by Sophie Love
“You must be kidding,” Pippa said, shaking her head. “Just wait, Cris. We’ll have her number in no more than two hours, I promise.”
“It’s not just that,” he said. “My phone’s been locked for security reasons. What if she thinks I’ve ghosted her? I can’t bear the thought.”
Sabrina stood her ground then. “You can’t go all the way back. You’ll exhaust yourself.”
“I don’t have a choice,” Cristiano replied.
“At least take a flight,” Pippa said. “You can’t spend another day on a train!”
“You’re right,” Cristiano agreed, relenting. Flights from Florence to Paris were cheap, fast and regular. If he’d been thinking straight before he’d have got one in the first place.
He called the airline and was able to book onto a flight leaving in an hour. That meant within three hours he’d be back in Paris, back in the city where Keira was. At least, he hoped that’s where she was. Keira, for all he knew, could have packed her bags and left for New York already. If she had, he had no idea what that meant for them. He just hoped he wasn’t about to find out.
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
Keira eventually made it back to the hotel and went into her room. There were signs of Cristiano all over the place, making her heart ache even more. She slipped off her blood flecked skirt and threw it in the bin, never wanting to see it again, then sat heavily on the bed and began to cry.
Reality hit her with painful clarity. Her career was in tatters, her relationship over. Leave. That was the only thing she could do now. Pack her bags and catch a flight back to New York City.
With her head hanging and her tail between her legs, Keira began to fill her case up. She had no idea what to do with Cristiano’s abandoned items. He didn’t have much in the first place, but she folded what he had brought with him and placed it into a bag. Maybe she could ask the hotel to mail it back to him.
She went into the en suite, avoiding looking at her tear-stained face, and collected all her toiletries.
Once her case was loaded up she felt so exhausted that she curled up into bed. She fetched her laptop and began searching for a flight home. Scrolling through airlines websites made her tears fall afresh.
At some point, she must have cried herself to sleep, because suddenly it was dark and her laptop was lying half off her lap. She’d been so unhappy, she’d somehow slept the whole day away.
Yawning, she heaved her laptop back into position and refreshed the page. The next available flight leaving for New York City with seats was in two hours. It wouldn’t take her longer than thirty minutes to reach the airport by taxi, but Keira found little point waiting around here, in her sad, lonely hotel room. Without Cristiano it had lost all its majesty and romanticism.
She heaved the cover off, shivering immediately from the chill in the room, then dragged her now packed case to her hotel room door. Her jacket was hanging on the back hooks, and she removed it from them then pulled it on. That’s when she noticed the umbrella that they’d been sharing, propped in the corner. They’d spent the last dozen days huddled beneath it, taking in the sights of Paris side by side.
Sadly, Keira decided to leave it behind. The memories would be too painful.
She opened the door and stepped out. To her complete surprise she thudded into someone. She drew back, startled, and looked up into the most handsome face in the world. Cristiano.
“What are you doing here?” she cried. “I thought you were back in Italy!”
He looked just as stunned as she was, standing there with his key hovering beside by the lock. But then his wide eyed gaze fell to Keira’s case.
“You’re leaving,” he said.
Keira’s heart was hammering so hard she could hear it in her ears. She dropped her head, her gaze falling to her feet. “I’m going home. I’ve booked a flight back to New York City.”
“No,” Cristiano said. Keira could hear the pain in his voice. “They were wrong.”
“Who were wrong?” she asked, confused.
“Pippa. My mom.” He paced away from her, running his hands through his hair. “I’m such an idiot! I knew they were wrong.”
Keira watched him, a sense of anguish taking over her. What was going on? Maybe Cristiano had just come back for his stuff. He probably knew she’d be checking out but hadn’t counted on it taking her so long. Well, she wasn’t going to get in his way any longer.
“I packed your stuff,” she said. “Here.”
She threw his bag of clothes across the corridor to him. Cristiano caught it, looking like she’d thrown a grenade at him rather than a carrier of clothes.
“You’re really leaving?” he said, looking as if he was filled to the brim with sorrow.
“I need to get back to the real world,” Keira told him. “This isn’t real.”
“What’s not real?” he asked. “Paris?”
“Paris. This hotel room.” She spread her arms wide to encompass them both. “Us. It’s as fake as the roof tops in the photo shoot.”
She thought of the image Nina had sent her, of the sunny sky that had never shone above them in the real world.
Cristiano shook his head. He looked devastated as she spoke. “None of it was real? You and me?”
Keira shrugged, feeling awful. She thought they’d got all the embarrassing public fighting out of the way in the train station, and by the fountain in Luxembourg Gardens. But no, Cristiano was back for another round, this time in the foyer of their swanky hotel.
“Can you just let me leave?” she said, sadly. “I can’t keep doing this. The fighting. It’s exhausting. I want to go before one of us does permanent damage.”
She saw the way Cristiano’s eyes fell down to his right hand. She followed the direction of his gaze and saw his bruised knuckles from where his fist had collided with Zach’s face. It looked painful and swollen.
“I think it’s too late for that,” Cristiano told her.
Keira looked away. “Don’t do that. Don’t joke your way out of this.”
“I’m not,” Cristiano replied. “I’m not meaning to. I just don’t understand why you’re saying this wasn’t real. I mean this looks very real to me.” He held up his damaged hand.
“Are you proud of it or something?” she asked, disgusted. “Because that might be how things are resolved in Europe, but for me it was scary to see you like that.”
“I’m know,” Cristiano said, and there was real conviction in his tone. He was clearly ashamed of his actions.
“You could have been arrested,” Keira told him.
“I know,” he said again, looking more ashamed than ever. “It was hearing him say those things about you that just made something flip in me. It was an ugly way to behave.”
She noticed tears sparkling in his eyes. Were they tears for having let her down, or tears for having almost been caught?
She didn’t want to stand around and wait for the answer. She began to march towards the elevator, her heavy case dragging and slowing her escape. Cristiano leapt into action as he saw her move, and stood in front of the doors.
“Wait,” he begged.
“Why?” she demanded. “You’ve got your stuff. I have a flight to catch. What’s left to say?”
“Don’t leave.”
“I have to,” Keira said, softly. “You made your choice.”
“No I didn’t,” he said. “I was stubborn and emotional. That’s all. I wasn’t making a choice and I don’t think you were really giving me an ultimatum.”
“Whether I was or wasn’t isn’t the issue anymore, Cristiano. Because it’s too late now. It’s falling apart, the fantasy. We had a perfect few weeks together but now we’ve had two horrible experiences in a row. The veil has slipped. I can see this now for what it’s always been.”
“Why do you keep talking this way?” he said, glaring at her. “Like we’ve been playing a game. None of this has been a game for me. None of it.”
She could hear the raw passion in his v
oice. “Then what has it been, if not an affair?”
“It has been love,” Cristiano told her, sternly. “It still is love.”
“Is it?” Keira cried. Her own tears were falling now, hot and ugly.
“Yes!” Cristiano shouted, with an increasing level of passion in his voice. “I wouldn’t act so crazy if it wasn’t.”
Keira turned then, wanting distance from him. His intensity was too much. It was messing with her head, with what she’d moments earlier been so certain of. She abandoned her case beside the elevator and marched back through the still open bedroom door. She went right up to the windows and looked out at the streets. For once, they were lit by sunlight rather than covered in rainwater.
Cristiano followed her into the room, stopping behind her.
“Keira, don’t you ever listen to what I tell you?” he said, anguished. “When we were in Italy, I told you about my marriage. My heartbreak. And I told you that I didn’t want to date again after. That I’d lost my faith in love.”
She kept her gaze out the window, biting her trembling lip as the memory of that conversation came back to her. Stubbornly, she said nothing.
Cristiano grasped her by the shoulders and spun her to face him. “Well?” he demanded. “Do you remember?”
“Yes, I remember,” Keira spat back, her tears falling bitterly.
“I told you,” Cristiano said, his voice cracking with his tears, “That I would only ever consider dating a woman again if I could see her becoming my wife. I was speaking the truth. This is NOT a game for me Keira.”
“You were saying what I wanted to hear,” she told him, her gaze angry. “You saw something in me, a vulnerability, and you used it.”
“Used it for what gain?” he cried, furious.
“I don’t know!” she shouted. “Sex? A vacation? A chance to freeload?”
“You really think that of me?” he asked, his expression one of pain.
She didn’t, not really, but she wanted to get back at him for making her hurt so much. Cristiano took her silence as an answer.
“Then what should I think of you?” he said. “You have never said you love me. You let my family care for you for days on end, ate their food and drank their wine. I never accused you of freeloading. I was the one who followed you to New York, to be with you. I never asked you to stay in Italy to be with me. I’m the one who’s changed his entire life for you and you have the audacity to claim I’m just doing it for a free vacation? If anyone is living a fantasy, Keira, it is you, because you are so deluded you can’t even see how much I love you.”
Each time Cristiano said he loved her, it made the piercing sensation in Keira’s heart that little bit sharper, sting that little bit more.
“Just let me go,” she murmured, tears blurring her vision.
But Cristiano would not let go of her. “No. I won’t. Because the only reason you’re running away is because that was what you learned as a child. You’re doing what your father did. You said so yourself, that you never got to see your parents argue and resolve their issues. The only thing you know it to just walk away. But I’m not giving up on this, Keira. I will not let you take the easy way out.”
Keira stood there, stunned by his words. Something deep inside of her that she’d always known but never given attention to began to stir. Run away. It was what she did, what she always had done when things got too tough. It was no coincidence that her longest relationship — two years with Zach — had been with a man she’d never loved. The safe stability of that relationship had come about because she hadn’t cared, not really, whether it sank or swam. Her hurt when it ended hadn’t been from losing Zachary but from having her pride bruised.
Cristiano was right. She was the fantasist. She’d stubbornly refused to see the facts in front of her: Cristiano was in love with her, completely and entirely. She’d spent so long worrying about how much more attractive he was than her, how mismatched they must look, how undeserving she was of his affection, she’d completely failed to realize that he was hers. All hers.
“Cristiano,” she whispered through her sobs.
She reached for him then, wrapping her arms around his neck and pressing her mouth to his. He responded by sliding his arms to her waist and encircling them around her, tightly, like he’d never let go. Her whole body exploded with sensation, like an electric current was racing through her veins.
But she could taste his tears as they kissed.
Finally, she moved back and took in the sight of his tear-stained face. “I’m so sorry,” she said intensely.
“So am I.”
“I do love you,” she added. “So much. God, so much it hurts.”
Then he was kissing her again, all over her face and neck, guiding her backwards to their bed.
“I love you, Keira,” he said between kisses. “I love you.”
They fell against the mattresses, caught in a moment of intense, passionate reconciliation. Keira relenting, giving way with relief to the sensation of Cristiano.
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
Keira woke the next morning with a renewed sense of energy. Beside her, Cristiano was sleeping peacefully, tangled up in their sheets and cover. His serene expression had returned at last, and Keira was so glad for it. It felt so right to have him back beside her. She felt like a fool for ever having doubted it.
As she lay in the dim morning light, Keira realized that in all the drama she’d not yet told anyone that she was staying. She remembered with horror the way in which she’d spoken to Nina yesterday. An apology was in order, and Nina was the first person on her list to call.
Keira heaved back the covers and went out onto the balcony with her cellphone. It would be early afternoon in New York City, she thought, as she dialled Nina’s number.
Nina answered several rings in. “Keira,” she said in a clipped tone.
“I’m sorry,” Keira blurted immediately. “I don’t mean it. I don’t quit.”
Nina was silent for a moment. Finally she spoke. “I know. I always knew you wouldn’t quit. But you have got to stop doing this.”
“Doing what?”
“Acting out like a brat. I’m your friend but I’m also your colleague. Do you have any idea what it does to my workload when you just snap your fingers and decide that you don’t want to do it anymore?”
Keira felt her chest heave. She felt awful, not just for the way she’d spoken to Nina but for the fact she’d let her down as a friend. She deserved this dressing down.
But Nina wasn’t quite done…
“And for God’s sake, Keira,” she continued. “Speak your damn mind! Why do you keep letting people push and pull you around? You’re not an intern anymore. You’re not a lacky. You’re one of the senior staff writers now! If there’s something you want, negotiate for it. Don’t just sit around in a mood because you didn’t get your way.”
“Okay,” Keira told her. “I get it.”
Nina was right, but it wasn’t like she or Elliot ever made it easy for her to get what she wanted out of these assignments. And it was all so new to her. She was so used to struggling, she didn’t know her worth yet.
“Are you done?” Keira asked, scrunching her face in preparation for further berating.
But Nina just sighed. “Yes. I’m done.”
“Can I tell you how sorry I am now?”
Nina exhaled loudly, indicating that she was less than thrilled and certainly not over it yet. Eventually she replied, “Sure. It’s in the past.”
“Thank you,” Keira told her, with heartfelt meaning.
There was a brief pause before Nina spoke again. “So let me guess. You made up with Cristiano?”
Keira looked through the balcony window into the darkened room and the gorgeous, perfect outline of Cristiano in bed. “Yeah,” she replied with a dreamy sigh. “He came back.”
“Good,” Nina replied. Then quickly, she added, “And I don’t just mean that from a narrative point of view. I’m really glad you sort
ed it out with him. You two are good together.”
“Thanks Nina,” Keira said smiling.
“Now go and write me a goddamn article!” Nina yelled.
Keira giggled aloud as the call cut out. She was relieved that Nina had forgiven her. And also relieved she still had a job at Viatorum!
Next on Keira’s list was her mom. Mallory had been pretty worried about her when they’d last spoken, so she deserved to know everything was fine.
As always, her mom answered the call immediately.
“Have you made a decision about Paris?” Mallory asked.
“Yes. I’m staying. Cristiano came back.”
Keira could practically hear the grin in Mallory’s voice. “I knew he would!” she cooed, excitedly. “I’m relieved. So everything’s back to normal?”
Keira smirked. Nothing about her life was normal! But she knew what her mom meant. “Yeah. It’s all back on track.”
“I guess that means you won’t be here for Thanksgiving then?” Mallory asked, her voice sounding pained.
Keira felt bad for messing her mom around like that. It wasn’t fair. But she felt like she had a lot of making up to do with Viatorum now and should really commit to writing the best article she could. “I’m sorry, mom,” she said.
“It’s okay,” Mallory replied, sadly. But then her tone brightened again. “Now, you go back to having a magical time in Paris. I’m always here if you need me.”
“Thank you, mom,” Keira replied, and she felt a tug on her heart strings for her. It wasn’t often she missed her mom, but she did at that moment.
They ended the call, and Keira took a deep breath, mentally working through her list of people she needed to grovel to. Next, she decided to speak to Pippa. If it had not of been for her, Cristiano probably would never have come back. Dragging her dramatically into the forefront of their relationship woes hadn’t been fun for either of them. In fact now, in the cold light of day, Keira felt pretty embarrassed about involving Pippa in the first place. It had only been out of desperation. She hoped she’d never have to do it again!
She found her number stored in her contacts and began to call. To her surprise, it was Raff who answered. His English language skills were pretty poor, so they fumbled their way through a conversation before wishing each other goodbye.