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Now it was Ivy’s turn to get angry.Heneeded this.Hewas making her do this.
‘And now you see what I have been dealing with,’ she appealed to Ms Quell. ‘He does this. Just shuts down when he doesn’t get his way.’
‘Well, it’s not as if my way was horrible or difficult,’ Antonio interjected.
‘No. But it was about what suited you. Not me. And I need, sometimes, for things to suitme.’
He glared at her as if that was what he’d been trying to say to her all along and, all of a sudden, she was turning this back on him. ‘That is not fair,’ he accused.
‘Nothing about this is fair,’ she shot back.
‘I have done everything in my power, Ivy. If there was something else, I would try it,’ he insisted, pleading with her with his eyes.
‘And I’ve told you. I understand. I’m not blaming you. There isn’t any blame to give. Not here.’
Ms Quell watched them like a tennis match, back and forth, over the net of a subtext she didn’t understand and perhaps didn’t need to.
‘I don’t think we gave this enough time,’ Antonio said, shocking both her and Ms Quell, but perhaps not in equal measure.
‘What do you mean?’ Ivy demanded, the ground shifting beneath her feet and throwing her off-kilter. He wasn’t playing by the rules. He wasn’t following what they’d agreed to say.
‘I’m just wondering if there was something more we could do?’ he asked, the words forced through his teeth as if he were fighting himself and a whole army of past hurts.
‘You think that there is something more we could do to try and make this marriage work?’ Ivy demanded slowly and succinctly, making sure that she—and Ms Quell—were understanding him correctly.
He thrust a hand through his hair impatiently. ‘Yes? I don’t know,’ he said infuriatingly.
Why was he doing this? They had an agreement. He was supposed to marry Maria—it was the only way he could help her get what she needed. Ivy was supposed to go home, back to England, and be happy. Not battle with this seesawing of emotion, with a future brighter and more beautiful than she could have ever imagined for herself going in and out of focus at Antonio’s whim. He couldn’t play with her like this. She couldn’t handle it.
Her heart broke beneath the two fractured futures—one of her at home in her flat, and one of her here, with him.
‘You think you might want to give this marriage a go?’ she repeated, forcing him to be clear, the quiver in her voice as much despair as it was anger.
He looked at her, his eyes widening.
It was too much. He couldn’t do this to her. It was a cry from deep within her soul.
‘I have,’ she confessed, ‘spent my entire life loving people who are, in one way or another, too selfish to love me back.’ It was painful to admit, but it was true. ‘My brother. Certainly, my parents,’ she said, her inhale shaky before she continued. ‘I don’t think they did it by choice. Addiction made my brother inescapably selfish and my parents?’ She bit her lip. ‘I don’t think they actively set out not to love us, not to prioritise us, or care for us like parents should,’ she acknowledged through the pain of a shattering heart. ‘But that’s what happened. My father left and my mother chose someone else’s child over her own. I can’t do it any more,’ she said, as much to herself as to the others in the room. ‘I can’t keep waiting for someone to choose me. And I can’t do that with you,’ she declared, turning to Antonio.
‘Do you love me?’ she asked. Because that was why they were here, no? That was why he was digging his heels in and why her heart was breaking. And just like that, she was all the versions of herself that had waited for so long, hoping that someone would come for her, hoping that someone would choose her,loveher.
He sat, clenched jawed and silent, and glaring at her. If he wanted to he could say yes and end this all right now.
But he didn’t.
Heart shattering into a thousand pieces, Ivy turned to Ms Quell. ‘Is that sufficient?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ Ms Quell said with a sad nod of her head.
‘Okay then.’
Antonio watched Ivy stand from the sofa, knowing that it wasn’t because he’d been unable to stop her but that he’d been unwilling to do so. She’d done that. Forced his hand. And he’d made the choice he’d told her he would. He’d chosen family, which was right, wasn’t it?
Vaguely, he was aware of Ms Quell informing him that she would email him the final written assessment to be completed before someone from the judge’s chambers would be in touch with the last court date, which he would have to attend. But, all being well, his divorce could be finalised before the end of the following week.
He should be elated, but instead he sat there in numb silence, watching Ivy and Ms Quell leave the room together. He didn’t even stand to see them out. He heard their footsteps click across the tiled hallway and out of his life—and he should be pleased.
And he would be, he believed. He just needed to wait until the ringing stopped sounding in his head. It was high-pitched and oddly like a tension headache, but that couldn’t be, because he had what he wanted, right? And really, that was only thanks to Ivy. Because he’d nearly blown the whole damn thing.