Satin Lies

by Tricia Jones

  Faye lay awake, her gaze tracing a curve of the ornate ceiling. The plasterwork was strangely familiar, and not only because she’d spent the last few nights becoming acquainted with it. No. There was something about a brown water stain in the corner of another ceiling, a patch of damp over a fireplace…

  Then an image of Melita in a lilac party dress, her eyes sparkling and her hair falling onto a cute little white collar…

  Another image—no, not an image. A recollection…a sound. Teo. He was shouting something…her name…

  “Faye… I can’t get control…”

  Faye snapped her eyes shut, as if the action would cut off the piercing memory.

  It didn’t. The whole room seemed to shake, to shudder. The sound of an engine droning, sputtering…

  “Faye…” Teo’s image materialized beneath her closed lids. “I’m sorry…”

  She squeezed her eyes until they hurt. Her insides spun against the sickening terror, her heartbeat so fierce she feared it might leap from her chest. Her skin felt clammy, but at the same time icy cold.

  She didn’t want to think. Didn’t want to remember. Think of something else, she ordered herself. Think of something else!

  With her eyes shut tight she trained her thoughts on Melita, and began repeating her little girl’s name over and over—a silent, comforting mantra.

  Melita, Melita, Melita…

  Several times the memory wanted to squeeze between the syllables of her daughter’s name as Faye kept up the silent repetition, but she wouldn’t give it the opportunity. She wouldn’t give it the power.

  Slow and steady the vicious physical sensations of panic began to subside.

  Melita, Melita, Melita…

  At some stage she drifted into a fitful sleep, but even her dreams were packed with images and impressions. When she woke with a start, memories of the eight years she’d lost battled for recognition at the forefront of her mind. It was like a surge of energy—violent and unrelenting, frightening and inescapable.

  No comforting mantra could help her now.

  She lay there, her muscles tight, her flesh slick and clammy.

  Powerless to stop the flood of memories, she let them come.

  Minutes later she had the pieces. All she had to do was connect the dots.

  Faye stared into the dark, letting her vision adjust until she could pick out the familiar shapes and curves of the room. She needed something to hold on to, something solid and familiar, as memories slid together. Keep calm, she ordered herself, while panic skittered along her spine. Breathe. Just breathe.

  She pulled in several deep breaths, her throat burning as she forced air into her lungs. First, she concentrated on the rise and fall of her chest, then her child. Her Melita. During the past few days, while getting to know her daughter, Faye had fallen in love with her child all over again. But now, as the memories swamped her, she felt an almost unbearable surge of love for her baby. She wanted her here now. Wanted to wrap her arms around that perfect little body. Wanted to touch her, smell her. To hold tight to the one thing in her life that had made the last eight years bearable.

  Her child.

  Hers and Enrico’s.

  Chapter Three

  Somehow, she got through Teo’s funeral. Even with the weight of truth reverberating around her anxious mind, she got through it. Before she left the hospital that morning, in a smart black suit Enrico had arranged to be delivered, along with equally stylish hat, shoes and handbag, she told both him and the specialist that more fragments of her memory had returned. She still couldn’t remember the accident or the few days leading up to it, but the specialist assured her the details would return in their own good time and she was not to force things.

  Now, as the sleek black limousine sped toward the airport where Enrico’s private jet would whisk them to Tuscany, Faye cuddled her sleepy daughter close. She hadn’t told Enrico that her recovered memory had brought into sharp focus the fact that the child sandwiched between them was the wondrous result of their solitary union. Nor would she. Ever. Not when moments after she’d come apart in his arms, he’d told her so cruelly that the whole thing had been a mistake.

  “You are very quiet.” Enrico’s hushed deep tones resonated across to her. “You must be exhausted. As soon as we are on the plane you should sleep.” He glanced down at Melita, whose eyelids had lost their battle with gravity. “She is handling it very well.”

  “I don’t think she’s taken it all in yet. She doesn’t understand the implications, and she’s too young to have to cope with the loss of…someone she loved.” Faye couldn’t bring herself to say “her father”. There had already been enough lies between her and Enrico and, while she never intended for him to know the truth, she wasn’t prepared to deliberately build lie upon lie any more.

  “It is hard to lose a parent at any age.” Enrico reached for a rug on the back shelf of the limo and slipped it around Melita. “You were only a little older when you lost your mother.”

  “And you were much younger.” Faye pointed out.

  “Too young to remember.”

  A mere toddler, Faye thought, still learning to walk on those sturdy legs of his. “But we had fathers who loved us,” she said with care. “That was a blessing.”

  Enrico considered that. “For you and I maybe.” He turned then, looked out into the Friday evening London traffic, his formidable jaw clenched, eyes narrowed. She knew he was thinking of Matteo, and how difficult Ruggerio Lavini had made his younger son’s life. Ruggerio had made no secret of his adoration of his first-born, given to him by his equally adored first wife. While Matteo, the progeny of his devious second wife, was barely tolerated. As expected, Ruggerio and his third wife had flown in that morning for the funeral and had as quickly flown out again.

  Faye’s heart ached for both Lavini sons. For dear, sweet Teo, ignored by his father. For tough, uncompromising Enrico, whose love for his half-brother had often brought him into harsh conflict with his father. As far as Ruggerio was concerned, his youngest son was weak and submissive, while his eldest son was the epitome of everything the Lavini name stood for. Strength, honor, integrity.

  Ruggerio and Enrico. They were so alike, Faye thought, as she studied Enrico’s harsh profile. Both wickedly attractive, proud, arrogant, demanding. Both possessing a dangerous masculinity, with a ruthless edge shimmering beneath the cloak of civility. Both unshakeable in their belief that power and success was their birthright and family honor was worth dying for.

  How she would have loved to have told them that Matteo had valued family honor enough that he’d sacrificed himself for it. But that would mean revealing secrets. The very secrets Matteo had died trying to protect.

  They arrived at the Lavini villa just before midnight. It had changed little since her last visit eight years ago, and Faye felt a poignant warmth remembering the wonderful, carefree summers she’d enjoyed there. There was the villa itself, with its huge secluded swimming pool, the beautiful Italian gardens where she and Matteo had played hide and seek as children, the stables where she had ridden her first horse. Then there was the delightful town of Lucca a few kilometers away, where her father had treated her and Matteo to massive ice creams that melted before you could eat them. So many wonderful memories.

  She sighed as the limousine purred along the wide, sweeping drive lined with cypress and olive trees. The sixteenth-century, three-storey villa was enchanting. Diffused lighting shimmered from the deep Italianate windows, throwing the villa’s terracotta walls into deep and romantic shadow. Water sprang majestically from the fountain in the centre of the circular driveway, while the scents and sounds of the night seduced with their magic.

  “It has been a long time.” There was a slight accusatory edge to Enrico’s voice as they pulled up at the entrance. “But you will find little has changed.”

  “It has been too long,” Faye agreed, too tired to rise to his challenge or look too deeply into the reasons she had stayed away. The main rea
son being the man who lifted her sleeping child from the back seat of the car, cradling Melita against his chest as he carried her into the hallway.

  Faye’s heart tumbled at the sight of father and daughter…and froze with guilt that neither would ever know it. As weary as she felt, it didn’t stop the surge of self-reproach. She tore her gaze from Enrico’s back and followed him into what she always thought of as a small ballroom rather than a hallway. Cream marbled floors and soft terracotta walls glowed from lighting cast by the Murano glass chandelier dominating the wide space.

  Enrico stopped briefly to nod and mutter something in Italian to the couple who had bustled forward as they’d entered the villa, then climbed the stairs with a still sleeping Melita in his arms.

  “Welcome back, Signora Faye.” Carla Gianni, wearing her customary black dress and perpetual expression of woe, grabbed Faye in a bear hug, jolting her still-sore ribs. “Oh, such a dreadful thing. But we take care of you, Giovanni and I.” She waved a hand to where her husband was in the process of retrieving their bags from the car.

  “And your poor bambina,” she continued, her arm still around Faye who she hustled toward the staircase. “Oh, such a tragedy. But we take care of you both.”

  Faye forced a smile. She loved the old couple who had been with the Lavini family since before Enrico was born. They were loyal, trustworthy and kind.

  “Then we’re in the best possible hands,” Faye said, and gave one of Carla’s a squeeze. “How are you both?”

  “We do well enough. But,” she began, in a conspiratorial whisper. “Signor Enrico, he work too hard. It no good for a man to work all the time. Now you here you must take him in hand. He always did take from you what he would take from no other.”

  Faye turned to Carla, but before she could reassure her that Rico never took anything from anyone, they entered a charming, feminine bedroom. Custom-made to satisfy a little girl’s every desire, with its soft pink bedspread and floaty white voile curtains. Dolls were propped against the pillows, as well as on the white sofa with its fluffy pink throw. On a dressing table lay an ornate silver brush and comb set surrounded by colorful baskets and tins. A bookcase housed a small library of children’s books, while a state-of-the-art computer sat with DVDs and games piled high.

  “It’s beautiful,” Faye said to Carla as she moved into the room. “Who does this belong to?” She already knew it wasn’t a child of Enrico’s. During one of his visits to her at the clinic she’d asked him outright if he’d married or had a family. With her recovered memory came the realization that although he’d answered in the negative, there had been many women eager to share his life and provide him with heirs. Faye had kept abreast of that both in the tabloids, where his name was linked with various actresses or supermodels, and via an old school friend who lived for a while in Florence.

  “Signor Enrico arrange for room to please the little one. The decorators they left just a few hours ago.” Carla bustled forward to help as Enrico lay Melita on the bed. “Now, you let me put the bambina to bed,” she said, nudging Enrico out of the way. “You go down to kitchen and enjoy late supper I prepare for you. Go,” she instructed, when neither of them moved from the bed, but stood staring down at the sleeping child.

  Faye couldn’t bring herself to leave Melita. She was tired, she told herself. That was why she felt vulnerable and somehow superfluous as Carla undressed her daughter, cooing words of comfort as Melita whimpered in her sleep. It was only Enrico’s gentle touch on her arm that made her move with some reluctance from the room.

  In the kitchen he pulled out a chair and motioned for Faye to sit. She tugged in a breath. “This is all very kind of you, but it’s too much.”

  Enrico pushed a plate with tomato bread and olives in front of her. “What is too much?”

  “Melita. You had a room decorated for her.” Faye waited until his gaze met hers. “We’re here just until my memory returns in full, Enrico. Until I can get things sorted out. I don’t want us to be a burden and I certainly don’t want Melita getting used to having everything she wants. It’s not realistic and…well, there need to be boundaries.”

  “For her or for me?” His eyes held hers in challenge.

  “For all of us.” She made herself hold his gaze, wondering if like her, he was remembering their one night together. With not-quite-steady hands, Faye reached for the pitcher of Carla’s specialty hot chocolate and poured some into two white mugs. “This is temporary, Enrico. A few weeks at most.”

  “Then the child will have plenty of time to enjoy her room.” A flicker of annoyance crossed his face. “You cannot take proper care of Melita until you are fully recovered, Faye. As much as you hate me, even you must see that.”

  Her eyes widened. “I don’t hate you.”

  “Why else do you find it so hard to let me help you?” When she didn’t answer he folded his arms across his chest. “It makes sense that you remain here until you can tell me about the accident that killed my brother. I want to know why a great deal of money was found in the wreckage. I want to know why you were both flying back from Edinburgh alone, without your daughter, who it appears had been left with some stranger.” His nostrils flared slightly. “I want to know, Faye.”

  “I…I can’t tell you. I don’t remember.” Her heart tore with fear and frustration. “But I know I would never leave Melita, and as for the money, what money? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Enough money to have gotten you out of that stinking flat.”

  Beneath the confusion and anxiety pumping through her system, Faye felt the slow burn of indignation. “That stinking flat is our home. Some of us don’t need every luxury money can buy to be happy, and my daughter is happy and deeply loved, she doesn’t need her head turned by solid silver hairbrushes and dolls that cost the earth. I don’t want her discontented when we return to London.”

  “Discontented?” Enrico repeated with ominous calm. “Because she is living in some dingy apartment with no heating and damp, cracking plaster?” Slowly, he shook his head. “My, what a prima donna you have raised.”

  His heavy sarcasm deepened her anger. “There is heating.” She kept her voice deliberately low. “And for your information the bathroom ceiling is being repaired.”

  “The whole place should be condemned,” he muttered, his expression fierce.

  Faye wanted to retaliate, but a sudden weariness swept over her. She knew from experience that to argue with Enrico required strength. “I don’t have to justify any of this to you, it’s my business. I understand you want to know about the accident and as soon as I remember anything I’ll tell you.” Well, she’d tell him what she could afford to tell him. “Now, can we please talk about something else?”

  “Like what?”

  Faye’s fingers tightened around the mug as she took a sip of chocolate. “Like how wonderful this is,” she said, grasping for something, anything, to stop the clutch of guilt tightening her chest. “Perhaps I can convince Carla she’s known me long enough to give me her secret recipe.”

  Faye glanced up from sipping her drink and saw Enrico fingering the edge of a plate. The shuttered expression made him look tired. Which was hardly surprising, seeing as he’d been running his business from London this past week, arranging a funeral, visiting the hospital twice a day, supervising Melita’s schedule, making arrangements for them to come live with him in Tuscany… Not to mention grieving for his brother.

  She felt ungrateful for questioning his kindness and almost forgiving of his arrogant ways. It would have been hard, impossible almost, if she’d had to manage this past week without his help.

  “I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful, Enrico. It’s just—”

  “I understand.” He pushed away the plate he’d been fingering. “It is late and you have had a long day. Go to bed.”

  The curt, non-negotiable dismissal had her temper at simmer point again.

  “I’m more than capable of making that decision for myself, t
hank you.” She sounded like a petulant child, but her excuse was she felt frighteningly vulnerable and alone. Scared. Unbalanced. Like she had to grasp control of something. Anything. Even a childish retaliation.

  “Of course.” He said it with such reasonable calm it made Faye’s antenna pick up. “Because you are very good at decision-making are you not, Faye?”

  “What does that mean?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Choosing to live in squalor rather than sorting out your differences with my brother for one.”

  “Teo and I decided to live apart a long time ago.” Faye put down her unfinished mug of chocolate. “It was easier for me to move out, and I wanted to stay close to Melita’s school.”

  “Even if it meant living in an area infested with drug dealers and God knows what else?” Exasperation made his eyes glitter. “Tell me why the hell Matteo did not find you somewhere to live. It was his duty as a husband and father. Or were you trying to make a point, Faye? Trying, as you always do, to show how independent you are? Which is fine if you are the only one to suffer, but you had a child to consider. You should have put your child first.”

  Faye stared at him, all weariness burning away as her chest thumped with the injustice of that accusation. “I always put Melita first. And the flat wasn’t in a bad area, on the contrary, people were very kind. It might not have been a palace but it was…” All she could afford, she wanted to say. A place where her child could be safe.

  How she’d love to wipe that superior sneer off his face, make him swallow his words. But to do that would mean revealing things she could never reveal.

  She snapped her lips together.

  “If you were too stubborn to demand Matteo’s financial support, why the hell did you not come to me?”

  Because I would have had to tell you the truth, she thought miserably. Because you would have pushed and prodded until one revelation led to another…then another…