Re: second floor ; smoking
"It could be said that forced honesty is not honesty at all. That honesty must be freely given," she said, unknowingly mirroring his thoughts. "Am I wise?" she asked, her smile full of secrets not yet shared. "I'm known for many things, but wisdom does not number among them. I'm known for being sensual, for being unconventional, for being impulsive. I'm known for not wearing anything beneath my clothing, and I'm known for being far too blatant in my sexuality. I don't think anyone has ever called me wise," she assured him. "It sounds dull, doesn't it?" But her smile said she didn't think it dull at all, and that she liked the fact that he noticed she was more than a pretty face. "It can be a curse at times, creating too perfect a facade. What good is a facade if you forget what's really beneath it?" She laughed at the idea of teaching Italian men anything at all. "Will you force the men in Italy to listen to me?" she joked, her expression sobering as the subject changed to self-discovery. "Do extreme circumstances teach us who we are, or do they mold us into something different?" she asked.
"You will not forget your parents. A man like you, he doesn't forget." It was a grand statement, but she felt certain in making it. She had always heeded her instincts more than logic, and she had never allowed anything else to dictate her actions. At times, it was a folly, but she didn't think she was wrong about the man across from her. "You inspire confidences," she told him. All of it could be blamed on the ship, and she felt certain some would try to do precisely that in the harsh light of day; she felt differently. "And I thank you for safeguarding my small secret unto death."
"Winning a battle will not bring you the kind of pleasure that finding someone to take your loneliness away will," she said, and she raised a hand, slow and lethargic before he could argue. "You can win your battles. I will not take them from you. I only mean that battles are won or lost, and they are done. Someone who truly cares about you will be there before a battle and once it is done. Which is more valuable?" The topic of deserving love, that was one that she found more complicated than wars she knew nothing of. "It is possible I am not destined for what I deserve. Perhaps I am destined for furs and diamonds, admirers and flashing bulbs. Again, here we must differ in our beliefs about fate."
She waited until he had scraped his chair across the floor, and she settled a tired hand upon his knee. "I would have you do what you would do. It isn't for me to decide your actions. I am not your lover, bello. I will not consider your departure a slight. Though I will lament your absence." She raised her hand to his cheek, her fingers degrees colder than they had been the last time they touched his skin. "To remember," she explained, her gaze less crisply focused now that things were more badly blurred.