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“Is there someone else?”
“Yes.” She bit down on her lip. “Or there was. But I’m just not sure I’m ready to … jump back into anything. You know?”
“I do know.” He turned away and stared out at the view. It was one of those perfect early November days; a crisp azure sky, shining sun, and wind that felt like it had been kissed by the arctic. The air was clean in a way that almost seemed to glisten. “My wedding would have been a year ago today.”
“Your wedding?” For the first time in a month, her own heartbreak cleared out of her mind. “What happened?”
“My manager happened. He left his wife and kids for her. She left me for him. It was a match made in infidelity heaven.”
“Shit.” She shook her head from side to side. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’m not.” He shrugged. “It saved me a lot of pain, in the long run; and a fortune in alimony payouts.”
“So you’re spending what would have been your first anniversary with Beatrice, Peter and a deck of cards?”
“A pretty lame attempt to distract me. I suggested a strip club and getting wasted but Beatrice put the kib
osh on that.”
“She’s annoying in that way,” Aurora joked, looking at him thoughtfully.
“Uptight bitch,” he responded with half a laugh. “What about you? Who’s the guy?”
She shook her head. “It’s complicated.”
“More complicated than spending your first would have been wedding anniversary with your loved up best mate?”
“Okay, that’s pretty pathetic.” She winced. “Beatrice doesn’t know, is the thing. And I’d rather keep it that way.”
“Beatrice? Woah. Don’t tell me if you don’t want to.”
“No.” She shook her head. “It’s weird. I want to.” She sucked in a deep breath. “It’s Leonardo.”
He looked at her blankly and then, comprehension dawned. “Shit. Leonardo Fontana? Beatrice’s brother?”
“Half-brother,” she hastened to correct. “Yeah. Him.”
“Wait a minute. Go back. How does she not know?”
“We were really careful.” She shrugged. “I was travelling a lot for work, so it’s not like she noticed when I was out of town for stretches of time. Most of the relationship was spent in foreign cities, while I was working or he was racing. Or we’d hide out in my apartment, not venturing out except for essentials.”
He nodded. “Why not be honest though?”
“It caught us by surprise. We agreed to keep it to ourselves until we knew it was serious.”
“And it never got serious?”
“No, it did. It was. But by then we were just really… selfish about each other. I didn’t want to share our relationship with anyone. It was ours. Ours to keep from friends, family, the media. No one else could get involved then. No pressures, no expectations. It was just what we wanted.”
“I can sort of see that. I suppose with what you did, and what he does, you were both in the public eye a lot. It must have been nice to have something that was private.”
“Yes. That privacy was important.” She looked at him wistfully, her mind travelling back in time.
“So what happened?”
She blinked. “We broke up.” She shrugged, attempting to project an image of calm. “Three years ago.”
He was quiet, staring out at the cityscape. “That’s a long time ago. It seems like you could probably start thinking about a date with someone else. Right?”
