by Miranda Lee
Rico waited for her to add, like you. But she didn’t. Instead, her eyes shimmered momentarily before she lifted the wine glass to her lips and drained it dry.
‘I think I need another drink,’ she said, her voice cold and hard, her eyes alone betraying her distress.
Rico reached for the bottle, which was resting in a portable wine cooler by his elbow, all the while struggling not to show his emotions. But he wanted to kill this Roberto for being the one responsible for making his Renée like this, for making her hostile to him from the start, just because he was Italian.
‘What did he do that was so bad?’ he queried casually as he refilled her glass.
‘It doesn’t bear repeating in detail. Let’s just say he was totally and utterly selfish.’
‘I’m not totally and utterly selfish,’ he pointed out with a covering smile. Instinct warned him to keep things very light or she’d clam right up.
‘That’s a matter of opinion.’
‘I never leave you unsatisfied.’
‘True. I’ll give you that. But I’m not talking about sexual selfishness. I’m talking about the capacity not to know, or care, how other people feel.’ She fixed him with an uncompromising gaze. ‘One month, Rico. That’s the deal. Don’t, for a moment, think this is going to go on any longer than that.’
‘What if you find you don’t want it to end in a month’s time?’
Her eyes glittered with dry amusement but its meaning eluded him. What did she find so funny? ‘I don’t have long relationships with any man any more, Rico. I certainly won’t be having one with you.’
‘Why? Because I’m Italian?’
‘Because it’s not what I want.’
Rico decided to play the only trump card he held in his hand at the moment. ‘Then why did you ask me to marry you for your prize last night?’
She almost spilled her wine.
After her initial knee-jerk reaction she just sat there, frozen with shock, whilst he fished the sheet of notepaper out of his trouser pocket and handed it over to her. She put down her glass, a bit clumsily, then stared down at the clearly outlined words that she’d written with her own hand.
‘Very clever,’ she muttered, then crumpled the piece of paper into a small ball.
‘Well?’ he prompted impatiently when she declined to say any more. ‘Care to explain that to me?’
‘No,’ she bit out. ‘We had a deal, Rico, and you haven’t honoured your part of it. You weren’t supposed to know what I asked for.’
‘Why not? What’s the big secret? It’s not as though you’re madly in love with me. Which leaves what, Renée? Spite? Money? Sex? What motivated that request, I’d like to know?’
‘It was just one-upmanship,’ she snapped. ‘I knew that you were going to ask me for sex, so I went one better. I regretted writing it the moment I had. It was a stupid thing to do. I was relieved when you won.’
Rico recalled that this was true. She had been relieved when he’d won, for whatever reason.
‘So it wasn’t my money you were after?’
Again, she looked taken aback. ‘You know, Rico, that’s the second time you’ve mentioned money. Look, I know you think I married Jo for his money and that you believe most good-looking women who marry rich men are gold-digging tramps, but trust me, I am not interested in your money. Aah, here comes our food…’
She was relieved again, Rico thought, this time by the arrival of their meals. She also hadn’t denied that she’d married dear old Jo for his money.
Yet, strangely enough, Rico was beginning to believe that she hadn’t. There was something innately honest about Renée. She was secretive, yes. But not devious. And there was a difference.
Rico fell to eating his meal whilst he decided on his next brilliant topic of conversation and had only taken a few mouthfuls of the mouth-watering barramundi when his cellphone rang.
‘Should have turned the darned thing off,’ he muttered as he fished the phone out of his pocket and answered.
‘Rico,’ was all his mother said, but it was enough for every nerve-ending in Rico’s body to go on emergency alert.
‘Yes, Mum, what is it?’ he asked, trying not to sound sick with instant worry. But his voice must have betrayed a considerable amount because he’d never seen Renée look at him with such concern before.
‘It’s your papa,’ his mother went on. ‘He was having bad chest pains after dinner, but he didn’t want me to do anything. He said it was just indigestion from my cooking. But he looked so bad, Rico. Bad colour. Bad breathing. I took no notice of Frederico for once and called the ambulance. I am at Liverpool Hospital now and the doctors, they…they are doing tests. They won’t say much but they look worried, Rico. I think you should come. They will talk to you.’
‘I’m on my way.’
He was already on his feet, his heart racing, panic a heartbeat away. Not his dad. Not yet. Not before he got there, at least.
‘I have to go, Renée. My dad’s in hospital with a suspected heart attack. I’m sorry. I just have to go.’
‘I’m coming with you,’ she said, and jumped up too.
‘No. You won’t be able to keep up. I have to run home and get my car first and I’m not going to slow down for anything.’ He was already on his way, throwing a hurried explanation at the maître d’ as he bolted past, breaking into a run as soon as he was outside.
You could have knocked him over with a feather when she not only caught up with him but also kept up with him, all the way to his apartment building. He didn’t waste any energy asking her how till they were in the Ferrari and on their way. Even then, he didn’t speak till they were forced to stop at a set of lights. He was too out of breath.
‘Care to tell me how you managed that?’ he asked her at this point. Hell, she wasn’t even puffing!
‘Running is my exercise of choice,’ she replied. ‘I go in the City-to-Surf fun run each year. And other fun runs. I’m one very fit gal.’
He nodded in wry agreement, not really wanting to talk. He’d just been curious.
‘Just drive, Rico,’ she said, surprising him with her insight. ‘And don’t speed. You don’t want to have an accident, or get pulled over. That won’t get you to your father’s bedside any quicker, will it?’
His glance carried gratitude for her sense, and sensitivity. Then he just drove in concentrated silence, not speeding, but taking every short cut he knew, all the while trying to keep the panic at bay, reassuring himself with the thought that lots of heart-attack victims survived these days, if they got to the hospital in time. He just hoped his dad would be one of them. He prayed he would be.
The drive took forty minutes, with Rico not sure where to go when he got there. His stress level by this time was extreme, his decision-making powers not what they usually were.
‘In there,’ Renée advised, pointing to the casualty sign. ‘That’s where your father will be. You get out and I’ll park the car for you. Then I’ll come to Casualty and find you. OK?’
He did exactly that, stopping briefly to give her a peck through the window before he rushed off. ‘Thanks,’ he said.
‘Good luck,’ she called after him. ‘I’ll start praying for your dad.’
‘You do that,’ he called over his shoulder, then forged on into the casualty section. He’d already been praying all the way there.
It was bedlam inside, the waiting room chock-full of patients. Saturday night, of course, was the busiest night for any casualty section in a large hospital. It took some time for Rico to be seen to, then shown to where his father lay, eyes closed, ashen-faced, in a narrow hospital bed, his mother sitting by his side.
She looked very relieved to see Rico.
‘How is he?’ Rico asked straight away as he hugged her.
‘I am fine,’ his father answered grumpily, his eyes opening. ‘I told your mama it was nothing. But she is a stubborn woman, and here I am, having lots of silly tests when I could be home, sitting in my favourite chair
and watching my favourite television show.’
‘What tests have they done?’ he asked, directing the question at his mother. ‘You be quiet and rest,’ he ordered his father when he opened his mouth to answer. ‘I’m talking to Mum here.’
‘You are getting too big for your boots, Enrico,’ his father muttered, but closed his eyes and fell silent.
‘I don’t know,’ Teresa told her son worriedly. ‘Lots of machines and wires and things. And they gave him some medicine. I don’t know what.’
Rico swept up the chart from the bottom of the bed and did his best to decipher what was on it. Not easy. Such a scrawl! ‘Mmm. Looks like they did an ECG and an ultrasound. Blood pressure very high. I doubt it’s just indigestion, Dad. But you don’t seem to be dying just yet.’
‘Mandretti men do not die before ninety,’ his father retorted. ‘Only if they are murdered.’
Teresa was startled by a soft laugh coming from a woman who had suddenly appeared beside her son at the foot of the bed. A tall, strikingly beautiful woman with jet-black hair and lovely green eyes and the nicest smile. Teresa was one of those people who either liked or disliked people on the spot. This woman, she liked.
But who was she?
‘Aah, you found us,’ Enrico said, turning to smile at the woman.
‘I had to tell them I was your fiancée before they would let me in,’ the woman returned, her pretty green eyes sparkling. ‘I see your dad’s not doing too badly. That’s good. My prayers must have worked.’
Now Teresa liked her even more. A woman who prayed was not only nice, but also good.
‘Mum, Dad, this is Renée. My horse-racing and poker-playing friend. We were having dinner together when you called, Mum. Renée was nice enough to come with me and stop me from getting a speeding ticket.’
Teresa could not have been more taken aback. This was Renée? Why, she didn’t look a day over twenty-five! And she was nothing like her son’s usual woman. Not blonde. Or bosomy. Or showy. And she’d been having dinner with her son. Must have come to her senses after all!
‘It is lovely to meet you at last, Renée,’ Teresa replied, coming forward to give her a hug and a kiss on the cheek. ‘I have heard so much about you from Enrico, but you look so much younger than I pictured. You must come and visit us at home soon. Isn’t that right, Papa?’
‘Sì. If I ever get out of here.’
‘Well, that won’t be tonight, Mr Mandretti,’ the doctor said as he bustled in. ‘We will be wanting to keep a close eye on you for a couple of days yet. Now…’
Whatever he was going to say was interrupted by the noisy arrival of Katrina, Teresa’s youngest daughter and the apple of her father’s eye. Katrina was the only other one of her offspring whom Teresa had rung, not wanting Frederico to be overwhelmed by visitors and noise. But Teresa knew that Katrina would never have forgiven her if she hadn’t been notified at once that her beloved papa was ill. Unfortunately, Katrina had brought her youngest child with her, Gina, who was four and given to crying at the drop of a hat.
Gina took one look at her grandpapa in bed and started howling.
‘Hush, darling. Hush,’ Katrina said, looking very harassed. ‘Sorry, Mama, but Paulo had to work tonight and I couldn’t leave Gina with the other kids. They don’t know how to handle her.’
Rico was of the opinion that no one could handle Gina. Katrina certainly couldn’t. Spoilt through and through, that child was.
‘Here. Let me take her,’ Renée offered, and scooped the wailing child out of his sister’s highly ineffectual hands. ‘I’m Renée,’ she told an open-mouthed Katrina.
‘My fiancée,’ Rico added drily, then laughed when Katrina’s mouth fell even more open. ‘I’ll explain later.’
‘And I’ll be out in the waiting room,’ Renée said.
Katrina’s head swivelled from one to the other. ‘But…but…’
‘Don’t worry,’ Renée reassured her. ‘I’m very good with children.’
Rico could see it was a statement of some truth, since the little devil had immediately stopped crying. Renée was constantly amazing him tonight.
‘Thanks again,’ he said.
She smiled, then walked off, chatting away to the child in her arms as she went. Rico stared after her for a second before dragging his mind back to his father’s health. That had to be his first priority at this moment, even though it did look as if his dad wasn’t in any immediate danger.
The doctor told the family that Rico’s father had had not a heart attack but a serious angina attack, the forerunner of a coronary. The plan was to move him shortly to a cardiac ward, where he would be kept for observation and treatment for a couple of days, during which time he would be seen by a specialist as well as a cardiac-care consultant. A change in lifestyle and diet would undoubtedly be prescribed, which brought a scowl from Rico’s father and a quick rebuke from his mother.
‘You will do what the doctors say,’ she said firmly. ‘You are the one who is stubborn. Not me.’
‘And I’m going to buy you a couple of greyhounds,’ Rico butted in. ‘Then you can walk them. Get your heart as fit as a fiddle and have some fun at the same time.’
‘Walking and fun is excellent therapy for the heart,’ the doctor concurred. ‘You should listen to your wife and son, Mr Mandretti. They know what’s best for you.’
Rico’s father pulled a face. ‘Sì, sì. Enrico always thinks he knows best. If he is so clever then why didn’t he marry that lovely lady who was just here, instead of that other one with the bleached hair and that silly laugh?’
Rico winced at this reminder that Jasmine had had a silly laugh. A high-pitched giggle that had been as false as the rest of her.
‘I’ll be back,’ the doctor said, then scuttled off. No rest for the wicked, Rico thought, or Casualty doctors.
‘But he is going to marry her, isn’t he, Papa?’ Katrina piped up, sounding puzzled. ‘He said she was his fiancée.’
‘Was just a silly joke,’ the old man said scornfully. ‘She does not want to marry this clever boy. Your mama told me so.’
Rico glowered at his mother, then scowled at himself. Because she was right. Renée didn’t want to marry him.
Or did she?
She had asked him to marry her in that bet, hadn’t she? OK, so she claimed it was one-upmanship, and that did ring true, given their history. But what if something else had been at play there? What if…?
For the first time, Rico began to consider the possibility that something was going on with Renée that he’d been blind to. Ali might have touched upon it when he said that what some women say and what they feel were two different things.
Rico had hard evidence of what Renée felt for him when she was with him in bed, when her defences were down. Not just desire and need, but also passion. A deep and powerful passion, which drove her body to feel things that her mind resisted.
‘I shouldn’t be letting you do this to me…’
That was what she’d said shortly after she’d acted as if she didn’t want to make love with him; that she was only obeying because she’d lost the bet.
But her body had been on fire for him. Her body had been on fire for him all along. Why? What would make a woman like Renée want a man so much if she supposedly hated him?
And then the solution came to him. The other side of hate. Love.
She’s in love with me!
The thought blew his mind.
Could it possibly be true?
She would deny it, of course, even if it was true. Maybe she didn’t even recognise what she really felt, as he hadn’t recognised the truth of his feelings for her up till tonight. Maybe her silly pride was getting in the way, or those old tapes she had in her head about Italian men.
Rico frowned and fretted over this last very real problem. He had to make her see that not all Italian men were like Roberto. He had to make her see that it wasn’t just sex he wanted from her, but a future as well. A future and a family. She wasn’t
too old to have children. Not at all. She…
‘Enrico,’ his mother said, laying a gentle hand on his arm, ‘The people are here to wheel your father’s bed away.’
‘Oh. Oh, sorry, Mum. I was off in another world.’
‘I know…’ She smiled one of her soft, understanding smiles. ‘Perhaps you should go check how your Renée is doing with Gina.’
Their eyes met, mother and son.
She knows, Rico realised. Knows how I feel about Renée.
She patted his arm and smiled. ‘Go to her and wait with her till your papa is settled in his room. And then the three of you can come, visit with him for a while. Sì?’
‘Sì,’ Rico agreed, and bent to kiss her cheek. ‘Love you. Be with you soon, Dad,’ he added more loudly. ‘Don’t worry about, Gina,’ he told his sister. ‘She’ll be fine.’
Teresa watched her son hurry off, and for a moment her heart was full of sorrow. I’ve really lost him this time, she was thinking. He belongs to her now.
‘Teresa,’ came the oddly fragile plea from the bed, and she turned to see her husband of almost fifty years looking at her as he had never looked at her before. With fear in his eyes.
She hurried over and took his hand in hers. It felt cold, and old. ‘It’s all right, Frederico. I’m here. And you are going to get well. I will see to it myself.’
His face registered surprise, then pleasure. ‘Sì, Teresa. I know you will. A good woman, your mama,’ he said to his daughter. ‘A very good woman…’
Not so good, Teresa was thinking. A silly, selfish old mama who has finally grown up.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
RICO found Renée in a far corner of the waiting room, talking to a thankfully quiet Gina, who was sitting on the plastic chair next to her and staring with rapt attention up into Renée’s face. As Rico drew closer he could hear she was telling the child a story.
‘And the big bad wolf put on one of Grandma’s nighties and jumped into Grandma’s bed just as Little Red Riding Hood…’
