Callum arrived in Rome and tracked Cassie to the Principe Pallavicini estate where she worked.
He found her standing at the entrance to the wine cellar, clipboard in hand. The sight of her after so many weeks of absence physically staggered him. Her hair had grown longer, styled in loose chestnut waves that caught the Italian sunlight. Her tailored uniform–crisp and professional–hugged a frame that seemed more confident somehow, as she methodically inventoried the cellar’s contents.
The composed focus with which she worked was utterly foreign to him. This wasn’t the woman who had constantly sought his approval with questioning glances. Her pen moved decisively across the page, her posture straight, her movements efficient and self–assured in a way that made his chest tighten with unfamiliar anxiety.
In that first moment of seeing her, Callum felt something he’d rarely experienced–uncertainty. His carefully rehearsed speech suddenly seemed inadequate. He felt like an intruder whose mere presence might contaminate the peaceful existence she’d clearly built without him.
But the magnetic pull toward her was irresistible. “Cassie,” he called, his voice breaking unexpectedly. “I’ve come to apologize…”
Her head snapped up, her expression transforming instantly from concentration to something that looked disturbingly like revulsion. Without a word, she turned to leave.
Panic surged through him. Callum lunged forward, his trembling hand catching her arm with more force than he’d intended. He clung to her desperately, the physical contact sending electric currents through his body. Part of him needed to touch her just to verify she was real–that the woman who had occupied his thoughts for weeks wasn’t merely a construction of his guilt–ridden imagination.
“I don’t accept,” she said flatly, looking pointedly at his hand before methodically peeling his fingers from her arm one by one, as if removing something contaminated.
The clinical detachment in her gesture was devastating. As she dismantled his grip, Callum desperately studied her face, searching for any trace of the woman who had once looked at him with adoration. She seemed thinner but healthier–her skin glowing with a vitality that had been absent in their final months together. The tiny beauty mark near her eye, something he’d barely registered before, now seemed achingly precious.
But her expression–that was what truly terrified him. It wasn’t just anger or hurt. It was complete aversion, as if his touch physically repelled her.
“Cassie, please!” he heard himself begging, his voice unrecognizable even to his own ears. “Just give me one chance! Five minutes is all I’m asking!”
At that moment, a stout older woman emerged from a nearby building, metal watering can in hand. Seeing the confrontation, she immediately charged toward them, shouting in heavily accented English.
“Hey! Get your hands off her, stronzo!” she bellowed, moving with surprising speed for her size.
The woman barreled straight into Callum, her substantial shoulder connecting with enough force to send him
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Addio To The Stand–In Past. This Time I Chose To Reclaim My Own Life
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staggering backward, nearly losing his footing on the gravel path.
“Who the hell do you think you are?” the demanded, brandishing the metal watering can like a medieval flail “You touch her again, I break your pretty facet
“I’m her husband!” Callum protested, a note of desperate possessiveness in his voice.
“Ex–husband,” Cassie corrected immediately, her tone ice–cold as she positioned herself behind Giovanna. “We’re divorced. It’s over.”
The words hit Callum like physical blows. She hadn’t spoken to him with such finality even when leaving the divorce papers.
Giovanna assessed the situation with narrowed eyes, clearly noting Cassie’s evident distress. Without hesitation, she advanced on Callum, swinging the hefty watering can with shocking accuracy.
The metal container connected painfully with his forearm as he raised it defensively. The substantial weight sent a jolt of pain radiating up to his shoulder, forcing him to retreat several steps.
“You hurt her once already,” Giovanna spat, preparing for another swing. “I know everything. I know what kind of man you are. You come here thinking you can what? Take her back? After what you did?”
Callum backed away, maintaining distance while still trying desperately to make eye contact with Cassie, who deliberately looked away. “Cassie, please–I just want to talk. I need to explain!”
His pleading only triggered another aggressive charge from Giovanna, forcing him to retreat further across the vineyard.
As Callum backed away, looking over his shoulder with an expression of stunned disbelief, Cassie felt a complicated pressure building in her chest. Just seeing him again had unleashed a flood of emotions she thought she’d successfully buried–not longing, but a visceral mixture of anxiety and nausea.
“Thank you,” she whispered to Giovanna, who responded by protectively wrapping an arm around her shoulders.
“He shows his face here again, I do worse than hit with watering can,” the older woman promised, her eyes fierce with protective anger. “This man, he does not deserve one tear from you. Not one!”
Cassie nodded, grateful for the solid presence beside her. This was the difference–she wasn’t the isolated, dependent woman she’d been in New York. Here, she had people who protected her without question, who valued her for herself, not as a substitute for someone else.
Meanwhile, Callum watched their figures grow smaller, his mind racing to rationalize what had just happened.
This cold rejection couldn’t be real.
She was just angry, that was all.
She needed time to remember what they’d shared.
She couldn’t possibly have completely stopped loving him.
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Chapter 19
Not his Cassie, who had always been so devoted, so eager to please.
He found a nearby hotel, checking in while obsessively replaying the encounter. She had flinched when he touched her–actually flinched.
The woman who had once melted into his embrace now recoiled from his touch
But he refused to accept this new reality. She had loved him too deeply, he reasoned, ignoring the mounting evidence to the contrary. She couldn’t possibly have moved on.
Not without him.
