LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER SIX

      MASSIMO LOCKED THE bathroom door. He didn’t trust Livia not to barge in.

      He’d expected her to follow him to the chalet. Every step had been taken with an ear braced for a fresh verbal assault.

      But the assault never came.

      He turned the shower on and closed his eyes to the hot water spraying over his head.

      Livia’s defiant yet stricken face played in his retinas.

      Guilt fisted his guts. He’d been cruel. The words had spilled out of him as if a snake had taken possession of his tongue.

      Being here…with Livia, with his family, seeing how close to death his grandfather really was…it was all too much.

      Hearing accusations of neglectful behaviour towards those he loved had driven like a knife in his heart.

      He’d done his best for his family. They might not see him as much as they would like but he made up for his lack of presence in other ways.

      And he’d done his best in his marriage. That his best did not live up to his wife’s exacting standards was not his fault. Neglect seemed to suggest that she was a child who needed taking care of when they both knew Livia was more than capable of taking care of herself. This was the woman who’d survived the Secondigliano without being seduced by its violent glamour. This was the woman who’d discovered an affinity for nursing when the local doctor the neighbourhood gangsters visited to fix their gangland wounds recognised her coolness under pressure when one of her cousins got shot in the leg. From the age of fourteen Livia had been paid a flat fee of fifty euros a time to assist the doctor whenever required. Like Massimo, she’d stashed it away. Unlike Massimo, who’d saved his money in a box in his bedroom, never having to worry about his family stealing it from him, she’d kept her cash in a waterproof container under the vase in her father’s grave. As she was the only mourner to place flowers on the grave, it was the only safe place she had for it.

      She’d refused to be sucked into a life of crime. The only vice she’d picked up in her years where drugs were cheap and plentiful was cigarette smoking, which she’d quit when she’d achieved the grades needed to study nursing in Rome and taken all her cash and left the life behind her. She was as tough as nails. To suggest she needed caring for was laughable.

      Finished showering, he rubbed his body with a towel then wrapped it around his waist. Bracing himself, he unlocked the door and stepped into the bedroom.

      He’d been right to brace himself. Livia was sitting on the end of the bed waiting for him. But the fury he expected to be met with was nowhere to be seen. Her eyes, when he met them, were sad. The smudge of mascara was still visible.

      After a moment’s silence that felt strangely melancholic, she said, ‘I don’t want it to be like this.’ It was the quietest he’d ever heard her speak.

      He ran a hand through his damp hair and grimaced. ‘I thought you wanted me to argue with you. Isn’t that what you’ve always said?’

      ‘Arguing’s healthy, but this…?’ Her shoulders and chest rose before slumping sharply, her gaze falling to the floor. ‘I don’t want us to be cruel to each other. I knew things would be difficult this weekend but…’ Her voice trailed away before she slowly raised her head to meet his gaze. There was a sheen in her eyes that made his heart clench. ‘This is much harder than I thought it would be.’

      Massimo pressed his back against the bathroom door and closed his eyes. ‘It’s harder than I thought it would be too.’

      ‘It is?’

      He nodded and ground his teeth together. ‘I shouldn’t have said the things I said. I’m sorry.’

      ‘I didn’t know you felt like that.’

      ‘I don’t.’ At her raised, disbelieving brow, he added, ‘Not in the way I said it.’

      ‘You made me sound like a fishwife.’

      His lips curved involuntarily at the glimmer of humour in her tone. ‘I was lashing out. Being with you…’ The fleeting smile faded away. ‘I can’t explain how it makes me feel.’

      ‘It just makes me feel sad,’ she admitted with a whisper. Then she rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands and took a deep breath. ‘When the time is right for us to file the divorce papers, I won’t be wanting a settlement.’

      ‘I didn’t mean it about fighting you. We can come to an—’

      Her head shook. ‘No. No settlement. You’ve given me enough money since we married. I’ve hardly spent any of it. I’ve enough to buy an apartment—’

      ‘You were going to buy one when you went back to Rome,’ he interrupted. ‘You were supposed to let my lawyer know when you’d found somewhere.’ He’d informed his lawyer and accountant that Livia would be purchasing a home in Italy in her sole name and that funds should be made available to her when she got in touch with them about it, no questions asked. He didn’t care what she spent.

      He’d specifically told them to go ahead without notifying him. He hadn’t wanted to know when she’d made that last, permanent move out of his life for reasons he couldn’t explain, not even to himself.

      Massimo ran his eyes over his finances once a year when it was tax season and that was for scrutiny purposes. He would have noticed then, he supposed, that she hadn’t bought herself a home.

      ‘I’ve been renting my old place.’ Actually buying herself a home of her own had felt too final, Livia realised. It would have been the ultimate confirmation that their marriage was over for good.

      Had she been living in denial? And if so, what had she been holding out for? Miracles didn’t exist. The cruel truth was that she and Massimo were wholly incompatible and she’d been a fool for believing differently. She’d known it when she’d left. It hadn’t stopped her heart skipping every time her phone had buzzed only to plummet when his name didn’t flash on the screen. It hadn’t flashed once since their separation.

      ‘Once everything’s out in the open, I’m going to go back to nursing,’ she added, fighting back a well of tears. To cry in front of him would be the final indignity.

      He rested his head back against the bathroom door with a sigh. ‘You don’t need to work, Liv.’

      The simple shortening of her name…oh, but it made her heart ache. Massimo was the only person in the world who’d ever shortened her name. And then he’d stopped calling her Liv and started calling her Livia like everyone else. And then he’d stopped calling her anything.

      Blinking away the tears that were still desperately trying to unleash, she sniffed delicately and gave a jerky nod. ‘I need a sense of purpose. I like knowing the money in my pocket is earned by my own endeavours. I never wanted to be a kept woman.’

      His throat moved before he gave his own nod. ‘At least let me buy you a home like we agreed I would. The law entitles you to much more.’

      And he would give it, everything the law said she was entitled to and more. If only he were as generous with his time as he

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