Sicilian's Shock Proposal

by Carol Marinelli

  All he could do for her now was fight to set her father free.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ‘I SAW LUKA.’

  Sophie had always known that she might hear those words one day but when Bella actually voiced them, for a long moment Sophie did not know how to react.

  So much so that she said nothing and just lifted her side of the mattress and carried on making the huge king-size bed.

  Sophie had known that Bella wanted to speak with her. As well as sharing a very small flat in Rome, they worked as maids in Hotel Fiscella—a luxurious hotel in the very heart of Rome.

  The manager, Marco, had, at first, refused to put them together, knowing that they came from the same Sicilian town. However, when a gap in the roster had given him no choice, Sophie and Bella had set out to prove him wrong. They worked very well together, although they chatted a lot!

  Now, though, Sophie was silent.

  ‘I just saw him in the elevator when I went to collect the guest list for our floor.’

  ‘He’s not on our list? Sophie checked in horror, but thankfully Bella shook her head.

  ‘Looking at the way he was dressed and held himself, he would be on one of the top floors,’ Bella said, and that told Sophie he was doing well.

  The hotel was indeed luxurious but the top floors were reserved for the rich and famous.

  It had been five years since Sophie had last seen him.

  Five years since that walk on the beach.

  She knew that Malvolio had died a few months ago. Her father had been diagnosed as terminally ill on the very same day that she had heard the news. After that she had read that Luka had bought an apartment in Rome and now lived between here and London.

  Sometimes Sophie was nervous that she might see him in the street, that she would face him in her maid’s uniform when she had sworn she could do better without him. That she might face him in the street was bad enough, but knowing that he was at the hotel was far too close for comfort.

  ‘Why would he stay here when he has an apartment?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Bella said. ‘But it was definitely him.’

  When they had read that Luka Cavaliere had purchased a residence Sophie and Bella had even gone to the library to use the computers and had done a virtual tour of the apartment. It had been a foolish thing to do because Sophie found she could picture herself there and all too often did.

  ‘Did he recognise you?’ Sophie asked, but Bella just laughed.

  ‘As if he would even glance at a maid! Though I stood behind the bellboy’s trolley just in case he looked over.’ she admitted. ‘But he didn’t.’

  ‘I don’t want him to see me like this,’ Sophie said in sudden panic. ‘I don’t want him to see that I am still a chambermaid. What if I have to deliver a meal to his room?’

  ‘Don’t feel ashamed.’

  ‘I’m not,’ Sophie said. ‘I just don’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing how little I have moved on.’

  ‘You won’t see him. I heard him say he was going back to London this afternoon.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘What else do you want to know?’ Bella asked.

  ‘Nothing.’ Sophie shook her head. ‘I don’t even want to think of that man.’

  It was all that she did, though.

  Every night when she fell, exhausted, into bed he was there, waiting for her in her dreams. Every morning she awoke cross with her subconscious and how readily it forgave Luka, for her dreams varied from sweet memories of a sun-drenched childhood to a torrid recall of their one passionate afternoon.

  They finished making up the bed in silence and Bella went in to do the bathroom while Sophie dusted the flat surfaces of the hotel suite.

  Sophie didn’t want to ask questions; she wanted to shrug her shoulders and carry on with her day as if a bomb hadn’t just dropped in her world, but, of course, that wasn’t possible.

  She walked into the bathroom and Bella smiled in the mirror that she was polishing when she saw her friend hovering in the doorway.

  ‘Who was he saying it to?’ Sophie asked. ‘Who was he speaking with?’

  ‘A woman.’ Bella’s voice was gentle yet the words hurt so much.

  ‘Was she beautiful?’ Sophie asked, and Bella screwed up her nose. ‘I didn’t really notice.’

  ‘I want the truth, Bella,’ she said.

  Her friend nodded. ‘Yes, she was beautiful.’

  ‘Did she have a name?’

  ‘He called her Claudia.’

  ‘And how did he look?’ Sophie asked.

  ‘He looked well.’

  ‘Very well?’

  ‘Well, the last time I saw him he was just out of prison so, of course, he looked better than that.’

  Sophie knew her friend was trying to downplay things for her.

  ‘His hair is longer now but still very neat. He still has that scar over his eye.’

  ‘Did he look happy?’ Tears were in Sophie’s eyes as she asked the question, though she never let them fall. It was ridiculous that the man she hated, the man that had caused her family so much pain could still move her so much. That jealousy could rise in her just knowing Luka was carrying on as he always had—dating and living his life—while she Bella worked as maids in a hotel and could barely make ends meet.

  ‘Luka never really looked happy,’ Bella said. ‘That, at least, is the same.’

  Sophie was quiet.

  Bella was right—to others he never looked happy. He was sullen and dark but with her he had laughed and smiled.

  She had been privy to such a different side of him.

  Knowing that Luka had been here in the hotel had Sophie on edge all day, and it was a relief to get away from work.

  All she wanted to do was go home and sleep but instead she changed out of her maid’s uniform and into a skirt and a T-shirt and then took the bus. She had to stand nearly all the way to the prison infirmary her father had been moved to.

  Once there she put on a ring that had belonged to Bella’s mother and signed the visitors’ book.

  Her bag was searched and she was patted down and then she was allowed in.

  ‘Sophie!’ Paulo’s face lit up when he saw her walk onto the ward. ‘You don’t have to come and see me every day.’

  ‘I want to.’

  Now that he was in the infirmary, visits could be daily, and Sophie knew full well that he had little time left.

  ‘How is Luka?’ Paulo asked.

  Her father’s mental health had deteriorated throughout the trial and by the time he’d got to Rome he’d been a shadow of himself. He had never been a strong man, and was an exhausted man now.

  Sophie just wanted him to know a little peace so she had lied to her father over the years and pretended that she was with Luka.

  ‘He’s busy with work.’ Sophie smiled, grateful that her father was easily confused and very forgetful. ‘He says hello and that he will try to come in and visit you soon.’

  ‘Bella?’

  ‘She’s still working at the hotel.’

  It was the same questions most days and Sophie knew the routine well. She took out some fruit she had bought for him. A lot of her money went on bringing in Paulo treats, even though she couldn’t afford to.

  ‘This is too expensive,’ her father said, when she gave him a large bowl of raspberries, which had always been his favourite fruit. When she’d been growing up, they had been a very rare treat.

  ‘Luka can afford it,’ she said, and the bitter edge to her voice had her father frown, and Sophie did her best to rectify her small outburst. ‘He’s a good man,’ she said.

  ‘If he is such a good man, why hasn’t he married you?’ Paulo asked.

  ‘I’ve told you that
,’ Sophie said. ‘He knows how much I want you to walk me down the aisle. We are waiting for that day when you are released...’

  It was never going to happen. Paulo did not have long left, maybe a few weeks of life, yet his jail sentence was forty-three years.

  ‘I want to see you married in the same church your mother and I were,’ Paulo said.

  ‘I know that you do.’ Sophie smiled. ‘It will happen one day.’

  ‘Maybe,’ he said, and Sophie swallowed back tears at the sudden brightness in his voice. ‘The director said this morning that things are looking hopeful.’

  ‘Of course there is hope,’ she said, and squeezed his frail hand.

  ‘We will know next Wednesday if I am going to get out.’

  Sophie looked up and smiled as a nurse came over.

  ‘The director wants to speak with you, Sophie.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Sophie said, and stood. ‘I’ll be back soon,’ she said to Paulo, and walked with the nurse, assuming that she was going to get a health update.

  She was led through the prison infirmary and to a corridor of offices and there she met a tired-looking woman, who gave Sophie a warm smile and offered her a seat.

  ‘He’s more confused than ever,’ Sophie said. ‘Now he thinks he is getting out of here on Wednesday.’

  ‘He might be getting released,’ the director said, and for a moment Sophie wondered if the chair had been moved for it felt as it the ground had just given way.

  ‘Your father’s hearing has been brought forward. We have signed all the forms and have done all we can for him at this end.’

  ‘I don’t understand—I didn’t even know there was to be a hearing.’

  ‘We are hoping that your father can be released on compassionate grounds. He is no threat to anyone, really he is too weak to go to anywhere other than a hospital or be nursed in your home.’ She gave a small shrug. ‘Now it is up to the judge to decide but the lawyer who is working on his case is a very good one.’

  ‘I didn’t even know there was a lawyer looking out for him.’

  ‘When patients come into the infirmary and their condition is terminal, we try to have their cases reassessed.’

  ‘Why wasn’t I told this was happening?’

  ‘It all came about very speedily. When Legal looked at his file they thought there might a possibility for a mistrial but your father does not have time for that. It was thought best to try to get him released on compassionate grounds.’ She smiled at Sophie. ‘I don’t want to get your hopes up but I think in just a few days you might well be able to take your father home.’

  Sophie smiled.

  It was wonderful news, unexpected and amazing.

  And yet it was terrifying too.

  She had built a world in her father’s mind. One where she lived with Luka in a beautiful flat in Rome, not a scruffy apartment that she and Bella shared.

  She had told her father that Matteo and Luka were still friends, which they were, according to the business press, but she hadn’t seen him in years.

  The only truth she had told was that Bella worked at Hotel Fiscella, only because once Bella had had to visit on her behalf and had worn a coat over her uniform, which her father had seen.

  Paulo was confused enough not to question too many things and there was a lot that he didn’t remember.

  He simply believed that Luka had kept his word and had got engaged to his daughter.

  How could she tell her dying father it had all been a lie?

  How could she tell him that she had nothing and that, apart from her friend, she had no one?

  ‘I called you in,’ the director continued, but it was as if Sophie was hearing from a distance, ‘so that you can start to make plans for his release.’

  Sophie managed to thank the director and she even went in to kiss her father goodbye. Once outside again, though, she ran from the hospital and took the crowded bus. When she got off, she raced along the cobbled streets and up the small stairwell, where she wrenched open the iron security door and called out to her friend.

  ‘What?’ Bella asked, when she saw her stricken face.

  ‘Pa may be being released...’

  Bella let out a shocked gasp. ‘That’s fantastic news.’

  ‘I know that but how can I bring him here when I have told him that I am engaged to Luka, that we live in a beautiful home?’

  ‘You can’t tell him the truth,’ Bella said. ‘Your father deserves to die knowing that his daughter will be looked after.’ Bella’s eyes filled with tears. ‘My mother didn’t know that peace. I think that night Malvolio got released and sent me to work had her go to her grave with a broken heart. It’s not going to happen to your father.’

  ‘Oh, so I just produce a luxury apartment? I could just get a photo of Luka, perhaps, and blow it up and sit him in a chair. I know my father is confused but he’s not mad...’

  ‘No,’ Bella said. ‘You are to go and see Luka and tell him that he owes you this much...after the way he shamed you, after all that he said in court, he can damn well go along with things for a while.’

  ‘Do you think I could pull it off?’ Sophie said, but then shook her head. ‘I can’t face him like this.’

  ‘You won’t have to,’ Bella said. ‘I can still sew, I can make you the most sophisticated, elegant woman he has ever seen. You can blow those London women out of the water. He will eat his own words.’

  Sophie thought for a moment. ‘Luka could do it,’ Sophie agreed. ‘He’s a Cavaliere after all. They better than anyone know how to lie under oath.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  ‘COULD YOU DIRECT me to Luka Cavaliere’s office?’

  Sophie stood at a large reception desk and did everything she could to keep the slight tremble from her voice. She was determined to get this right, even if it meant practising her cool façade on the receptionist

  ‘Is he expecting you, Ms...?’

  ‘No, he’s not expecting me.’ Sophie shook her head. ‘If you could just tell me what floor he is on...’

  ‘I’m sorry, but Mr Cavaliere won’t see anyone without an appointment.’ There was just a slight something about the receptionist’s voice when she said his name. Her words were tinged with affection and Sophie was quite sure she knew the reason for that.

  ‘For me he would make an exception.’ Sophie stared the woman down but it didn’t work.

  ‘There are no exceptions.’ The receptionist smiled her pussycat smile and Sophie glanced at her name badge.

  Amber.

  ‘Excuse me,’ Amber said as her telephone rang, ‘but I need to take this call.’

  Sophie stood there as she was summarily dismissed. The beautiful receptionist picked up the phone and started talking but when she had completed the call she blinked, as if surprised to see that Sophie was still there.

  ‘Can I help you?’ She frowned.

  ‘You can, Amber,’ Sophie responded. ‘Please let Mr Cavaliere know that his fiancée is here and that she wishes to see him.’

  ‘His fiancée?’

  Sophie watched two spots of colour spread over the woman’s cheeks and her cold blue eyes glance down at Sophie’s ring finger. ‘That’s right!’ Sophie was the one smiling a pussycat smile now. ‘If you could let him know...’

  ‘And your name is...?’

  Sophie didn’t respond to the question. Luka would know exactly who she was. She pictured his expression when he took the call that would tell him she was back in his life.

  A little flustered, the receptionist picked up the phone and relayed the news that Mr Cavaliere’s fiancée was there and then gave Sophie a guarded smile. ‘I’ve told his PA and she’s going to speak with Mr Cavaliere. If you’d like to take a seat...’

  Sophie walked across the
elegant foyer to the large leather sofas. She caught sight of herself in the mirror and was relieved for all the effort that she and Bella had made to get to this day.

  Bella had, as it turned out, been raiding the bins that they emptied at the hotel for years. Anything that one of the rich guests had thrown out she had squirrelled away.

  Beneath Bella’s bed were two boxes packed with luxurious clothes.

  ‘This one,’ Bella had told her as she held up an ivory silk dress, ‘had a little lipstick on the front. She couldn’t even be bothered to send it to be dry-cleaned. And these...’ She held up some stunning stilettoes. ‘They needed to be reheeled, that is all.’

  There were coats, jackets, skirts, even nightdresses.

  Together they had selected her wardrobe for today and with Bella’s skilled hands the rather large ivory dress now clung to Sophie’s ripe figure.

  The shoes had been reheeled and Sophie’s toes had been painted to match her fingernails.

  She had flown into London that morning on the red-eye and would be flying back tonight.

  The little money they had been saving to fly her father’s body, on his death, back to Bordo Del Cielo they had decided to spend on making his last days a dream come true.

  Who would guess that Sophie’s regular clothes and shoes were in a hired locker at the airport?

  Luka must never know.

  She had been to a hairdresser’s to have her hair put up and then she had changed into the dress Bella had made for her and gone to the make-up counter at an exclusive department store.

  She stood as the receptionist came over. ‘Mr Cavaliere says you are to go straight up. I’ll walk you to the elevator.’

  Sophie wanted to turn and run, to ask for a couple of minutes to check her make-up, or for a glass of water for her very dry mouth, but instead she nodded and crossed the foyer.

  His office was on the twenty-third floor and her stomach seemed to have been left on the ground as she sailed closer to him.

  The elevator doors opened and Sophie was met by a tearful woman who told her that she was the final straw and then let her know that her fiancé was a cheating bastard...