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Almost.

"I'm not here to ruin your opening."

"Then what, exactly, are you here to do?"

I open my mouth.

Nothing coherent comes out.

Her laugh is softer this time. More tired.

"That's what I thought." She brushes past me, close enough that the scent of her perfume and shampoo and something warmer underneath it catches in my throat. "I have to go."

"Aria."

She stops at the stairs but doesn't turn.

"We'll talk about this later," she says. "When I'm not walking out the door to open my own gallery show and you're not standing in my way with annulment papers."

Then she goes.

I stand there and listen to the front door shut behind her.

For a while, I don't move.

I just stand in the middle of the villa hallway trying to recover from the fact that I crossed an ocean to fix my marriage and somehow managed to come off as the least romantic man currently breathing in Europe.

The villa is too quiet with her gone.

I make it through three rooms before I realize I'm looking for her in all of them.

The signs of her are everywhere once I stop trying not to see them. Paint-streaked towels draped over the backs of terrace chairs. A stack of reference books on the coffee table. A row of brushes drying beside the sink. A linen drop cloth spread beneath a bank of windows facing the water.

The studio isn't really a studio. More like a corner of the villa she claimed and turned into one through sheer stubbornness.

Canvases lean against the wall.

Some blank. Some half-finished. Some turned around so I only see the wooden stretchers and not whatever she decided still wasn't ready to be looked at.

I move closer before I can stop myself.

The paint is still tacky in places.

She's been working here. Not just staying. Not just hiding. Building something.

And there's something about the fact that Gabriel gave her this space that hits harder than I want it to.

There's a charcoal sketch on the floor beside one of the easels. I crouch to pick it up and then stop myself before I touch it.

Because whatever else I've done wrong, I'm not rifling through her work like I have some damn right to it.

I straighten and look around the room again.

This is what she does when she's hurt. She paints. She has always painted.

And now she's done it here. Without me.

I look at the clock on the wall, and then at my briefcase with the invitation still in it.