Rooted (Pagano Family #3)(43)

“71 Rue de la Lavande.” Carmen sat back in the seat of the taxi as Theo closed the door.

“Wait—what? Why there?” For weeks now, she’d been staying with him, and Eli had been staying with Rosa. He’d expected her to give his address.

She turned her head slightly toward him but didn’t meet his eyes. “I want to go there.”

“Carmen? What’s going on?”

She didn’t answer.

They’d had a wonderful day on Sunday. She’d gotten back from church, looking good, looking relaxed, and he’d been dressed and ready. While she’d been gone, he’d had housekeeping take away their room service detritus, and he’d swallowed down a handful of aspirin with two cups of coffee.

They’d spent the day just wandering and talking. They’d had a good lunch, and later made out to a decided ‘R’ rating against the wall of a building in a quaint little alley. Then, after dark, they’d eaten by candlelight in the courtyard restaurant of the hotel, with just a couple of drinks. They finished the night in bed, being a great deal more gentle—and sober—than the night before.

They hadn’t exchanged the words all day, but he’d told her he loved her again as they were falling asleep. She hadn’t responded. Last night, he’d thought nothing of it.

But today, as they’d packed and traveled, returning to Paris, Carmen had been quiet and distant. She hadn’t ignored him; she simply hadn’t engaged.

But since they’d stepped off the train, she’d been ignoring him. He was pissed. And hurt. And scared.

When she gave her address and not his, the lining of his stomach turned to lead. He knew what she was doing. He knew it.

And f*ck her for it.

He crossed his arms over his chest. Paltry protection. “Don’t behave like a teenager, Carmen. Answer my f*cking question.”

“Don’t patronize me, Theodore.”

“Then grow a spine and say what’s on your mind.”

She shifted in her seat, turning toward him to the extent the seat belt would allow. “What’s on my mind? Here it is: I’m done playing house with you, Theo. That’s what’s on my mind. I want the taxi to drop me off at Izzie’s apartment, and that is where I will stay, on my own, until it’s time to go home. This trip was for Rosa and me, and I wasted almost all of it with you. It’s over.”

She turned back to face front, as if the conversation were over, too. The driver was paying a lot of attention to the rearview mirror. Theo glared into it until the driver looked back at the road. But they had an audience for this, no way around it.

Feeling sick, Theo stared at her profile. She seemed made of marble suddenly, cold and hard. But even from the side he could see a host of emotions rioting in her eyes.

He had a few options. He could do the thing that he most wanted right now, and shout at her. He could try to reason with her, get her to talk about what was scaring her so badly—because it had to be that. It couldn’t be that she didn’t care. They’d been together long enough, and he was perceptive enough, that he knew she cared. He’d believed her when she’d told him she loved him. He’d thought things were different between them, that they had opened up at last. That she had opened up. And now she was afraid. He was sure of it. So he could try to open her again.

Or he could let her go.

He didn’t want that. This summer, he’d come alive again. He hadn’t even known he’d been dormant.

He chose reason. “Carmen, don’t do this. Talk to me.”

She didn’t respond.

He tried again, unfastening his seatbelt and sliding closer to her. She turned and scowled, but said nothing. “I know you’re scared, beautiful girl.” He brushed her face with his fingertips as he spoke, and she flinched away.

“Don’t call me that. You don’t know what I am. You don’t know me.”

“I do. I know you.”

“No. I made sure of it.”

They were in the Arc de Triomphe roundabout, and the complicated, erratic traffic there usually made Carmen nuts, even as a passenger. She hadn’t noticed this time. She was intent on Theo, her eyes hostile. He knew a lot more about her than she thought. Maybe that was the way through.

“I know you, Carmen. I know you don’t like people. I know the way people drive this roundabout makes you tense. I know you use movies for metaphors at every opportunity, and that you hate musicals but somehow seem to have seen them all. I know you like Jason Statham best as an action hero and that you think Michelle Rodriquez is hot—a tidbit I’d like to explore more someday. I know you prefer meaty fish to flaky fish. I know you prefer red wine over white, and you prefer a Bordeaux above all. I don’t know what the difference is, but I know you do. I know you like Lilith Fair music. I know Virginia Woolf is your favorite author and that you will finish Infinite Jest someday even if it kills you, because you’ve taken it on as a challenge, and I know you don’t back down from a challenge. I know makeup makes your eyes itch, so you don’t wear it.” He smiled, remembering their first morning together. “And I know what you look like in the morning when you do.”

That made her blink, possibly falter a little, but then she recovered. “That’s surface bullshit. All of it. That’s not who I am.”

“Of course it is, Carmen. It’s exactly who you are. It’s how you see the world. I know you think in symbol and image, like I do. I know you are drawn to serious subjects told with wry humor, like I am. I know you think and feel deeply about what you read and see and experience—like I do. And I know that’s why you say you don’t like people. Because you feel everything so much, so much more than most. Like I do.”