Love Like Ours

by Sophie Love

  Typical that she’d worry about the villain of the story.

  “He’s fine. I talked him out of pressing charges.” It was more like blackmail but Mallory didn’t need to know that. Keira continued. “I was furious at first. But then I spoke it through with Maxine. But then Cristiano wasn’t answering my calls so I spoke to his sister and she told me he was at the train station. When I got here…” Her voice croaked at the memory. “I told him if he left it was over. And he left.”

  “You gave him an ultimatum,” Mallory said sadly. “He was hardly going to back down then after that. It would have wounded his pride.”

  Keira had come to this conclusion herself, but it didn’t make it any better. She’d driven him away with her snap temper rather than letting him cool down and come back to her.

  “But he’ll come around in his own time,” Mallory added.

  “I don’t think he will,” Keira said, sadly.

  “But he loves you so much,” Mallory contested. “Anyone could see it in his eyes.”

  “Bryn doesn’t seem to think so.”

  “Oh what does Bryn know?” Mallory replied.

  In spite of her sadness, Keira smirked. Bryn did have a reputation of having little to know commonsense when it came to matters of the heart. She ought never to listen to her sister, or let her put doubt in her mind about anything!

  “So you think I should wait it out?” Keira asked.

  “You have work to do, don’t you?” Mallory replied. “Just focus on that. He’ll come back. I’m sure of it.”

  Keira appreciate her mom’s vote of confidence, though she herself could not be so sure.

  “But what if he doesn’t?” she asked glumly. “Am I supposed to just wallow around in Paris waiting for him? And what about the article? What a crappy conclusion! Turns out love can’t last in a land foreign to us both. No one will want to read that outcome.” She groaned loudly, frustrated with herself. “I should never have taken this assignment. I was playing Russian Roulette with my relationship. I knew straight away it was a bad idea but I let Elliot talk me round. I’m such an idiot!”

  “Darling, hush,” Mallory said soothingly. “You’re far from an idiot. You were given an opportunity, and like the fearless person you are, you took it. If you hadn’t, you’d still be in Bryn’s apartment getting angry about the state of the place and lack of privacy.”

  “At least I’d be home for Thanksgiving,” Keira added, remembering that particular extra sting to the whole trip. She’d now be spending it alone. “Maybe I should just come home.”

  “You know I’d always have you back with open arms,” Mallory began. Keira sensed there was a but coming. “But I think you’d be disappointed in yourself if you did. Keira, you’re stronger than you realize. More independent than you accept. You don’t need Cristiano there.” She paused for a breath. “Why don’t you just focus on getting your article finished? You can come home as soon as it’s done. You can speak to Cristiano on the phone once you’re home and everyone’s calmed down.”

  Keira nodded. Her mom’s plan was probably the more rational way of dealing with things. She didn’t always give the best advice but this time she’d really come through.

  “If I finish it in time for Thanksgiving, can I still come over to yours?” Keira asked meekly.

  “Darling, you don’t even have to ask,” Mallory replied.

  Keira felt greatly comforted. “I love you, mom.”

  “I love you too. Let me know how it all goes, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  She ended the call and stared down at her tear stained article. She wasn’t sure if she could get it done in such a short space of time but the draw of home was strong, the promise of Thanksgiving with her family a motivator. She’d much prefer to be with them in her unglamorous house than alone here.

  But before she could begin writing again, Keira’s phone started to ring again. This time it was Viatorum. Now was about the worst time they’d could have chosen to get in touch. She was feeling tender, and more than a little angry with them for putting her through this kind of strain. But they were still her employers so she answered the call.

  It was Nina on the other end of the line.

  “Keira, I have some great news!”

  “You do?” Keira asked.

  She got the distinct impression that whatever good news Nina had would be good news for Viatorum rather than Keira herself.

  “You made the cover!” Nina cried.

  “Huh?” Keira asked, confused.

  “The cover shoot we did with Stella. It looked so much better than the version posed with the models. Our sample group much prefered it.”

  Keira suddenly remembered the awkward image of her and Cristiano posing on the rooftops of a prop Paris. She’d hated those pictures even though they’d been deeply in love in them. Now, she’d just hate them even more.

  “Do I get a say in this?” Keira asked.

  She heard Nina sigh. “Maybe I should explain that you’ll get paid extra for the modelling.”

  “It’s not about the money,” Keira said, although she couldn’t help but think that any extra money would be very helpful in her getting a new apartment, considering Zach was withholding the deposit.

  “Then what is it?” Nina asked.

  In her mind, Keira could see her folding her arms, looking like a frustrated school teacher. She prefered to think of Nina as her equal, despite the age difference. But Nina was acting like a superior right now.

  “I think it’s over,” Keira told her. “Between me and Cristiano.”

  “Even better!” Nina cried.

  “What?” Keira gasped, disgusted with her response. “How is that better?”

  Nina began backtracking. “Oh, I’m sorry I’m wearing my editor hat. Of course I’m very sad for you. But the article will be amazing.”

  Keira spoke back through her teeth. “I’m not really thinking about the article right now. My heart is basically breaking. It’s very distracting.” Her voice oozed sarcasm.

  “Sorry,” Nina sighed, sounding like she was anything but. “I was insensitive. But, just, write what’s going on. Think of it as therapy.”

  “Therapy?” Keira repeated, nonplussed.

  She heard Nina sigh again. “Look, I’m sending you the photo now. Check it out. Let me know what you think.”

  Keira’s phone dinged with the incoming message. She moved it away from her ear and opened up the image from Nina. Her screen was filled with the sight of Keira in her flowing lace dress, and Cristiano gazing up with adoration into her eyes. The previously blank background had been filled in with the Paris skyline. The sky was a beautiful, clear blue and the sun was shining.

  “It’s rained every day,” Keira said, putting the phone back to her ear.

  “What?”

  “It’s rained. It’s not sunny,” she repeated.

  “So?”

  “So your cover doesn’t match my article.” She thought, bitterly, that Cristiano’s look of love was also now gone.

  “You want the sky changed?” Nina asked, sighing loudly, like this was all extremely inconvenient.

  Her attitude was making Keira more and more frustrated. She wasn’t being tactless, but callous. From the very beginning, she and Elliot had lost sight of Keira in this whole thing. They’d turned her into a experiment, a circus freak act. She’d let them ruin the best thing going for her.

  “Actually, I want the article pulled,” Keira said. “I’m not writing it.”

  The stubborn part of her that had driven Cristiano to Italy was rearing its head again.

  “Keira…” Nina began, as if she was dealing with a temperamental toddler.

  “Nope. I’m not having it. You guys are treating me like dirt. I thought we were friends. Maybe not Elliot, I’d expect it from him, but you Nina. You’ve turned my relationship into a game and it’s not.”

  Keira must have finally gotten through to Nina, because for the first time since the conv
ersation began, her tone was different.

  “Keira, I’m sorry,” Nina said. “But there’s nothing I can do about this now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s already gone to press. Elliot signed off on it earlier. It’s already a done deal.”

  Keira couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “So you were never actually going to give me the option?” she stammered. “You just bulldozed ahead with it!”

  Her emotions raged inside of her, she was mortified, embarrassed, and hurt.

  “I didn’t realize it would be such a big deal for you,” Nina said.

  “No. Because you didn’t listen to me when I told you I didn’t want to do it in the first place! You haven’t been listening to me for weeks!” She was shaking with rage. “Nina, I’ve had enough. Two heartbreaks. I can’t take anymore. I quit.”

  “Keira…” Nina began.

  But Keira wasn’t prepared to listen anymore. She didn’t want to be pushed and pulled around anymore, having her own needs ignored and trampled on by others. She was done. With Viatorum. With Paris. With it all.

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  Cristiano’s train pulled into the station at Florence. It had been a long, long journey, and his unhappiness had not reduced even slightly. Every time he saw Keira’s name flash up on his cell phone, the pain had been ignited anew.

  He stepped off the train, his limbs stiff and muscles aching. It was warmer here than Paris, and there was no rain for the first time in days.

  Cristiano finished the final leg of his journey on foot, climbing the hillsides up to his parents villa. He opened the door and went inside.

  “Is that him?” he heard his mother’s voice say from a distance.

  It felt strange to hear his own language again. Comforting. Soothing, even.

  A face appeared around the wall partition that separated the corridor and living space. It was Pippa, the younger sister he adored.

  “It’s him,” she called back over her shoulder. Then she walked towards him, her arms open.

  Cristiano fell into her, letting his tears fall. He’d been holding them in all day, during the long, long train ride from Paris, but now he was safe and could let them out.

  “What happened?” she asked gently.

  “I messed up,” he said.

  He saw his mother then, standing with her shoulder against the wall, looking at her son with tender, sorrow filled eyes.

  “Let’s have some wine,” she said, reaching for his hand.

  Feeling like a little child, Cristiano took it and allowed her to guide him into the kitchen. He took a stool. Pippa sat opposite whilst his mother went to the fridge to fetch a fresh bottle of wine. She poured him a glass, and handed it across the island to him. Cristiano took it, not meeting her eyes.

  “Whatever you’ve done, it cannot be as bad as you think,” she told him.

  He showed her his hand then, swollen from where it had connected with Zach’s face. The journey had been long enough to allow the bruising to come through, in angry shades of purple and black.

  Pippa winced and leapt up immediately to fetch some ice.

  “What happened?” his mother sighed, holding his damaged hand tenderly.

  “My jealousy,” Cristiano replied with shame, shaking his head.

  Pippa returned with some frozen peas wrapped in a dish cloth. She held it to his hand, making him grimace with pain.

  “You hit Zach, didn’t you?” she said.

  He frowned. “How did you guess?”

  She gave him a look, equal parts guilt and anger. “Because I’ve been speaking to Keira.”

  Cristiano jerked back then, his expression transforming into a glower. “What? Why?”

  “Because she called me,” Pippa replied. “In a state. Wondering where you were.”

  “You left her alone in Paris?” Sabrina scolded.

  “I had to,” Cristiano replied. “It was all falling apart. Two exes in as many days. I couldn’t cope.”

  “She doesn’t love them,” Pippa told him.

  “I’m not so sure about that,” he replied. “Zachary, no, she clearly hates him although he’s bound up more in her life. They have mutual friends and all that stuff with the apartment to sort out. But Shane. She’s not over him. I know she’s not. I knew she wasn’t when we got together but I thought I could deal with it. Turns out, I can’t.” He looked wryly at his damaged hand. “You should have seen the look on her face when I hit him. It was like I’d shattered her perception of me entirely. Like I’d turned into someone else in front of her very eyes.” He looked at his mom and sister. “I’m not a monster am I?”

  They both shook their head.

  “Your temper flared, that’s all,” Sabrina said, soothingly. “It’s what happens when we love someone.”

  “Love. Huh,” Cristiano grunted. “I love her enough to punch some guy in the face. But she doesn’t love me. Not really.”

  “I think you’re wrong,” Pippa said.

  “Why? Did she tell you in one of your chats?” His voice sounded bitter.

  “Don’t act like I betrayed you,” Pippa said. “I care for Keira too. I want her to be my sister in law one day.”

  “Well tough. That’s not going to happen. She gave me a choice and I walked away and now it’s done and over.”

  Sabrina shook her head. “You are both clearly very emotional right now. Things will look different in a few days time. Why don’t you spend some time here relaxing, thinking things through. Then call her and see where her head is at. It won’t be as bad as you think it is. We all say things in the heat of the moment that we don’t really mean.”

  Pippa laughed then. “I told Raff just last night that I’d never met a man so stupid as him. Of course it’s not true, and by breakfast we were laughing about it.”

  Sabrina grinned. “I tell your father he’s the meanest person I know on a regular basis. I say things to him like, ‘I am the mother of your children! How dare you!’” She giggled. “It’s just what happens with couples when they fight. You wouldn’t know because you and Keira have never fought yet.”

  Cristiano couldn’t help but feel a little comforted by their words. “But it is different for you both. You’re married, committed. You know that no matter what is said you love each other unconditionally. Keira and I haven’t committed. Everything is very fluid with us. Where we live, what country, when, nothing seems very stable.”

  Pippa reached out and rubbed his arm tenderly. “She came to find you in the station, didn’t she? Doesn’t that count for anything?”

  “And you’d make her your wife,” Sabrina replied. “You know you would if you didn’t think she’d run a mile when you asked.”

  He shook his head then, smiling shyly. It was true. He adored Keira. The thought of her ultimatum just being something she’d said in the heat of the moment hadn’t occurred to him before, but thinking now that she might not have really meant it filled him with hope.

  “Do you really think she’ll want to speak to me if I called?”

  Pippa rolled her eyes. “Oh my goodness, Cristiano. Yes! How many missed calls do you have from her? She obviously wants to speak.”

  Cristiano felt foolish then. He’d just thought she was calling to give him an earful. It was what Maria would do when they argued. Call him and shout insults at him. He’d avoided Keira’s calls because he couldn’t bear the thought of such angry words coming from her mouth. Had she really been trying to call him to patch things up?

  He reached for his cellphone. But his pockets were empty.

  “It must be in my jacket,” he said, standing to go to the door and fetch it.

  “What jacket?” Pippa asked. “You weren’t wearing one.”

  Cristiano was hit by a sudden realization. He’d left his jacket on the train. It had been so much warmer as they’d come into Italy that he’d taken it off, then completely forgotten to collect it.

  “Oh no!” he cried. “Can I borrow your phone
Pippa? You have Keira’s number don’t you?”

  She pulled an anguished face. “I lent it to Raff before I came over. His is broken.”

  “Can we ask him to bring it over?”

  Her expression grew more anguished. “He’s gone to see his family.”

  “Then let me call him and get him to send me the number.”

  “Cristiano,” Pippa said, stopping him in his sudden flurry of panic. “He’s driving right now. He won’t answer. Just calm down. We’ll call him in a couple of hours when he’s arrived, okay?”

  “A couple of hours is too long!” Cristiano cried. “I’ve already wasted half the day on the train. Keira might have decided to leave Paris already. I need to get her to stay and wait for me.”

  Sabrina sighed loudly and shook her head. “Honestly, Cristiano, you do make life more difficult for yourself don’t you? All this drama, the two-ing and fro-ing.”

  “I wouldn’t be your son if I wasn’t dramatic,” Cristiano shot back.

  Sabrina smirked cheekily. “Touche.”

  “Why don’t you call the rail company?” Pippa suggested. “Someone may have handed your jacket into lost property.”

  “Good idea,” Cristiano replied.

  He rushed out the kitchen and grabbed the landline phone from its place in the hallway. He called the train company and described his lost jacket to them. It was the one he’d bought in New York City. It reminded him of Keira. Losing it was worse, sentimentally speaking, than losing his phone was.

  “I’m sorry,” the operator told him. “We’ve not had anything matching that description handed in. Or the phone. You should speak to your phone provider and get them to disconnect your line in case someone’s using it to call Australia or something.”

  “Thanks,” Cristiano replied tersely.

  He hung up and called his phone provider and explained the situation. They explained that they’d locked his phone for security reasons. So now Keira wasn’t even able to call his number! She’d think he’d disconnected his line to cut her out. This was getting worse and worse.

  He hurried back into the kitchen, and kissed Sabrina and Pippa in turn.

  “I have to go,” he said. “I have to get back to Paris before Keira leaves.”