The Diplomat's Wife(92)

I set down my cards. “Congratulations.”

“You know what they say, lucky in cards…” His voice trails off.

“Unlucky in love,” I finish for him. “Do you really believe that?”

He shrugs. “Look at me. I was on the way to meet the one girl I ever loved when—”

I cut him off. “I’m sure there must have been others since. I mean, Brussels? Zurich? You probably have a girl in every port, as they say.” I try to sound light, chiding. But the mention of Paul with other women makes my stomach hurt. Suddenly I understand how he must feel, knowing about me and Simon.

Paul shakes his head. “Not at all. I wish I could say otherwise. The truth is, there’s been no one. A few dates here and there over the years. Once I had what we had…” He looks away. “I mean, what’s the point?”

“Paul…”

He turns back to me. “I still love you, Marta.” My breath catches at the words. “I’ve always known it, and, well, seeing you again…I know that’s wrong to say, but it’s the truth.”

I take a deep breath. I can hold back the question no longer. “Then why?”

“Why what?”

“Why didn’t you come for me?” My words, pent up since our reunion, tumble out on top of one another. “When you recovered, I mean. If I meant so much to you, why didn’t you come find me?”

He pauses. “I did.” Suddenly I cannot breathe. “Marta, the truth is that as soon as I could get out of bed, I left the hospital. The doctors said it was too soon, that I was going to relapse. But I knew that I had to find you.”

“But you never came…”

“I did,” he repeats, his voice rising insistently. “For God’s sake, Marta, of course I came for you. How could I not? I went to that address in Kensington you gave me back when we were in Paris, your friend’s aunt.”

“Delia’s house?”

He nods. “She wasn’t there. But her butler told me you had gotten married.” He pauses, swallowing as if the words hurt his throat. “He said that you moved out, gave me your married name. I looked you up. Even then I knew I had to see you. I went to find you, Marta.”

“You came to our house?”

“Yes. I saw you. You were working in the garden.” His eyes grow hollow and faraway in the candlelight, as though reliving the moment once more. “I wanted you to know that I was all right, even if we couldn’t be together. But then you stood up and I could see that you were pregnant.” His voice cracks. “You looked so beautiful. You were already married and expecting a child. There was no way I could interfere with that. So I turned around and left without saying anything.”

I do not answer. In my mind, I see the day he is talking about, an early-spring morning. I can almost feel the cool, moist dirt on the backs of my hands as I planted bulbs. I remember thinking that someone was there, behind me in the garden. It was a thought I often had in the months after Paul died, on the street and in the shops, too. I turned around but as always no one was there. Or so I thought. Oh, God. If only I had known. If only he had known. I see the moment again in my mind, only this time when I stand and turn, Paul is there. I drop the gardening basket in surprise and, heedless of the neighbors or anyone else, run across the yard and throw myself into his arms.

“Marta?” My vision clears and I am in the wine cellar once more. Paul searches my face, concerned. “Are you okay?” He really had come for me. Suddenly I can stand it no longer. I reach across the mattress and grab Paul by the shoulders, drawing him close and bringing his full lips to mine. For a second he is too stunned to respond. Then he begins kissing me back hungrily. We cling to each other desperately, as if to go back to that moment in the garden and rewrite history. “Are you sure?” he whispers between kisses, as he had that night in Paris. I do not answer, but rip his jacket open, hear the buttons as they break and scatter across the floor. He presses me back too hard, banging my shoulder against the wall. Playing cards crush beneath me. Clutching fistfuls of his hair, I bury my head in his neck to muffle my groans. Then he touches me and it is as if we are in Paris again, two young people in a time and place where shoulds and shouldn’ts do not exist. It is our first time, our reunion and our honeymoon, all of the nights that fate took from us.

When it is over we lie breathless beside each other on the mattress. “Are you okay?” he asks, his fingers still entwined in my hair.

“Yes,” I reply. “I’m glad it happened.” My body aches as it did after we made love years ago.

“Really?” he asks. I nod. “Well, that’s a relief. I wouldn’t have wanted to add this to our list of considerable regrets.”

I smile. “Me, neither.”

He touches my cheek. “I meant what I said before. I still love you.” His face is relaxed now, boyish, all of the hardness and pain gone.

“I love you, too.” The words feel warm and natural on my tongue. “I never knew you came looking for me. I mean, when I first saw you again, I wondered why you hadn’t.”

“I did. I was surprised you had met someone else so quickly,” he added.

I hesitate. Tell him the truth about Rachel, right now, a voice inside me says. But I am uncertain how he will react, and I do not want to ruin the moment. “You were gone,” I reply uneasily. “Forever, I thought.”