pretty smile as her eyes practically dance in front of me. “Good. I’ve missed you,” she admits softly.
Lifting my hand, I reach across the table and she doesn’t make me wait. As is her nature, her hand immediately finds mine. “Me too, Lenora.”
The rest of the evening we don’t mention my absence from the group again. Instead, it’s just like old times, as if the past five years hasn’t happened.
Eventually, the girls and the men are separated and I find myself surrounded by these women that I respect, that I even love—that I look up to.
We drink, but not too heavily. My tolerance is so high these days that after my fifth glass of wine, I’m not even buzzed. Massimo slinks up to my side, his hand sliding around my hip, his fingers gripping me there.
Turning my head to the side, I tilt it back to look up at him.
“Ready?” he asks, his one word, it holds more meaning than I think I could ever convey in a simple word.
Gulping, I nod my head. “Yeah, I’m ready,” I whisper.
Without another word, the two of us leave the party. There’s a car waiting for us outside and we slip into the back seat. Sitting next to me, in silence, he takes my hand in his, gripping my fingers tightly as the driver moves the car toward home.
“We’re here,” the driver says.
“Grazi,” Massimo murmurs as he reaches for the handle.
Together, hand-in-hand, we make our way toward the front door of our home. A home that we shared together for less than a week. A home that I have completely made over. A home that could possibly be a new beginning or the beginning of the end.
My heart hammers against my chest at the possibilities. I don’t know what’s going to happen once we cross that threshold, I’ve been thinking, dreaming and dreading this moment for five years.
Inhaling a deep breath, I let it out on an exhale, staying one step behind my husband, a man who is practically a stranger, I cross the threshold into whatever will be.
MASSIMO
I feel like a stranger in my own home. Like a guest. Nothing looks the same as it did five years ago. The furniture is different, completely changed, as is the color of the walls. I don’t recognize anything in the living room or kitchen and I wonder what else has changed.
“Between the wives and Rosana, we changed everything slowly,” Pippa offers as her explanation of what’s happened.
Nodding slowly, I turn to face her. My eyes rake up and down her body, taking her in completely.
The house, the decorations, they aren’t the only things that have changed. Pippa has changed as well, she is almost gaunt, her hair longer and duller, her blue eyes not quite as bright as I remembered.
“Seems you’ve changed everything, no?”
Pippa closes her eyes for a moment, then slowly opens them again. She shrugs a shoulder as she licks her lips, then tilts her head to the side, her eyes roaming over me before stopping on my face.
“Five years, Massimo. Not the same twenty-year-old girl I once was. Just like you’re not the same man you once were either.”
Shaking my head from side-to-side, I take a step toward her, then another until I’m so close that our bodies are almost touching. Reaching out, I extend my index finger, touching the side of her mouth before I trace her kissable lips.
“Are you going to hold it against me? The sins of my past?”
Pippa licks her lips, her tongue touching the pad of my finger. “Do you have a lot of those for me to hold against you?” she breathes.
I grunt, slipping my other arm around her waist before I pull her against me. The hand against her mouth shifts to twist in the back of her hair. Tugging her head back, I look into her eyes, still not as bright as they once were, but no less beautiful—no less mine.
“We all do, dolcezza. I cannot change what’s happened, the way I’ve spoken to you or not spoken to you, but I’m here now. Let’s start again, yeah?”
Her eyes widen as her lips part. She struggles against my grip, but I keep her close to me, refusing to let her go.
“Start again?” she hisses. “How? How do we do that? You’ve hurt me in ways that I never dreamed possible. You’ve drawn me in, you’ve pushed me away, you’ve acted as though you gave a shit, then you’ve said cruel things to me.