Page 254 of Modern Romance November 2024 5-8

The dread spread into her limbs. She had to drag her legs back to the bedroom.

With still no sign of Marcello, she took a quick shower and tried her hardest not to think of standing under this very shower only hours ago with him, when they’d returned from the restaurant. Brushed her teeth trying not to remember how, only hours ago, Marcello had stood at the adjoining sink brushing his own teeth.

Christina had laundered her clothes for her again, and when Victoria tugged her grey cashmere sweater over her head and then straightened it over her stomach, there was a beat when she thought she glimpsed the pounding of her heart pushing through her chest.

The door opened.

Marcello strode into the bedroom carrying two cups of coffee. He was already dressed for the office in a white shirt, navy trousers and a matching waistcoat.

‘Good morning, Victoria,’ he said in greeting, as if he were already back in the work office and had beaten her in by ten minutes. He put her coffee on the table by the armchair, and stood with his own close to the door. Already creating a distance between them. Already showing that this was the point they returned to how things should have stayed.

Her heart twisted to see his tie. Its knot was too big. Marcello was always precise with his knots.

‘You are ready?’ he asked.

Somehow she managed to form a nod.

He gave a sharper nod of his own. ‘Bene.The car will be here in fifteen minutes.’ He flashed his heartbreaking smile. ‘Bagels will be delivered momentarily.’

Bagels? In that moment, she couldn’t even conjure the image of one. The world was swimming around her and it was taking every ounce of her strength to keep hold of the emotions battering her into a bruise.

She thought she might be sick.

Gripping the cup tightly, she lifted it to her lips.

There was no comfort in the warm, familiar bittersweetness.

His tone became even lighter. ‘How did I do?’

He was unshaved, she realised with another twist of her heart. Unshaved for the office. It was a sight that made her want to cry. ‘You made it?’

Another dazzling smile. It didn’t meet his eyes. ‘My first attempt at making coffee in a decade. Marks out of ten?’

‘A definite nine,’ she croaked through her splintering heart.

‘It appears I am as naturally talented at making coffee as everything else,’ he said with a deadpan modesty that would normally make her laugh but now made her eyes fill with tears. ‘Other than cooking, that is. But do not think this means I will be taking on coffee-making duties in the office—this is strictly a one-time event.’

He continued talking as he reached for the door handle, his accent becoming more pronounced with every word. ‘We will stop at your apartment on our way to the office so you can change before the board meeting. I have already—’

‘Marcello, stop,’ she interrupted softly, unable to bear the faux normality a second longer.

His hand tightened around the door handle but his light expression didn’t change.

She shook her head whilst frantically blinking the tears away, and tried her hardest to control her wobbling chin. ‘I’m sorry but I can’t do this.’

Marcello’s grip on the door handle was so tight he could feel the bones of his knuckles press against his skin.

He could no longer ignore Victoria’s pallor. She was paler than she’d been since her illness. More than pale.

The weight he’d woken to in his guts spread and clamped his heart in a vice.

Her eyes shining with tears, she shook her head again.

He cleared his throat. ‘What can’t you do?’

But he knew. His weighted guts had known it the moment their eyes had locked together when he’d come back into the bedroom with their coffee. The misery contained in her stare.

Her grip on her cup was as tight as his hold on the door handle. ‘I can’t go back to the office and pretend that nothing happened between us.’

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