Page 109 of Casanova LLC

In the background, the sound of tables being put away, glasses being collected. It had to be now.

“Let me take you somewhere.”

“For a drink?”

“If that’s what they’re calling it these days.”

Her breathing shallowed. “This isn’t happening.”

“It is.”

“You’re not serious.”

“I am.”

“You can’t be. Where would we even…? Not my hotel. Other people, wedding guests are?—”

“Cyril’s studio.” I stepped even closer. Dropped my mouth to her ear. “I have the key.”

She leaned her head into my jaw, as if she needed it to hold her up. She was trembling, fine tremors that made me want to run my hands down her, smooth them away like wrinkles from a bedsheet.

So lowly I barely heard her, she asked, “Can I trust you?”

I couldn’t answer.

Because I didn’t want to lie to her. Not any more than I already had.

And upon realizing that, I realized I couldn’t…

Do this.

Any of it.

Because there was someone else here with us. And he wanted proof.

A video.

Suddenly, the thought of giving a man like him a weapon like that against a woman like her…

Even now, I couldn’t say who pulled away first. I truly think it happened simultaneously, down to the millisecond. All I know is one moment her hair was tickling my jaw and the next we were looking at each other and then we were both saying, “I can’t.”

And then we both said: “I want to…”

And our synchronicity made us smile the tiniest bit. But she also looked like she’d been picked up by a tornado and set down in what used to be her backyard. “But we can’t.” We confirmed. We vowed.

She stepped away from me.

The lights blinked back on as the electricity left our bodies.

She turned and walked stiffly out of the alcove.

I stood there so long the lights went off again.

And then I walked all the way back to Liv’s and crawled into the pull-out sofa bed next to a softly snoring Jacopo, and stared at the ceiling until the sun came up.

I wandered the city that day. I got intentionally lost. While somewhere, in the same city, she got married.

And I stayed lost.

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