She unhooked her legs from around his waist and lowered herself to the ground, shuddering a little at the low noise he made when he pulled out of her as she went.
Her skirt flowed back down over her thighs. He tucked himself away and buttoned himself up again.
And then they were just...staring at each other the way they had outside.
“Hi,” he said, with another flash of that grin of his, and a knowing kind of heat in his too-blue eyes. “I’m Charlie.”
“Maya,” she replied, and then stuck out her hand. The way she always did.
They both stared.
Slowly, with a gleam in his blue eyes that she could only call unholy, Charlie reached down and wrapped his big hand around hers. And how could that be so hot after everything they’d just done? But it was.
Charlie shook her hand. Very deliberately. Up, then down, in a slow movement that reminded her entirely too much of exactly what had happened here.
She felt too warm. Everywhere.
“Nice to meet you,” he said, his voice a low rumble and that crooked grin lodged inside her, somehow. “You want the rest of the tour?”
“HOW’S ITALY?” MELINDA ASKED in her concerned voice, which was exactly like her usual bossy voice, only with a nominal attempt at softness. “More to the point, how are you?”
Maya deeply regretted answering her mobile.
It was another lazy afternoon on the Amalfi coast. She sat out on her terrace in the uncertain, moody weather, wrapped in a whisper-soft throw to ward off the bite of the sea air from below. There was espresso and a selection of freshly baked biscotti and anginetti before her. She had been engaged in a rousing debate with herself—should she slip into her infinity pool, always kept comfortably warm to encourage its use even in a changeable, chilly December? Or stay where she was, tucked up cozily with a deliciously fat paperback at the ready and nothing at all to do?
She really shouldn’t have answered the phone.
“I’m fine,” she said, trying to drag herself out of the sweet daydream she’d been riding for days now, where this was her life and there was nothing for her to do but gaze at the sea, smell the flowers, watch the rain and pay no mind as one hour rolled into the next. “Good, even.”
“You don’t need to put on an act for me, Maya.”
“I’m sitting on a balcony gazing out at the Amalfi coast, which is even more beautiful than it looks in pictures. There’s no acting involved.”
Melinda heaved a sigh, and all the ugly things Maya had been doing such a good job barring from her mind since she’d left Toronto squirmed back out and crouched there in the light, disturbing and uncomfortable.
She should hang up, she thought. Right now.
But she didn’t.
Maya had spent far too many years being responsible. Available. The sort of person who suffered through whatever conversation someone wanted to start with her, regardless of whether or not she wanted to have it. She’d always assumed that was part and parcel of being a responsible adult.
Today she couldn’t recall why she’d ever thought such a thing.
“I didn’t want to bother you with this, but I thought you should know.” Her sister’s voice took on a familiar, faintly officious tone, because Melinda always functioned best when she was in charge of something. And clearly she felt she was in charge of Maya. Or what life Maya had left behind in Toronto, anyway. “Ethan is resisting moving out of the condo. He says you and he found it together, it’s as much his as yours, and you’re a single person now anyway, so why do you need all that space? I’m quoting, obviously.”
Maya didn’t want to think about Ethan. Or the condo she’d called home for the past few years despite the fact she’d seen so little of it, because she was always at work. She didn’t particularly want to think about any of the things she’d left behind in Canada. It seemed too far away. Like a bad dream she couldn’t quite shake off when morning came, but nothing real.
She’d been in Italy for five whole days now and it felt like a lifetime. As if she’d never truly existed before but had sprung into life the moment her feet hit the endless stairs that made up this village of hers high on its cliff, cascading down to the sea. What concerned her was whether or not it rained. The steepness of her chosen staircase. How many stairs she needed to walk a day to counterbalance all the marvelous food she indulged in with the same appetite and greed she’d applied to Charlie the handyman.
Every time she thought about him—and she thought about him a lot—she shivered the same way she had when he’d been inside her.
But she didn’t think her prim, proper sister would appreciate that anecdote, even if she’d felt like sharing it. Maya sat up straighter on her comfortable chaise and frowned until she remembered herself.
She’d wanted to hold on to the condo because it would irritate Ethan. Because it was the only revenge she’d been able to come up with a week ago, however small and silly. But now she was in Italy and there had been Charlie and the idea of fighting with Ethan about a condo, of all things, made her feel...tired.
She was a woman of action, she reminded herself. Not asinine little games of spite.
“You can tell Ethan he has two choices,” she said briskly, sounding like the highly trained lawyer she was. Even if that persona—her persona—didn’t seem to fit her anymore. Or not here. “He can move out and find his own little love nest for him and Lorraine. Or he can stay in the condo, but if he does, he needs to find me a different one—and not in any building where I could conceivably run into him and Lorraine. Ever.”
“Why would you let him choose a place for you to live?” Melinda sounded baffled.
“I barely live in the condo we have now. I’m always at the office.” There was something about the way she said that, so flat and matter-of-fact, that made something in Maya shake a little. She tried to shrug it off. “Either way, when I come home, it needs to be to an Ethan-and-Lorraine-free space. Feel free to quote me in return.”
There was a faint silence, and Maya could hear the far-off sounds of her former life. She could imagine Toronto in December all too well. Dark, cold and snowy.
At the moment, she couldn’t think of a single reason to return.
“Are you really going to stay there the whole month?” Melinda made a faint clucking sound. “I know you’re stubborn, but this is pushing it.”
“There’s a reason people talk about Italy the way they do, Melinda. It’s magical.”
“I’m sure it is, but it’s a fantasy world.” Her voice turned kind, and that was much harder to take. “Back here in the real world, your broken heart is waiting for you. You’re going to have to deal with it. Why would you put that off?”
Maya
