“So complicated that you can’t mention their existence to the person you’re dating?” Cali asks. And I wonder, Am I dating G? It feels like less than that, and more, all at once.

I nod. There is no way to explain to them what I’m feeling without telling them all much more than I’m willing to. For one thing, I cannot bear to look at children who are the age that Ava would have been. And the sight of the youngest one—with his dark eyes and ruddy cheeks, so healthy and cheerful—has cut me to the quick. The fact that he belongs to G is too much. Then, it’s as though an alarm had been tripped and my mind rockets back to my missed period. But it’s been this late before, hasn’t it?

“I should end it,” I say woodenly, knowing as the words come out that I’m right but also that I won’t do any such thing.

Edward says, “That seems hasty.”

“Hey,” Cali says, “whose side are you on here?”

“Gianluca has had a difficult life. Much more so than he lets on; most people who know him have no idea what he’s been through.”

“Maybe Edward’s right. I can see you’re crazy about him,” Gemma adds.

Yes, I think, considering the lack of sleep and the way that G has expanded in my mind to captivate my every thought, crazy is exactly the word. And it’s not sustainable, but the idea of never being with him again makes me feel faint. And what if I am pregnant? What am I doing? Am I really so incapable of balance? Does everything have to be an obsession? Does everything have to be a drug?

“Edward,” I say. “What really happened in Saint-Tropez? Did he really kill someone?”

He lets out a long sigh. “It’s complicated. Her husband tried to attack her, he stepped in.”

“And you saw this with your own eyes?” Cali asks. “Or this is according to him?”

“I really don’t think,” Edward replies haughtily, “that the countess—whom I’d known for over a decade by the way—would have vouched for him if that hadn’t been the case. It was she who asked me to help him get back to Buenos Aires. Do you really believe,” he said, looking at me now, “that someone would lie about a thing like that?”

The After