Page 73 of Winter With You

‘Hey,’ he said, holding on. ‘Don’t do that. I won’t let you do that.’

‘Let me go.’

‘Not like that,’ he said, gripping on. ‘Unless you really want me to.’

She shook her head, holding on but definitely not holding it together.

‘Look at me,’ he said, his free hand lifting her chin. ‘Do you want to know what I think?’

‘That I’m a fucking disaster and you wish you could rewind the past few hours or, maybe even all the days we’ve known each other. Perhaps you’re even thinking you wished Benoit Torres was still your client.’

‘100 per cent not any of those,’ he said firmly.

‘No?’

‘No,’ he said, looking deep into her eyes. ‘I think that you don’t talk about your sister because you still talk to her.’

Gabriella flinched, internally and externally. ‘Why… would you say that?’

‘Am I right? That it’s her you talk to, with the burgers and before the event in the bathroom.’

‘Why would you say something like that? Just like that?’ She shifted in the bed, away from him, further from this conversation that was clawing its way across her deepest parts.

‘Don’t leave,’ Luca said, reaching for her, his fingertips trailing her shoulder. ‘I said it because, if I had lost someone I loved, it’s exactly what I would do.’

‘Well, that would be weird, wouldn’t it?’

‘Would it?’

‘Most people would think so.’

‘Why?’

‘Because if you’re dead, you’re not here anymore.’

‘Is that what you think?’

‘It’s pretty obvious. There’s a gravestone back in the UK with my sister’s name on it.’

‘And what about the memories?’

‘Like photos on a camera roll?’

‘Come on, Gabriella. Memories aren’t always about the past.’

‘That’s exactly the definition of what memories are.’

‘Not always,’ Luca continued.

‘I don’t get it.’

‘OK, so, do you not think about things that your sister could have done? I don’t know, when you go somewhere, or do something, do you never think “if Lulu was here she would have laughed at this” or, I don’t know, maybe “Lulu would have hated all the outfits this stylist guy is putting me in”.’

‘She would definitely have hated some of them.’

‘So, there you are.’

‘What?’