“Simone? Simone who? What’s going on?”

“The girl. The girl with Marcello, the first night I was here?”

“The pretty one?”

“Yes! Jesus, yes, the pretty one.”

“What about her?”

“He slept with her,” I said, sniffling.

“What?” she howled, loud enough that I held my hands over my ears.

“Okay, we both can’t be yelling.”

“Avery, I’m so sorry. I can’t fucking believe he’d do this. You guys seemed so solid. I’ll rip his fucking balls off! Did you see them? Good God, tell me you didn’t catch another man in the act, did you?”

“No, no, it’s not like that.” I angrily scrubbed the residual tears and makeup from my face. I carried on undeterred. I wanted her to be on my side for this. To see why I was angry. “They’re not together now. When I got here they were.”

“Well, yeah. We saw them.”

“That’s not the point! The point is, dammit, they definitely slept together.”

“Okay. Just hold on, I’m trying to figure this out. He’s been seeing you both at once? Or this wasn’t since you two got back together? Or it was? I’m so confused. You knew he was with her when you got here, right? I mean you saw them at dinner. Did I drink too much tonight?”

“Yes, they were together then and for a bit once Marcello and I started to . . . well, whatever we were doing, they were still spending time together,” I explained, waiting for her to get as pissed and hurt as I was.

“He was sleeping with her after he slept with you?”

“Maybe. Possibly. I don’t know. I think so? I didn’t really let him answer.”

As I heard the words coming out of my mouth, I began to see things a little differently. The more I thought about the timeline of the relationship and when we got together, the clearer a picture I got. It didn’t make the truth any less painful, but I was at least seeing his side.

And how poorly I’d reacted to it.

Daisy was silent, which was entirely unusual.

“Say it,” I said.

“You’re being a jackass.”

“Don’t sugarcoat it or anything.” I sighed, sitting on the chair with my head in my hands.

“Honey, that was sugarcoated. The version in my head had a lot more fucks strewn throughout my very poignant speech, but I’m drunk, and jackass seemed quicker.”

“I am a jackass.”

“You are. I love you, but you are.” She wiggled beside me on the chair, throwing her arm around my shoulder. “Lemme ask you something.”

I nodded, resting my head on her shoulder.

“Is this it for you?” she asked.

“Is what it for me?”

“Marcello—is he it for you? Seriously, can you look beyond what happened with them, and likely when it happened? Or are you ready to walk away?”

She asked it without judgment, and I knew that she’d support whatever I decided.

“I love him,” I said, without question or hesitation.

“Enough to overlook it? To move beyond it?”

“There’s nothing to overlook. Jesus, isn’t that funny?”

“What, what’s funny? What did I miss?” She was drunker than I thought.

“I didn’t even really consider the idea of forgiving Daniel, because I didn’t want to. I didn’t even want to hear his side of the story. But with Marcello . . .” I wiped away the tears that were falling. “I gotta go.”

“Okay,” she said, flopping back onto the chair, eyes closing.

“And, Daisy?”

“Hmm?”

“You’re the best.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” she said with grin. She was snoring by the time I closed the front door.

* * *

WHEN I GOT TO MARCELLO’S, the house was dark, save for the rooftop. There, I could see the garden lights aglow. I knocked this time, pushing the doorbell once. It wasn’t that I thought he wouldn’t let me back in. It was that I wanted him to open the door. I needed to see his face when he welcomed me in.

It took a minute, but he looked over the ledge to see me. Without a word, he disappeared, and a minute later, he opened the door. He exhaled when he saw me. A sense of relief washed over us both. Stepping forward, he scooped me up into his arms and held me tight, his face buried between my shoulder and neck.

He pulled me inside.

I let him.

* * *

ONCE INSIDE, HE STEERED ME toward the couch, disappearing briefly into the kitchen, coming back with a damp towel and a bottle of water. He sat down across from me, handing me the towel. “For your face,” he said.

My makeup, the tear tracks—what a mess I was. “Thanks,” I said, wiping it all away.

He was wired, muscles taut, but his eyes did me in. Regret.

“Marcello, I—I overreacted.” He held my hands, dropping a kiss to each when I let out a shuddery breath.

“Avery, when you showed up here, in Roma, out of nowhere, I had no idea what to do. I wanted to spend time with you, get to know you again, but—”

“You knew there’d be a chance of what happened in Spain, happening again,” I finished, sitting up a little straighter. “I get that. I don’t like it, but I understand. I realized something very important tonight. I didn’t want to forgive Daniel because I didn’t love him. Not anymore. And frankly, I never loved him the same way I loved, love, you. But you—oh, God, Marcello, you? Just one word from that woman, and I was destroyed. I felt like I was physically being torn apart. It’s not whether you were with her or not once you were with me, it’s that I love you that much, that it hurt that much—does that even make sense?” I pushed my hair back from my face, not wanting anything between us, not wanting to hide this at all from him, needing him to really hear me. “You’re it for me.”