Page 259 of Modern Romance November 2024 5-8

And now he was tied to everything. There was not a single aspect of her life he hadn’t weaved his way into.

Although she’d promised herself to leave it until she was back in her childhood bedroom, she sat on the bed and reached into the case for the leaving card. She’d opened it in front of her expectant ex-colleagues but had only skimmed the hundreds of messages and signatures crammed into the white space. Now, she pored over it, searching, searching...

And then she found it. No bigger or smaller than any of the others it was nestled amongst.

Best wishes in wherever life takes you. Marcello.

A tear rolled down her cheek and landed with a plop on the card. It was the first tear she’d shed since leaving his apartment... Horror gripped her to realise the tear had landed on his name, and she dabbed frantically at it with her sleeve. Her efforts only made it worse. She’d smudged his name and his message. Smudged the one thing created by his hand that she had to take with her.

With a howl of anguish, she rolled into a ball and sobbed.

Marcello paced his office. Could not stop pacing. Kept looking out of the window over the Manhattan skyline. The fresh snow that had been falling on his drive to the office had stopped. The skies were clearing. Soon he would be up there in it. In two hours he would be on his way to the airport, on his way to Rome. In one hour and thirty minutes, Victoria would step into a company car and be taken to the same airport for a flight to the same continent but to a different country and for purposes that were the reverse of the same coin.

She was flying from pain. He was flying to it. And he wouldn’t even have her by his side to...

He stopped pacing abruptly.

A wave of revulsion at the direction his thoughts had tried to take washed through him.

Dio, he was despicable.

Was he seriously trying to suggest to himself that he’d only agreed to Benito’s request because he’d subconsciously thought having Victoria there would make it bearable?

There was a knock on his door quickly followed by it opening and Ryan stepping in.

‘It is customary to wait for an affirmative response before entering a room,’ Marcello snarled.

The shock on Ryan’s face brought him up short.

Running his fingers through his hair, he took a deep breath. ‘I apologise.’

‘No, my fault,’ Ryan said, backing out of the office.

A sudden image of Victoria backing into his apartment’s elevator flashed before him. The smiling wave she’d given him.

‘Ciao, amigo.’

‘Amigo is Spanish.’

‘I know.’

‘You can’t quit over a bagel.’

‘I just did.’

Suddenly he found himself unable to draw breath. The walls of his office were closing in on him, perspiration breaking out over his skin.

‘Sir?’

Ryan’s voice broke through.

Marcello looked at the young man doing everything he could to impress and prove he could replace Victoria.

But no one could replace her. No one could even come close. Not in any aspect of his life.

Head spinning, the walls crowding ever closer, he headed to the door. He needed air.

Travelling the elevator to the ground floor with no memory of getting in it, he stepped from the lobby into the crisp winter daylight of the pedestrian plaza his building faced. People going about their business at the end of the working day. Workers with their heads down. Tourists with their phones out snapping photos. A young father in unsuitable winter clothes holding the hand of a toddler dressed in a snowsuit...

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