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Ugh. He stood and paced up and down the room before falling, helplessly, back onto the couch.
They were too far apart. She was too enmeshed in her family to see that he could not be with his. Americans and their persistent optimism. She still believed his brothers were redeemable.
He’d told her about them. Hadn’t he? Maybe not all the details. Honestly, their physical bullying hadn’t been as bad as the emotional kind he’d received from his parents. Who sure hadn’t shown up on his doorstep this morning. Any attempts to get a word out of them from the media were met with “no comment” from a spokesperson.
He watched social media to see if Lily had arranged the interview with his brothers, but their names were nowhere. Neither was Alessio Russo’s. Pictures of his model years hadn’t popped up on every website. Commentators weren’t laughing at his presumption to be an actor when he was “only” a model. His Oscar nomination hadn’t been withdrawn.
The silence was deafening.
Until six p.m. when his name pinged, associated with a photo of Megan landing at Boston airport, large dark glasses over her eyes, an overnight case dragging behind her.
She’d gone home. Where he’d told her to go.
He looked back at his house. Everything of her had gone, except her scent and two racks of clothes he’d pushed into the guest bedroom and slammed the door on. Every dress on them was so exactly Megan that it burst his heart to look at them.
He stood up with a groan. His body felt like it had just gone through boot camp. Every muscle ached. Then he realized he had been holding in tears for hours, and that picture was forcing them out of him.
He couldn’t miss her. He had made the right decision.
He let out a string of Italian curses, shouting them at the house that wouldn’t let him let go of her. He strode to the patio doors in the back and pulled them open with desperate violence.
But the yard provided no respite. Just looking at the pool made his fingers itch for her smooth, wet skin, for the lines of her bikini that he could slip under and make her head fall back. He growled and turned his back on it. On the whole place.
She was gone. He had chosen himself over her. He was going to have to live with that.
So why was the pain in his chest so much worse?
♦
Megan took a cab from Logan. No more black cars. No more Nelson and Terry. She was about to become old news.
Until she rebuilt something new. Something on her own terms.
The cab took her through the familiar streets as the sun set. As she pulled up to the Fielding family home, she saw the porch light click on. Pulling her suitcase out of the trunk, she squared her shoulders and walked into the house.
“Who—” Cat said as she came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a well-worn tea towel. Then she dropped the towel. “What?” she said instead.
Megan let go of her suitcase and walked directly into her sister’s arms.
Cat took half a second to react to Megan’s arms around her, but then she was hugging her back, and Megan let the sobs she’d held in since LAX go free.
“I’m gonna fucking kill him,” Cat said.
Megan laughed despite herself. “Get in line,” she said.
Cat squeezed her more tightly. “God, I missed you.”
“Me too, you,” Megan admitted, crying again. “I’m sorry I said—”
“I’m sorry too.” Megan felt dampness on her shoulder and realized Cat was also crying. “I didn’t know you were so stressed out. Honey, if we’d known…”
“I didn’t even know it myself until…” But she couldn’t say Alessandro’s name.
“Thank you for coming here,” Cat said. “Thanks for coming home.”
They held each other in the front hall for a little while longer, then pulled away and laughed at the tears on each other’s cheeks. “We’re pathetic,” Cat said.
“We’re allowed a cry once in a while.”
