Breathe by Donna Alward

you?”
    It was a question for which she had no clear answer. She had to keep her hands busy. She gave him a pot and the two potatoes she’d already peeled, so he could wash them. She picked up another and began peeling. He worked beside her without a word of protest, somehow understanding that in the difficulty she had to keep occupied.
    â€œI did, but not as I should have. I loved him for what he was at first. Then I found out who he was and I hated him.”
    â€œI don’t understand.”
    She handed over another potato.
    â€œStefano was a wonderful catch on paper. My father knew it. I knew it. So did Stefano. He was from a good family, an Italian family, and that was important to Papa.”
    â€œI remember.” The bitterness bled through Jace’s voice. Roberto Morelli had looked down his nose at Jace’s family. Mike Willow had looked after Morelli’s stables, an expensive hobby of Roberto’s that made him look good. Jace had worked part-time there as soon as he was old enough. Roberto hated that Alex and Anna were friends with someone so beneath them.
    But Alex and Anna weren’t such snobs as children. Jace had spent hours with them, roaming the vineyard, sneaking into the kitchen, playing in the stables. All the places where Roberto wasn’t. Jace had never truly felt the difference between them until he’d come back and found Anna engaged to Stefano.
    â€œPlease,” she begged him softly. “You have to understand. Papa was very…persuasive. Stefano had money and security. We had a perfect life and in my way I thought I loved him. But I did it with my head, and not my heart. And my head was very, very wrong. It was more of an alliance than a marriage. He’d wanted a connection with Morelli.”
    â€œAnd you wanted…”
    The air seemed to still all around them. What had she wanted? She’d given up on love and happy ever afters. Everything she’d wanted had crumbled around her. She’d hardly cared. Stefano had seemed as good an idea as any. He had been older, and charming and attentive at first. And in a way it had been her final act of defiance. She’d wanted to hurt Jace the way he’d hurt her. Only she’d ended up being the one hurt in the end. Jace had come through without a scratch.
    Now he seemed to be holding his breath, waiting for an answer. For some odd reason she almost felt like she was being tested. But why, she couldn’t comprehend. When she’d met Stefano, she and Jace had been over. Alex had gone to Kelowna to study another wine operation and he’d taken Jace with him. They stayed nearly two months, while she’d been alone, heartbroken and angry.
    â€œI don’t know what I wanted. I thought he would give me a comfortable life. And for a while he did. Then I found out he was having an affair with our nanny just after Alex and Melissa were married.”
    The potato dropped, unwashed, into the pot, and Jace turned a quarter turn. She could feel him staring at her profile but she didn’t dare look up.
    â€œWhat did you do?”
    â€œWe didn’t have a great love affair, Stefano and me. It was…it was understood that it was based greatly on appearances. But the one thing I refused to tolerate was infidelity. He never even attempted to deny it. Nor did he take any great steps to hide it. Honestly, I think my pride could have taken it if it had been anyone other than the woman I entrusted with my children. I confronted him with it.”
    The peeler scraped at the potato furiously. “I demanded he stop. He wondered why he should. Then he asked what I was going to do about it.”
    â€œGood for you. What did you say?”
    â€œI didn’t have an answer. I guess I thought being caught would be enough. But no. So in the end I threatened to divorce him.”
    Jace’s braced his hands on the edge of the counter as he let out his breath in a whoosh. She could