I look away when he pulls her towards him and wraps his arms around her. My heart begins to ache, a feeling I have been best friends with for the last nine years. I stomp my foot on the pavement agitated and an animal wail emerges from my mouth. I am so freaking sick of loving him.
“Okay Olivia, they are about to put the fertility thing to the test. I have to stop Leah’s spawn from happening,” I sing this to myself while pulling my cell phone from my pocket. The call was going to cost me a fortune, but who cares right? You can’t put a price on love.
Dialing the De La Ville’s number, I stuff myself underneath the overhang of a perfume shop and wait impatiently until I hear the short burst of ringing.
“Buona Sera, De La Ville Inter-Continental. Non ci sono titoli che contengano la parola?” a female voice answers.
“Um…hi…do you speak English?”
“Si. How can I help you?”
“I am trying to reach a guest of your hotel. Mr. Caleb Drake—it’s urgent and I was wondering if you could page him immediately and have him return my call.” I hear her typing something into the computer.
“And your name?” Uh oh! What was his secretary’s name again? It rhymed with Pina Colada…
“Rena Vovada,” I breathe. “I’m calling from his office, tell him it’s important that he calls back right away. Thank you so much.” And I hang up before she has the chance to ask me anymore questions. With the task done, I scurry back into the rain where I have a view of their balcony. Caleb and Leah are still there. She is stubbing out her cigarette with one hand and allowing him to pull her back into the room with the other. I see his head jerk towards the inside of their suite and then their hands breaks lose as he disappears through the door. I imagine that I can hear the distant trill of their room phone.
Good. That would buy me at least a half an hour. Hopefully enough time to kill the mood. Satisfied, I head back to the Montecito Rio, the hotel I had booked myself into earlier. It wasn’t as flashy as the De La Ville, but it was charming nonetheless and I didn’t care a thing for Susan Sarandon.
My shoes are soaked and sloshing water when I traipse into the lobby. The girl behind the counter glares at me and picks up the phone to call maintenance.
“You are Miss Kaspen, no?” She calls after me as I head towards the elevators. I hesitate before turning around.
“Yes.”
“I have a message here for you,” she extends a piece of paper my way and I grip it gingerly between two of my driest fingers.
“From whom?” I was almost too scared to ask, but when she replies, “a Noah Stein,” I feel a calm wash over my anxiety. Noah, the complete stranger that I spilt my guts to, it was nice that he called. It made me feel like being in Rome was no big deal. I had friends here.
I take my note and my still dripping poncho up to my room and climb into the shower without bothering to read the message. Everything including my new buddy Noah was on hold until I was warm and dry.
When I finally emerge, I curl up on the miniscule bed and unfold the wet paper.
Dinner at eight
Tavernetta
You have to eat…
I smile. I did have to eat and why not with someone that I really liked. I pick up the phone and dial the cell number that Noah handed me in the airport before we parted.
“For emergencies only,” he said winking at me. “Don’t abuse my secret cell number.”
I hesitated only for a second before taking it. I was alone in Rome. I might need him.
“Noah, it’s Olivia,” I say into the receiver.
“I don’t want to talk to you unless you’re telling me that you’re coming.”
“I am,” I laugh.
“Good. The restaurant’s a little bit dressy, are you equipped?”
“Let’s see, I came here to convince the love of my life that he needs to be with me again…I have four “take me back and love me dresses.” Which one would you like?”
“The black one…”
“Okay,” I sigh. “I’ll see you at eight.”
I hang up feeling giddy with excitement. This was it. I was taking control of my life again. Tonight I would eat dinner and relax. Tomorrow I would find Caleb and tell him everything. The Cherry Tart had no idea what was coming. Hurricane Olivia was about to rip through Rome and stir things up.
As I get ready for dinner, I think about the last straw that broke our relationship. The way my heart pounded as I stood outside of Caleb’s office, knowing that the person I loved more than anything was betraying me at that very moment. I considered walking away, pretending that there was someone else in his office with the flirtatious girl. Then I thought of my father, and the way his cheating had hurt my mother more than the cancer ever could. I had to see. Not just him, but her. Who was the girl that had the power to break us apart?
The Past
This was going to be super bad. Hurtful. Life altering. The door slid open noiselessly, so noiselessly in fact that neither Caleb nor his collaborator knew that it was open and that there was a very stunned audience standing in its wake.
“Caleb,” I said in a dry voice, because at this point, the life was already sucked out of me.
Their two heads snapped apart and he took a jerky step back. I eyed the way her dress was hiked up her thigh with a sinking feeling in my stomach. This was reality—her, him, and my life falling apart. There was no way he could explain this away and there was no possibility of me believing him even if he tried.
I looked at his face. It was very, very pale.
“Caleb,” I said again. He looked so stunned I cringed. Sorry for being caught. His mouth opened and closed, but nothing came out. The girl looked smug. I wanted to scream Her? Why her?
“I loved you,” I said and that was the first time I had ever said it.
His face crumpled with emotion. How cruel was I to tell him something he’d been waiting for, in the moment of his faithlessness? It was a low blow but this was a fight and I was ready to go down swinging. The little trampette on the table looked at us in amusement.
“You must be Olivia,” she said, hopping down from the desk. I felt revolted at the fact that she knew my name. Did they talk about me? A framed picture of me was positioned near where she had been sitting. My face was witness to their carrying on. I didn’t look at her. I couldn’t. She left the room in a swishing of skirts, leaving two broken people to face each other.
“I never meant for this,” he said when the door clicked shut.
“To be caught? Or to be cheating?” I tried to control the tremor in my voice but it was useless.
“Olivia,” he pleaded taking a step towards me.
“No!” I held up my hand for him to stop. “Don’t you dare come near me. How could you? There is nothing worse that you could do to me. Just like my father,” I spat.
“Your father and I are nothing alike. You have used his sins as an excuse not to love for far too long.”
I couldn’t believe he said that. I loved people, I loved lots of people. I just didn’t tell them.
“You make me sick,” I said. “You could have just been a man about it and told me that you didn’t want me anymore.”
“I’ll always want you Olivia. It’s not about not wanting you, it was about wanting you too much and you not wanting me back!”