Although dullness hadn’t stopped Bernard from doing exactly that!
Nice, safe Bernard. Her go-to boyfriend. When people asked How is your life going? they didn’t mean your business being listed on the stock market—well done. Your employees have reported high enjoyment stats from their job—good on you. You own a place with a harbourside view outright, on your own—fabulous! What people really meant when they talked about ‘your life’ were your relationships. Everyone wanted you to be in a couple of sorts. To have what they had. Otherwise you stood out too much, you attracted attention, you were different. Ava had had enough of being different growing up to last her a lifetime.
Socially, a partner was important, too. You couldn’t just turn up to functions on your own.
Meeting Bernard at twenty-nine had been a huge release from those demands. Instead of turning up with a different man on her arm every time—or, worse, alone—she’d had Bernard. People had begun to remember his name. They’d been invited to more intimate functions. People had referred to them as a couple, and gradually they’d become one.
It had suited them both—professionally and personally. If the initial spark between them had never been anything more than a fizzle, they still had a working friendship to fall back on.
But deep down she’d always known that if he left her—unlike when her father had walked out—she wouldn’t be heartbroken.
Perhaps the proposal in Rome had been her get-out-of-jail-free card. Perhaps deep down she had known it would push Bernard to make the decision they both knew had been on the cards. It wasn’t as if their intimate life had even existed for the last six months. Now she knew why. He’d been going elsewhere, to another woman for passion. But she’d hardly noticed—and what on earth did that say about her?
The same thing Bernard had said. She just wasn’t a passionate woman.
But she did want a little romance. In her longing for that she’d forgotten what her relationship with Bernard had been all about. Practicalities. Practicalities she had put in place.
So for five minutes she’d imagined herself into a relationship that didn’t exist. A proposal by the Trevi Fountain. A driving tour of Tuscany. Perhaps they’d find an old villa, come back to Italy every summer and restore it... She might even wear a button-front cotton dress and forget to put on her shoes, stomp grapes between her toes... All clichés she’d gathered from films and books about finding oneself in bella Italia.
With Bernard?
He had never liked her in a skirt—said a woman with her hips was better off in trousers. She’d been forever buttoning up her shirts for him when he’d said her cleavage made her look like a barmaid. Moreover, he wouldn’t have been able to restore anything—not with his dust allergy—and as for stomping grapes with his bare feet...well, she couldn’t actually remember a time when she had seen him without shoes and socks outside of bed. No, he did wear his socks to bed...
The thought depressed her so much Ava sat up a little straighter. Unexpectedly she thought of Gianluca Benedetti’s long, well-shaped feet, their smooth olive skin, the way her smaller feet had tangled with his in the white silk sheets.
No, no, no.
Grappling with the window, she wound it down and cool air hit her hot face.
She looked out into the busy morning traffic and told herself to do what her deadbeat dad, on the scant occasions she had spent with him as a small girl, had always told her to do when she asked why he didn’t live with them anymore and whether it was her fault: toughen up, not ask stupid questions and then she wouldn’t get a stupid answer.
Ava closed her eyes. No. No more stupid questions. The sooner she put mileage between herself and His Highness the better.
* * *
Safe in her hotel suite, Ava showered and, still slightly damp in her robe, began transferring her clothes into her suitcase, aware she had a scarce half hour before she was expected to be out of there. She was convinced she was doing the right thing. So why was her conscience niggling? Josh didn’t really want to see her. He didn’t need her. He’d made that plain enough seven years ago and followed it up with such limited contact she no longer phoned him even on his birthday, only sent cards.
Seven years ago in this very city she’d told him she thought he was making a mistake, marrying so young when he had his whole life before him. He in turn had told her the reason he’d fled Australia at the age of eighteen was to get out from under her thumb, and that he had no intention of taking her advice. Furthermore, she knew nothing about love, because the only thing she cared about was her bank balance. If she ever found a man who stuck around it would probably be for her money. She was going to end up rich, disappointed and alone.