جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 73

Carmen's POVWhen I arrived home, what was waiting for me was a vase of white peonies, garden roses and eucalyptus large enough to take over half the dining table.I stopped just inside the apartment with my paddock pass still hanging around my neck and stared at it. For a second, I assumed Tomas had sent them. It would have made sense after the weekend, especially after the way his mother had spent part of Sunday politely informing me that women like me were not usually included in whatever picture she had once imagined beside her son.I saw a card shoved in between the flowers, my name written across the front in handwriting I recognized immediately. It was from Andre.I set my bag down without taking my eyes off it.The apartment had been quiet when I left that morning, and it was quiet now, except for the faint hum of the air conditioning and the city beyond the windows. After an entire day of engines, crowds and people speaking over one another, the silence should have felt peace

Carmen's POVMonday arrived faster than I expected, the way departure dates always seem to once you've actually agreed to something.I spent the morning finishing a load of laundry I should have started days earlier, folding sundresses I hadn't worn since before university consumed my entire wardrobe in shades of black and grey. Antonia sent three separate messages demanding photo evidence once I landed, and Elena called just to ask, twice, whether I had packed sunscreen, as though I hadn't spent my whole life in a country that received roughly the same amount of sun as Tuscany did.The flight to Florence was short and unremarkable, the kind of flight where you barely settle into your seat before the descent begins. I spent most of it half asleep against the window, waking somewhere over the Alps to a view worth the interruption and drifting off again before we'd finished crossing it. Jennifer had arranged a car at the airport, a driver holding a small sign with my name on it who load