Irresistible You

by Victoria Connelly

  ‘Just listen - quietly!’ she said.

  ‘You lied to me, Elena! You lied to your own sister!’

  ‘I didn’t lie to you,’ she said, trying to remain calm. One of them had to be calm.

  ‘How can you say that? How can you try and cover one lie with another? You told me you were engaged to some guy called Mark - some teacher at your school. That’s what you said! You think you can play games with me? You think you can make fun of me?’

  ‘I’m not! Rosanna - just listen, will you?’

  ‘And then you tell me that this Reuben is your fiancé! And he’s under the impression you’re engaged too.’

  ‘We are engaged,’ she said quietly.

  ‘So why did you say you were engaged to this Mark person, then?’

  ‘Because I am.’

  Rosanna blinked and then her eyes stretched wide and her mouth fell open. ‘What are you saying?’

  Elena took a deep breath before she answered very slowly and very calmly - to make sure that she was understood this time. ‘I’m saying that I’m engaged to Reuben and to Mark.’

  There was a dreadful moment of complete silence.

  ‘Say something,’ Elena said at last.

  ‘What do you want me to say?’ Rosanna said in a voice that was so cold and quiet that it made Elena’s whole body chill in response. ‘You’re about to become a bigamist - what is there for me to say?’

  Elena sighed. ‘I’m not going to become a bigamist! I’m only engaged to them. I’m not going to marry them both!’

  ‘Then what do you think you’re doing? I don’t understand it! I don’t understand you!’

  ‘Do you think I did this on purpose?’ Elena asked. ‘You think this is some sort of game of mine? Well, it isn’t! It’s just a situation I got myself into and I thought you might be able to help me out of it. That’s why I came here in the first place. I wanted your help. I was going to tell you about it all. I’d never lie to you, Rosanna!’ she said, wincing at her hollow words as she thought about Prof and how she hadn’t dared to reveal his presence in her life yet.

  ‘You want me to help you with this mess?’ Rosanna asked and her tone was finally a little calmer and a little less chilly.

  ‘Yes,’ Elena said, appealing to the virtuous side of her sister’s character; the side that would want to save her soul at whatever cost to herself. ‘I’ve messed up - big time - and really don’t know what to do. I love them both, you see.’

  Rosanna’s forehead crinkled and Elena could almost read her thoughts: her shock, her anger, her great disappointment and, finally, her musings as to how she could save Elena from yet another sinful situation.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  Elena nodded. ‘It is possible, you know.’ Rosanna shook her head but Elena took her hand in hers and repeated, ‘I love them both.’

  Rosanna looked completely stunned for a moment, as if she couldn’t have been more surprised if Elena had told her she was really a mermaid and that her time had come to head back out into the lagoon. But she didn’t get a chance to respond as Reuben, fully clothed, walked through from the bathroom.

  ‘Ready?’ he asked, walking towards the sofa.

  Elena let go of Rosanna’s hand and, for a moment, she sat perfectly still and Elena half-feared that she was going to say something.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Reuben asked Rosanna with a gentle smile.

  Rosanna stared back at him. ‘I’m fine, thank you,’ she said.

  ‘It must be strange for you,’ Reuben said, ‘having a complete stranger turn up and tell you he’s your sister’s fiancé.’

  Again, there was an agonising pause before she answered. Elena really wished she wouldn’t do that: it made her so nervous.

  ‘It’s all very strange,’ Rosanna said, holding Reuben’s gaze with hers but aiming her words at Elena.

  ‘Okay!’ Elena said, getting up. ‘Time to find somewhere for you to stay.’

  Reuben and Elena had left the apartment and, as soon as they were out of earshot, he started with the questions. It didn’t take long for her to persuade him that he was her one and only and, when she saw the relief and belief flooding into his eyes, she sincerely wished that she was telling the truth.

  Dear Reuben. Her passionate artist who followed her out to Venice to say he was sorry. There weren’t many men who’d do that and yet she’d been lucky enough to find one and look at how she treated him, She didn’t even have the decency to two-time him like a normal floozy, but three-timed him instead. How low could a girl go?

  She was delighted when he’d booked into the Hotel Danieli because it was conveniently placed on the opposite side of Venice from Sandro’s apartment. That, she thought, would allow her the space she needed.

  ‘I’ll come and see you tomorrow,’ she’d promised him after a marathon sex session and vowing to herself that, in the meantime, she’d have done her best to sort things out.

  Leaving the Danieli, she turned right and walked the short distance to San Marco. She looked out to the island of San Giorgio Maggiore. The early evening light had turned the water bronze and gave everything an ethereal glow. She’d never seen such a beautiful light before and she felt tears pricking her eyes as if she didn’t deserve to see such beauty. She blinked them away. Tears weren’t going to solve any problems. Tears were for the hopeless and she wasn’t hopeless: she was a rational woman who’d stumbled into a rather unusual situation but, surely, if she could get herself into such a situation, she could jolly well get herself out of it?

  Yes, she thought, think rationally, think positively but, most of all, think! She smiled - she was beginning to sound like Rosanna.

  It was strange but Elena’s feet seemed to know where they were going long before she did. She left San Marco, leading lightly through the shop-lined alleys before climbing the wooden steps of the Accademia Bridge. Then, she wound her way through more alleys and over smaller canals until, finally, they stopped – outside Viviana’s, the mask shop.

  She hadn’t thought to go there – not consciously anyway, and her eyes widened in surprise when she realised where she was. She hadn’t really wanted to go in the first time so why had she come there a second time? And then, her eyes fixed on the golden mask – the very one that had arrested her attention before. It wasn’t alone in the window, of course, it had to jostle for space like the smallest child in a large family, but it was the only one she took any notice of.

  Her hand hovered over the door handle for a moment before she opened it, hearing the merry bell tinkling again, and closing the door behind her.

  Silence.

  She looked around, half-expecting to see the old, white-haired man again but, like the time before, there was nobody about. She took the opportunity to walk over to the shop window and stretched her hand out over the myriad masks to reach the golden one. No sooner had her fingers closed around it than she heard a familiar voice behind her.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  Elena turned around, dropping the mask back into place.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said automatically, feeling awkward at having tried to help herself to this man’s goods.

  ‘Is there a particular mask that draws you?’ he asked and she was immediately arrested by his use of the phrase draws you. He didn’t say, ‘Is there a particular mask you like?’ His phrase, ‘draws you’ was very precise, very perceptive, she felt.

  ‘Actually, yes,’ she said, pointing to the golden mask.

  He joined her and, peering slowly into the window as if he were afraid he might startle the mask if he moved any quicker, he looked at the one she’d singled out.

  ‘Oh, no!’ he said, shaking his head vehemently as if he meant to rid himself of it.

  ‘But that’s the one that draws me!’ she said, repeating his own words for emphasis. ‘That’s the one!’

  ‘No, no,’ he said again, and she’d never heard the word ‘no’ said quite so emphatically. ‘Not quite right for you.’

  ‘Ho
w do you mean?’ she asked, secretly thinking he was rather mad and that he was merely steering her towards something more elaborate and more expensive.

  ‘I have just the mask for you,’ he said and, with that, he walked towards the door at the back of the shop and disappeared just as she heard the bell tinkle above the main door.

  ‘My husband is serving you?’ an elderly woman with a shock of white hair asked her.

  Elena nodded, marvelling at the fact that the woman looked like a perfect copy of her husband only with flaring hips and a fine bosom at right angles to her tiny frame.

  ‘Stefano!’ she called and Elena’s eardrums trembled at the power of her voice. How could tiny people boom so, she wondered? Surely there wasn’t enough room in her frame to house such a huge voice. ‘You have a lovely lady waiting for you!’

  She heard Stefano muttering something to himself as he came into the shop again.

  ‘My husband!’ the lady said, shaking her head from side to side. ‘The only man in Venice who could leave the side of such a beautiful woman!’

  ‘Is she?’ Stefano said. ‘I hadn’t noticed,’ he added, winking at Elena before kissing his wife. ‘What man could notice other beauties when he has a wife like you?’

  ‘Ah! You great fool!’ she laughed, pushing him away and shaking her head again. ‘I’m Viviana,’ she said turning to Elena once again.

  ‘Elena,’ she said, and shook the tiny hand she proffered.

  ‘And what is Elena looking for?’

  She shrugged her shoulders, not really knowing how to answer. But she needn’t have worried because Stefano answered before she had the chance to concoct something suitable.

  ‘Elena was looking at the mask in the window,’ he said, and his wife nodded immediately.

  She frowned. There were dozens of masks in the window. How could she possibly know which one she was interested in?

  ‘The gold one,’ she explained.

  ‘Yes,’ Viviana said. ‘The little half-mask.’

  Elena could feel her frown deepening in a most unbecoming manner. ‘Yes. How did you know?’

  ‘Viviana knows everything!’ she chuckled. ‘But that’s not quite the mask for you, is it?’

  ‘That’s just what I was telling her,’ Stefano said.

  ‘And what did you find for Elena?’ Viviana asked.

  Stefano stepped forward and offered up a plain white box for her inspection and Viviana nodded in agreement as if she could see the mask contained within.

  ‘Open it,’ he said, so she did. She pulled away a couple of layers of tissue paper to discover an almost identical mask to that in the shop window, so why had he made such a fuss about finding this one for her? She picked it up and smiled as the gold shone brightly.

  ‘It’s a mezza neutra,’ Stefano explained. ‘Do you like it?’

  ‘I do,’ she said, turning it around in her hands. ‘It’s so light and,’ she paused, ‘it feels - warm!’

  Stefano nodded as if he’d expected her to say those very words.

  ‘Almost human,’ she added, a child-like excitement suddenly overwhelming her. ‘Can I try it on?’ she asked, lifting it up to her face before he had a chance to answer but, quick as lightning, his hand stopped her.

  ‘No, no, Elena. Not yet. It is my gift to you. You can try it on later but not here. Not in the shop.’

  ‘But how do you know it will fit me?’

  He smiled a tiny, knowing smile. ‘It will fit you,’ he said. ‘But you must try it on when you are alone.’

  His answer perplexed her and confirmed her opinion that he was completely mad.

  ‘Please, you must let me pay for it,’ she said.

  He shook his head.

  ‘Never turn down a gift from Stefano. It would be very bad luck,’ Viviana explained.

  Elena smiled. She already had quite enough to contend with, she thought, without inviting a dose of bad luck too, so she graciously accepted his gift.

  ‘All I ask is that you’ll let me know how you get on with it.’

  She smiled again. ‘I promise,’ she said before leaving the shop with the golden mask tucked under her arm.

  Chapter 15

  Mark’s eyes were dazzled by it all. Everything around him seemed golden. Perhaps it was because he’d left behind a particularly grey day in London, but he felt as if he’d landed in paradise. When he got off the boat, he pulled his rucksack onto his back and stood absolutely still for a moment, looking out across the lagoon. The last of the sun’s rays streaked across the water like a comet’s tail. It was mesmeric, and the water looked so inviting, you could almost be lulled into jumping right in for a swim. You wouldn’t, of course. This was Venice, after all.

  He felt rather pleased with himself for having the bright idea of visiting. It was going to be a great week, he thought, and that sunset was very auspicious.

  The apartment was easy to find as he had Elena’s directions from her sister. What he hadn’t got, though, was a phone number, so he hadn’t been able to ring ahead and check that firstly, someone would be in and, secondly, that he’d be welcome. Ringing the bell on the wall of the rather ugly exterior, he prepared himself for disappointment. If she wasn’t in, he’d just have to find a cheap hotel, if there was such a thing in Venice.

  It didn’t take long before he heard the door opening and he quickly raked a hand through his hair. At least he’d remembered to shave for once.

  He smiled as a woman greeted him. She had the same lustrous dark hair as Elena and her eyes were large and a deep, deep brown. She was about the same height but her figure was fuller.

  ‘Rosanna?’ he enquired, his eyes taking in her face which was quite lovely if a little sullen-looking.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. She didn’t look at all welcoming.

  ‘I’m Mark. Mark Theodore. Elena’s fiancé.’ He smiled at her but he didn’t receive one in return. ‘I work with Elena,’ he explained.

  ‘Yes! Yes!’ she said at last. ‘Elena’s told me.’

  ‘Phew! I was beginning to get a bit worried then!’

  She stared at him for a moment more. ‘You’d better come in.’

  ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Look, I know this is a bit unexpected.’

  She turned around from her position ahead of him on the stairs. ‘Don’t worry. I’m used to the unexpected with Elena.’

  Mark laughed but he noticed that her tone was deadly serious. ‘She can be unpredictable,’ he agreed.

  Rosanna said something but it was in Italian and he couldn’t make out what it was and didn’t like to ask in case he wasn’t meant to have heard.

  ‘Blimey!’ he said as they reached the top of the stairs into what could only be described as the biggest living space he’d ever seen. It was the size of his entire flat and the thin Finn’s English school rolled into one.

  ‘Yes,’ Rosanna agreed.

  ‘How come I’ve never heard of this artist before? If he owns something like this, he must be pretty well-known.’

  ‘He’s still working on the getting well-known bit but his art sells for a fortune here.’

  ‘I can see,’ he said, dumping his rucksack and walking over to look at some of the canvases.

  ‘Please, don’t touch anything over there. Most of the oils are still drying.’

  Mark nodded as his eyes roved over the pictures stacked up against the wall. They were mostly nudes and, looking closer, he noticed that they were mostly of Rosanna. He cleared his throat, suddenly feeling rather hot and uncomfortable. It felt almost incestuous looking at nude paintings of his future sister-in-law and he hurriedly looked for something else to comment on in the room.

  ‘Those are his latest,’ Rosanna said as he examined some paintings on a long trestle table that looked like a fallen oak tree.

  ‘Yeah?’ Mark peered closely. ‘What’s this business with the cat?’

  There was a moment’s pause before Rosanna suddenly burst out laughing. Mark looked up at her, wondering how, one minute, she
could be statue-cold and, the next, sound like she’d just heard the funniest joke in the world.

  ‘What is it? What did I say?’

  ‘The cat!’ she said, her hysteria subsiding slightly and her features rearranging themselves back to normality. ‘That bloody cat!’

  ‘What about it?’ he asked, feeling thick. He didn’t quite understand what she’d found so funny.

  ‘It’s Sandro’s pet. His darling Bimba. Horrible animal - appears in all his paintings - even the portraits. It makes me sneeze but he insists on having it in the house.’

  ‘I don’t see it.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘When Sandro’s away, the cat will play - outside!’ she said and then started laughing again.

  This time, he couldn’t help but join in. Her face fell apart when she laughed and her joy was contagious. If they hadn’t both heard the door open then, they might both have ended up in a heap of helpless tears on the floor.

  ‘Elena?’ he said quietly to Rosanna.

  She nodded.

  ‘Listen. I want to surprise her,’ he whispered, grabbing his rucksack from view.

  ‘Oh, I think you’ll manage that,’ Rosanna said, the laughter banished from her face once more.

  ‘Rosanna? Is that you?’ Elena called from the lobby and Mark felt himself smiling at the sound of her voice. It felt an age since he’d last heard it.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Who’s that with you?’ Elena called, her feet clicking on the stone steps.

  Mark waved his hand at Rosanna in a shushing motion.

  ‘Nobody,’ she said. ‘I was just laughing at something on the television.’

  Mark blew a kiss to Rosanna, hid behind the great oak desk, and waited.

  Chapter 16

  Somewhere between leaving Viviana’s and the Campo San Giovanni e Paolo, Elena must have taken a wrong turn but the strange thing was, she didn’t feel at all anxious - not like she would have back in London. It was probably all part of the romance of being in a different city. She guessed tourists never knowingly looked for the danger lurking beneath the fine architecture and magnificent views. Who wanted to think about pickpockets in the middle of paradise? Anyway, she knew she was fairly close to home now and it wasn’t as if she were alone: she had her mask with her for company.