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He searched for something to say. He wanted to change her mind, but to what end? Because he still wanted to be with her? Because he liked flying to New York and having her there, waiting for him?
“Can we talk about this face to face?”
She said nothing.
“Skye?”
“Oh.” She cleared her throat. “I know I should have waited until next weekend,” she admitted softly. “But I wasn’t sure I’d be strong enough to do this if you were standing right in front of me.”
Precisamente, he wanted to say triumphantly. If they were having this conversation in the same room, he’d have been able to reach out and hug her, kiss her, to reassure her. To change her mind.
“I’m so confused, Leandro, but the one thing I know for sure is that I can’t see you again.”
It was like the tectonic plates were in a state of furious rearrangement. He gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles glowed white. “You’re serious?”
“Yes.” Such a small voice, a tiny word. “Goodbye, Leandro.”
Goodbye? She was seriously ending this, over the phone, and telling him ‘goodbye’. He was dumbfounded and couldn’t think of what to say in response to that.
It didn’t matter anyway.
A moment later, the call cut out. She was gone.
Leandro had set out intending to speak to his parents about his adoption, but Skye’s call had completely derailed his focus. He knew he should still go to them, but the closer he got to the family villa, the further he felt from knowing his own mind.
His brain was scattered, his thoughts in disarray.
This wasn’t a big deal.
He’d had dozens of short-term relationships.
Whenever they’d ended, he’d been fine. Relationships ending was a fact of life, like birth, death, laughter, taxes. He had never fought the conclusion of a relationship before, he’d never even been tempted. In his experience, these things burned themselves out. Even when he felt a pang of absence, a hint of missing someone, he knew it would pass quickly.
But he didn’t know that with Skye. He didn’t feel that with any certainty. All he knew was that he wanted to see her.
Even when she didn’t want to see him?
Even when she’d all but begged him not to go to her?
He kept driving towards the villa on autopilot, though his focus was not on his predicament with his parents.
He was not Jay. He could go to her. He could convince her to give this another shot. He knew that when they were together, she struggled to push him away. They were both captive to this desperate, all-consuming desire. But wasn’t that just what Jay did to her? Ignoring Skye’s wishes because they were in conflict with his own was not the right thing for her. He wanted to be with her, but he wanted her to want that too.
He knew it was complicated. Complicated by her being a mom, complicated by his living in Italy, complicated by her past, and whatever he was going through with his own family right now. But he’d thought they could skate over that, and just enjoy the goodness of what they shared.
Maybe she was right, though. He’d presumed that their chemistry would burn out. That one day, they’d both just become less enthralled by what they felt. He’d presumed this thing would wane and they’d move on. But what if the opposite was true? What if the more time they spent together, the more they wanted one another in their lives? What if one of them wanted more than the other? What if she already did?
He could see only hurt, when he imagined that scenario.
At the gates to his parents’ villa, the home in which he’d grown up, Leandro contemplated turning around and driving back to Rome. He considered leaving because his thoughts were so scattered. But it turned out, in a moment such as this, the one place he wanted to be was with his parents. No matter what.
“It is so good to see you.” Patrizia was sitting on her hands, as if to keep herself from wrapping Leandro in a huge hug.
He nodded once. It was over. There was no need for him to go to New York this weekend. He’d never see her again. His gut felt hollow.
“Are you hungry?” Ronaldo, beside Patrizia, leaned forward a little.
“No.” His stomach emptied out. “But eat, if you are.”
