Finally home.
She remembered the terror of leaving, and that terror left her a little today.
She took off all the dust sheets and washed the windows so that sun streamed in, and she scrubbed down the floors because her mother had always been proud.
She went into her wardrobe and took out a dress of ginger and set to work with scissors and thread and then washed and hung it.
Then Bella washed Sophie’s gown with much loving care and, having rolled it in a towel and gently squeezed out the excess water, she hung it outside to dry in the Sicilian sun as she tended the little garden.
Bella pulled out weeds and exposed flowers that her mother had always loved.
She picked a bunch. Some had been planted, others were wild, and Maria would have adored each and every one.
She walked up the hill and into the churchyard.
Five years late for her own mother’s funeral, Bella knelt at her grave and what she saw brought happy tears to her eyes.
Yes, she had been given a pauper’s grave but there was a wooden cross and her name had been written on it and there were flowers, some new, some fading.
Yes, she had been loved by many.
No, she had not been forgotten.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE WEDDING DAY dawned and Matteo walked with Luka along the shore.
They were still in the suits they had worn last night.
They had drunk far too much, reminisced too much, and now as they walked to clear their heads, a vision clouded Matteo’s.
There was Bella. She was in a loose dress, her hair was down and blowing in the wind, and she was a dangerous sight for sore eyes.
‘Bella.’ Luka nodded to her.
‘If you are going to marry my friend I hope you meet with a razor, and if you’re to be the best man,’ she added to Matteo, ‘then I suggest the same.’
‘How is Sophie this morning?’ Luka asked, as Matteo stood silent beside him.
‘She’s fine,’ Bella said. ‘And she’ll be fine, whatever happens today. I doubt you can say the same.’
‘Meaning?’
‘I love my friend,’ Bella said. ‘I can’t imagine my world without her. You can tell me what that world is like tomorrow perhaps...’
She went to walk off.
‘Is Sophie at home?’ Luka asked.
‘She’s at the cove,’ Bella said, not turning her head. She was furious with Luka and what he was about to do.
She didn’t turn around, even when she heard footsteps coming up behind her and her name being called, but Matteo caught her wrist and he swung her around to face him.
And it wasn’t disgust she had seen in his eyes that day by the Trevi Fountain, Bella realised, it had been anger, and he was unleashing some of it now.
‘I gave you an out!’ he shouted. ‘I understand that your mother was ill but I left you enough money to leave later...’
Bella let out a hollow laugh, shrugged off his hand and kept on walking.
‘Gina took her share, Malvolio his, and what was left...’ She shrugged. ‘Three months of meals at the hospital, toiletries, and I bought my mother a scarf and some bed slippers and things. Do you want me to make a list?’ She turned and looked at Matteo.
‘You only needed to call, Bella.’
‘You didn’t give me your number.’
‘You could have called Luka.’
‘Have you forgotten just how poor Malvolio kept us?’ Bella raged. ‘I could have looked up his name on my laptop maybe, or used up the credit on my cellphone, trying to find him. Oh, but that’s right, I don’t have either. I had call boxes and coins, and when I got home my phone had been cut off. But I did call you, Matteo. My mother died the day after Paulo was sentenced...’ She watched as his face paled a little and he started to piece together the dates. ‘I got your number and I ran through a forest to escape and I did call you, but you were otherwise engaged.’ She looked him square in the eye and, no, she did not need dark glasses to hide behind any more. ‘Did you love her?’
‘Who?’
‘The woman you were busy with through that night...’
He had been trying to bleach out the thought of Bella and Dino. ‘Bella,’ Matteo admitted, ‘I can’t even remember who she was...’
‘Exactly,’ she said. ‘I know this much about her, though, and all the other women since. They loved your money. So tell me, who’s the real whore?’
Matteo didn’t answer.
‘Did you ever think to call me?’ she asked.
‘I called over and over,’ Matteo said, ‘and when you didn’t answer, I called Dino...’
They both knew what he had said.
Matteo cleared his throat. ‘Luka has gone to talk to Sophie,’ he said, about to suggest that they do the same, but Bella was too angry to let him finish.
‘I don’t need your running commentary, Matteo,’ she said. ‘I’ll hear what’s happening from my friend. How is the hotel?’ She glanced up at it and from here she could see the room they had shared that night and bitterness rose in her chest. ‘It’s just as well Shandy isn’t here, it would be a let-down after Fiscella.’
‘Not to me,’ he said, for he had one very pleasant memory of that place.
She looked back at him.
‘I’m in the same room,’ he said. ‘It hasn’t changed a bit.’
‘Oh, so what time do you want me there?’
‘Bella!’ he shouted at her. ‘I didn’t say it for that. I meant that I’m in the same room...’ And he screwed his eyes closed because how did you flirt with a whore? How did you tell her that the memories were killing him and it was agony to be back here?
A beautiful, black agony because it had kept him in the bar all night rather than go back to the room without her there.
‘Do you want me in a maid outfit?’ Bella said. ‘While your fiancée is away, we can play, perhaps...’
‘Yes...’
He would have her again, he would empty his wallet for her again, he would do anything he could just to go back to that night.
There was no thought really, just that.
His kiss was rough, it was fierce, she had been goading him, shaming herself, sure, just sure he would tell her where to get off, that Matteo Santini would not want her in the same way that he once had.
Yet he did.
It hurt. There were tears of shock as she kissed him back. It hurt her soul to taste again what she craved, and now, to give in, she was back at day one, aching with withdrawal, and so even as their tongues thrashed, even as their groins displayed their devotion, somehow, somehow she pushed him back. And then she said not that he couldn’t afford her but the truth.
‘I can’t afford to.’
For if she did, surely she lost her soul?
* * *
Matteo returned to that room and he lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling fan, rather glad of the seedy surroundings.
It had seemed luxurious at the time.
The memory still was.
He had spent five years fulfilling his promise to himself. He had let go of the past, built a reputation, and while he would throw it all away this very moment, still he thought of the impact on her.
Either face the press or live in isolation...
He thought of the sheikh he was meeting with soon to discuss a chain of hotels and how hard it would be on Bella to introduce her as his wife after the salacious headlines had hit...
Matteo was lying there, thinking of throwing everything he had worked for away for Bella, and he knew that he needed out of this place.
A clear head was not possible with her around.
‘Hey.’ Matteo was still lying on the bed in a prison cell called Bella when the reluctant
groom called.
‘The wedding’s happening,’ Luka said. ‘For real. I don’t need a lecture. Sophie and I—’
‘I don’t need to hear it.’
He didn’t want to know his friend had found love, he didn’t want to know that he must now dance with Bella tonight.
He wanted his helicopter and he wanted it now. He wanted to be lifted out of the sky and back to the safe haven he had created, where women came loudly and then left, hopefully, quietly.
Instead, a few hours later he stood in a packed church.
All the locals were there.
Past sins forgiven.
But it was not the bride he noticed as Sophie walked down the aisle but the bridesmaid.
Bella was wearing a dress and the colour was ginger and Matteo knew it was the one she had worn for the Natalia party the night he hadn’t shown up.
It was.
She had made a few modifications.
The back was lower and the sleeves were gone.
It showed her slender figure, it brought out the deepest green of her eyes.
Yes, she knew how to dress as a lady and today she was one.
She gave him a very soft smile and then she focussed on the wedding and tried not to cry, because while she would love her friend for ever and did not begrudge her a moment of this day, there was a special pain, a unique loneliness that came when your friend found love.
Bella suddenly felt left behind.
Alone.
With her pride, though, Bella reminded herself.
It was a beautiful wedding but it wasn’t theirs.
Bella and Matteo walked out with the happy couple onto the street and there were cheers and celebration rice was being thrown.
There were drinks to be drunk and speeches to be made, and they did it all and looked out to the street with the olive trees dressed in lights that started to sparkle as evening came. There was no choice but to hold each other again as they danced that one dance.
It was cruel.
It was bliss.
She sank into his arms and he wrapped them around her just because.
He felt the same, Bella thought, he smelt the same, only she wasn’t the same.
‘I’m sorry that I offended you this morning,’ he said, and she looked up to him and nodded. ‘You offended your fiancée too,’ Bella said. ‘I don’t like her but don’t be that man who cheats.’ She said the same words she had on the night they had found each other. ‘I thought better of you.’
He was better than that, and it mattered enough to tell her.
‘We broke up,’ he said, ‘about ten minutes after you got fired.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ Bella said. ‘You say that just so I agree to go back to your room with you.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m saying that because this morning wasn’t about cheating or lying, it was about us and my wanting you.’
‘You didn’t think to tell me?’
‘Oh, I did,’ he said, and she frowned as he spoke on. ‘I decided it was safer not to.’
‘Were you worried that you might have called down for room service?’ Bella smiled just a little and so too did he.
‘Yep.’
Then he broke the last piece of her heart.
‘I’m leaving after this dance,’ he said, and from the strain in his voice she knew that he meant it. ‘I’ve booked a helicopter—’
‘You’re the best man.’
‘I know,’ he said, ‘but I have to go and I have to think and I can’t do that with you...’
He couldn’t, because he was as turned on as she was. If he stayed, if there was even one more dance they would be back in the hotel room and tonight Matteo needed to be the best man he could be.
Not for Luka but for Bella and himself.
He kissed her cheek and said goodbye and he held her a moment and smelt her hair and then she watched as he went and said farewell to the bride and groom. She saw the lights of his helicopter and Bella stood alone.
With her pride, though.
It offered little consolation.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
BELLA WASN’T A MAGPIE.
She didn’t take shiny things for herself.
The nice things she wanted were for the people she loved.
Tonight, though, her desire was selfish.
‘Sophie...’ Bella went over to her friend and Sophie was the happiest she had ever seen her. It was clear to all that this wedding was no farce—you could feel the love between Sophie and Luka.
‘I’m going to be the worst bridesmaid in the world,’ Bella said, and Sophie smiled as she told her that she would be leaving early.
‘Are you going after the best man?’
Bella nodded. ‘I’ll never be suitable wife material for Matteo,’ she said, ‘I get that, but...’ She didn’t finish. She didn’t need to explain to her friend that the one night she’d had with Matteo was one she had fought for five years not to remember.
Bella wanted one more night that she would never let herself forget.
‘Go,’ Sophie said, and they had a cuddle. ‘Do you need a car?’
‘No, I’ve asked Pino to take me.’
Bella slipped away from the wedding party and into the churchyard and past the beautiful gravestones, then she went back to her mother’s grave, which the villagers still dressed with kindness.
‘I love you, Ma. I love you so much and one day I’ll be back to give you the stone you deserve, but tonight I’m leaving. I’m going to spend the money I’ve saved on myself. I’m going to do something not because I have to but because I want to.’
* * *
Pino, the village messenger, had moved from a bicycle to a moped and now lived a very clean life, but at Bella’s insistence he rode faster.
Yes, it was freeing to take the road out of Bordo Del Cielo that would lead her to Matteo.
They drove alongside the ocean with the forest that had saved her on the other side and finally she was free to make her own choices, however unwise they might be.
She took the last flight out and was back at her flat by the small hours, and as she showered only then did Bella remember that she was supposed to be back at work at six to start the breakfasts.
With all that had happened in recent days, she had forgotten to swap her shift.
She wore no make-up as she pulled on a green uniform and her sensible lace-up shoes. She might regret it tomorrow but right now she would follow her heart.
* * *
And Matteo followed his.
He arrived in Rome to a packed city that felt empty, and after a short time away from Bella his head was already completely clear.
The decision he had been coming to since he had stood, right here at this fountain, was made now, and he took the coin from his pocket and tossed it in.
He would be back and with her by his side.
And if that were the case, there was a lot he needed to do.
He arrived back at the hotel and made the necessary phone calls and then he fell into a dreamless sleep.
Or, rather, it was dreamless at first.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
BELLA HAD NEVER been scared of the dark and she wasn’t now.
She walked down the alley at the side of the hotel and went in through the workers’ entrance, but she did not head to the kitchens where her shift was due to start later.
Instead, she took an elevator up to the top floors where she didn’t usually work.
She took out her swipe card and told herself that if he was not alone, there would be no more water-throwing, she would simply turn and leave.
She lied to herself!
But he was alone.
She knew it the second she walked in and saw him lying there. Matteo was asleep on his back and she stood a moment, allowing her eyes to adjust. He was far less careful with his clothes than yesteryear because they were all tossed on the floor, along with a couple of towels. She moved her gaze and took in the delicious sight of him. One arm was up over his head, his other hand was on his flat stomach and the sheet just covered him.
Bella walked over quietly and she wanted to wake him with a kiss but her fingers were too impatient to await instruction. Already they were on his shoulder and, feeling his skin beneath her fingers, she ran her hand down his arm, feeling him, as if testing that he was real.
Matteo fought not to wake. In his dream she was standing there, her fragrance, her touch, the perfection his senses knew.
He let out a breath and his hand moved a little lower on his stomach but then it was halted by hers and Bella lowered her head and kissed her sleeping beauty.
It was a soft kiss but sinful with seduction. As his lips parted her tongue slipped in and she hovered over him, holding his wrist, loving his mouth and the fact that he didn’t open his eyes.
It was a kiss that had her move over him and the feel of his hands on her hips, guiding her, was sublime. Still he did not open his eyes.
‘Am I dreaming?’ Matteo said, between slow kisses.
‘Maybe we both are.’
His hand dealt with the bow of her apron and then he undid the poppers on her robe and reacquainted himself with her naked breasts. She terminated their kiss and sat on his thighs, taking his lovely erection. It was, for Bella, healing to hold Matteo in her palm over and over.
‘How do you want me?’ she said.
‘Exactly as you are.’
She didn’t understand his meaning, it just felt like a very nice thing to hear as he pulled her up and lifted the skirt of her dress.
His eyes were now open, watching her lower herself onto him, and Bella let out a sob of remembrance and bliss as finally he was back to being her lover.
Matteo tore at her dress to remove it. He wanted to watch their reunion; he wanted to revisit every inch of naked skin.
‘Careful,’ Bella warned. ‘I have to do the breakfasts at six...’
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