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You brought this on yourself. No use crying now.
She started as the group they’d met on their exit from the museum entered the restaurant. Within minutes, someone had started the karaoke machine. The first attempt, sung atrociously to loud jeers, finished as the waiter returned with Zaccheo’s espresso.
Eva straightened in her seat, watching the group absently as each member refused to take the mic. The leader cast his eyes around the room, met Eva’s gaze and made a beeline for her.
‘No.’ She shook her head when he reached her and offered the mic.
He clasped his hands together. ‘Por favor,’ he pleaded.
She opened her mouth to refuse, then found herself swallowing her rebuttal. She glanced at Zaccheo. He regarded her steadily, his face impassive. And yet she sensed something behind his eyes, as if he didn’t know what to make of her mood.
She searched his face harder, wanting him to say something, anything, that would give her even the tiniest hope that what she had to tell him wouldn’t break the magic they’d found on his island. Wouldn’t break her.
In a way it was worse when he offered her that half-smile. Recently his half-smiles had grown genuine, were often a precursor to the blinding smiles that stole her breath...made her heart swell to bursting.
The thought that they would soon become a thing of the past had her surging to her feet, blindly striding for the stage to a round of applause she didn’t want.
All Eva wanted in that moment was to drown in the oblivion of music.
She searched through the selection until she found a song she knew by heart, one that had spoken to her the moment she’d heard it on the radio.
She sang the first verse with her eyes shut, yearning for the impossible. She opened her eyes for the second verse. She could never tell Zaccheo how she felt about him, but she could sing it to him. Her eyes found his as she sang the last line.
His gaze grew hot. Intense. Her pulse hammered as she sang the third verse, offering her heart, her life to him, all the while knowing he would reject it once he knew.
She stifled a sob as the machine clicked to an end. She started to step off the stage, but the group begged for another song.
Zaccheo rose and moved towards her. They stared at each other as the clamouring grew louder. Her breath caught when the emotion in his eyes altered, morphing into that darker hue that held a deeper meaning.
He wasn’t angry. Or ruthlessly commanding her to bend to his will. Or even bitter and hurt, as he’d been on the hill.
There was none of that in his expression. This ferocity was different, one that made her world stop.
Until she shook herself back to reality. She was grasping at straws, stalling with excuses and foolish, reckless hope. She might have fallen in love with Zaccheo, but nothing he’d said or done had indicated he returned even an iota of what she felt. Their relationship had changed from what it’d been in the beginning, but she couldn’t lose sight of why it’d begun in the first place. Or why she couldn’t let it continue.
Heavy-hearted, she turned back to the machine. She’d seen the song earlier and bypassed it, because she hadn’t been ready to say goodbye.
But it was time to end this. Time to accept that there was no hope.
* * *
Something was wrong. It’d been since they’d walked down the hill.
But for once in his life, he was afraid to confront a problem head-on because he was terrified the results would be unwelcome. So he played worst-case scenarios in his head.
Had he said or done something to incite this troubled look on Eva’s face? Had his confession on the hill reminded her that he wasn’t the man she would’ve chosen for herself? A wave of something close to desolation rushed over him. He clenched his jaw against the feeling. Would it really be the end of the world if Eva decided she didn’t want him? The affirmative answer echoing through him made him swallow hard.
He discarded that line of thought and chose another, dissecting each moment he’d spent with her this afternoon.
He’d laid himself bare, something he’d never done until recently. She hadn’t shown pity or disgust for the debasing crimes his father had committed, or for the desperately lonely child he’d been. Yet again she’d only showed compassion. Pain for the toll his jagged upbringing had taken on him.
And the songs...what had they meant, especially the second one, the one about saying goodbye? He’d witnessed the agony in her eyes while she’d sung that one. As if her heart was broken—
A knock came at his study door, where he’d retreated to pace after they’d returned and Eva had expressed the need for a shower. Alone.
