My Husband Planned An Italian Vacation To Fix Our Broken Marriage, But It Was An Unplanned Kiss That Led Me Back To His Bed

The drive from the airport had been mostly silent, the hum of the tiny rental car’s engine filling the space that their conversation should have. Now, as Liam killed the engine, the sudden quiet was even louder. Through the open windows, the air that rushed in was thick and warm, smelling sharply of salt and the sweet, acidic perfume of lemon groves. It was exactly as the rental listing had promised. Picturesque. Idyllic. A perfect, romantic lie.

Liam got out first, his movements efficient as he rounded the car to the boot. I watched him for a moment, the way the muscles in his back and shoulders strained against the thin cotton of his t-shirt as he hauled our suitcases out. A year ago, I would have gone to him, wrapped my arms around his waist from behind, and pressed a kiss to his shoulder blade. Now, I just opened my own door and stepped out onto the gravel drive, the heat of the afternoon sun immediate on my skin.

The villa was beautiful, a two-story stone building with a terracotta roof and bright blue shutters. A wild tangle of bougainvillea, bursting with vibrant pink flowers, climbed up one wall. It was the kind of place you saw on postcards, the kind of place that screamed romance. The irony was a bitter taste in my mouth.

Inside, the air was cooler, the stone floors a welcome relief. The space was open and airy, with a large, comfortable-looking bed dominating the main room, its white linens crisp and inviting. Liam set my suitcase down near the foot of it without a word, then moved his own to the other side. The invisible line was drawn between us, as clear as if it had been painted on the floor.

We began to unpack in a stilted, practiced rhythm of avoidance. The only sounds were the rasp of zippers, the soft thud of folded clothes being placed into wooden drawers, the clink of my toiletries on the bathroom counter. I moved to the wardrobe to hang my dresses, and Liam stepped back to let me pass, a careful, polite distance maintained between us. His scent—the familiar, clean smell of his soap—drifted towards me, and for a heart-stopping second, I remembered waking up with my face buried in his neck, breathing him in. The memory was so sharp, so painful, it made my breath catch.

I kept my back to him, focusing on the mundane task of slipping hangers into collars. I could feel his presence behind me, a solid, separate entity in the quiet room. We were two strangers who happened to know the intimate details of each other’s lives. When the last of my clothes were put away, I turned. He had finished, too. He stood by the window, staring out at the sliver of deep blue sea visible between the neighbouring houses, his hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans. The silence stretched, thin and fragile, until he finally spoke, his voice sounding rough from disuse.

“We’ll need to get some groceries.”

“Okay,” I agreed, my voice quiet. “I’ll just grab my bag.”

The walk into the village was a descent down a series of steep, narrow alleyways paved with uneven cobblestones that threatened to turn my ankle with every step. Liam walked a few paces ahead of me, his long legs eating up the distance with a determined stride. He held his phone in his hand, consulting a map app, his shoulders set with purpose. Get supplies. Check the box.

I lagged behind, my pace slowing in spite of myself. I couldn't ignore the charm that seemed to bleed from the very stones. The houses were painted in faded, sun-bleached shades of ochre, rose, and terracotta, crowded so closely together that their upper-floor balconies almost touched. Lines of laundry were strung between them, white sheets and colourful clothes billowing like prayer flags in the gentle sea breeze. The air was filled with the sounds of life—the distant clatter of pots from an open kitchen, the rapid-fire cadence of a conversation in Italian drifting from a window above, the lazy buzz of a bee investigating a pot of bright red geraniums.

I wanted to stop, to take a picture, to just stand and absorb it all. I saw a tabby cat curled asleep on a warm doorstep, oblivious to the world, and a smile touched my lips. I opened my mouth to call out to Liam, to point it out, but I stopped myself. He wouldn't see a charming, sleepy cat. He would see a distraction from the goal. The familiar sting of disappointment was sharp. It was always like this now. I saw the poetry; he saw the prose.

He glanced back, his brow furrowed slightly, not with concern, but with impatience. "Chloe? The market is supposed to be just around this corner." His tone was clipped, efficient.

"Coming," I said, my voice flatter than I intended. I picked up my pace, my eyes falling from the vibrant life of the alleyway to the grey stones at my feet. We were walking the same path, but we were in two completely different places. He was navigating a map, a series of lefts and rights. I was wandering through a painting I desperately wished he could see with me.

We rounded the corner and the alley opened into a small, bustling piazza. The scent of ripe tomatoes, fresh basil, and briny olives hit me immediately. Stalls were piled high with produce, cheeses, and cured meats. Liam’s shoulders relaxed slightly, his mission accomplished. He turned to me, a list already forming in his eyes. "Right. We need bread, some cheese, wine..."

He started toward a stall laden with wheels of pecorino, and I followed, the invisible tether between us pulling taut. We were here to gather the ingredients for a shared meal, but the act already felt entirely separate.

The meal we assembled was simple—crusty bread that tore apart in our hands, a sharp, salty pecorino, and slices of sweet, dark red tomato drizzled with olive oil. We sat on the small balcony as the sun began its slow descent, bleeding orange and purple into the darkening sky. The wine Liam had chosen was a deep, robust Chianti that stained my lips. It was a perfect scene, a postcard from a life I wasn't living.

We tried to talk. The conversation moved in fits and starts, a series of perfunctory questions and one-word answers. It felt like a debriefing. Work projects, a friend’s engagement, the leaky faucet he’d finally fixed last week. Each topic was a small, self-contained island we visited for a moment before retreating back into our own silent territories. I stared out at the sea, watching the first lights flicker on in the houses clinging to the opposite cliffside.

“This is nice,” I offered, the words feeling hollow as soon as they left my mouth.

Liam nodded, taking a long drink of his wine. He didn't look at the view. He looked at the table. “It is.”

Then, as if he couldn’t stand the unstructured quiet for another second, he reached for his bag and pulled out a map. He unfolded it across the small table, the crisp paper covering the crumbs of our dinner. It was a topographical map, crisscrossed with colored lines indicating hiking trails.

“Okay,” he said, his voice suddenly energized, all business. “I’ve been looking at the routes. If we get an early start tomorrow, we can do the trail from here to Corniglia. It’s supposed to be the most challenging, but the views are incredible. It’s about a four-hour hike, so if we leave by eight…”

A heavy sigh escaped me before I could stop it. His eyes flicked up from the map, his enthusiasm instantly extinguished, replaced by a familiar defensiveness.

“What?” he asked.

“Liam, can we not?” I gestured vaguely at the map, at the rigid lines he was trying to impose on our time here. “Can we just wake up and see how we feel? Maybe wander down to the beach, or find a different cafe? We don’t have to have a schedule.”

His jaw tightened. It was a tiny movement, but I knew it well. It was the precursor to a lecture on efficiency. “Chloe, we have six days here. I want to make the most of it. If we just ‘wander,’ we’ll waste half the day trying to decide what to do.”

“It’s not a waste if we’re enjoying it,” I countered, my own voice rising slightly. “This isn't a project to be managed. It’s supposed to be a vacation. A break.”

“This is how I relax,” he said, his voice low and clipped. “By doing things. Accomplishing something. Not by sitting around waiting for inspiration to strike.”

The words stung, sharp and targeted. He folded the map with sharp, angry movements, the paper crinkling in protest. An uneasy truce settled over the table, thicker and more suffocating than the earlier silence. We were both right, and both so completely wrong.

Without another word, he stood and took his wine glass inside. I stayed on the balcony until the last bit of color had drained from the sky, leaving only a deep, starless indigo.

When I finally went into the bedroom, he was already in bed, lying on his side, his back to me. The space between his body and the center of the mattress was a deliberate, uncrossable chasm. I changed in the bathroom, the silence of the villa pressing in on me. Slipping under the cool sheets, I mirrored him, turning my back and pulling the covers up to my shoulder. We lay there in the dark, perfectly still, a foot of cold linen separating us like an entire ocean.