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He drops his forehead to mine. Finally, I open my eyes and find his gaze.
‘What would you have said if I had asked you to stay?’ he asks, a tremor in his voice.
‘I have promotional stuff to do in London. I have to go.’
He presses his nose to mine and I smell fresh mint on his breath. ‘What if I had asked you to come back, so I could take you to dinner? Or if I’d asked to come to England?’
I take a breath, hating what I’m about to say, but knowing the truth. ‘I would have said, I wish that were the right thing to do. But we both know it isn’t.’
His lips gently graze the tip of my nose and my body dissolves into his.
‘The only part I wish we could change is the ending,’ he says. God, he has no idea how much I want that to be possible. ‘And maybe the Charleston.’
I laugh as much as my heart will let me and feel his chest shudder as he pulls me tight against him, my cheek pressed to his chest, his hand in my hair.
‘Izzy, darling, we have to go,’ my father says, leaning out of the car door, then moving back inside.
I pull away from Brooks’ hold and run my fingers through his hair. ‘Thank you, Brooks Adams. For the first time in my life, you have made me want to work on me, for me. I can’t really explain that, except to say, thank you. You’ve done more for me in two weeks than most people have done in my life. You’ve made me want to figure out who I am.’
‘I love you, Izzy.’
Tears build quickly and fall from my eyes. ‘I love you too.’
He kisses me, long and slow. I grip his shirt, never wanting to let him go. Knowing I need to. When we separate, we’re both crying silent tears.
I run my thumb under his eye, wanting to be here every time he breaks, every time he needs someone to hold him and kiss him.
He takes my hand and kisses my knuckles. ‘Go. You don’t want to miss your flight.’
I watch him walk back to the building, until the door closes and he disappears.
Sitting in the Cadillac, my mother says the last words I want to hear. ‘It’s for the best, Isabella.’
I cry all the way to JFK, endless tears that refuse to turn off.
34
IZZY
Day 2 Without Him
There’s a gentle tap on my bedroom door.
‘It’s me,’ Anna says, coming into my room uninvited.
I roll over in bed. ‘Have a good day at work.’
I roll back to face the window.
She moves around the bed, picking up used tissues from the floor and putting them in my wastebasket. ‘I’m not at work today. I worked last weekend. Let’s do something. I could call Zara and Beatrice and we could go to afternoon tea? One of those healthy ones you like?’
‘No, thank you. I’m happy here.’
‘You’ve been in bed for a day and a half. You smell. This room smells. You’ve hardly eaten and you need to stop crying.’
‘I was watching a sad movie.’
‘Of course you were. Didn’t you say you had some event tonight?’
