‘Can I tell you after?’
She lay there squirming and not just with indecision.
‘Do you really have to know now?’
And she looked up at him, looked at the want and the passion that needed matching, not questions and answers.
‘No.’
‘Say it again.’
‘No.’
‘No what?’
‘No, right now I don’t need to know where you’ve been.’
‘Because?’ He parted her legs, and she lay there naked and beneath him. And just like their first time it was Santo completely in control. He dragged out of her the truth, her answer, one she didn’t know till now. ‘Are you turning a blind eye, Ella?’ Santo asked.
‘No.’
‘Which means?’
Yes, what did it mean? Ella asked herself. If she didn’t need to know where he’d been, if she didn’t require immediate explanation... ‘That I trust you.’
And surely he should reward her with his naked length, but he was a bastard, a good one though, because he made her wait, made her say it first.
‘Which means?’ Santo demanded.
‘That I love you.’
‘Right answer,’ and she got her reward then. She loved him—she’d always known it, had just held back on it. It actually didn’t matter in that moment if he loved her or not too, because it didn’t change things, and she learned more in those blissful moments than she could learn in lifetime.
She loved him, like it or not, returned or not, quite simply she did. Ella stopped fighting it then, just gave into the bliss of being back in his arms as he took her to a place that only Santo could.
After, she covered herself with a sheet, as she always did, Santo noted, and he turned to her. ‘You love me?’ He grinned.
‘Fool that I am.’
‘I am very lovable.’
‘So your nonna told me.’
Santo laughed, but it faded as she squealed when, mortified, Ella dived under the sheets as the trailer door opened.
‘I didn’t see a thing,’ came a vaguely familiar voice, one that sounded not in the least embarrassed at what he had found. ‘I’ll come back....’ She was just burning with shame beneath the sheets. ‘I was told the interview—’
‘Paulo?’ She heard Santo speak, could not believe he was prolonging the agony. ‘How soon can you start?’
‘Is “now” the right answer?’
Clearly it was, though Ella thought she might die as the conversation continued. Did Santo have to be quite so comfortable with sex? But then again, Ella realised, Santo’s PAs saw an awful lot, so Paulo might just as well get used to it.
‘I need you to sort out a selection of rings,’ she heard Santo say. ‘Engagement rings,’ he clarified as her heart stood still.
‘Is there anything in particular you have in mind?’
‘Her eyes are amber,’ Santo said, ‘but she would think that I was being superficial—’
‘As well as cheap,’ Paulo said.
‘I know.’ And she listened as Santo pretended he had come up with an idea, as if he hadn’t planned every second of this. He was a step ahead of her all of the time. ‘A diamond,’ Santo said, ‘as big as an ice cube, the shape of an ice cube....’
‘Princess cut,’ Paulo said. ‘Leave it with me.’ From beneath the sheet she heard Paulo move for the door. ‘And don’t worry, Ella,’ Paulo called out, ‘you don’t have to take me out for dinner.’
‘He seems good,’ Santo said as he pulled back the sheet. ‘And I can’t see myself ever fancying him. Still...’ He smiled. ‘You know what they say—never say never.’
‘You’re incorrigible.’
‘Only with words,’ Santo said. ‘And from now on, those words are only to you.’ She looked up at him. ‘I’m done,’ he said. ‘I’m through. I will have Paulo cancel my condom order from my shopping list and, if you will have me, I am exclusively yours.’
It wasn’t the most romantic proposal but they were the nicest words she had ever heard.
‘I will never hurt you,’ Santo said.
‘I know.’
She did.
‘I mean it, Ella. I want to marry you as soon as Paulo can arrange.’
‘We’ll just slip away...’ She couldn’t believe they were actually discussing a wedding, their wedding.
‘No.’ Santo shook his head. ‘We will do this properly. A good Sicilian wedding.’
‘How!’ Ella asked. ‘We’ve no idea where your brother is, and my parents would never come.’
‘Hey,’ Santo broke in. ‘I thought you said that you trusted me.’
And she remembered then how much she did. ‘Teresa came and saw me.’ Ella turned to him. ‘She told me some of the stuff that’s going on in your family. I’m sorry I haven’t been there for you.’
‘You’re here now,’ Santo said. ‘And you can make up for lost time—believe me when I say that there is plenty more to come.’
‘I’m sorry your family is such a mess.’ She ran a finger over his bruises.
‘So is yours,’ Santo pointed out. ‘Your father likes to use his fists....’
Ella didn’t want to talk about that now and she went to tell him that, but Santo spoke first.
‘I promise you though, I didn’t hit him back.’ He saw her eyes widen in realisation, an appalled look on her face as she realised that the bruises he wore came from her own stuffed-up family. ‘I went to ask your father for permission to marry you and I saw firsthand how it was.’
‘Santo!’ She was panicking, appalled at what must have taken place, what her mother was going through at this very moment. As she went to rise from the bed, he grabbed her, pinned her down with his weight.
‘Your mum’s here,’ Santo said. ‘She is staying for a couple of nights with my nonna and then we will take her to meet with her sisters.’
It was too much to take in. ‘She left.’
‘She was scared to, but yes. She came back on the plane with me,’ Santo said. ‘You have to understand our ways. It is the same for my grandmother—they are loyal, their vows are more important than themselves.’
‘How though?’ Ella asked. ‘She wouldn’t leave for me. How did you convince her?’
‘I spoke to my nonna.’ He looked at Ella. ‘I wanted to better understand...I wanted to know what best to say when I spoke to your mother.’
‘How would she know?’ Ella didn’t get it. Yes, the two women were similar, both very locked in ways of old, but their lives were completely different. She looked to Santo and saw that for once he was struggling with words, not avoiding talking and not deflecting, just breaking a lifetime of silence. Ella knew how hard that could be.
‘Salvatore beat her.’ Santo’s lips were white as he said it, curling in disgust at what his own blood had done.
‘She told you?’
‘Never.’ Santo shook his head. ‘That is one reason she liked you. You played by family rules. You say things are fine, you stay for dinner, you do what a good Sicilian girl should, but I have told her that that ends now. There will be no silence on certain subjects and my nonna agrees. She had held her secret for too long.’
‘How did you know?’
‘That birthday party she was talking about. I was listening at a door—I did a lot of that—and I heard my father confront him, said what he had seen all those years ago.’
‘What did Salvatore say?’
‘That is was just once.’ Santo looked at her. ‘That is no excuse.’ Ella just lay there. ‘No one else knows this, not even Benito, and I have told my nonna I will not repeat...except to you. It is her story to tell if she feels she needs to.’
‘Why wouldn’t he have told Benito?’
‘To spare him perhaps?’ Santo shrugged. ‘They were rivals, but at the end of the day they were still brothers.’
She couldn’t believe he would go and speak with his nonna, that he would confront so boldly a shame from the past, just to better help her, and sh
e told him the same.
‘Of course I would,’ Santo said. ‘I will always stand by you as in the coming months you will stand by me as my family tears itself to shreds.’
‘They might not,’ Ella said. ‘There must be some bond there—you’re related.’
‘The worst enemies to have,’ Santo said. ‘Because they never go away. But at times they prove to be the best allies too. My nonna said that despite all he had done, your mother would be scared for your father too.’
‘I’m scared for him,’ Ella admitted, for though she loathed all he had done, the thought of him alone and suffering did not bring comfort when once she had thought that it would. ‘I’m scared for him too.’
‘You don’t have to be,’ Santo said. ‘I have arranged a nurse daily, a housekeeper. He will be looked after, but not by your mother. I promised your mother all these things to get her to leave, and I did not hit your father back, but had I known what I do now, I might not have managed such restraint. I spoke at length with your mother. It is a long flight from Sydney to here.’ He watched the colour spread across her cheeks and the tears pool and then fall from her eyes.
‘He beat you.’
‘Once.’
It was a pale defence of her parents and his expression struggled not to move.
‘I left home as soon as I could and I got a place and enough money. Then a few months ago I went back to get her....’
‘How badly did he beat you?’
And he insisted on details—he did not believe her mother’s version, he only believed in her—and so she told him. She pulled back her head and showed him the scar and that capped expensive smile, and his face never moved a fraction. ‘I should have gone to the police—pressed charges. But I knew that it would only make things worse for her. I just could not believe she would stay after what he did to me.’
‘She does not think you can forgive her.’
‘I’m trying to.’
‘I will try then too,’ Santo said. ‘I will never show her my anger, but...’ He swallowed it down. ‘She’s here now. I said that we needed tonight and we will go over tomorrow.’
‘That’s not very Sicilian.’ Ella smiled.
‘I know.’ He grinned back, but then he was serious. ‘You will work through it with your mother, I am sure.’
‘We’re already starting to. I almost rang her last night....’
‘Why do you think you were sitting drinking in a bar with my nonna?’
She turned and grinned in quiet surprise.
‘You sent her!’
‘Of course! Surely you know that the Correttis are very good at arranging decoys. We were so worried you might ring home and get your father, so Teresa suggested we make sure that you were too tired to even think of ringing home.’
Santo climbed from the bed. ‘And now,’ he told her, ‘we have an after-party to go to. I have been around long enough to disappear and be forgiven, but your career is still new.’
Even in that, he was looking out for her. Ella looked over to him, to the man she could not wait to marry, to the man she could not wait to spend the rest of her life with. His eyes met hers and they told her he loved her just the same. There was time for one more kiss before they headed out to the party and then Santo suddenly remembered something.
‘I haven’t told you I love you.’
‘I think you just did.’
‘Well, to be certain.’ He pulled her back to his arms. ‘I love you,’ he said. ‘And I have never said that to another. I love you so much that I will spend the rest of my life proving to you that, though you had every reason to be wary of me, you were so right to trust me.’
And Ella answered with a truth of her own. ‘You already have.’
EPILOGUE
THE REFORMED SANTO didn’t come wrapped in a bow.
But, as was the Sicilian way, there was a huge white bow on the church in her mother’s village to show that there was a wedding about to take place.
‘Even in my dreams,’ Gabriella said as they walked along the dark cobbled streets lit by flaming torches towards the church, ‘I never thought I would see this.’
‘Where your daughter marries a Corretti?’
‘I still cannot believe it!’ Gabriella smiled. ‘But no, that I would see you married in my church, with my sisters there....’
Together Santo and Paulo had worked wonders. Yes, they had wanted quick and discreet—the family was too fractured to make for a pleasing wedding and there was still a twist of pain for Ella when she thought of her father who, through his choices, would not be here for this day—but for Santo there were certain traditions that he would not cast aside.
Still, if it was her mother’s dream wedding, it was going to be a small one. Teresa would be there, and her aunts, and she had two tiny nieces as flower girls, though it didn’t matter to Ella. As the church doors opened, all she wanted to see was her groom.
‘Oh!’ The church was packed, all heads turning and smiling.
‘Your soon-to-be husband has been sweet talking the locals. They are all happy to see me back and want to welcome, too, my daughter.’
And no doubt they were all delighted to have a Corretti just a little beholden to them, Ella thought as she walked towards her ex-reprobate and soon-to-be husband. He looked at her very pale green dress, which had once been her aunt’s, and he smiled.
‘I wondered how you would get around that!’ Santo said as he greeted his bride, but in English, which the priest did not speak.
‘It’s for fertility,’ Ella said, because in old Sicilian tradition, a green dress was sometimes worn and certain traditions worked best at times. They had known for all of three days that there was no trouble in the fertility department and they were brimming with excitement at their secret news.
It was the most wonderful service. He smiled as she made her vows in Italian. Santo was actually nervous for once as he made his, Ella knew, because his fingers moved to his neck as if to loosen his collar. But she knew when he gave them that they came from the heart.
And now they were married.
‘We stay here,’ Santo explained as they waited in a small house close to the church. ‘Now they set up for the party.’ He pulled her onto his knee. ‘And we behave.’
‘Of course.’
And he told her about the house he had seen in Palermo, but first they were going to go and lie on that beach as she should have done ages ago.
‘But then I wouldn’t have met you.’
The Sicilians did know how to throw a good party. The streets were lined with tables. There was food and more food, and speeches and then more food, but there was talking and laughter too. Ella looked over to her mother, chatting with Teresa, and she could never, even in her wildest, dreamt of this moment either.
‘We dance now,’ Santo said.
And she had thought the wedding would just be a formality, but being held in his arms, maybe Ella did have a few romantic bones in her body, for it was the best night of her life and she looked up at him and never wanted to change him.
‘I love you.’ She said it so easily now. ‘Never change.’
‘Only for good,’ Santo answered in all seriousness. ‘But not too good...’ he added. ‘I have chosen three scripts to take on our honeymoon.’ Ella frowned as they danced their first dance. She really didn’t want to talk about work.
‘One, a hostage situation,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘There is a lot of dialogue, they talk a lot....’ She was starting to smile.
‘One, a romance,’ Santo whispered. She smothered that smile in his chest, so grateful for the imagination that had saved her as a child, as she made a new movie in her mind. ‘God, I love our work so much,’ Santo said to her ear. ‘We are never going to be bored.’
No, with Santo, you could never, ever be bored. ‘And the third?’ Ella asked, her stomach folding over on itself in want as she gazed up to him.
‘A western.’ Santo’s face was deadpan as he looked down to her, w
atched her start to laugh in his arms as to the visions that conjured up.
And happiness was infectious.
The party smiled and starting tapping spoons on their glasses for the lovely bride and groom to seal it with a kiss.
‘It’s tradition,’ Santo said. ‘You have no choice but to kiss me.’
No, no choice at all, but it was for more than tradition when her lips met his then.
It was simply for love.
*
Read on for an exclusive interview
with Carol Marinelli!
Behind the Scenes
of Sicily’s Corretti Dynasty
It’s such a huge world to create—an entire Sicilian dynasty. Did you discuss parts of it with the other writers?
There is generally a huge flurry of discussions at the start. Then we all seem to go off into our own worlds to write our own stories and come back for fine-tuning.
How does being part of the continuity differ from when you are writing your own stories?
My own stories are tiny seeds that I grow, but when I am a part of a continuity I am given flowered seedlings and lots of them. I am usually a bit of a hermit when I write—being in a continuity forces you not to be.
What was the biggest challenge? And what did you most enjoy about it?
One of my biggest challenges was writing an epilogue for a book that was first in a series with many secrets still to be revealed that I couldn’t reveal. What did I enjoy? The moment when I worked out how to do it—I had so much fun researching, which can be a major procrastination tool, but when I found out that Sicilian brides used to wear green it all started to slot into place.
As you wrote your hero and heroine, was there anything about them that surprised you?
Their love of ice! More seriously, my hero really surprised me and, in turn, my heroine too. There was a pivotal scene at the beginning of the book that I struggled with and kept trying to dilute and, after a lot of rewriting and trying to change him, I ended up going back to my original vision of that scene.
What was your favourite part of creating the world of Sicily’s most famous dynasty?
I love writing about complex family ties. A Sicilian dynasty was like a moth to flame for me—though I knew it would burn.
Scandals Of The Powerful: Uncovering the Correttis / A Legacy of Secrets (Sicily's Corretti Dynasty) / An Invitation to Sin (Sicily's Corretti Dynasty) (Mills & Boon M&B) Page 19
