“Touché. Look, it’s my family business. I’m still on the board, I still care about it…I just didn’t want to make it my life. I realized I was trapped in…I don’t know.” He shakes his head. “A comfort zone. A miserable, toxic comfort zone. The worst kind.”
“Well, I’m glad you stepped out of it,” I say softly. “I’m glad.”
“Me too.” He blows out as though it’s been a battle. But he looks stronger for the battle, I find myself thinking. He looks straighter, happier, prouder of himself. His face is glowing. He couldn’t look less like a rock. “And I have you to thank,” he adds.
“Oh.” I shake my head awkwardly. “No. Really. No.”
“Yes,” he contradicts me. “Before you, I always felt like I didn’t have a choice. Somehow you made me see things differently. So here I am. A whole new guy. ‘Living my best life,’ ” he adds, his mouth twitching, and at once I flush. I know he’s trying to be nice. But just hearing that phrase is painful. It takes me back to our endless arguments and the way we were then. Matt, moody and obdurate. Me, shrill and hectoring (I realize now).
I really don’t think we were at our finest.
“Matt, I said a lot of things,” I blurt out guiltily. “I said a lot of things while we were together. And some of them were…” I raise my eyes to him. “I’m sorry. But I need to thank you, too, because you made me see life differently. I never would have written my book if you hadn’t said I don’t finish things.”
“Oh God.” Matt winces at the memory. “Ava, that was unforgivable. I should never have said that—”
“You should!” I cut him off. “It was true! But it’s not true anymore. I achieved my goal and it was just…I don’t know.” I gesture vaguely with my hands. “It transformed me. I feel like I’m a new person too. We both are. You look different. Happier.”
“I’m happier in a lot of ways,” agrees Matt, then adds in a lower voice, “Although not in all ways. Not all ways.” His dark gaze brushes over mine, and my stomach gives a little flip.
“Right.” I swallow. “Well…me too.”
“I didn’t contact you in Italy,” he says, his face averted, his fingers folding his napkin over and over. “We’d all agreed to let you write in peace. It would have disrupted you if I’d got in touch. But…I wanted to. I thought about you.”
“I thought about you too,” I say, my voice suddenly wobbly. “All the time.”
His eyes meet mine again, with unmistakable intent, and my heart starts to thump. Is he…? Are we…? Might we…?
Then Matt looks away, breaking the tension of the moment.
“I have something for you,” he says, reaching for a plastic bag I noticed earlier.
“I have something for you,” I reply eagerly, and reach into my tote. I place a solitary pebble on the table, large and smooth—then feel instantly foolish, because who brings a stone to dinner? But Matt’s eyes soften.
“Is that from…?”
I nod.
“Wow.” He closes his hand around it. “All the way from Italy.”
“I went back to that beach. That same olive tree. I sat there and thought about…things. Then I saw this pebble, and I decided that if I ever saw you again—” I break off, flushing slightly. “Well. Here it is. A souvenir.”
“Thank you. I love it. Mine isn’t as special, but here goes….” Matt hesitates, then draws a battered hardback out of the plastic bag.
“Bookbinding for Amateurs, 1903,” I read aloud.
“It called out to me as I walked past a charity shop,” says Matt, looking sheepish. “I thought…I have to rescue that. For Ava.”
He rescued a book. For me. I’m so touched, I can’t quite speak. Wordlessly, I turn the old, tattered pages, my eyes hot.
“It’s not the only one,” he confesses, watching me turn the leaves. “I have a few. I see them and I think, ‘Well, if I don’t buy it…’ ”
“Then no one will,” I join in, finding my voice.
“Exactly.”
We meet eyes again, and I feel breathless. Every impulse in my body is drawing me toward him, almost sobbing with relief that we might have another chance. But at the same time I feel cautious. I don’t want to hurt him. I don’t want him to hurt me. Are we actually able to be together without hurting each other?
“Excuse me?” The tension between us is punctured as our waiter approaches the table, a strange little grin on his