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“Adam?”
“Mr. Klein?”
“Good lord, what’s happened?”
Several voices joined us, but I paid them no mind. For the first time in weeks, I had Xavier’s undivided attention, and I wasn’t about to lose it now.
“Is that so?” Xavier asked, voice low enough that only I could hear it.
I swallowed, conscious of all the eyes watching us.
But it wasn’t them that forced me to hold my ground. It was the one set of eyes that wasn’t watching. Little blue ones, just above a button nose, belonging to someone who called me “Mama.” The one person I could never afford to see me like this, but who was far too close anyway.
“I—yes,” I said, tilting my chin up. Stiff upper lip indeed. “Yes, it is.”
His glance darted between me and Adam, who was now being helped up by some of the club’s staff. When it landed back on me, he seemed to have come to a decision.
“Then I think,” Xavier said at last, “perhaps you should go.”
“I—” I tried to tell him I wasn’t going anywhere. I tried to say maybe he should leave. He was the one throwing punches, the one acting like a Neanderthal.
But through the trees, I caught sight of more than one long nose pointed our way and several pairs of snooty-eyed expressions veiled only through the leaves. None of them were directed at him. They were all looking at me.
The American. Dirty Yank. Mistress or girlfriend or sidepiece, or whatever the papers were calling me.
One thing was clear: I didn’t belong to him. But I didn’t belong here, either.
“All right,” I said softly. “I’ll just…go back to the house. Enjoy—” I gulped back a sob. I wasn’t going to give our audience the benefit. “Enjoy the rest of the party.”
“Francesca—”
I didn’t wait to hear him finish his sentence. Instead, I turned and left, conscious of all the eyes watching me leave. Watching and thinking, yes, it was for the best.
TWENTY-THREE
“Come home.”
This time, I wasn’t imagining one of my sister’s voices. Kate was very, very real, looking imperious and bespectacled through my iPad while I shoveled a spoonful of rice pudding into my mouth—comfort food I’d picked up at Sainsbury’s.
After the disastrous fight at the polo club, I’d found my way back to Mayfair, an arduous process without a car, as I had stubbornly refusednotto find Xavier’s driver. Sofia was safely in the hands of Miriam and Elsie, and it was better anyway that she be sequestered from all the drama. In the end, though, it took me nearly two and a half hours consisting of a mile-and-a-half walk to the nearest bus station, from there to a train station, then another train, and finally a taxi back to Xavier’s apartment, where I had practically fallen into the bathtub to soak my troubles away and rethink my entire life.
My iPad was set on the caddy spanning the tub, and Kate was chatting with me while she priced new clothing items at her shop.
I stuck the spoon into the pudding and sank further into the bubbles. “Don’t tempt me.”
“I’m not tempting. I’m telling. Come. Home.”
I sighed. “It’s not that easy.”
“What’s not easy? You’ve made a Herculean effort to make it work with this man. You flew across anoceanfor him, left your entire support system, and he does what? Works like crazy, gets swept up with the rich family that treats you like garbage, and then beats up the one person who was nice to you?” She shrugged. “Screw him, babe. You deserve better.”
“But he’s Sofia’s father,” I put in weakly. “The whole point was for them to have a chance together. What am I supposed to do? Stand in the way of that all over again?”
“No, but you’re not supposed to sacrifice your entire self to make it happen either,” Kate said. She finished hanging a blouse on a rack next to her, then turned back to the camera to give me her full attention. “You’ve been doing that your whole damn life, Frankie. Me and you were always the peacemakers, weren’t we? We took the shitty bedroom in the attic so Lea and the babies could have the good ones. You taught third grade instead of going to grad school so you could be more available for your kid. Hell, you’ve been sleeping at the top of the stairs for the last three years so Sofia could have her own space. When are you going to do what’s best for you?”
“How about when I don’t have a child to raise?” I snapped back a little too harshly. “Putting myself first isn’t a luxury I generally have.”
“Would Xavier say the same thing?” she asked pointedly.
