Page 37 of Suddenly Single
“Ah, but Eddy, he’s wanted alone since the woman, how do you say, dumped him.” He made a slashing motion across his throat.
“You know about that?” she asked curiously.
He shrugged. “I was here.”
Oh.Oh.“Do you know what happened?” she asked, perhaps a bit too eagerly.
“A man can never truly know the heart of a woman,” he said with a dismissive flick of his wrist. “It is impossible.”
“It’s notimpossible—”
“But this woman, she did not love him,” he said.
Jenny gasped. “How do you know?”
“How do I know,” he said gruffly. “Iknow.” He glanced at his hands. “She told me.Eddy, he is quiet. He likes this life.She came here for him, but she didn’t like it so much. She is a woman for dancing, and for life.He is a man for books and fishing.”
Jenny glanced at Edan.She liked books.And quiet. Not so much the fishing.
“We went to a dance club once,” Lorenzo said, squatting down beside Jenny.
“You took Edan’s fiancée dancing?” she asked disapprovingly.
He arched his thick brows. “Why do you look at me like this? I did not touch her.” He suddenly smiled. “But shewantedme to.” He chuckled low and leaned closer. “Shebeggedme to do it.”
Jenny clucked her tongue and turned her attention to Edan again.
“It is very sad,” Lorenzo said, “to love a woman who will not love you in return.But she was very beautiful, this girl. He thought he could make her happy, but this girl, she cannot be happy anywhere, I think.”
“I love here,” Jenny murmured.
“She lied to him from the beginning.He does not trust easily the women now.”
Who could blame him? Jenny couldn’t imagine how demoralizing that must have been.Mainly because she’d never really been in love.Not like that, anyway.She sank down onto a rock and unwrapped her sandwich.She had always been an emotional eater.“No wonder he’s always so…quiet,” she said.
“Eh,” Lorenzo said.“This is good for him.This is how he…what is this word…griefs.”
“Grieves,” she muttered.“I feel so bad for him.”
“Anh,” Lorenzo said with a shrug. “The man was dumped. These things happen.”
“I know.But I don’t like them to happen to people I…” For once, Jenny actually thought about what she was about to say, and decided against admitting she had feelings for him.
“Aha,” Lorenzo said, nodding sagely.“Youlikehim, our Eddy.”
“No I don’t,” she scoffed.
“Ach,don’t deny this. It has distorted your face.”
So much for not saying anything—apparently her distorted face did her talking. “OfcourseI like him.He’s a nice man, and he seems lonely.” She tried to appear nonchalant about it by biting into her sandwich.But judging by the way Lorenzo’s hands went to his hips, she’d failed.
“Why did you not tell me this?” he demanded.
Jenny looked at him like he’d lost his mind. “I hardly know you, Lorenzo.I’m not going to admit everything in my head just because you did.”
“Vaffanculo,we are friends! Is it not my friend who has helped me make things better with Elizabetta? Here, see what she says,” he said, waving his phone at her.
Jenny groaned.She took the phone from him, squinting at the cramped writing.Speaking Italian was quite a lot easier than reading it.She didn’t understand all what Elizabetta had typed in her shorthand Italian, but she gathered that Elizabetta had seen some promise in Lorenzo’s apology.And she wrote that she would like to speak to Lorenzo in person with the hope of patching things together.
