Page 74 of Winter With You

‘Just because someone isn’t physically here anymore doesn’t mean you don’t remember who they were, or think about them or still make them part of your present and your future. You don’t forget. They can still be here. In a way.’

Could he understand? Did he? She didn’t say anything but she felt herself settle in the space again, his fingers still moving gently up and down her arm. It felt natural somehow. Right.

And, as that thought travelled and gained traction, it jolted her back into reality. She moved, faster this time, with purpose. ‘I should go,’ she said, leaving the bed and beginning to dress. ‘I left Cheyenne with Phoebe. She should be asleep. Phoebe, not Cheyenne… or actually maybe both of them but⁠—’

‘Sure,’ Luca said coolly, turning away. ‘You should go.’

And now she felt like the worst kind of person. She had come here looking for a release, had taken it and was now running out the door.

‘Luca,’ she said, fastening her jeans.

‘What?’ He was lying facing the wall, duvet pulled up around him, the only thing visible that head of dark curls that had felt so good when her fingers had run through it.

‘Please look at me,’ she said.

‘Why? So you can tell me to my face you’re going?’

‘Yes,’ she answered truthfully. It was all she had.

Slowly, he about-turned in the bed, until he was all there. Then he got up, that gorgeous naked body she’d enjoyed on display until he wrapped himself back up in his robe.

‘I said too much,’ she told him, regretfully, as he stepped closer.

‘Yeah?’

She nodded. ‘For now.’

He nodded, putting his arms around her and hugging her close. ‘OK.’

‘But I want you to know… it’s the most I’ve said to anyone. Ever.’

‘Me too,’ he admitted with a sigh. ‘But…’

‘You will tell me more too?’ she asked, letting him go to look at him again.

He nodded. ‘Yeah. When the time is right.’

‘That old cliché? There’s never a right time.’ She smiled, holding his hands.

‘Maybe we can make one,’ he said.

‘Maybe,’ she answered.

She just looked at him. She didn’t know what this was, or what it could or couldn’t be, but did that matter in the New York now?

‘I’ll see you for your next fitting,’ Luca told her.

‘Yes, you will,’ she replied. ‘And we won’t make this awkward. Please don’t shake my hand.’

‘I’m not going to shake your hand, Gabriella.’ And with that said, he leaned in and took her mouth with his, giving her another gloriously deep kiss she didn’t really want to break away from.

‘Go,’ he said, ending the kiss with a reluctance she felt.

‘OK,’ she replied. ‘Goodnight.’

‘Goodnight, Gabriella.’

She took one last lingering look at him and then, after picking her coat up from the floor where she had dropped it hours ago, she left the apartment.