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“Yeah, why not?”
“I don’t put up a tree.”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re too sophisticated for Christmas decorations or something?”
“I enjoy Christmas. But our mother decorates the villa and we tend to spend Christmas there.”
“Ah,” Portia ignored the tightening beneath her ribs. “Well, I usually go home to my family too, but I still like to have a tree at home to look at.”
“I can tell,” he said with a smile. The hand on his ankle moved gently, rubbing across her flesh.
“I know it will probably sound very, very shallow,” she said softly. “But I think it’s partly because of the gifts. That I love Christmas so much, I mean.”
He grinned. “I see.”
“Even though they didn’t have a lot of money, mum and dad always worked hard to make sure I got the one thing I really wanted for Christmas. Sometimes it was something little, like the year I was obsessed with bath oils from the Body Shop so they got me a container of them. Other times, especially as I got older, it was more, like a phone. I felt so spoiled that year.”
He looked at her without speaking and she wondered what he was thinking. She felt an urge to defend her parents. “They’re good people,” she murmured. “We’re just…not really similar. I don’t know who I’m like,” she added with a small shrug. “And even the whole Jack thing, it’s because they love him, they have a massive blindspot where he’s concerned. He’s like a son to them.”
“Have you tried explaining to them? Really making them listen and hear you, as to how Jack’s infidelity made you feel?”
She bit down on her lip. “It’s hard to criticize him to them.”
“That is not being critical. It’s being honest and you have every right to tell your story honestly.”
“I know.” She looked at Marco and was surprised to feel how little she cared about Jack. His cheating had hurt her, but the more time that had passed, and maybe even the more time she’d spent with Marco, the less Jack had seemed like a part of her mind, or heart.
“Do you want to come to Italy this weekend?” He asked, and the air around them tightened and hummed.
Portia’s chest felt heavy. Shewantedto say yes, but Italy was so intimate, there was nowhere to run from whatever it was in the back of her mind that was telling her she had to keep some space all of her own. But hadn’t she abandoned the idea of boundaries? And decided to simply enjoy Marco while she could?
“Let me see how the week goes,” she said. “Work-wise, I mean.”
He didn’t push it, and she was glad.
The next morning,with Marco making coffee and Portia almost dressed, there was a knock at her door.
“Would you mind getting that?” Portia called. It would be her neighbour from upstairs, for sure. Always wanting to borrow milk or bread or laundry detergent.
She heard Marco walking towards the door on old floorboards, heard the creaking open of the door, and then Marco’s voice. “Yes?”
Her heart thumped even then.
Just the sound of him, so sexy and in command. She smiled, imagining what her neighbour would think to find someone as beautiful as Marco at Portia’s.
“Is Portia here?”
Portia straightened, her gaze jerking to her reflection in the mirror and resting there, as if asking herself for confirmation that she’d actually just heard Jack.
“She’s just getting ready. Can I help you?” Marco’s own voice had taken on a cooler quality. He knew. He’d worked out, of course, who the other man was. And he wasn’t happy about it.
Portia fumbled the rest of her buttons, shoved the shirt into the waistband of her skirt, then wrenched open her bedroom door, to find the ghost of lovers past and present both standing, eyeing each other off, in the kitchen.
“Jack,” Portia instinctively walked closer to Marco. She could handle Jack on her own, she really could, but having Marco there offered a strength she didn’t see any point in resisting. She stood close to him and he put a hand in the small of her back, gentle but encouraging.I’m here.
“What are you doing here?” She asked, when Jack didn’t speak, and simply stared at her.
He shook his head, as if to clear away the cobwebs. “I have a meeting around the corner. I thought—I wanted to see you.”
