Unbroken, page 7
Naomi closed the message and sank face-first into her pillow. Texting was a horrible means of communication. Did Jesse want to meet with her again? He said he did, but how badly? Maybe it didn’t matter. His work was clearly far more important than anything else in his life, and she was okay with that. Work was her priority too.
Rolling onto her side, she stared out the window overlooking a piece of the Berlin skyline. It was still dark, and the multi-colored lights of the city twinkled through a thin film of haze. Naomi stared at the lights and thought of her parents and how work ruled their lives to an almost unhealthy degree. But somewhere in all of that they’d managed to keep their marriage strong. Naomi didn’t have a marriage to keep strong. She hadn’t even been on a date since moving to Italy.
Closing her eyes, she held her phone in one hand and pulled the covers over her head. She had half an hour before she had to get up—half an hour to think about Jesse and whether or not she wanted him back in her life.
X
March
“My driver’s license or my passport?” Naomi asked a uniformed man when he requested her ID.
“If you’re a US citizen, then your driver’s license, please.”
Naomi handed it over and waited as the man ran it through their system. It had taken three months for the prison system to clear her visitation request, which probably meant they’d done a background check on her and knew more about her than she knew about herself. Her mother had been irritated that it had taken so long, but Naomi hadn’t minded. It meant she could put off the inevitable that much longer.
But Eric had agreed to see her, and there was no backing out now. For all she knew, he hated her guts and still wanted to kill her. Despite her concerns, the Assistant Warden had talked her into a conventional visit instead of a non-contact visit. “If the purpose of your visit is to gain some closure, feeling separated from him won’t help,” he had explained to her. “Don’t worry, we’ll have someone there to supervise. You won’t be in any danger.”
Naomi was still worried. She looked down at herself one more time to make sure her clothes met the prison regulations: nothing see-through, nothing shorter than her knees, no khaki or camouflage patterns, nothing form-fitting, nothing sleeveless. The list had gone on and on. Finally, she had decided on a pair of loose black trousers and a rose-colored blouse.
“Read and sign these,” an officer told her once she was cleared and entered another room. “Leave your bag in a designated locker, please. Pass through the metal detectors, please. Wait here, please.”
Finally, she was led to a cafeteria-like room where a female guard walked her to an empty table in the corner. Most of the other tables were occupied by prisoners in khaki pants and button-down shirts sitting opposite their visitors. Some of the visitors held children on their laps. Others stretched an arm across the table to hold hands with the inmate they had come to visit. Nobody looked particularly happy.
“He’ll be here in a moment,” the female guard said, and walked away.
Naomi shifted in her chair and folded her arms. She was exhausted from jet-lag and found herself gazing out a set of windows at an outdoor dining area. It was still winter, and little piles of snow covered the tables.
“Hello, Naomi.”
Naomi snapped her attention to Eric, now standing on the opposite side of the table. He slid out the chair and sat down as the tough-looking guard who had escorted him in took a few steps back and politely averted his gaze to an invisible spot in the distance.
Naomi leaned as far back in her chair as possible. Eric looked much the same as she remembered him. His carefully combed hair was still short and so dark it was almost black. His sideburns were still long and neatly trimmed. His biceps were still toned, and his eyes were still an awful, fierce brown that sliced right through her.
Aside from a general weariness in his eyes and some deeper wrinkles in his face, over thirteen years of prison hadn’t changed him at all.
Suppressing a shudder, Naomi kept her arms folded across her middle. “Hi,” she answered shyly, upset with herself for feeling small next to him, as if she was still the scared seventeen-year-old he had kidnapped fifteen years ago. It didn’t matter that he was in ugly khaki prison clothes and a guard stood nearby.
He was still Eric.
“So,” he said cockily, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the table, “what would you like to talk about?”
For some reason Naomi had expected him to be handcuffed, but nobody in the room was handcuffed, she realized. Her table, however, was the only one with a designated guard standing by.
She met his eyes, disturbed that he wasn’t fazed, and even more disturbed that he seemed amused by her presence. She blinked. “Thank you for agreeing to see me,” she said in a carefully controlled voice.
He smiled smugly. “I’ve been expecting it for a while now. Evelyn wrote to me and said she met you in Italy. You’re living there now.”
Unfolding her arms, Naomi reminded herself of everything she had accomplished since escaping this man. She was happy. She had gained closure with Steve and Evelyn, and even with Jesse. Eric was the final missing piece in the puzzle of her past. She had to find the courage to speak to him candidly, no matter how he acted.
“I’ve moved to Italy, yes,” she confirmed. “I’m managing a restaurant there.” She folded and unfolded her arms, irritated by her irrepressible anxiety.
Eric’s smug smile dropped into a frown. His eyes narrowed. “How nice for you. My days aren’t nearly as exciting as yours must be.”
Naomi felt a string of anger coiling up inside her at Eric’s bitterness. She remembered Steve saying prison had been hard on Eric, but looking at him now he seemed just fine. Cocky. Arrogant. Bored. She had expected him to be downtrodden and humbled, but of course he wouldn’t be. He was Eric.
She leaned forward a fraction of an inch, her heart pounding as Eric continued to frown at her. She knew she wasn’t the reason he was here—he had brought it upon himself—but she still felt an immense amount of guilt pressing down on her. It battled with her anger, and for a moment she wasn’t sure if she could keep talking to him. The room seemed small all of a sudden. She couldn’t breathe.
Eric watched her carefully, his frown slowly upturning as amusement sparked again in his eyes. “Why did you come here?” he asked. “Did you come to gloat? To see if I’ve reformed? Well, I haven’t.” He leaned over the table, his fingers curling around the edge as his half-smile turned into a sneer. “Nobody’s waiting for me to get out of here,” he hissed at her. “I have nothing left. No career, no plans, hardly anything to my name. I’ve lost everything because of you.”
The battle inside Naomi raged hotter, her guilt growing stronger by the second. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, and looked down at her lap. “I’m sorry you’re in here, but you’re wrong about why I came to see you.”
Eric let out a snort of disgust, and Naomi lifted her eyes to him once again. Every time she looked at him it was as if she was traveling back in time—as if it was only yesterday that he’d smacked her head on the tiles in the entryway and demanded to know why she was trying to get away. He had been hurt that she didn’t want to stay with him and the others. His pride simply couldn’t handle her rejection.
“Oh, I’m wrong, am I?” He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. “Do enlighten me.”
Naomi’s anger took a fierce bite out of her guilt, and she clenched her hands into fists. “I came here to face you,” she said. “I’ve tried so hard to forget how you controlled me, but the more I’ve tried, the deeper the hole gets. During the trial, I learned how much you knew exactly what you were doing—how you played on my parents’ neglect and my boyfriend’s abuse, how you used your own sister to make me feel safe, how you manipulated Jesse into molding me into what you wanted.”
Eric’s scowl deepened. “Why are you reciting all of this to me?” he snapped, his voice shaking with anger. “We were both in the courtroom. Do you think I’ve forgotten what happened there? Do you think I’ve forgotten how every person I have ever trusted has betrayed me?”
Naomi furrowed her brow, confused. “Evelyn never betrayed you.”
Eric looked out the window and shook his head. “She writes to me out of obligation,” he muttered, “but I can tell our relationship will never be the same. She treats me now like she used to treat our father when he was in prison. The trial opened her eyes to the truth, and now she’s gone just like everyone else.”
The guilt and anger inside Naomi backed down to make room for something far more powerful. Her shoulders slumped under a heavy cloud of sorrow. “What truth?” she asked softly.
Eric’s eyes hardened. “The truth you always saw, Naomi—the monster I have always been.”
The cloud of sorrow grew so thick it was almost smothering. “You’re not a monster,” she whispered. “I don’t believe that of anyone. If you really feel that way about yourself, you can choose to change.”
Eric snorted, the muscles in his forearms flexing as he restrained what looked like a sudden urge to lean across the table and hit her in the face. She held her ground and kept her eyes on his as he said in a deep, gravelly voice, “I don’t want to change, Naomi. If I could go back in time to that night in the parking lot, I would shove you into the trunk of the car, and then I would shoot you in the head and dump your body somewhere nobody would ever find you.”
Naomi’s mouth dropped open and she glanced up at the guard. He didn’t seem to be listening, or if he was, Eric’s tone wasn’t threatening enough to warrant interference.
“And if Jesse tried to stop me,” Eric continued, “I would shoot him too. I was too soft back then. I listened to Evelyn, and then I listened to Steve, and I was too damn soft. If I had killed you, I wouldn’t be here. They all loved you, Naomi, and I let myself start to care for you because of it. See where that got me?” He gestured around the room filled with convicts and their visitors. “It put me in hell,” he growled.
The guilt inside Naomi raged again. It roiled and surged and pierced right into her heart. She squeezed back some tears and bit her bottom lip to stop it from trembling. She should have known it would be like this. She should have prepared herself better for this confrontation. Of course Eric would try to make her feel guilty in order to soothe his own pride.
But now that she was facing him again, she could finally look on him as the fallible human being he was, and not the monster inside her head.
It was time to end this for good.
Pushing down her guilt, she hardened her stare. “I didn’t fly all the way from Italy to hear you blame me for your mistakes,” she said firmly. “I am sorry things turned out this way, and I’m even sorrier you feel like you’ve lost your sister. If it’s any consolation, I don’t think you have. If you reach out to her, I’m pretty sure she’ll reach back. You’re pushing too many assumptions on everyone, including yourself.” She leaned forward, her eyes boring into his as her resolve swallowed her guilt whole. She was done being the victim. “But it’s up to you if you’re miserable, so don’t you dare sit here and blame me for where you are. I’m not the scared little teenager you kidnapped all those years ago. I’ve grown up, and I’ll be damned if I let you rule my life one second longer.” She stood and glared down at his stunned but icy expression. “Goodbye, Eric.”
She walked out of the room and didn’t look back.
XI
April
Gianni put a spoonful of Naomi’s arrabbiata sauce into his mouth and closed his eyes. A full thirty seconds passed before he swallowed.
“This is excellent,” he said, opening his eyes. “The heat is at a perfect level and comes at exactly the right moment. I’m not sure how you did it. I’ve come close, but not this close.”
Naomi couldn’t wipe the grin off her face. “The best thing is that I’ve been able to duplicate it several times,” she sighed happily. “Do you think it’s ready for the menu?”
Gianni laughed. “You must discuss that with Cecily. We wouldn’t want to steal her thunder. That stracciatella she’s been working on is close enough to compete with your sauce.” He narrowed his eyes dramatically and leaned close to Naomi’s face. “You should probably be focusing more on the restaurant’s current fire code issues than the menu, my dear.”
Naomi groaned and started untying her apron. “I know, I know. I’ll go look over the last report and figure out exactly where we went wrong last time. It’ll be perfect when the fire marshal comes back, don’t worry.”
Gianni smiled. He had recently cut his white hair shorter than normal, and Naomi missed the wild, iconic wings usually hovering over his ears. “Your happiness makes me happy,” he said, his eyes glowing with warm regard. “Ever since your trip to the States, your energy has doubled. You smile so much more often.”
Naomi folded her apron and draped it over her arm as they both walked out of the empty kitchen. “You were right all along,” she sighed as they headed toward her office. “I had to face each of them on my own, in person.”
Gianni paused in front of her office door. “And what about Jesse?” he asked, his dark gray eyebrows rising high up on his forehead. “Nothing has happened there? You still haven’t called him?”
Naomi shrugged, regretting once again that she had told Gianni all about her meeting with Jesse in Berlin, including how much she admired what he had done with his life. She had told her father too, and he’d simply smiled and said he was happy she held no more negative feelings for the man.
Gianni, on the other hand, kept urging her to invite Jesse to Italy. “He sounds like a strong, determined man with a kind heart,” he had said to Naomi. “You don’t find those everywhere. Too many men are lazy and inconsiderate.”
Now, standing in the restaurant hallway, he looked at her expectantly as he waited for her answer.
“I don’t know if I should,” she said. “Too many things have happened between us. It’s beyond complicated.” She put a hand on Gianni’s arm. “I promise I’ll call him if it feels like the right thing to do. I don’t want to make him feel obligated to fly all the way down here just to talk about the past for a few hours. We could do that over the phone.”
Gianni shrugged. “If you could do it over the phone, you would have done it by now.” He took hold of her hand, squeezed, and then turned and left.
When he was gone, Naomi leaned against the door, her heart aching at the thought of Jesse. She remembered him in the plaza, his breaths misting in the cold air as he spoke to her. He had been on her mind for months now, but every time she pulled out her phone to call him, she stopped. He could have called her, and he hadn’t. He could have tracked her down anytime over the years since his release, and he hadn’t. If he’d wanted anything outside of closure, she was sure something would have happened by now.
She rested the back of her head against the door and sucked in a deep breath through her nose. Perhaps she was thinking about this the wrong way. She couldn’t sit back and let Jesse make all the choices for her. Ambivalence and inaction had always been her greatest weaknesses when it came to her personal relationships.
“Fine,” she said aloud as she pulled out her phone. She dialed Jesse’s number and then realized on the third ring that it was eleven-thirty at night. Cursing softly, she pulled her phone away from her ear and was about to end the call when she heard him answer.
“Naomi, is that you?”
She put the phone back to her ear. “Yes, I’m so sorry. I wasn’t thinking about the time. Did I wake you?”
There was a smile in his voice, but he sounded hesitant at the same time. “No, actually, I’m on my way home from a late meeting. It’s good to hear from you. How are you?”
Her eyes widened in surprise. She had expected a comment about how long it had taken her to call him, or maybe even an apology that he hadn’t called her, but it was if they had just seen each other yesterday.
“I’m … I’m good,” she stuttered, turning around to open her office door. She stepped inside. “How are you? Do you usually work this late?”
He cleared his throat. “I’m fine, and no, not usually, but I have a feeling I’m not the only one—unless you’re out for a midnight stroll on the streets of Rome making phone calls.”
Laughing, she looked around her office. “I was cooking in the restaurant’s kitchen. I’m not sure I’d call that work, but there you go.”
There was a brief pause. “Then you’ve proved me wrong,” he said lightly. “If you were doing something you love, it’s not work at all. I stand corrected.”
Enjoying the light banter but nervous for what was to come, Naomi sank into her office chair and put a hand to her forehead. She had to get to the point fast or she’d never get the courage again. If she had learned one thing about Jesse, it was that he functioned best when everything was straightforward and clear. “Jesse,” she said, staring at her blank computer screen, “I keep thinking about you.”
Jesse was silent. Naomi waited patiently. When she lowered her hand from her forehead, she was unsurprised to see it damp with sweat.
“Is this about me standing you up?” he finally asked.
Surprised, Naomi straightened in her chair. “No, not at all. Work happens. I understand that. It’s fine. What I meant is that … well, I keep thinking about you, and I know that means something. I feel like I could move on from you if we don’t feel the same way about each other. I’ve done it before, you know?”
“Yes, I understand,” he said, his wavering tone inviting her to continue.
“I’m calling to ask you if … if … you’ve thought about me too.”
The ensuing silence was agony. Naomi slumped in her chair and groaned inwardly. Of course he wasn’t thinking about her. Of course things would have to end right here. How many times did she have to go through this with Jesse to learn they were not meant to be together?
Rolling onto her side, she stared out the window overlooking a piece of the Berlin skyline. It was still dark, and the multi-colored lights of the city twinkled through a thin film of haze. Naomi stared at the lights and thought of her parents and how work ruled their lives to an almost unhealthy degree. But somewhere in all of that they’d managed to keep their marriage strong. Naomi didn’t have a marriage to keep strong. She hadn’t even been on a date since moving to Italy.
Closing her eyes, she held her phone in one hand and pulled the covers over her head. She had half an hour before she had to get up—half an hour to think about Jesse and whether or not she wanted him back in her life.
X
March
“My driver’s license or my passport?” Naomi asked a uniformed man when he requested her ID.
“If you’re a US citizen, then your driver’s license, please.”
Naomi handed it over and waited as the man ran it through their system. It had taken three months for the prison system to clear her visitation request, which probably meant they’d done a background check on her and knew more about her than she knew about herself. Her mother had been irritated that it had taken so long, but Naomi hadn’t minded. It meant she could put off the inevitable that much longer.
But Eric had agreed to see her, and there was no backing out now. For all she knew, he hated her guts and still wanted to kill her. Despite her concerns, the Assistant Warden had talked her into a conventional visit instead of a non-contact visit. “If the purpose of your visit is to gain some closure, feeling separated from him won’t help,” he had explained to her. “Don’t worry, we’ll have someone there to supervise. You won’t be in any danger.”
Naomi was still worried. She looked down at herself one more time to make sure her clothes met the prison regulations: nothing see-through, nothing shorter than her knees, no khaki or camouflage patterns, nothing form-fitting, nothing sleeveless. The list had gone on and on. Finally, she had decided on a pair of loose black trousers and a rose-colored blouse.
“Read and sign these,” an officer told her once she was cleared and entered another room. “Leave your bag in a designated locker, please. Pass through the metal detectors, please. Wait here, please.”
Finally, she was led to a cafeteria-like room where a female guard walked her to an empty table in the corner. Most of the other tables were occupied by prisoners in khaki pants and button-down shirts sitting opposite their visitors. Some of the visitors held children on their laps. Others stretched an arm across the table to hold hands with the inmate they had come to visit. Nobody looked particularly happy.
“He’ll be here in a moment,” the female guard said, and walked away.
Naomi shifted in her chair and folded her arms. She was exhausted from jet-lag and found herself gazing out a set of windows at an outdoor dining area. It was still winter, and little piles of snow covered the tables.
“Hello, Naomi.”
Naomi snapped her attention to Eric, now standing on the opposite side of the table. He slid out the chair and sat down as the tough-looking guard who had escorted him in took a few steps back and politely averted his gaze to an invisible spot in the distance.
Naomi leaned as far back in her chair as possible. Eric looked much the same as she remembered him. His carefully combed hair was still short and so dark it was almost black. His sideburns were still long and neatly trimmed. His biceps were still toned, and his eyes were still an awful, fierce brown that sliced right through her.
Aside from a general weariness in his eyes and some deeper wrinkles in his face, over thirteen years of prison hadn’t changed him at all.
Suppressing a shudder, Naomi kept her arms folded across her middle. “Hi,” she answered shyly, upset with herself for feeling small next to him, as if she was still the scared seventeen-year-old he had kidnapped fifteen years ago. It didn’t matter that he was in ugly khaki prison clothes and a guard stood nearby.
He was still Eric.
“So,” he said cockily, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the table, “what would you like to talk about?”
For some reason Naomi had expected him to be handcuffed, but nobody in the room was handcuffed, she realized. Her table, however, was the only one with a designated guard standing by.
She met his eyes, disturbed that he wasn’t fazed, and even more disturbed that he seemed amused by her presence. She blinked. “Thank you for agreeing to see me,” she said in a carefully controlled voice.
He smiled smugly. “I’ve been expecting it for a while now. Evelyn wrote to me and said she met you in Italy. You’re living there now.”
Unfolding her arms, Naomi reminded herself of everything she had accomplished since escaping this man. She was happy. She had gained closure with Steve and Evelyn, and even with Jesse. Eric was the final missing piece in the puzzle of her past. She had to find the courage to speak to him candidly, no matter how he acted.
“I’ve moved to Italy, yes,” she confirmed. “I’m managing a restaurant there.” She folded and unfolded her arms, irritated by her irrepressible anxiety.
Eric’s smug smile dropped into a frown. His eyes narrowed. “How nice for you. My days aren’t nearly as exciting as yours must be.”
Naomi felt a string of anger coiling up inside her at Eric’s bitterness. She remembered Steve saying prison had been hard on Eric, but looking at him now he seemed just fine. Cocky. Arrogant. Bored. She had expected him to be downtrodden and humbled, but of course he wouldn’t be. He was Eric.
She leaned forward a fraction of an inch, her heart pounding as Eric continued to frown at her. She knew she wasn’t the reason he was here—he had brought it upon himself—but she still felt an immense amount of guilt pressing down on her. It battled with her anger, and for a moment she wasn’t sure if she could keep talking to him. The room seemed small all of a sudden. She couldn’t breathe.
Eric watched her carefully, his frown slowly upturning as amusement sparked again in his eyes. “Why did you come here?” he asked. “Did you come to gloat? To see if I’ve reformed? Well, I haven’t.” He leaned over the table, his fingers curling around the edge as his half-smile turned into a sneer. “Nobody’s waiting for me to get out of here,” he hissed at her. “I have nothing left. No career, no plans, hardly anything to my name. I’ve lost everything because of you.”
The battle inside Naomi raged hotter, her guilt growing stronger by the second. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, and looked down at her lap. “I’m sorry you’re in here, but you’re wrong about why I came to see you.”
Eric let out a snort of disgust, and Naomi lifted her eyes to him once again. Every time she looked at him it was as if she was traveling back in time—as if it was only yesterday that he’d smacked her head on the tiles in the entryway and demanded to know why she was trying to get away. He had been hurt that she didn’t want to stay with him and the others. His pride simply couldn’t handle her rejection.
“Oh, I’m wrong, am I?” He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. “Do enlighten me.”
Naomi’s anger took a fierce bite out of her guilt, and she clenched her hands into fists. “I came here to face you,” she said. “I’ve tried so hard to forget how you controlled me, but the more I’ve tried, the deeper the hole gets. During the trial, I learned how much you knew exactly what you were doing—how you played on my parents’ neglect and my boyfriend’s abuse, how you used your own sister to make me feel safe, how you manipulated Jesse into molding me into what you wanted.”
Eric’s scowl deepened. “Why are you reciting all of this to me?” he snapped, his voice shaking with anger. “We were both in the courtroom. Do you think I’ve forgotten what happened there? Do you think I’ve forgotten how every person I have ever trusted has betrayed me?”
Naomi furrowed her brow, confused. “Evelyn never betrayed you.”
Eric looked out the window and shook his head. “She writes to me out of obligation,” he muttered, “but I can tell our relationship will never be the same. She treats me now like she used to treat our father when he was in prison. The trial opened her eyes to the truth, and now she’s gone just like everyone else.”
The guilt and anger inside Naomi backed down to make room for something far more powerful. Her shoulders slumped under a heavy cloud of sorrow. “What truth?” she asked softly.
Eric’s eyes hardened. “The truth you always saw, Naomi—the monster I have always been.”
The cloud of sorrow grew so thick it was almost smothering. “You’re not a monster,” she whispered. “I don’t believe that of anyone. If you really feel that way about yourself, you can choose to change.”
Eric snorted, the muscles in his forearms flexing as he restrained what looked like a sudden urge to lean across the table and hit her in the face. She held her ground and kept her eyes on his as he said in a deep, gravelly voice, “I don’t want to change, Naomi. If I could go back in time to that night in the parking lot, I would shove you into the trunk of the car, and then I would shoot you in the head and dump your body somewhere nobody would ever find you.”
Naomi’s mouth dropped open and she glanced up at the guard. He didn’t seem to be listening, or if he was, Eric’s tone wasn’t threatening enough to warrant interference.
“And if Jesse tried to stop me,” Eric continued, “I would shoot him too. I was too soft back then. I listened to Evelyn, and then I listened to Steve, and I was too damn soft. If I had killed you, I wouldn’t be here. They all loved you, Naomi, and I let myself start to care for you because of it. See where that got me?” He gestured around the room filled with convicts and their visitors. “It put me in hell,” he growled.
The guilt inside Naomi raged again. It roiled and surged and pierced right into her heart. She squeezed back some tears and bit her bottom lip to stop it from trembling. She should have known it would be like this. She should have prepared herself better for this confrontation. Of course Eric would try to make her feel guilty in order to soothe his own pride.
But now that she was facing him again, she could finally look on him as the fallible human being he was, and not the monster inside her head.
It was time to end this for good.
Pushing down her guilt, she hardened her stare. “I didn’t fly all the way from Italy to hear you blame me for your mistakes,” she said firmly. “I am sorry things turned out this way, and I’m even sorrier you feel like you’ve lost your sister. If it’s any consolation, I don’t think you have. If you reach out to her, I’m pretty sure she’ll reach back. You’re pushing too many assumptions on everyone, including yourself.” She leaned forward, her eyes boring into his as her resolve swallowed her guilt whole. She was done being the victim. “But it’s up to you if you’re miserable, so don’t you dare sit here and blame me for where you are. I’m not the scared little teenager you kidnapped all those years ago. I’ve grown up, and I’ll be damned if I let you rule my life one second longer.” She stood and glared down at his stunned but icy expression. “Goodbye, Eric.”
She walked out of the room and didn’t look back.
XI
April
Gianni put a spoonful of Naomi’s arrabbiata sauce into his mouth and closed his eyes. A full thirty seconds passed before he swallowed.
“This is excellent,” he said, opening his eyes. “The heat is at a perfect level and comes at exactly the right moment. I’m not sure how you did it. I’ve come close, but not this close.”
Naomi couldn’t wipe the grin off her face. “The best thing is that I’ve been able to duplicate it several times,” she sighed happily. “Do you think it’s ready for the menu?”
Gianni laughed. “You must discuss that with Cecily. We wouldn’t want to steal her thunder. That stracciatella she’s been working on is close enough to compete with your sauce.” He narrowed his eyes dramatically and leaned close to Naomi’s face. “You should probably be focusing more on the restaurant’s current fire code issues than the menu, my dear.”
Naomi groaned and started untying her apron. “I know, I know. I’ll go look over the last report and figure out exactly where we went wrong last time. It’ll be perfect when the fire marshal comes back, don’t worry.”
Gianni smiled. He had recently cut his white hair shorter than normal, and Naomi missed the wild, iconic wings usually hovering over his ears. “Your happiness makes me happy,” he said, his eyes glowing with warm regard. “Ever since your trip to the States, your energy has doubled. You smile so much more often.”
Naomi folded her apron and draped it over her arm as they both walked out of the empty kitchen. “You were right all along,” she sighed as they headed toward her office. “I had to face each of them on my own, in person.”
Gianni paused in front of her office door. “And what about Jesse?” he asked, his dark gray eyebrows rising high up on his forehead. “Nothing has happened there? You still haven’t called him?”
Naomi shrugged, regretting once again that she had told Gianni all about her meeting with Jesse in Berlin, including how much she admired what he had done with his life. She had told her father too, and he’d simply smiled and said he was happy she held no more negative feelings for the man.
Gianni, on the other hand, kept urging her to invite Jesse to Italy. “He sounds like a strong, determined man with a kind heart,” he had said to Naomi. “You don’t find those everywhere. Too many men are lazy and inconsiderate.”
Now, standing in the restaurant hallway, he looked at her expectantly as he waited for her answer.
“I don’t know if I should,” she said. “Too many things have happened between us. It’s beyond complicated.” She put a hand on Gianni’s arm. “I promise I’ll call him if it feels like the right thing to do. I don’t want to make him feel obligated to fly all the way down here just to talk about the past for a few hours. We could do that over the phone.”
Gianni shrugged. “If you could do it over the phone, you would have done it by now.” He took hold of her hand, squeezed, and then turned and left.
When he was gone, Naomi leaned against the door, her heart aching at the thought of Jesse. She remembered him in the plaza, his breaths misting in the cold air as he spoke to her. He had been on her mind for months now, but every time she pulled out her phone to call him, she stopped. He could have called her, and he hadn’t. He could have tracked her down anytime over the years since his release, and he hadn’t. If he’d wanted anything outside of closure, she was sure something would have happened by now.
She rested the back of her head against the door and sucked in a deep breath through her nose. Perhaps she was thinking about this the wrong way. She couldn’t sit back and let Jesse make all the choices for her. Ambivalence and inaction had always been her greatest weaknesses when it came to her personal relationships.
“Fine,” she said aloud as she pulled out her phone. She dialed Jesse’s number and then realized on the third ring that it was eleven-thirty at night. Cursing softly, she pulled her phone away from her ear and was about to end the call when she heard him answer.
“Naomi, is that you?”
She put the phone back to her ear. “Yes, I’m so sorry. I wasn’t thinking about the time. Did I wake you?”
There was a smile in his voice, but he sounded hesitant at the same time. “No, actually, I’m on my way home from a late meeting. It’s good to hear from you. How are you?”
Her eyes widened in surprise. She had expected a comment about how long it had taken her to call him, or maybe even an apology that he hadn’t called her, but it was if they had just seen each other yesterday.
“I’m … I’m good,” she stuttered, turning around to open her office door. She stepped inside. “How are you? Do you usually work this late?”
He cleared his throat. “I’m fine, and no, not usually, but I have a feeling I’m not the only one—unless you’re out for a midnight stroll on the streets of Rome making phone calls.”
Laughing, she looked around her office. “I was cooking in the restaurant’s kitchen. I’m not sure I’d call that work, but there you go.”
There was a brief pause. “Then you’ve proved me wrong,” he said lightly. “If you were doing something you love, it’s not work at all. I stand corrected.”
Enjoying the light banter but nervous for what was to come, Naomi sank into her office chair and put a hand to her forehead. She had to get to the point fast or she’d never get the courage again. If she had learned one thing about Jesse, it was that he functioned best when everything was straightforward and clear. “Jesse,” she said, staring at her blank computer screen, “I keep thinking about you.”
Jesse was silent. Naomi waited patiently. When she lowered her hand from her forehead, she was unsurprised to see it damp with sweat.
“Is this about me standing you up?” he finally asked.
Surprised, Naomi straightened in her chair. “No, not at all. Work happens. I understand that. It’s fine. What I meant is that … well, I keep thinking about you, and I know that means something. I feel like I could move on from you if we don’t feel the same way about each other. I’ve done it before, you know?”
“Yes, I understand,” he said, his wavering tone inviting her to continue.
“I’m calling to ask you if … if … you’ve thought about me too.”
The ensuing silence was agony. Naomi slumped in her chair and groaned inwardly. Of course he wasn’t thinking about her. Of course things would have to end right here. How many times did she have to go through this with Jesse to learn they were not meant to be together?
