‘Has something happened?’
‘I miss you,’ Gabriella said. ‘It seems strange to know that you are there. What have you been doing?’
And Ella told her—not about the promotion, more the news her mother would be stunned to hear.
‘You ate dinner with Teresa Corretti? Ella, you must be careful.’ She sounded terrified. ‘Do not tell your aunts.’
‘Mum, she’s a lovely lady and I don’t think their name is all bad now. All the locals are watching the filming and seem really excited—’
‘What did you eat?’ Gabriella interrupted and it was actually a nice conversation. She told her about the food, and yes, her mother asked about the furniture. ‘She gave me some olive oil to send you.’
‘She gave you that for me?’
‘She said you would miss it.’
‘I do.’
There was a very long silence and then Gabriella revealed the real reason she had rung.
‘Ella, I am so sorry.’
‘Mum…’ She was about to tell her to stop, but wasn’t that what she scorned her mother for, for not talking about things, for just closing off?
‘I should never have asked you to cover up for him, but I was scared. If we told the police, what would happen afterwards? You were right to get away and you are right to not want to speak with him. I will never ask you to again.’
‘Thank you.’
How she’d needed to hear her mother say sorry and they spoke some more, cried some more. As Ella hung up on her mother, she knew that there was someone she had to say sorry to herself.
Properly though.
Except he was at dinner, and it really would be poor form to disturb, so Ella texted instead, asked if she could speak with him, that it didn’t matter what time.
Ella wasn’t surprised when he didn’t answer.
She’d hurt him, offended him, and she knew that Santo was incredibly proud.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
HE WAS SCOWLING and completely unapproachable on set the next morning, arms crossed. He was talking with Luca, one of his cousins, and the conversation didn’t look as if it was pretty, but Ella tried to focus on Taylor.
‘We’re going to zoom in to a close-up,’ Ella said to Taylor. ‘Just go for it, but anything we can’t get today, we’ll get in the studio. I’m not going to be asking you to do this over and over. Just give it all you’ve got now.’
As Taylor headed off for a touch-up of hair and make-up, she glanced over to the dark brooding shadow of Santo. Luca was nowhere to be seen now. The cameras were all set up and ready and, even if she was dreading it, even if this might prove the most embarrassing moment of her life, still she had to face him—had to tell Santo that it wasn’t a game she’d been playing, that she’d just not been able to stick to a playboy’s rules.
She walked over to him, and even with dark glasses on, she could feel his eyes telling her to back off. He was leaning on a trailer, arms folded, and he said nothing as she walked over.
‘I’m sorry.’ God, it was a very hard thing to say when you absolutely meant it. ‘I am so sorry. I know how much I insulted you yesterday. I know that you would never hit me.’
Still he said nothing. It was like talking to a cardboard cut-out of him because his face never moved, his body was still. The effusive, expressive Santo was lost to her now and she wanted him back.
‘I spoke to my mum last night and I realised you are right. I have been holding back.’ Ella took a deep breath. ‘I’ve liked you for a very long time,’ she admitted. ‘A lot, and yes, I was jealous even if I didn’t want to admit that I was. And because I know that you don’t do long-term, I knew that by sleeping with you I’d be pretty much writing my own resignation. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to work alongside you if you were with someone else.’ She wished he would speak but, when he did, she wished that he hadn’t.
‘You assume so much.’
Santo looked at her from behind his dark glasses. Not once had she even hinted that his lifestyle bothered her—irritated her, maybe. He had heard the barbs. He thought of the cards he had had her dictate to the florist. Except there had been none in recent months, for the familiar, well-used lines had stopped coming so readily. Jewellery was a far easier option with a quick, simple line about matching her eyes…
And Ella had written them.
‘It was a lot more than sex to me and I didn’t want you to know how I felt, but now you do.’
‘Taylor’s taking her place.’
‘Santo…’
‘Get to work, Ella.’
She was shaking as she walked away from him. She had told him everything and he had given her nothing back.
Not everything.
Ella knew she hadn’t been completely open with him—but how? She wasn’t about to play the sympathy card. She’d declined the chance to talk to him on too many occasions. It wasn’t exactly fair to demand that right back now.
‘Ready?’ Ella checked in with her leading lady.
‘You want to take my place?’ Taylor asked when she saw Ella’s brimming eyes.
‘Right now, I probably could,’ Ella admitted, ‘except it wouldn’t be acting.’
‘If I get this right you can buy me a drink tonight,’ Taylor offered. ‘And I’ll lend you an ear.’
Taylor did get it right.
Whatever place Taylor took her head to, she was in agony and it was a privilege to watch. To witness her pure pain. There was no question that Vince would be drawn to her. Absolutely the viewer would understand why the characters would make love on the beach a few minutes later. Ella almost wanted to tell Taylor to stop, to breathe, because even though Taylor was hardly making a noise, it was clear she was broken.
Her eyes were screwed closed against tears that squeezed out, her lips were pressed tight and there was this river of pain building. She was locked in hell, just as Santo had been that morning where she had found him crying in the bath.
It hit her then.
She remembered the tears that Santo had shed that morning, the hell he had been in, all they had shared. It had been, she was sure now, far more than sex for him too, and she’d just walked away from him.
The one time Santo had needed another, had been himself with another, she’d closed off.
Frantic, she looked away from Taylor for a second, and over to Santo, but he just stood there, his arms folded, watching the action, watching Taylor, as she now must.
Taylor’s blue eyes were open. She was choking in tears. Then, even though they already had the shots, she repeated it just in case, turned her head to Vince, blanched as if she expected criticism and then her face moved in for his kiss. And what a kiss it would be, because now Ella knew for sure that this movie would work.
‘Cut.’
The second Ella said it Taylor burst out laughing, from the high and the elation of a perfect scene.
‘That was amazing!’ Ella enthused. ‘Just brilliant.’ And she told Taylor the same again later when she bought her a drink, shy to be sitting and talking with someone as famous as Taylor Carmichael.
‘You’d better get used to it,’ Taylor said when Ella admitted how nervous she was to be talking to her off set. ‘If this film does well, you’re going to be known soon. You’ll have scripts arriving…’
‘I haven’t really thought about after,’ Ella admitted. ‘I’m just trying to concentrate on getting this right. I know there won’t be an opportunity like this again.’ Her voice trailed off for a moment. ‘I’ve been so focused on work I’ve forgotten what’s important.’
‘We all do it at times,’ Taylor said. ‘Santo will understand that.’ Ella burnt red that what was going on was so obvious to everyone, but then it turned to guilt as Taylor continued. ‘But things are pretty hellish for the Correttis at the moment.’ She was direct without being indiscreet and Ella caught her eye. Taylor would know only too well what was going on at the moment, that compromising photo that surprisingly hadn’t contained Santo had st
ill had the scandal of the Corretti name attached to it! ‘Maybe it’s time to forget about work for a while,’ Taylor suggested.
It was.
Ella finished up her drink and thanked Taylor again for her amazing work today and then headed to the lift, not to the safety of her room, but the danger of his, for she wanted to say sorry again. She wanted to explain, and properly this time, why she had flinched when he had raised his hand. And it had nothing to do with playing the sympathy card. It was about telling the truth and admitting just why she hadn’t felt able to give them a proper chance. Ella took a deep breath and knocked on his suite door.
Silence, and then as she knocked again, it opened to her dread—the stunning Marianna, dressed in a hotel bathrobe, her lacy bra on clear show. She barely blinked when she saw that it was Ella.
‘Scusi,’ she said. ‘I thought you were room service.’ She gave a smile. ‘Santo is just in the shower.’
And Ella said nothing.
‘Ah, here it is now…’ Marianna said as a large ice bucket and bottle of champagne was delivered to the room and a large table of food was wheeled in. All covered, of course, but Ella could guess as to what lay beneath and it didn’t take much guesswork to know what she was interrupting.
‘By the bed,’ Marianna ordered.
Just as Santo liked it.
‘Did you need him for anything in particular?’
‘Nothing that won’t keep,’ Ella said and walked more than a little numb back to her room, waiting for the pain to hit, waiting, as she secretly always had been, to find out how it felt to have a heart broken by Santo.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
ELLA WAS ON set at six, still numb, still waiting for the damn to burst as she braced herself to see a postcoital Santo, knowing that she had to somehow remain professional and not make any reference to what had happened between the sheets.
As she’d insisted on.
‘Dove Santo?’
It was the word on everyone’s lips and in the end Ella rang him, but it went straight to voice mail. So she rang the hotel and asked to be put through to his room, determined to keep the bitterness out of her voice if Marianna answered.
She didn’t.
Signor Corretti, it would seem, had checked out.
‘Marianna Tonito?’ Ella enquired.
She had checked out too.
And then her phone bleeped a text from him.
Something important came up. Know the film will be okay in your hands. Marianna has left my diary for you. I know you have a lot to deal with, but can you make sure there is champagne for after-party?
Er, no, Ella corrected herself. This was how it felt like to have a heart broken by Santo, except the numb feeling remained. The sky didn’t fall in, the damn didn’t burst and Ella found out, to her infinite surprise, that she was actually incredibly strong.
‘Something came up…’ Ella told the assembled set. ‘I’ve no idea when he’ll be back but we’re going to just carry on without Santo.’ And so, too, must she. ‘We’ll be fine.’
Because he gave them no choice but to be fine.
Was nothing at all important to him?
‘Come on.’ Ella looked at her watch. They’d wasted enough time this morning already and she was not throwing her career and the career of others away over a man, even one as drop-dead gorgeous as Santo. Yes, Ella found out she could put a broken heart on hold, because, over the next few days there were plenty of dramas, tears and tantrums, just none from Ella. She dealt with them all. She had no choice but to—there was a ship coming in and three hundred extras and she dealt with all that too. And yes, she even ordered the champagne.
‘Last day of shooting tomorrow,’ Ella told everyone. ‘I want us all here at four.’
The town was buzzing. The restaurants were open for all the extras. There was just such a high all around and Ella did her best to match it, just could not give in yet. She took a picture of the busy streets and one of the ship and thought of sending them to her mother, thought of ringing her tonight. She so badly wanted to know more about the dangerous Corretti men and the women who loved them, but Ella knew it might hurt a little more than she could bear right now, that she had to make this through without tears. She would have, Ella was sure of it, had there not been a certain someone waiting for her back at the hotel.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
‘TERESA CORRETTI IS here,’ the desk told her, clearly anxious that someone so revered had arrived unannounced. ‘I explained that Santo was not here, but she has waited to speak with you.’
‘Thank you.’
Ella looked over and, sure enough, there was Teresa. Ella forced a smile. ‘I’m sorry, Santo isn’t here….’
‘I was aware of that.’ Teresa kissed her on both cheeks. ‘I came to see you.’
‘Oh.’
‘Come, we go through…I believe there is a nice bar lounge.’
Ella was more than a little taken back, and perhaps so, too, were the bar lounge staff. A woman dressed in black was a rare sight in here, and that it was the Corretti matriarch made it double so.
Teresa ordered them both a drink and made polite chatter as they waited for them to arrive, asking after her mother and if she had told her about her visit.
‘I did.’ Ella smiled. ‘She didn’t even pretend not to be fascinated.’
‘How is the filming going?’
‘Very well.’ Ella struggled to keep the edge from her voice as their drinks were served. It wasn’t Teresa’s fault that her grandson had walked off mid-shoot.
‘‘You are the first woman Santo has brought to visit.’ Ella fought with the blush that was spreading on her cheeks, not sure how to tell this elegant woman that she had already been royally dumped.
‘Actually…’ Ella was supremely uncomfortable. ‘It’s really not that serious between Santo and me.’
‘Really?’ Teresa frowned. ‘I thought there was a lot of affection between the two of you.’
Ella could feel her grip tighten on the glass in her hand. Really, she couldn’t say to this elderly lady that her grandson was an exceptionally affectionate man, with many.
‘My grandson is very complicated,’ Teresa said. ‘Of all my grandchildren he is the one that…’ She gave a helpless gesture. ‘Even as a child he smiled and laughed, was the happy one, but his heart was black and closed.’
‘Santo?’ Ella checked.
‘Santo.’ Teresa nodded. ‘He is the same now. He laughs, he is wild, but he lets no one close. Always there are women, yet you are the only one he has brought to see me.’
‘Signora Corretti.’ She just didn’t know how to handle this. ‘I don’t think Santo was introducing us. I mean, I don’t think he was bringing me to visit you in the old-fashioned sense.’ She just couldn’t do this any more. ‘I think things are over between Santo and me.’
‘You think?’
And she thought of Marianna, and how he could just up and leave. Even if Ella had somehow engineered it, manifested it almost, for she had offered him on a plate such an irresistible temptation, it killed he had so readily taken the bait.
‘I know,’ Ella said. ‘There are some things you just can’t forgive.’ And she wasn’t going to discuss his sex life with his nonna, but when you loved a man like Santo there were so many other reasons to be cross. ‘He was supposed to care about this film. It was the most important thing to him, to this village, to the family name. But without a second thought he just walked off….’ Then Ella begged, more for herself than the movie, but it saved a little face. ‘Do you know where he is?’ she demanded, ‘What suddenly came up?’ She was starting to cry and didn’t want to. ‘Who he’s with?’
‘These are not questions that we ask in my family.’
No, they were so bloody corrupt, so powerful, they made their own rules and didn’t care who they mowed over in the process.
‘It’s a movie…’ Teresa shrugged. ‘You can forgive if you want to.’
‘Maybe you can.’ She l
ooked at the older woman, who she actually adored, which was why she could be honest, rather than rude. Both knew they weren’t talking movies. ‘I never could.’
And it was a nice thing to know, to know she had boundaries, that no matter how much she might love him, that she wouldn’t simply turn a blind eye. That knowledge was enough to halt Ella’s tears, to smile and chat some more with Teresa.
To know she would get on with her life.
‘I have to get back,’ Teresa said a long while later, when Ella was drooping and doing her best not to show it. ‘Or we could have a coffee…’
Ella went to shake her head, but though she might not be like her mother, she had been brought up to abide certain rules.
‘That would be lovely.’
‘Perhaps—’ Teresa smiled ‘—we have an amaro…good for digestion.’
She had to be up long before the dawn but Ella obliged, joining Teresa in sipping the herbal syrupy drink, listening as she reminisced about Salvatore. ‘I talk too much,’ Teresa apologised.
‘It’s been lovely to talk,’ Ella said.
‘You are a good girl,’ Teresa said as they walked out to the hotel where her driver was patiently waiting. ‘You looked after me well tonight. It has been nice to be out.’
‘I’ve enjoyed it too.’
She had, Ella realised, even if she was beyond exhausted, finding only the time to set her alarm before falling into bed, too zonked to think about Santo, too exhausted to think about the movie they would be wrapping up tomorrow.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
SHE WOKE UP missing him though.
The final day of filming and Ella looked out from her hotel window. A stunning moon glittered off the water. She looked at the ship Santo had been so pedantic about and he hadn’t even hung around to see it.
No, this was how it felt to have a heart broken by Santo. She was starting to feel it now, not just the hurt but the little flare of anger towards herself for her handling of things. But she plunged her heart back into deep storage and dressed in her favourite denim skirt and halter top and then deliberately, as if serving herself a warning, applied some mascara and not the waterproof kind either.
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