Читать книгу Modern Romance July 2015 Books 5-8 - Andie Brock, Louise Fuller - Страница 25

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

SOPHIE’S FLIGHT BACK to Bordo Del Cielo was very different from the one she had taken when she had left.

Then she had been nineteen—confused, hurting, angry and just so glad to be getting away.

Now she was confused but the hurt was different.

Paulo was asleep in the bedroom area; Bella was sitting in one of the luxurious chairs with a curtain around her because she didn’t want anyone to see the dress she was making for her friend.

Sophie sat beside Luka, staring out of the window and watching the land she wanted to love but which had cost her so much come into view.

‘I was wrong,’ Luka said, and she turned.

‘Oh, you are so wrong,’ Sophie said. No doubt he was talking about something else but all she knew was that he was wrong not to give them this chance.

Luka gave a soft, wry laugh as if he knew what she was thinking. ‘I thought you were lying when you said that you were an events planner but I know few women who could organise a wedding in a couple of days.’

‘It’s easy to when you know...’ Sophie shrugged. ‘Well, let’s just say I’m not too worried about how the cake is going to look and whether Teresa has had enough notice.’ She looked right into his eyes. ‘How could you even consider doing this to him, Luka?’

‘How could you have done this to us?’

His words didn’t confuse her, they ate at her instead.

She remembered standing on the beach, confused and ashamed and shouting, when their mouths should have been kissing.

She remembered hurling the sins of his father at him when she should have loved him first.

The plane came in to land and they sat in silence, but as they hit the tarmac, as they hurtled down the runway, Sophie didn’t care if the plane lifted now and took them away.

But it came to a halt and they were home.

‘I’m not perfect...’ Sophie turned to him ‘...but I’d fight for us.’

‘Nice speech,’ Luka said. ‘Tell me, though, Sophie—when did you ever fight for us? Did you come to my father’s funeral? You would have known I had no one, the hell it would be to come home...’

‘I was going to,’ Sophie said, ‘but I had just found out that my father was terminally ill.’

‘He still is,’ Luka replied, unmoved. ‘You’ve held up the death card and I’m here. That’s not an excuse not to show up on the day you would have known I needed you the most.’

He accepted no excuses for her carelessness with their love.

Did she sit there now and tell him the truth?

That he was right?

It hadn’t been her father’s illness that had stopped her contacting him.

Did she tell him she couldn’t have afforded it?

Would a man like Luka accept as an excuse that she’d had no money? That he’d have had to wire her the fare?

‘Did you fight for us on the beach, when I pleaded with you to come with me?’ Luka asked.

‘No.’

Her single word moved him. She did not kick up with her usual defence as to how he had shamed her in court.

‘So when did you fight for us, Sophie?’

‘I’ll fight now.’

Luka said nothing.

He just stood as the passengers disembarked.

‘I’ll see you to your home,’ Luka said.

It was a strange ride.

Her father never stopped coughing. There was the angel of death in the car with them and turned backs on the streets as Sophie looked out.

Yet it was home.

And it was somehow beautiful.

‘Do you remember...?’ She stopped.

Eight years old to his fourteen, she had found Luka crying for the first and last time, washing blood from his face in the river.

‘Did you fall?’ she had asked.

‘Yes, I fell.’

They had sat eating nectarines and she had looked at his bruised, bloodied nose and closed eye.

‘One day,’ Sophie had said, ‘you will be taller than him.’

‘Who?’ Luka had asked, because then he had still been loyal to his father.

‘Taller than any man in this town,’ she had said.

‘I remember,’ Luka said, and she did not turn or jump to the sound of his voice.

Here it felt normal.

Here they were as entwined as the vines and the roots beneath them.

They passed the school where she had left at fifteen to work in the hotel.

‘I cried the day I left,’ Sophie admitted. ‘I wanted to learn all the poems. I wanted to sort out the maths...’

‘You have the cleverest head on the planet,’ Luka said.

‘Yet I can’t work us out.’

‘We’re here,’ Bella said, and Sophie looked as they turned from the hotel and into her street.

It was the same, except different.

The neighbour’s house had changed and was tastefully renovated. ‘It smells of London.’ Sophie winked as she waved to her weekender neighbours.

‘I’ll leave you here,’ Luka said, having helped Paulo up the path.

‘You’re not going to come in for coffee?’

‘I’m going to go and check into the hotel,’ Luka said, once he had ensured everything was okay. ‘And then I am meeting with Matteo.’

He didn’t want to go in.

He didn’t want to see just how poor his father had kept them.

‘I might go for a walk,’ Bella said. ‘I would like to look at my old home, even if there are other people living there...’

Sophie looked at Luka but he gave her a slight shake of his head and pulled her aside. ‘I haven’t told everyone what I am doing. I don’t want anyone feeling beholden. My lawyer will contact people once I’ve gone. Bella will find out soon enough that she has a home.’

Thank God for the nurse, because she took an exhausted, overwrought Paulo to his room for some oxygen and medication.

‘It is your last day as a single woman,’ Paulo wheezed. ‘You should go out with Bella.’

‘I’m just happy to be home.’

Sophie was. Though it felt so strange to be back.

Happy her father was settled, she set to work. There was a lot to be done and also there was Teresa to pay.

She walked into town, trying not to look up. She didn’t want to see Malvolio’s home spreading out over the top of the hill.

She didn’t want to glimpse the bedroom where she and Luka had first made love and she averted her eyes as she passed the church where tomorrow he would leave her standing.

Sophie walked into Teresa’s deli and, just as they had the last time she’d done so, the people in the deli fell silent. Angela was there, chatting with Teresa and a couple of other locals, and Sophie felt her cheeks turn to fire as she stepped up to the counter.

‘I’ve come to pay for the catering for the wedding tomorrow.’

‘Gratuitamente,’ Teresa said, and Sophie was about to slam the money down, as she had all those years ago, but she chose not to.

She was older and wiser now, even if she’d prefer not to be at times.

‘Teresa, I know it must be difficult for you to know that my father is back. He just wants to see Luka and I marry...’ Just as Sophie always did, she held back her tears. ‘That is all we are here for, to give my father some peace in his final days. Soon we’ll be gone and out of your lives for good.’

‘Sophie?’ Angela asked. ‘How is Paulo?’

‘He’s weak. He just wants to be home and to see me married.’ She put down the money. ‘We don’t want any trouble.’

She walked out of the deli. A part of Sophie wanted to go to the beach, to sit there a while and remember days when life had seemed so much simpler, but instead she made her way home.

Bella was back from her walk and busy finishing off the dress, and Sophie dealt with the flowers and cleaning the house, as she had done so many times before. But then Paulo awoke and declared that he wanted to visit his wife’s grave.

It was a long slow walk to the hill.

And agony to walk back down.

Spare me from your grief, she wanted to plead to her father as the nurse took him, weeping, to bed.

‘Another walk?’ Sophie smiled as Bella again headed out with a full face of make-up.

‘Who knows who I might bump into?’ Bella smiled.

Almost the moment she left there was a knock at the door and, no, it wasn’t Bella to recheck her make-up, it was the priest.

‘Do you want to let your father know I am here?’

Sophie nodded.

He looked so tired when she went into his room and Sophie knew then that tomorrow might not be the embarrassment she was dreading. Luka had been right. The journey, no matter how luxurious, had depleted him and visiting Rosa seemed to have taken the last of his strength.

‘The priest is here,’ Sophie said. ‘Do you want me to send him through?’

‘Please.’

She went out to the garden and lay on a sun lounger and tried not to think of what was happening. Her heart seemed to still as she felt a shadow fall over her and she looked up into the strained features of Luka.

‘You’re crying.’

‘No,’ Sophie corrected, ‘because I never cry. I don’t think I know how to. I’m just tired.’ She looked up into navy eyes. ‘The priest is in with my father. He is making his confession. I would expect him to be some considerable time.’

He sat down by her knees on the sun lounger but she shrank away.

‘Please, don’t be a hypocrite,’ Sophie said. ‘Don’t offer me your arms and then remove them tomorrow. I’m drained, Luka. I’m tired of being a parent to my father. I’m exhausted from absorbing his tears so I’m going to sit and watch the sunset and then I’ll get up and put on my green dress, as per tradition, for a Sicilian bride on the eve of her wedding.’

‘About tomorrow—’

‘I’m not even thinking about tomorrow, Luka,’ she interrupted. ‘The day will bring what it shall bring and I’ll survive it.’ She looked up as the priest came out and stood to see him out.

‘He’s made his confession.’

Luka heard the priest’s reedy voice as Sophie saw him out.

It was, Luka knew, time for him to make his confession.

Just not to Sophie.

* * *

Paulo was sitting in bed, holding his rosary beads and a picture of Rosa, but he turned and smiled as Luka made his way over and joined him.

‘Is it good to be home?’ Luka asked.

‘It is,’ Paulo said. ‘I have made my confessions. Most of them anyway.’ He looked at Luka. ‘How long will you two pretend to be together for? Till after my funeral?’

‘What are you talking about, Paulo?’

‘I’m not a fool. I’ve always known that Sophie was lying to me. I knew, with what you said about her in court, that you were over before you even started.’

‘She doesn’t forgive easily.’

‘She is like Rosa.’ Paulo smiled. ‘Even if I believed at first you were together, we do see the news in prison. I’ve read about your affairs and your scandals. I’ve seen the many beautiful women that you’ve dated.’

‘You went along with it?’ Luka frowned as he sat on the edge of the bed.

‘She thought it made me happy knowing she was being taken care of.’

‘Yet here you are you are. pushing for us to get married, even though you know it is a ruse. Why?’

‘Because for all the mistakes I have made in my life, that wasn’t one of them. You two are right for each other. I hoped that maybe being forced to spend time together you both might see that. It didn’t work though.’

‘No,’ Luka admitted.

‘It’s time to be honest,’ Paulo said. ‘Now, while we still have time to be.’

Luka gave a small nod.

‘You paid people a lot of money to work on my case these past months. What happened to make you suddenly want my release?’

‘I always thought you were weak,’ Luka admitted. ‘I saw you as my father’s yes-man but then I found something and I realised then that you had been protecting the person you love most.’ He went into his pocket and handed Paulo the cross and chain. ‘I found this amongst my father’s things.’

Paulo let out a small cry as he took his beloved wife’s cross and chain and pressed it to his lips.

‘You knew her death was my father’s doing, didn’t you?’

‘Not at first but eventually I did,’ Paulo said. ‘Malvolio wanted to build the hotel on the foreshore but there were families, including Rosa and I, who did not want to sell our homes.’ He took a moment to take some long breaths from his oxygen mask and then continued speaking. ‘I said to Rosa that we should move away and just leave Boro Del Cielo but she would not be run out of town—she said that someone had to stand up to him.’ It was the most difficult conversation. With every sentence Paulo paused to breathe. ‘Rosa went to see him to give him a piece of her mind. A few days later there was a car accident. I didn’t connect the two at first. I was grieving and Malvolio was the white knight, the friend...’ He started to cough.

‘Enough,’ Luka said.

‘No.’ Paulo was insistent that he finish. ‘He said to put differences aside—he organised the funeral when I could not. He spoke at the service when I had no words. When I told him that I could not stand to be in the home we had loved he moved me here...’ Paulo looked around at what had been his and Sophie’s home. ‘It took a few months for me to come out of the fog and start to see what had happened. He had got us out of our home by any means. By then I knew what he was capable of. He never threatened that harm would come to Sophie— instead, he said how lucky she was that he would look out for her, that our children would one day marry.’

‘But the implication was there?’ Luka asked, and Paulo nodded.

‘When did you know?’ Paulo asked.

‘About Rosa?’ Luka checked. ‘When I found her necklace amongst my father’s things, although I knew that he was corrupt long before that. It’s the reason I rarely came home.’

‘You came home that day to end things with Sophie?’

‘I did,’ Luka said. ‘I just wanted to break all ties with this place. It wasn’t that easy, though.’

‘Love never is,’ Paulo said, and held out the chain to Luka.

‘Why are you giving this to me?’ Luka asked.

‘I would have liked to be buried holding it,’ Paulo admitted, but then he shook his head. ‘If I was then Sophie would have to know what had happened.’ Paulo spoke his absolute truth. ‘She would never forgive you, Luka. I know my daughter and the fact that your family was involved in her mother’s death is something that she would not be able to forgive. Take the necklace and throw it the ocean when I am gone,’ Paulo said. ‘I will take your secret to the grave.’

‘It’s not my secret,’ Luka said.

‘It can be,’ Paulo said. ‘Sophie loves you and you love her. You do not need this hanging over you. Please.’ He gave the cross and chain one final kiss and handed it back to Luka. ‘Never tell her the truth. There is no need.’

Luka pocketed the chain and walked out from the bedroom to the lounge. There was Sophie and she gave him a tired smile.

‘How is he?’

‘He’s okay.’

‘You?’

Luka didn’t answer. There was lie in his pocket and he didn’t know how to handle it. Her own father had told him that their love could not survive it, but as he went to walk off Sophie halted him.

‘I was wrong, Luka. I should have come to London with you that night.’

‘Why?’

‘I just should have. I was angry and I blamed you.’

‘When did you decide this?’

‘Just now.’

‘Five years after the event,’ Luka sneered. His emotions were everywhere. ‘You let it fester for five years.’

‘Luka...’

‘So what happens when the shoe drops, Sophie? What happens when the next bombshell hits? Am I to wait another five years for you to come around? Am I to wait again for you to swallow that Sicilian pride?’

‘You refuse to give me that chance.’

‘I do.’