I’m vicariously annoyed for them, but they seem less so. They get right back to it while the golden-haired man in a perfectly tailored gray suit doesn’t even spare them a glance. In fact, he spares no one a glance because he’s staring straight at me—heading straight for me. And the warm fuzzy cloud of warmth and beauty that I’m floating on suddenly dissipates into tiny cotton ball–sized puffs that float out over the bell tower into the darkness as the handsome man shoots me a striking smile.
“Buonasera, Ava,” he says when he’s close enough for me to toss a bread stick at.
And the only thing I can manage to say seems to escape from somewhere deep within, my tone so tight it’s barely recognizable.
“What are you doing here, Ethan?”
QUARANTATRE
James
As I step back out beneath the awning, I realize we couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful night. Above the bleached white piece of fabric stretched out overhead, there isn’t a cloud in the sky, making it possible to see the stars clustered over the Palazzo Ducale. On nights like this, it’s hard to find the sky’s end, the candles suddenly an extension of the constellations hanging above.
“Che romantico!” someone says from my left, and I turn to find a table of twenty-somethings looking out toward the dancers over Ava’s head. In fact, when I glance around me as I step around another table, I see that everyone is looking out at the square where couples are stepping in time to the melody of a Bocelli song.
My eyes settle on Ava’s golden hair and I swallow down the wish that this day would never end. It’s useless to make wishes like that. Wishes that just make it all harder.
“Holy bling. Look at the size of that ring,” one of the women murmurs, and I realize that no one is looking at the dancers. In fact, the dancers are now looking back toward us. I slide my gaze away from Ava and it lands directly on the cause of all this attention. The music stops—a rare occurrence for the dueling pianos—and the golden-haired man who is down on one knee holds the obscenely sized ring out to Ava and opens his mouth to speak for all to hear.
“I know it was a mistake to let you go without this ring, Ava. I should have told you before you left. I should have sent you here with a reminder of how much you mean to me—how much I love you.”
I’m frozen. Staring at Ava’s profile, her visible eye wide and glistening with—happy tears? No. She couldn’t possibly be happy. This arse sent her here with a calling card. Not a ring. But her plan—
“When I heard you were coming to Venice, I couldn’t think of a better place to do this. These few weeks without you just confirmed what I already knew. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want to be a part of every step of your plan in life. Will you marry me?”
She doesn’t move her hand from where it covers her mouth. People around me are whispering, “Say yes!” in excited but hushed tones, and I want to tell them to shut up—that the admittedly good-looking guy on his knee is not what she wants. That her plans don’t involve him anymore. There are flashes from a camera and I notice a woman standing beside them taking shots from every angle. A paid photographer? A reporter he’s brought with him?
“Ava?” Ethan says louder, putting one hand on her thigh. I want to break every finger on that hand.
The flashing lights seem to knock Ava out of her daze, and she lowers her hand, which he immediately takes and holds in his own. I wait, my fists clenched painfully by my side. I wait for her to shakeher head. To stand up and storm off. To tell this asshole what he needs to hear. But she says nothing and her silence stabs me square in the chest.
I need to get the fuck out of here. Away from the dashing douche proposing in the most romantic place on the planet. Away from the crowd soaking it all in with ignorant stars in their eyes.
Away from the woman who I’ve fallen in love with despite every effort to keep myself from doing so.
I turn and make my way into the shadows beneath the loggia, escaping to the darkness before I can hear her say yes to the life she’s always wanted.
QUARANTAQUATTRO
Ava
When you’ve envisioned a moment over and over again so many times, something trippy and déjà vu-like occurs in your brain when it actually happens. Time slows down and I’m suddenly under water. St. Mark’s is under water. My senses home in on the strangest minutiae. Like the small white scar on Ethan’s temple where Tammy allegedly bit him when they were three. Or the sound of his Gucci loafer tapping against the gray stone beneath it. The unnatural softness of his fingers as they take my left hand off my lap and begin to push something cold onto my ring finger.
I look down to see the ring, the reflection of a thousand candles illuminating the huge rock from within. A flash momentarily blinds me, and I think the diamond has exploded, but then I realizeI’m being photographed. I’m used to that, surely, with James’s lens constantly aimed on me.
James.
I pull my hand back quickly as everything starts to clear and the ring clatters to the stones beneath my chair. The water drains from St. Mark’s. Time snaps back like a rubber band, and the reality of what’s happening settles in. Where is James?
I look around, ignoring all the wide-eyed faces turned my way, searching for the only one I want to see. But he’s nowhere to be found.
“Av—”
“Ethan, I need you to get up,” I say softly, meeting his eyes.
He opens his mouth to argue but sees something on my face and lets out a long breath. I reach down and pick up Olivia’s heirloom ring and place it back into the folds in the satin cushion. It should hurt, handing back the thing I wanted so desperately only a month ago, but the only thing I feel is a desperate need to find the man who isn’t here in front of me.
“Alright,” Ethan stands, nods, and smiles to the people around us, ever the politician. “Let’s walk.”
