month's notice.”
“Not always. Not this time. I leave for Paris a week from today.” At least it was only Paris. He could come back to see her. She could come to see him. But it wasn't all that easy, and they wouldn't have the normal routine of their life anymore, their nights in the big canopied bed, the early mornings together, the constant looks and glances throughout the day, and the stolen moments when he came to her quarters after lunch just for a kiss, for a word, for a hello, a joke, just to see her and feel her and hear her … they would have none of that, and as he thought of it he wondered how he would live. He looked at her frankly and asked her for the ten thousandth time. “Will you marry me and come with me?” Slowly she shook her head.
“I can't marry you and you know why.”
“Even now?”
“Even now.” She tried to smile bravely at him. “Couldn't you just take me along as your personal maid?” He looked angry as she said it and he shook his head as though to shake off what she had just said.
“That's not even funny. I'm serious, Serena. For chrissake, realize what's happening. It's all over for us. I'm leaving. I'm going to Paris a week from today, and God knows where after that, probably back to the States. And I can't take you with me unless we're married. Will you please come to your senses and marry me so we don't lose the one thing we both care about?”
“I can't do it.” There was a lump in her throat the size of a fist as she said it, and that night after he fell asleep in her arms she cried for hours on her side of the bed. She had to let him go, for his sake. She knew that she had to, if she really loved him, and she did, but she knew that it would be the hardest task of her life to peel her heart from his. She steeled herself for it daily, but when the last night came, she felt such a terror in her heart at the thought of losing him that she didn't know if she could bear it. For days Marcella had been hounding her, tormenting her, pleading with her, begging, and in his own way B.J. had been doing the same, but Serena was so certain that to marry him would ruin his life that she was unwilling to listen. She knew what she had to do, and however unbearable it was, she would do it, even if she died when he left, it wouldn't matter then. She had nothing left to live for anyway. There would never be a man that she loved as she loved B.J. And knowing that on the last night made it all the more bittersweet as she held him and stroked him, and smoothed a gentle hand across his hair, wanting to engrave the moment forever in her memory, as a way of holding on to him.
“Serena?” She had thought he was sleeping, but his voice was a whisper in the canopied bed and she leaned forward to see his face.
“Yes, my love?”
“I love you so much … I will always love you … I could never love anyone else like I love you.”
“Nor I, Brad.”
“Will you write to me?” There were tears in his eyes as he asked her. He had finally accepted that he was going to leave Rome alone.
“Of course I will. Always.” Always. Forever. The promises of a lifetime, which she knew only too well would dim in time. One day he would marry and he would forget, he would want to forget then, and it would finally be over between them. But she knew that for her it would never be over. She would never forget him. “Will you write to me?” There were tears in her eyes. There always was the threat of tears this past week, for both of them.
“Of course I will. But I'd rather take you with me.”
“In your pocket perhaps, or a secret compartment, or a suitcase. …” She smiled down at him and kissed the end of his nose. “Paris is so pretty, you're going to love it.”
“You're coming to visit in two weeks, aren't you? I ought to be able to get the papers for you as soon as I get there.” She was going to spend a weekend