by Sophie Love
She laughed and stripped down to her underwear. It was very cold and goosebumps leapt up across her whole body. Then she shimmied into the dress in an impressively coordinated way considering her tipsiness.
“Ta da!” she announced.
Cristiano gazed her adoringly. “So beautiful,” he said, standing.
He pulled his opera suit out from his bag and changed quickly. Then they stood on the roof together, with music from 1940s France playing softly in the background and the lights of Paris blinking in the distance.
“May I have this dance?” Cristiano asked, holding his hands out to Keira.
“Of course,” she said, taking them.
They swayed together, holding one another close, getting lost in the moment. Keira let her eyes flutter closed and took in the myriad of sounds around her; the chattering of people nearby, the distant hum of traffic, the song of a bird who’d been tricked by the lights into thinking it was dusk. It was the perfect soundtrack to the perfect day. If only this could have been their cover for the magazine. Here she felt comfortable. And it was real, not a fantasy designed to capture more readers.
The song ended and they broke apart. Cristiano helped Keira to seating, and sat beside her. Then he poured them both a mug of wine.
“Cheers,” he said, holding his cup up to her.
Keira clinked hers against his. “To Paris,” she said.
“To Paris.”
Gazing into one another’s eyes, they took a sip of the expensive wine. It was certainly worth the price tag. It tasted divine. Then they snuggled up side by side, their attention fixed now on the Paris skyline and the million lights twinkling like stars.
“I think this has been my favorite moment,” Keira said after a while.
“Better than the catacombs?” came Cristiano’s murmured response.
“Definitely,” she said. “This is perfect. There’s only one thing that would make it more perfect. The sunrise.”
“Well, we’ve got a good six hours to go before that happens,” he told her.
Keira looked at him and grinned. “I think I know a good way to pass the time…”
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
It was the perfect end to their trip; a night dancing, drinking, laughing and loving on the rooftops overlooking Paris. And not a single drop of rain.
But all too soon, dusk came, signalling the end of their Parisian adventure. The sun began to rise, turning the sky from black to gray, the clouds to dusty pink.
Keira was exhausted from too little sleep and from the effects of too much wine wearing off. She snuggled beside Cristiano, yawning, just about ready to fall asleep right where she sat. He rubbed her arm, to keep her warm and awake.
“Should we go back now?” she asked. “Pack up our cases?”
Part of her wanted to stay here forever, but there was another part that longed for home, for her family, for a sense of normality.
“If you want to,” Cristiano said. “But first…”
He reached for his satchel.
“What else are you hiding in there, Mary Poppins?” Keira laughed.
But she wasn’t prepared for what she saw next. Cristiano took from his satchel a small, black box. Even before he’d clicked it open, she knew what was happening. She gasped, not wanting it to be true.
“I got this,” he said, looking suddenly shy, “in the grand magasin. While you were busy with Bryn’s gift. The same time I got the radio. I had it all planned out for the last day. At the time, I thought we still had a week before we left. I didn’t realize this time would come quite so soon, so forgive me for not having a speech prepared. I didn’t have time.”
Keira’s throat thickened. She began to shake her head, and felt tears welling in her eyes. She wanted to stop him, to say something, anything, in order to save him from the agony that was about to come.
But it was too late. He’d clicked the box open, revealing a gorgeous diamond ring, the jewel set into a delicate, simple silver band.
“Keira Swanson, will you marry me?” he asked.
Keira couldn’t move. She couldn’t speak. All she could do was stare into Cristiano’s dark brown eyes. Then she broke down crying.
“Are those happy tears?” Cristiano asked her, his voice tentative.
Finally, she found words. “No.”
“No?” he repeated.
“They’re not happy tears,” she wailed. “Because I can’t marry you, Cristiano.”
Her heart clenched as she finally said aloud what she’d been obsessing over in her mind. It felt far worse to admit it out loud than she’d ever imagined.
“Why not?” he asked, his features falling. He looked crushed.
Keira shook her head. This had come too soon. Once it had become clear to her that Cristiano was thinking of marriage, she’d known it was only a matter of time before she had to end things with him. There was no future for their love. They were too different and she couldn’t see a way to reconcile that. But she’d had no idea he would propose to her right away! That he’d want to commit to her after such a short courtship! She’d been expecting them to have a few more months together, perhaps see some more countries, make some more memories. Then she’d assumed he’d come to the same conclusion as she had in his own time. Then they could split amicably and go their separate ways. But that had all flown out the window now. Now everything was going to end painfully and dramatically.
“Keira?” Cristiano repeated, his voice strained. “Why can’t you marry me? Is it because of what happened with Zach? Or how angry I got over Shane? I can work on my jealousy.”
She shook her head. “It’s not that, Cristiano. It’s …” She struggled for the words. “It’s us. We’re not right for each other.”
Somehow he looked even more hurt than before. Her words were damning. They offered him no solution, nothing to work on or overcome for her. They were just blunt, to the point, like a death knell for their relationship.
“Yes we are,” he replied. “We love each other. We have fun. I make you laugh, don’t I?”
“You do,” she replied. This was so much harder than she’d thought it would be. “But that’s not enough. Not when you’re talking about forever.”
“You don’t love me,” he said, blankly, snapping the ring box shut.
“I do,” she said.
“Just not enough for forever,” he said, sadly, echoing her phrasing.
She took his hands then. The thought of this ending with them both broken hearted was too much to bear.
“You are a wonderful person, Cristiano,” she told him. “I have loved being with you. I have fallen for you completely. But who we are fundamentally, at our cores, is not compatible.”
“I don’t understand. In what way are we incompatible? All we do when we’re together is have fun!”
“In the day to day moment, yes. But when it comes to planning, to thinking ahead, to imagining our future…”
“Is this because I have no career plans?” he asked, interrupting her. “I explained to you why, with Pippa and her health. You said you understood. But now you’re holding it against me?”
“You’re being too simplistic. It’s not just the career, it’s everything. You’d be perfectly happy to follow me around whenever I told you to.”
“And that’s a bad thing how? I am flexible. Laid back. Why is that now suddenly a problem?”
“It’s not about good or bad or right or wrong. It’s about me and what I want and need. There’s laid back and then there’s…” She chewed her lip. She didn’t want to be harsh. Just because he wasn’t right for her didn’t mean he was wrong in any way. But he needed to know her truth. She finished her sentence. “Directionless. And that’s not what I want in my life partner.”
Cristiano began packing their things away; the dirty mugs and empty wine bottle, the radio. He moved angrily, throwing everything into his satchel with haste.
“Please don’t be upset,” Keira told him. “We’ve had such a gr
eat time together. I want you to remember me fondly.”
He shook his head. “You don’t get to choose how I remember you,” he told her.
She watched as he climbed down from the roof, her stomach clenching with sadness. She’d not wanted it to end this way, with Cristiano furious. But she’d seen what he was like when he was mad three times now. He was going to march off again, leaving her abandoned in Paris for the third time. She sighed.
But then she saw, coming from the edge of the roof, Cristiano’s hands reaching up to her. He hadn’t marched off in a huff at all. He’d stayed and done the gentlemanly thing.
“Are you coming?” he asked.
Keira remembered then she was still wearing the opera gown. “I don’t want to rip my dress.”
“I’ll make sure it doesn’t rip,” he said.
She peered over the edge, down at Cristiano, then sat with her feet dangling. She dropped an inch forward and Cristiano’s hands clasped round her waist. He lowered her gently to her feet.
This had to be the strangest break up she’d ever experienced. Being lifted down from a rooftop in a gown by a handsome Italian was definitely unique.
Silently, they began to walk down the hill together, with tired bodies and weary minds. The sun was rising rather quickly now, turning everything a hazy blue color. It was like a dream. Keira wished it was one, so that she could wake up and realize none of this was real, that he hadn’t proposed, that she hadn’t been forced into ending their relationship prematurely.
“I suppose I’m not coming to New York anymore,” Cristiano said, suddenly.
“No, I suppose not,” she said. “I’ll buy you a flight home.”
“That’s okay. It’s very cheap to fly to Italy from Paris.”
Silence again. Broken, again by Cristiano.
“When were you going to do it?” he asked.
“Do what?”
“Break up with me? At the airport?”
Keira gasped. Had he really expected her to behave so callously?
“I wasn’t going to break up with you at all,” she told him. “I had no plan to end things today. I like living in the moment with you. I liked how things were with us. It was just that when you started talking about marriage I realized that I wasn’t going to be with you forever. I never expected you to propose.”
Cristiano tipped his gaze to the ground. It pained her that he couldn’t look at her now. “So I forced your hand.”
She responded in a sad voice. “Kinda.”
“You know you were talking about it too,” he said. “I didn’t come up with this all on my own. You said where you wanted to get married. Where you wanted to live afterwards. I thought you were dropping hints about us moving to France together.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, quietly. “That wasn’t my intention. I think I was just getting caught up in the fantasy.”
He nodded, slowly, sadly. They fell back into silence.
“Are you going to write about this?” he asked.
“Not if you don’t want me to,” she told him.
He looked over at her, making eye contact for the first time in what felt like forever and took a long time mulling it over.
“You can write it,” he said, finally. “Your readers deserve honesty. And anyway, I want to see it in your words. A keepsake. Proof it really happened.”
She nodded, heavy-hearted. “Okay. Thank you.”
She couldn’t imagine that this was the ending any of her readers would be wanting to see. In fact, Elliot and Nina would be furious when they found out what she’d done. But Keira had to be true to herself, no matter how much it hurt, and she just couldn’t see a future for her and Cristiano. That child in her dreams was never going to exist. Her readers and Viatorum were just going to have to deal with it.
Just then, the rain began to fall. It was very light at first, but soon grew heavier, providing them with a soundtrack of droplets hitting leaves.
It was then that Keira realized she’d misplaced their umbrella. At some point during the long night out she’d lost it, perhaps when she’d exited the restaurant in a somewhat inebriated state. It seemed like a poignant way to end their adventure in Paris. That despite days of torrential rain, despite having only one umbrella between the two of them, neither had gotten so much as a raindrop on their skin. Until now. At the very last moment of the very last day they were both drenched to the bone by the infamous Parisian rain.
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
They stood in the busy airport, weary to the point of exhaustion. But both wanted to make the most of the moment, of this final point where they would stand beside one another for the last time.
“My flight leaves first,” Keira said looking at her boarding pass. “Will you be okay?”
Cristiano flashed her a sad smile. “Of course I will. I’m going to go shopping and buy as many croissants as possible to take home to my family.”
“That reminds me,” she said, fishing the gift for Pippa out of her purse and handing it to him. “For your sister.”
“Kind of pointless now, don’t you think?” Cristiano said. “Wasn’t it a thank you for keeping us together?”
“I’m still grateful to her for it,” Keira replied. “We had the best time once you were back and that’s all thanks to her.”
He nodded and put the jewelry box in his satchel. Keira imagined it nestling in beside the other box, the one containing a gorgeous ring she would never get to wear.
“Do we have enough time for one last coffee?” Keira said. “My gate won’t be called for thirty minutes still.”
He nodded, and they walked over to the most traditional looking cafe they could find. Of course it was a cheap replica of the places they’d been to during their trip, with plastic seating and vinyl table tops mimicking wood grain, but neither of them cared about that sort of thing anymore.
They ordered two black coffees, then took their seats. There was a good view out onto the landing strip here, and they watched the planes fly in. How funny it was to think of the men and women coming in to Paris now for the first time, ready to begin their own adventures, to fall in love with the city of lights. How many of them would be coming home with a story like hers, she wondered, only with the ring on their finger, parallel lives diverging at one crucial moment.
“Will you let me know when you’re back home?” Cristiano asked then, breaking through her reverie.
“Of course. And you?”
He nodded. “I’ll let you know what Pippa thinks of the necklace.”
“And I’ll let you know how Thanksgiving goes.”
Promises, Keira thought, that ex lovers make when still believing they’ll be friends, that they’ll stay in one another’s lives indefinitely, because after what they’ve shared how could they not? Empty promises, perhaps. Only time would tell.
She drank her coffee, which was more bitter than what she’d grown accustomed to.
“What is the first thing you’ll eat when you’re home?” she asked Cristiano.
“Pasta,” he said. “You?”
“Maybe donuts,” she said. “Or something like mac and cheese.”
He laughed and she smiled, relieved to know that the carefree Cristiano was still in there somewhere, underneath the sad exterior, and that she hadn’t crushed his spirit entirely.
“Where do you think you’ll be going on your next writing trip?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “If I get to choose it will be somewhere really exotic. And hot. I’ve had enough of the rain.”
He fell quiet then. Keira could tell there was a question in his mind, one he wanted to know the answer to at the same time as not wanting to. Finally, he got the courage to ask it.
“Will you fall in love again?” he asked. “Next time. Is that the plan?”
“That sounds cynical,” she replied. “It’s never the plan. I’m just open to it. To life and love and living in the moment. That’s something I learned from you.”
He nodded, as though grateful for her saying it.
“I never thanked you,” he said.
“For what?” she asked, curiously.
“For saying no.”
“To marriage?” She let out a surprised laugh.
“Yes,” he admitted. “I was doing to you exactly what I did with Maria. Moving too fast. Not thinking of the future. You were right to say no. I was jumping in too fast again. It would only ever end badly, like it had with her.”
“I guess that’s a good thing,” she replied, feeling bitter-sweet. It wasn’t exactly nice to hear that someone proposed to you by mistake. But perhaps now he’d be able to go home unscathed, without a shattered heart, and with good memories rather than bitterness and regret. It was the best outcome, even if it hurt to hear it.
Keira finished her coffee. “Well that was average,” she said.
Cristiano laughed. “I think your gate has just been called.”
She had her back to the concourse, but from his vantage point he could see the big departures screen. She turned to look.
“You’re right,” she said, turning back to him. “I guess this is goodbye.”
Saying it aloud made it feel suddenly very real. Cristiano had been her companion ever since that day in Capri and now they were parting for good. It stung but ultimately Keira knew it was the right thing to do.
They both stood and embraced, holding one another for a long time. When they drew apart, Keira wiped the tears from her eyes. Then she reached up and wiped Cristiano’s away as well.
“I’ll never forget you,” she said. “You’ve given me some of the happiest days of my life.”
“So have you, my Keira,” he replied.
She smiled and took a step back. Then another. Then finally she turned and headed away, leaving him in her past. She did not look back again.
CHAPTER THIRTY
“Felix, dear,” Mallory said across her dining table, “Could you pass the potatoes?”
“Of course,” Felix replied, passing the small dish to Keira who passed it, in turn, to her mother.