Page 81 of My Big Fat Italian Break-Up

‘The message from your credit card appears on my phone, remember? We never got round to changing that.’

Deflated wasn’t exactly the right word. More like devastated, but he kept his cool. ‘Oh. Right.’

‘But the worst part is… I thought it was for Sienna.’

‘Not again...’

‘I’m so sorry for doubting you, Julian!’ Especially after it turned out that I was the cheater here.

He stared at me sadly. ‘Did you really think that I’m capable of having an affair?’

‘No. I thought you wanted out.’

‘I don’t want out,’ he groaned. ‘I’m not cheating. Now can we stop it with this jealousy bit?’

‘Wait, there’s much more,’ I bawled, my heart a tight ball by now. ‘It gets worse.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’m sorry!’ I cried. ‘I’m sorry I doubted you, but you and Sienna – the two of you were always together… And when you were home, you were always on the phone to her and I was jealous.’

He sighed. ‘Cut to the chase, Erica.’

Julian was a rare gem of a man – one in a million. And I couldn’t go on keeping it from him. If I was finally going to marry him, I needed to be honest.

‘You know Alberto?’

‘The chef? What about him?’

Ho, boy… ‘When you were in Denver – or Amsterdam or Tokyo – he invited me to his wedding menu sampling…’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah. I told him I couldn’t eat because I was on a diet,’ I said, my voice cracking.

‘Sweetheart, I get it. You broke your diet. It happens. Don’t be so harsh on yourself.’

I sniffed. Yeah, if only it were that simple. But no matter how hard, I had to come clean. I cringed as the words spilled out.

‘We had wine, too – lots of it – and he… kissed me…’

18

The Beginning of the End

‘You kissed anotherman?’ he whispered, his eyebrows raised, his eyes wide as if trying to process the information but just couldn’t comprehend.

How could he? I lived for him – told him so practically every day. All my actions all day, every day, were centered on him, our family and this life we’d created together here in Tuscany. Another man? It didn’t make sense to him.

And then I saw it, as this version of the truth slowly mushroomed inside his brain, growing, growing, pushing everything else – all his certainties – into a tiny corner. It materialized into pain, right there, on his face. I’d cheated on him. I’d cheated on Julian, the love of my life – whom, ironically, I’d always feared losing to another woman.

I needed to dissolve that pain, take it from him and throw it far away where it could never be found again. I stepped forward gingerly, my mouth trembling. And, for the first time, he pushed himself away from me.

‘Julian…’ I faltered. ‘Please – it was just one kiss! I was just trying to be honest with you.’

‘There’s nothing honest in snogging another bloke.’

Said like that, it sounded even worse. ‘No, I didn’t snog him. It was just one kiss! And in any case, he kissed me.’