He Took My Love 99 Times. The 100th Time, He Lost Me Forever. novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Hundredth
At Paola's gala Fabrizio asks Gemma to sign the hundredth percent in front of everyone; she refuses and walks out, and a doctor in the alley says he can get it all back.
My husband raised his glass in front of two hundred people and thanked everyone but me.
The Montanari ballroom was full of white roses and cameras.
Paola Lanza stood at the center of the floor in a silver dress, balanced on two legs that worked perfectly.
Six years ago a car crash had put her in a wheelchair, and tonight she had danced for the first time since.
The crowd was still clapping.
"Paola is the bravest woman I know," Fabrizio said into the microphone.
His voice was warm and low, the voice he used when he wanted a room to trust him.
Paola blew him a kiss.
I stood by the champagne tower in my blue dress and clapped with everyone else.
Under the table, my left hand had gone numb.
It had been going numb for months.
"And now," Fabrizio said, "my wife has something to give her."
Two hundred faces turned toward me.
A man in a grey suit came out of the crowd with a leather folder.
I knew him.
He was the doctor from the Transfer Wing at San Anselmo, the clinic where love is drawn from one person and given to another.
Everyone in the city knew what that folder held.
Fabrizio crossed the floor and took my hand.
His thumb moved over my knuckles, slow and gentle.
"Paola has a tour in the spring," he said quietly, so only the front tables could hear. "She needs one more percent to get through it. That's all."
The doctor opened the folder and set a pen on top.
"The hundredth draw, Mrs. Montanari," he said. "It's a small one."
I looked at the pen.
"The hundredth?" I said.
The doctor's face changed.
He looked at Fabrizio, and Fabrizio's thumb stopped moving.
"Ninety-nine so far," the doctor said, too fast. "I assumed you knew. The forms are all signed."
They were.
I had signed every one.
The first time, Fabrizio had taken me to the clinic himself.
Paola's legs hadn't moved in six months.
The doctor had told us the draw would cost me one percent of my love for my husband, and that I wouldn't miss it.
Fabrizio had held my hand in the waiting room and kept his voice soft.
"You love me so much, Gemma," he'd said. "You won't even notice it's gone."
He was right.
I never noticed.
Then Paola had needed a second percent for her recovery, and a third, and Fabrizio had always had the pen ready and his hand on mine.
I looked up at my husband now.
I waited for the ache I used to feel when he looked at me like that.
There was nothing.
Not anger, not hurt, not even fear.
I felt the way I'd feel looking at a stranger's wedding photo.
"How much do I have left?" I asked the doctor.
"Gemma," Fabrizio said. "Not here."
"How much?"
The doctor swallowed.
"One percent," he said.
The ballroom was so quiet I could hear the ice settling in the champagne tower.
Ninety-nine percent of my love was gone, and I had been walking around thinking my marriage had just gotten comfortable.
Fabrizio squeezed my hand.
"It's only one more," he said. "Paola has nothing without it. You'd be doing this for me. Sign, and we'll go home."
"Go home to what?" I said.
Paola's smile had slipped.
She was looking at the folder, not at me.
A few people near the door had their phones raised.
I picked up the pen.
Fabrizio let out his breath.
I set the cap on the floor, turned the folder over, and slid it back into the doctor's hands.
"No," I said.
It was the first thing I had said all night that I meant.
Fabrizio's face went flat.
Then he laughed, softly, and tightened his grip.
"You're tired," he said to the room. "She doesn't mean it."
I pulled my hand out of his.
My wedding ring came off with it, and I laid it on the silver tray beside the glasses.
"I mean it," I said.
I walked across the ballroom with every camera following me.
Behind me I heard Donata Montanari's voice, cold and sharp over the music.
"Close the doors. Don't let her leave."
Two guards moved toward the exit.
I took the service corridor behind the kitchen, and a waiter with wide eyes held the fire door open and said nothing.
The alley was cold and smelled of rain and garbage.
I stood under the one working lamp with my arms around myself, waiting to cry.
Nothing came.
A man stepped out from behind a delivery van.
He was in a rumpled white coat, and he had a tired face and dark curls the rain had flattened.
"Mrs. Montanari," he said.
"Not anymore," I said.
"Then Gemma," he said. "I'm Leone Barsi. I used to work in that Transfer Wing."
The kitchen door banged open behind us and boots hit the pavement.
He didn't look at it.
"I can get it back," he said. "All ninety-nine percent of it."
"How?"
"It hurts," he said, "far more than losing it did."
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