“I love her,” Alex breathed, rising unsteadily from his chair.
His cousin, still seated with his hands folded, looked up at him quietly. “Of course you do.”
“I have to see her now, today,” Alex said. “I have to reach her before she makes a decision she’ll regret—”
“Call her.”
He shook his head, a lump in his throat. “If she hangs up, it’s over. I have to see her in person. I can’t let her face everything alone.” He remembered how she’d insisted on accompanying him to the charity ball that he’d dreaded. How she’d endured labor, how she’d needed him there, how she’d squeezed his hand so hard. “But how can I show her? How can I prove—” His eyes went wide. “I’ll take a plane.”
The thought made his heart race, and not in a good way. But even as he started to turn, intending to run toward his Ferrari, he stopped. “It’s too late.”
“What?”
“My jet is gone. She’s taking it back to California right now.” Alex set his jaw. “I’ll get a commercial flight.” Even as he spoke the words, the horizon seemed to swim in front of his eyes. “But that will take too long, maybe even another whole day—”
“Need a plane?” Cesare asked with a lazy grin. “I might have one around.”
Alex turned to him eagerly. “Yes. If you don’t mind... I’ve had some...trouble.” He licked his lips. “I know it’s not rational. But for the last ten years, I haven’t been able to get on a plane.”
“No wonder, after what happened,” his cousin said quietly. He brightened. “Perhaps I can help with that too.”
“How?”
Cesare gave a low laugh. “I can punch you in the face till you pass out, then tie you up and toss you on my plane. If you want.”
For a moment, Alex actually considered it. Then he shook his head.
“No?” Cesare pretended to sigh.
“I will do it sober,” Alex said. “For her. Even if I’m scared out of my mind.” He clenched his hands at his sides. “She’s proven how brave she can be. So can I. For Rosalie. For our son.”
And he thought of them, every moment, as he got on Cesare’s plane thirty minutes later. As the jet took off, as he thought of his family members who’d died, his fingernails dug into the leather armrests of his seat.
Alex thought of Rosalie. He thought of how desperately she needed him to be strong. How they needed him to be there.
And he did it. Without alcohol, sleeping pills or being punched repeatedly in the face by his cousin. Sweating bullets, he arrived at the San Francisco airport fourteen hours later and stepped out into the California sunshine, knowing he’d just changed his world. He’d proved he could be brave too. He could do anything, if it meant he could win his wife back.
But what if Alex was too late?
Stepping out of the rental car in the midmorning light, Rosalie looked out at the ruins of her family farm in the California countryside.
She’d arrived at the San Francisco airport some hours earlier. Exhausted and filled with despair, she’d gotten a hotel room that overlooked the bay so she could try to rest for a while. From the window, she’d looked down at the path where she’d walked when she was pregnant, talking to her unborn child and wishing desperately that she could keep him.
Now she had everything she’d wanted.
What was wrong with her that it wasn’t enough? That she still wanted more—that she so desperately wished her husband could have loved her?
I want a divorce.
Every time Rosalie thought back to that moment, she felt sick with grief. Part of her had hoped he would call her on the plane and tell her he’d made a mistake.
But he’d made his decision. He would n
ot, could not love her.
Perhaps Alex had done the brave thing, letting her go, rather than letting their marriage die a slow, painful death. Because she never could have left him. Even if he didn’t love her.
I know. That’s why I’m letting you go.