He tried to distract himself with work, but his mind kept rewinding. Italy, two years ago. He’d left her at the hotel after she misplaced their passports. “You’re careless,” he’d shouted. “Figure it out.” He spent two days drinking by the pool while she cried herself through foreign bureaucracy.
When she finally returned, shaken, he’d laughed it off. “See? You managed. I made you stronger.” The way she’d smiled then haunted him now; had it been too quiet, too practiced—was it the look of someone rehearsing her survival? But she had come back then. What if something had happened to her this time?