Chapter Twenty-Two
She had tried to return Alessandro’s call as soon as Anna had gone, but it went straight to voicemail. He was probably back on duty and she would have to get up early to catch him just off his shift before he headed home to bed. Whether he had broken the news of their relationship to his mother yet was one thing she didn’t know and she wasn’t sure how Signora Conti would react to it, so she didn’t want to phone him at a time when it might be awkward at home. His mother had been pushing him to find a wife, of course, but Kate imagined that she had a very different set of criteria than what Kate herself represented – namely Italian, Catholic, and not newly divorced. Kate and Signora Conti had got along famously as friends, but as anything more significant. . . it was too early to tell and Kate didn’t want to dwell on yet another potential hurdle to her happiness with Alessandro – she could find quite enough of those at home.
There was no need to set the alarm to ensure she was up to make the call in the morning – she woke with the sunrise after a restless night filled with dreams of lost babies, bailiffs and loved ones who kept evading her grasp every time she reached for them. She was finally pulled from sleep at the climax of the last and worst dream, where Alessandro’s mother locked her in a jail cell and swallowed the key with a piece of gorgonzola, laughing loudly, Alessandro standing with his arm around Orazia and laughing along with her as they watched Kate plead to be let out. Quite how she knew it was gorgonzola Kate wasn’t sure, but the important bit of the picture was the key. And possibly the laughing. She opened her eyes with a squeal, almost hyperventilating until she focused on the familiar layout of her own bedroom and fell back onto the pillows with a relieved sigh.
Once she’d pulled herself together, she grabbed her phone from the bedside cabinet.
‘Good morning,’ he said, in that voice that turned her into a puddle of molten lust, and instantly, every worry and fear was banished.
‘How was your night?’ she asked. ‘Busy?’
‘Quiet,’ he said. ‘I thought of you often.’
‘I thought of you too,’ she replied, trying to shake the images from her last dream as she said it. ‘I miss you like crazy.’
‘Then we are the same. Is all well? How is your sister?’
‘Lily? She’s bearing up. I mean, she’s sad and everything but she’s not as bad as I feared she would be.’
‘And Anna?’
‘Hmm. Anna’s worried about me. She’s making things difficult at the moment.’
‘You have told her about me?’
‘Yes. And my plans to come to Rome for good.’
‘She will worry for you. My sisters would worry for me too.’
‘And also. . . I quit my job yesterday.’
‘You have no work?’
‘Not at the moment.’
There was silence at the other end of the line. Then: ‘How will you come to Rome if you have no money?’
‘I would’ve had to quit anyway. This is just sooner than I had anticipated. Besides, it means that I’ll have to do everything here that bit quicker so, actually, I’ll be back there sooner than I’d hoped. Which is a good thing. . .’
‘You must sell your house? Have you spoken to your husband?’
‘Ex-husband,’ Kate reminded him, though she suspected it was a language thing. ‘Not my husband. . . not anything now really. But he’s going to do the jobs around the house that are needed to get it ready to sell and he’s agreed we can do that straightaway. At least there’ll be some money in that to get me on my way, though perhaps not enough to do any more than put a deposit on an apartment somewhere and cover the moving costs. I may need your help to look for one as I’m stuck here. I mean, I can see them online, though it’s not the same as viewing them in person, but perhaps you could do that for me – make sure they’re as nice as they look on the photos.’
She could tell by his voice that he was smiling at the other end of the line – that slightly sardonic, sexy smile that on anyone else might have been offensive or infuriating but on him she loved. ‘Lucetta is excited to help; she is already looking for the perfect apartment.’
‘So you’ve told her? About my plans?’
‘Yes. She’s very happy. She likes you very much.’
‘I like her too. And it’s kind of her to look for an apartment.’
‘She is clever; she will strike the best price for your rent.’
Kate didn’t imagine for one minute that Lucetta would do anything but get the best price. She was a formidable force of nature, and Kate certainly wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of her assertiveness. Although assertiveness might be putting it mildly, like saying that Thor was quite good with a hammer. ‘Then there’s the matter of getting work, or at least a business up and running. Whatever cash I have left over from the apartment deposit won’t last long, if there’s anything left at all.’
‘You are worried? Do you think it is a mistake to come here?’
There was genuine concern in his voice now. He thought she was going to change her mind and give up, that it would all be too much to achieve in the end. And often, when she looked at the task she had set herself, it felt like that to her too.
‘It’s going to be hard,’ she said. ‘I can’t pretend it won’t be. . .’ She wanted to ask him if he loved her enough, if he was sure of their future before she leapt into the abyss for him, but how could she? He could say that he was sure, that their love would last forever, but how could he know? Matt didn’t know, even though they had both thought so as they took their marriage vows. Nothing was ever certain and almost nothing was forever. It was a lesson Kate was learning fast.
‘We will help,’ he said. ‘I will ask everyone I know.’
And there was another question, just begging to be asked, one that she wasn’t sure she wanted the answer to.
‘Have you told your mother about us?’
There was a pause. ‘I am waiting,’ he said.
She didn’t ask more and there was no point. He was waiting to see if their dream became a reality and she couldn’t blame him. Why rock the boat if there was no need? If she hadn’t blurted her plans out to Matt then she would very likely have been doing the same. She wanted to ask what he thought his mother’s reaction might be, but she was too scared and she didn’t want to sour the first conversation they’d shared since she got home. ‘Where are you now?’ she asked instead. ‘Still at the police station?’
‘In the locker room.’
‘Alone?’ she said, thinking about the personal nature of their call and his openness.
‘Yes, alone. I am in the toilet block.’
‘Ugh! Not on the toilet?’
‘No.’ He gave a warm laugh. ‘I am going to take a shower before I go home.’
‘So… you’re naked right now. . .’
‘Do you wish me to be naked?’ he asked in a mischievous voice.
That delicious thrill ripped through her, her loins tingling and suddenly she was desperate to have him near. She pictured his perfect tanned torso, his trim waist, his pert bottom, imagined the last time her hands had explored him, and it was all she could do not to explode at the images that invaded her thoughts. ‘I’d be unhappy to know you were naked right now,’ she said.
‘Why?’ He sounded confused.
‘Because it would be a waste if I wasn’t there to kiss every inch of your nakedness.’
‘Perhaps we can pretend you are here. I will imagine your nakedness and you can imagine mine.’
‘Well. . .’ Kate said lazily, lying back on the bed, ‘it’s not going to be the same at all but I’ll see what I can do. . .’
Kate dreaded to think how much her early morning call to Alessandro had cost, but she had been on the line for a very long time. As she tried to get her head around the rest of the day, her mind wandered back to the sound of his voice, things they had said, things they had done. . . The memory of it made her blush more violently than any time she’d actually been with him, but she was
happy and, despite all the misgivings that still jostled for pole position in her thoughts, she felt positive. If you had love, anything was possible, wasn’t it? And she was becoming increasingly certain that what they had was the real thing.
But then the call came.
‘Kate. . .’ Anna’s voice was shaking. ‘I’m at Lily’s. Can you come over right now?’
Chapter Twenty-Three
Kate’s mum had this strange habit of appearing to wash her hands in mid-air whenever she was stressed. It had been the one abiding image that had accompanied her near-breakdown in the weeks after Kate’s father had died, but Kate hadn’t seen it for a long time. As she walked into Lily’s kitchen following the call from Anna, her mum’s hands were going like crazy. That was the first clue that things were every bit as bad as Anna’s voice on the phone had suggested.
Then her gaze travelled the room, taking in the scene of devastation as smashed crockery, glass, ripped food packets – their contents spilled across worktops – and things so broken up they were no longer even recognisable littered the surfaces, coming to rest on Lily herself, head in her arms, bits of food in her hair and over her pyjamas, squashed up in a corner, sobbing and shaking uncontrollably. Joel was there, doing his best to hold her and comfort her, but he looked close to breaking point himself.
‘I was in bed,’ Kate’s mum said. ‘Then I heard this almighty crashing. I thought we were being burgled or something. I rushed downstairs and. . .’
‘Lily was going mad, tearing the place up,’ Anna finished for her quietly. Not that it would have mattered if she’d said it loudly, because Lily herself didn’t seem to be aware of anything but what was in her head. And it broke Kate’s heart to see it, because it looked as if the thing filling Lily’s head was grief – all-engulfing and sharp and desperately painful. A delayed reaction – both she and Anna had predicted it, and both had hoped to be wrong. Being right was almost more than she could bear.
‘Lily. . .’ Kate said gently, stooping down to her on the floor. ‘It’s me. . . you want to talk to me?’
Lily looked up, but her expression didn’t seem to register Kate at all. Kate turned to Anna. ‘Help me get her away from all this mess – she’ll cut herself on something.’
Anna rushed over and together they took an arm each, leading their sister into the living room where they sat her on the duvet-covered sofa. She was still shaking, still crying, though she seemed a little more responsive to their presence now.
‘It’s alright,’ Kate said. ‘We’re here now.’ It was a pointless and stupid thing to say, and Kate was quite sure that Lily didn’t care who was there at that precise moment, but it was all she had to offer.
Joel came to sit next to Lily and tried to put his arm around her, but she shook him off violently. Confusion on his face, he leapt up from the sofa again, casting a glance at Kate and Anna in turn that pleaded for help. This was unfamiliar emotional territory for him, his happy little bubble of life with Lily suddenly burst, and he looked lost and close to breaking himself. Then their mum filed in from the kitchen, still wringing her hands and looking helpless. It looked as if everyone was falling apart other than Kate and her eldest sister. Anna took Kate to one side.
‘I really have to get to work,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I feel terrible for asking but—’
‘I know. I don’t have to go to work and you do. It’s OK; don’t feel bad. Of course I’ll stay with her.’
‘I’ll finish as quickly as I can and come straight back.’
‘Go home first and have some tea. You’ll be no good to anyone exhausted and hungry, and you don’t want to put stress on you and Christian as well as all this. I’ve got nowhere else to be.’
‘Apart from Italy,’ Anna said with a faint smile. ‘I’m glad you haven’t gone yet – I don’t know what I would have done without you today.’
‘You’d have coped,’ Kate said, but the damage was done and the guilt instantly set in. Anna would have coped, but it wouldn’t have been fair that the responsibility would have fallen on her shoulders alone.
Anna kissed her briefly on the cheek and then bent down to hug Lily, Joel and her mum in turn. ‘I’ll be back shortly,’ she said, and then hurried from the room. Kate turned to Joel.
‘Can you phone your doctor to come out to make a house call?’
‘I’ve done that,’ her mum cut in. ‘They said it would have to wait until the end of morning surgery but they’d send someone over.’ Kate gave a tense smile. At least that was something. ‘I can go and make a start on cleaning up the mess too,’ she added, and after a last uncertain glance at Lily she left the room.
‘That’s brilliant, thanks, Mum,’ Kate called after her. She turned back to her sister, whose head was buried in her arms again. There wasn’t much else they could do but wait for professional help now, but she realised that Lily was going to need her a lot while she got better, more than she’d ever done before, and Anna was going to need support too if she was going to keep her own home life afloat in the face of so much outside pressure. For how long was anyone’s guess. She was just about to say so to Joel, but as she turned to him, he was already across the room, rushing for the exit. She heard the sound of the front door slamming. Her mum came back into the living room.
‘What was that?’
Kate gave a slight shrug. ‘Joel’s gone out. I suppose he needed some air.’
‘The poor boy is in such a state. I don’t know how much more he can take.’
Three words sprang to mind as Kate studied her mother’s strained expression – pot, kettle and black. It wasn’t a huge stretch to imagine that she was feeling the stress of her daughter’s loss too, and she had a track record where that was concerned. Kate would have to watch not only Lily carefully, but Joel and her mum into the bargain. She had a feeling it was going to be a very long day – and it promised to be the first of many.
‘Why don’t you go and finish cleaning up? I’ll get Lily settled and then come to help.’
Her mum nodded with a thin smile, the hand wringing resuming as she left the room, and Kate sat down next to Lily with a heavy sigh.
Kate had thought the first week of her separation from Matt had been bad, but it paled in comparison to the pain of seeing her sweet, happy little sister turn into a hollow shell of the woman she had been. The first days had been the worst, although now, a week on, Lily seemed more communicative whenever Kate was there, which was as often as she could manage without interfering too much with the grieving process that Joel and Lily also had to go through together as a couple. Her mum had wanted to stay but Anna, Kate and Lily had insisted they could cope and had seen her back on a train to Scotland, where her husband, Hamish, waited, and it had been something of a relief. They loved her dearly, of course, but just by being there in the house where she needed meals and clean bedding and all manner of other everyday things – not to mention their worries about her mental state as well as Lily’s – she was an extra burden on a family network already at breaking point. Harsh as it was, she was better away from them at a time when Lily needed to be the priority. Joel wasn’t faring much better when it came to it, and he needed almost as much support as Lily. Left to their own devices, the pair of them might well be sucked into a void of misery, so far down that they would never return. If Kate was determined to do one thing, it was prevent her sister’s relationship going the same way hers and Matt’s had, especially when they were so perfect for each other in the first place (far more perfect than she and Matt had ever been) and if she had to be there to support them so that they stayed together, then she would.
Telling Alessandro had been the hardest thing for Kate. His complete understanding, his lack of complaint when she told him that every plan to return to Rome was now on hold indefinitely, his concern for her well-being without mentioning his own disappointment once, made her all the more desperate to get back to his arms. And yet there was this, hanging over her, and it was impossible to say when, if ever,
that would happen.
When she had the time she drew up plans for her sewing business, and though she still looked at the real-estate sites online for properties in Rome, it was in a half-hearted way. What was the point when everything was so uncertain? But she had done her best to carry on regardless with the things that she could do in the short term – the for-sale sign had gone up outside the house and Matt had kept his promise, arranging to come and do the little repair jobs around the place as he’d said he would.
It was a bright Sunday morning when she opened the front door, the kind of morning where, if she closed her eyes and stood in the sunshine, she could almost imagine herself standing by the Trevi Fountain, Alessandro by her side. Matt greeted her cheerfully, a toolbox looking ridiculously out of place in the hands of a man Kate knew to have about as much natural affinity with DIY as she did with genetic engineering.
‘Morning! Reporting for duty!’
Kate raised her eyebrows as she let him in. It had been a long time since she had seen him so cheerful. ‘Great. Do you want a drink or something before you start?’
‘I’ll just crack on. Tamara wants to go shopping for a pram this afternoon so we’re obviously on a deadline to catch the store before it closes.’
‘Does it have to be today? She knows you’ve got things to do.’
He glanced up the stairs, scratching his head. ‘Why? Do you think this stuff is going to take longer than a morning?’
‘No,’ Kate said, ‘I mean, doesn’t she have ages before the baby is due?’
‘Oh, right. . .’ Matt sniffed. ‘She’s excited, I suppose. And I suppose it’ll be on us quicker than we think.’
It didn’t sound as if Matt shared Tamara’s enthusiasm but it was hardly a surprise to Kate. Perhaps he would come round as the birth drew nearer. He would have to; there wasn’t a lot of choice.
‘How’s Lily?’ he asked. ‘Bearing up?’
‘She’s been better. In fact, I may have to leave you to get on with things here and go over to see if she’s OK. You’ll be alright for an hour, won’t you?’
Rome is Where the Heart is: An uplifting romantic read, perfect to escape with (From Italy with Love Book 1) Page 23
