it’s been the time of my life. And not because of some fancy hotel, or a whole lot of amazing art. But because I met you.”
Her voice broke at the last. Emotion uncoiling inside her till she could no longer control it.
But while she could feel his energy, the force of it, shaking to be set free, he remained unflinching in his determination not to yield.
“I just… I don’t get it, Malone. Are you waiting for permission?”
“For what?”
“To love me!” she cried, her arms out wide.
The room was so quiet after, her words seemed to catch on the air-conditioning current and bounce about the room.
Aubrey felt tears streaming down her face and she swiped them away with a hard hand to each cheek. Then she felt the hospital gown fall off her shoulder. She yanked it back into place, feeling horribly exposed. “I didn’t… I didn’t mean that. I just meant… You know what. It doesn’t matter—”
Sean spoke, his voice so husky she missed it.
“Sorry? What was that?”
His jaw worked as he looked at the ceiling. “I said, I can’t.”
“Can’t…? Oh.”
He couldn’t love her.
Not enough, anyway. Not enough to leap. To take what they had and turn it into something more. Bigger. Whole. A family. For ever.
Tears still streaming down her face, she looked down at the sheet pooled at her waist. “I think I’d like you to leave.”
“Not happening. I’m staying till they let you go.”
“Malone, you’re killing me here.”
“You think this isn’t hurting me too? I’ve been sitting here for hours, since I heard the news. After seeing you faint. Watching you lie there. Knowing that all that was keeping you alive was your damaged heart. You, and the baby. My baby.”
He looked off into the distance, a hand rubbing over his mouth as he spoke. Aubrey bit her lip.
“I too imagined,” he went on, “when I was younger, that one day I’d meet a girl, fall in love, have kids. But it was a concept. A determination that when it happened I’d do it differently from my own parents. I’d be gentler. Kinder. I’d choose to prioritise my kids. I’d love them so hard they never ever doubted me.
“Watching you lie there in that bed, a drip in your hand, suddenly I was my parents. With this tiny helpless creature in my care.” As if he’d sensed her intake of breath, her readying to speak, he cut her off. “And no, by that I did not mean you.”
“Right. Sorry. Go on.”
“What if something happened? What if you lost it? What if I—?”
Aubrey held her breath, absolutely sure he’d been about to say What if I lost you?
“My parents…” He stopped. Swallowed. “My parents raised us, brought us to adulthood, only to lose Carly. And then… And then I left. I left and they lost me too.”
If Aubrey weren’t attached to a drip and feeling as if she’d been hit by a truck, she’d have leapt out of her bed and into his arms, and held him tight till he held her right on back.
Instead, she had to watch as his eyes finally met hers again. Tortured. And apologetic. Decided.
“I may look like a living breathing human person, but I’m not, Aubrey. Not in the way you need. The way you deserve. The way a child—”
Aubrey’s heart twisted and squeezed, riddled with her own pain. And his. “Malone, stop,” she finally managed. “What happened with your sister, it wasn’t your fault.”
He threw his hands in the air and began to pace. “I promised I’d take her in hand. That I’d help her get her head sorted. And I failed. Of course it was my fault.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
The small private room seemed to shrink the more he paced. “I let myself become distracted. And she spiralled so fast. It broke all of us. And we couldn’t… No matter how much we wanted it, we couldn’t put each other back together again. I can’t go through that again. I won’t.”
He was shouting now.
A nurse popped her head in the door.
Aubrey held up a hand, shook her head.
The nurse took a look at Sean and melted away.
Aubrey looked to the ceiling. She was good with words. Maybe even better than she was with a pencil. How was she messing this up so badly?
“I’m going to say this one more time. It wasn’t your fault. You are that good a man, Malone. You’ve provided work, and respite, and opportunity, and comfort, and shelter, and friendship, and kindness to so many people in your sphere all while convincing yourself you were alone. You are a living, breathing human person, Malone, the livingest, breathingest I’ve ever known. With a big strong heart. Big enough for the both of us, if you’ll just let it do its thing. No matter what the voices in your head are telling you.”
They looked at one another across the room, both breathing heavily. At an impasse. Both at a loss as to what to do next. What else was there to say? To convince the other that they were right.
Then Sean pulled himself upright and she saw the architect, the boss, the good son, the island, and she braced herself for whatever might come next.
“I will contribute,” he said. “Time, money. Whatever the baby needs.”
Ready for it, still she flinched at the finality in his voice. “Contribute. Well, that sounds like fun.”
“Fun? You think that’s what we’re arguing about here? How much fun we can make this…this…”
Aubrey’s entire body cooled by a good degree. “This what? Disaster? This tragedy? It’s a baby, Sean. A tiny cluster of cells hanging on dearly to life. That hustle, that desire to live, despite all the walls my body had put in its way, I respect the hell out of this kid of ours already. Malone—”
He cut her off. “It is a miracle. Life is a miracle. The fact that any of us are here, the things we survive, is utterly humbling. Yet, you make jokes, Aubrey. And I get that’s your way of dealing with some pretty heavy stuff in your life. But you need to respect that my way of dealing is to retreat and collect my head. Whether that takes a moment, or years.”
He was trying to appear as if he knew what he wanted, but he seemed so lost. She bit her lip and tried to wait him out. But, as was her way, she leapt. “Malone—”
“Enough.” When his eyes met hers they were burning. Ferocious. Full. “I suggest you do the same. Take some time to really think. Because right now, I can’t see how it would work. Especially when you still struggle to call me by my name.”
Aubrey gaped. Readying to defend herself. Until she realised she had no defence. He was utterly, one hundred per cent, in the right.
She called him Malone as if it was cute. Banter. She was the one who’d made all the noise about them being finite.
We’re friends. A summer fling. Let’s promise to be light and easy. Till the day I decide to walk away.
She’d told herself she was doing him a favour. Giving him the illusion of space. When the truth was, she was the one who’d needed it. Used it to self-protect. To remain one step removed from true intimacy. From heartache. From loss.
On her next breath out she deflated. Completely. Falling back onto the bed, she pulled the sheets up to her chin. Feeling as if she could sleep for a hundred years.
“Aubrey,” he said, his voice throaty, sounding as wrung out as she felt.
“Mm hmm.”
“Will you stay? In Florence? I hope you do. The hospitals here are top-notch.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“Or will you go home? I need to know how to stay in touch.”
Her subconscious screamed, You are my home, you big lug! But she closed her eyes so he wouldn’t see it. She already felt foolish enough.
“Not yet sure,” she said. She’d held onto a tiny thread of hope that he might have made the decision easy. “I might yet continue on with the trip. The doctors I saw—Viv has me hooked up with the best across Europe. Just in case. I put my foot down at taking the Lear jet… Oh, God! I was meant to check in with her. She has no idea I’m here.”
“How can I contact her for you?”
“Her number is in my phone. And last I saw her she was with Enzo.”
“Enzo?” he said, his voice barely curious, as if all the colour had leeched out. “Leave it to me. Let me do this for you.”
This. Not love her. Not be with her. Not raise their baby together. Make a phone call.
She was too exhausted to fight it any more. She opened her eyes and found his. “So much for our deal. Where I was the one who got to walk away. To catch my foot on a sheet and make a right ruckus.”
The humour was weak, but by that point it was all she had left.
“I’m not walking away from you, Aubrey. Or the baby. But us… It needs to stop here. Before things get confused.” He came back to her then, took her hand, lifted her palm to his lips and kissed her. “I never want to regret you, Aubrey.”
“I never want to regret you either,” she said. Then, in a last-ditch effort at self-protection, added, “Malone.”
He sniffed out a laugh, then let her go and walked to the door. He turned and asked, one last time, “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Not so much,” she said, the first truly honest moment of her day. “But I will be. And so will you, Sean. I promise, so will you.”