“Did you know the nursery was being done?” she asked Paolo over their evening screen time.
“Is it finished? Good.” He was signing papers as he spoke, giving her only half his attention.
“So you did know,” Lauren said.
“Did I not mention I’d asked Marie for a list of the best suppliers for baby furniture?”
“Because her husband had done all the research for safety standards. Yes, you said that, but you didn’t say you were going to buy everything on the list and have the room painted and everything. I thought I was going to do that.”
“You can’t paint.” He finally looked at her and even through the glass he could make her pulse trip. That made her even more quarrelsome.
“I could have decided the colors.”
“You don’t like them? I used the same decorator who did the lake house and you’ve said more than once you like what she’s done there.”
“That’s not the point,” Lauren said, feeling a buildup of familiar frustration. “Oh, forget it. Fighting long distance is a waste of time.”
“Something you know from experience?” he asked with a surprisingly icy edge on his tone.
It took her aback, making her retreat even further into herself.
“Fighting at all is a waste of time,” she said, trying for neutral but aware of something in her deflating. The legacy of a military wife: if this was the last time she would speak to him, did she want it to be in anger? No.
Then he would come home and she wouldn’t want to rock the boat with a fight then, either. Be a good girl, Lauren. Don’t make waves.
Her heart felt as though it would crack right open. This wasn’t the dream she had envisioned for herself! She hated that she was falling into the pattern of measuring her life by her husband’s comings and goings. Not that she didn’t spring to life when he walked in the door. Her body began tingling just knowing he was on his way home. By the time he arrived, they couldn’t get to the bed fast enough, barely speaking, insatiable. Then they’d laze about, saying nothing until she’d work up the courage to ask when he was leaving again because the only thing worse than knowing was not knowing.
A nameless tension would come between them at that point and would linger until he left again. She didn’t think he was cheating and the absences weren’t that long, usually only a few days, but she dreaded them. She felt so bereft. She didn’t even have to ensure his laundry was done or his toiletries were in order. He had residences all over the world and people who sent his suits for dry cleaning and recharged his shaver when necessary.
“I need a life,” she wailed to the empty kitchen one morning after he’d left. She could blame Paolo all she wanted for leaving her at a loose end, but the dissatisfaction and pining were not his doing. She’d married a man who didn’t love her and put herself right back into the position she’d been in when Mamie had died.
Lauren reflected on that. She had been on the brink of taking control of her life before Paolo had derailed her. Soon her baby would fill her days with diaper changes and feeding schedules and she’d be too tired to make love. Paolo’s sexual crush would cool to ambivalence and then what?
Her dream of a nuclear family would implode.
Swallowing back tears that seemed to be right under the surface these days, Lauren shook off her melancholy and reminded herself why she’d come to Italy: to find family.#p#分页标题#e#
Heartened by the thought of doing something strictly for herself, she dug back into the few clues she had to the man’s identity. A message left with one of her grandmother’s oldest friends resulted in a surprise invitation a few days later to meet for dinner. Since Paolo wasn’t due home for another day, Lauren accepted and began packing a bag.
* * *
Paolo was beginning to loathe business trips. At one time they had energized him, but now the slightest delay or oversight fouled his mood. Anything that created more time away from Milan grated on him.
His childhood of bouncing from country to country and school to school began to make sense. His father had spent months at a time building the bank’s reputation globally. Given how his father had felt about his mother, it was no wonder the whole family had been carted along. All those fresh starts that his father had sworn to Paolo would build character were explained: Gino hadn’t wanted to sleep alone.
Paolo hated it, too.
He could almost hear Ryan snickering at the depth of Paolo’s fall into domesticity. The irony wasn’t lost on him that Ryan had never exhibited the same eagerness to rush home to the exact same woman.