I opened my journal and tried to write it all down. Everything except my feelings. How can you put a broken heart on to a piece of paper? The full enormity of what had happened hadn’t completely engulfed me yet, but I knew that it would, soon enough. Never to see him again. Never to hold him in my arms and have him look up at me with that sweet smile and say, “Mama.” How would I bear it? And yet I had no choice.

After I have recorded this, I will close my journal. How could I ever write in it again when there was so much that would give me pain? I opened my desk, removed the drawers, slid back the panel, took the little key and accessed the secret drawer to hide the journal away. There it will stay for now, and I won’t be tempted to read of happier times.

CHAPTER 42

CHAPTER 42

Caroline, Venice, October 20, 2001

She should be going home, Caroline kept telling herself. That incident with Luca had been madness, a way of wanting to get back at Josh, to remind herself that she was still desirable.

It meant nothing, she repeated to herself, but she couldn’t deny her attraction to Luca. Not that she believed he was equally attracted to her, although he had somehow found time to visit every day for the past week and invited her out to his penthouse on the Lido—“where I have plenty of good wine that is not ‘plonk’ and a bed that is not quite as narrow and uncomfortable as this one!” And he had laughed.

“Luca,” she had replied, annoyed with herself for blushing, “this is crazy. We hardly know each other. I’m not the sort of woman who jumps into bed with any man she meets.”

“Of course you are not, Cara,” he replied. “But we are both grown up with no ties, and I like you, and I can tell you like me. So why not? You are not even a Catholic. You won’t have to go to confession like me.”

“You still do that?”

“Of course. One has to. But don’t worry. We have a tame priest who gives really light penances.” He laughed. “There is a lot you will have to learn about the Venetian way of life. And I shall be happy to instruct you.”

She told herself that she should have felt guilty and was surprised that she didn’t. I’m a grown woman, she thought. Twenty-seven years old and unattached. What is wrong with a relationship with a man who is also unattached? And the comment about instructing her on the Venetian way of life. Didn’t that imply he wanted her to stick around—that he saw some kind of future together?