I ignored his question. ‘I’m not a beautician. I’m a journalist.’
‘You’re doing a tolerable job of impersonating one, but you’ve got a long way to go yet.’
The cutlery on the table clattered as I stood up. The few remaining diners cast curious looks our way.
‘You’re an arrogant bastard,’ I spat. ‘All you’ve got to offer is your smug, smart-arse opinions—that is, when you’re not drinking or trying to pick up some woman or the other. You might want to learn how to act more in keeping with your profession.’
‘Says the girl who tried to bribe a Spanish government employee.’ He looked completely unperturbed by my outburst. ‘And what’s with the jealousy, beauty girl? I thought our little fling was well and truly in the past.’
I took a deep breath and sat down again. There was no point biting back at him. It only seemed to fuel his ridicule.
‘Tomorrow we go to Testaccio and we search the streets until we find him.’ The remaining slice of pizza stared back at me from my plate. ‘And that’s final.’
CHAPTER SIX
The electronic tone of a text message startled me awake at some unearthly time of the morning. At first I lay still, listening to the echo of the beep hanging in the air and wondering if I’d just imagined it. Then I reached for my phone and blinked, trying to clear the sleep fog from my vision. James’s name shone out from the screen and I was instantly awake and sitting up in the bed.
I miss you, baby. I need to talk to you.
For a long time, I sat there in the dark staring at the phone in my hand. After a while, goosebumps rose on my arms from the ceiling fan that swirled overhead, and I lay back and pulled the quilt up over my shoulders.
I had no idea what to do. My heart’s first reaction was joy, but my head wasn’t so sure. Part of me longed for things to go back to the way they were. But there was also a hard knot of rage lodged in my belly at what he’d put me through. How could I possibly go back to him after that? I’d taken control of my life, lived without him for months. And now one sweet message had me poised to forgive him.
I shouldn’t have done it. I knew it was a mistake even as I pressed the call button, but I couldn’t help myself.
‘Hey, baby,’ came his familiar voice down the line.
A wave of warmth flooded through me. It’s a good thing he was on the other side of the globe, because I would’ve been back in his arms in a second just from those two words.
‘Hey.’ My voice was weak.
‘How are you?’
This jolted me back to reality. ‘How am I? How do you think I am? You’ve been gone for three months, James!’
‘I know. I’m sorry.’
I took a deep breath. Attacking him wasn’t going to solve anything. ‘I’m not talking to you until you tell me why you left. You owe me an explanation.’
I heard him sigh. ‘I know I should have told you this earlier. I should have told you as soon as it happened. I lost my job.’
‘What? When the company went into liquidation you said you’d be safe. You said there’s no way they’d get rid of you.’
‘I didn’t think they would, but things were worse than I thought. I was in the second round of redundancies.’
The strain in his voice made me want to reach out to comfort him, but what he was saying still didn’t add up. ‘That explains why your salary stopped coming into our account… but surely the company should have given you a pay-out? Something to tide you over until you found something else?’
He paused. ‘They did.’
I tried to digest this information, tried to manipulate it into something that made sense, but there was only one conclusion I could come to. ‘So you lied to me, took the money and left me alone with a mortgage you knew I couldn’t afford.’
He didn’t speak straight away. ‘I’m sorry, Sare. I panicked. For the first time in my life I didn’t know what to do. I had to get away from… everything. Even you.’
‘There was no interstate project, was there? Were you even in Sydney at all?’
‘I did go to Sydney. I thought maybe the job prospects here would be better. But I’ve got some good news. I’ve got a new job back in Melbourne. I’m coming home next week.’
I couldn’t speak.
‘Sare?’ he said. ‘Are you OK?’
‘No. No, I’m not OK.’
‘I can’t stop thinking about you. I want to come home.’
I took a deep, shuddering breath. ‘I don’t think you understand what you’ve done, James. So you lost your job. That sucks, but instead of telling me about it and letting me be there for you like a normal couple, you dumped me. You let me believe it was all my fault, and then you ran off and wouldn’t even answer my calls. And now you want to come home?’
‘I’m sorry,’ James said again. ‘I was all messed up, I just had to sort myself out. Do you still love me?’
This question reached inside me and yanked out all my feelings in a medley of confusion. But did I really have to think about it? I missed him. I was angry, but I was also miserable without him. ‘Of course I do.’
‘I love you more than anything. Can I come home?’
I felt dizzy. This was all happening too fast. No way was I going to let him off that easily.
‘I need to think about this,’ I said. ‘I’m in Rome at the moment for work and I don’t know when I’ll be back. Can we talk when I get home?’
‘Rome?’ He sounded surprised. ‘Did you get a promotion or something?’
‘You could say that.’
‘That’s my girl.’
The quiet pride in his voice further weakened my
