Page 119
I barely feel it.
A sound comes out of me once. Low. Ugly. I shut my mouth and rip the curtain rod down hard enough to take plaster with it.
There is no one in front of me. Nobody. No debt to collect. Nothing to solve with blood.
Just the apartment.
Just her gone from it.
By the time I stop, the kitchen is wrecked, my hand is bleeding, and the room still feels exactly the same.
Worthless without her.
Amanda
Luca drives without talking.
Good. I cannot manage polite conversation right now.
The dashboard clock says fifteen minutes since I walked out of the apartment. Since Valentino kissed me like he hated letting me go. Since he told me yes, he would come back, and I believed him as much as he believed himself.
Not enough.
I turn toward the window. I can't keep watching the minutes take me farther from him.
Rome moves past in pieces. A terracotta church. Laundry above a narrow street. An old woman crossing with a shopping bag hooked over her wrist. A kid on a scooter cutting too close before slipping between us and a taxi.
Valentino wanted ten days here with me.
Ten days to show me the city. He would have known the church. The street. The restaurant with the good wine and the bad chairs. He would have ordered for me without making me feel stupid for needing him to. He would have put his hand at my back at every curb because he never trusted Roman traffic.
I start crying when I realize Rome looks better because he loves it.
I hate that. I hate how easy it is now. I used to be better at hiding it.
I should not have gotten in the car.
I knew it when Luca pulled away from the building.
"Luca."
His eyes flick to the mirror. "Signora."
"How long to the airport?"
"Twenty minutes. Maybe less."
"Okay."
He waits like he thinks there is more.
There is.
I want to ask how long he has known Valentino. If Valentino seemed scared. If he said anything after I left. I want to hear his name from another person because he already feels too far away.
"Luca, how long have you—"
The hit comes from the left.
