Eliana looked around for Ross through the throngs of tourists and frowned at their number. She had thought that being amid the crowds would somehow make it easier, but now she regretted choosing this place. Now she only wanted to be alone with him. She wanted to leave this city, this world, for his arms, even if just for a few minutes.

She found him standing in the back of the piazzale, in the northwest corner where the great, wide railing angled back toward the main street she had ascended. And then she saw nothing else: the towers, the lights, the centuries of labor and humanity’s cleverness blurred into insignificance against this one miracle. He was wearing a black body shirt. Her gold florin necklace was draped over the front of his shirt and was bright against its dark fabric.

The thought of what she had come to do sickened her.

Just then two attractive young Italian women stopped by him, spoke to him. From their body language she could see that they were flirting with Ross and she felt jealous. She wondered how it was that she felt entitled to jealousy. He wasn’t hers. He never would be.

The women smiled and laughed and Eliana hated them. Ross spoke back but shook his head, raised his hands in refusal. One of them wrote something on a card and handed it to Ross; then they left, laughing and chatting with one other. Ross watched them go then dropped the card over the side of the fence. He checked his watch again. He looked out over the plaza then back out over the city.

She was equally desirous to run to him and to run away from her horrible errand. Then the reality of her predicament, their predicament, flooded back into her mind and she slowly climbed out of her car, her legs and courage growing weaker as she neared him. When she was within twenty feet of him, he noticed her.

“Eliana. What happened?”

They embraced; then she buried her head in his chest as she began to cry. He wrapped his arms around her, one arm around her back, the other around her head, and held her tightly, crushing her hair between his fingers.

“Eliana?”

She could not speak but shook with her weeping. His instinct was to fix whatever was wrong—to make everything better. He put his hands on her face and gently tilted her head back until she looked into his eyes. “What happened?”

She was breathing heavily, trying to catch the breath lost from sobbing. When she spoke, her words were strained. “The night we were together. Maurizio was home. He waited for me all night.”

The weight of her statement fell on Ross. “Eliana, it’s okay. We’ll do just as we planned. We’ll go away. You and Alessio will have a new life.”

At this she began to cry. Unable to speak, she held him until she could continue. “Ross, I don’t know if I can say this.”