Kitabı oku: «The Secret That Changed Everything», sayfa 3

CHAPTER THREE

AFTER dumping her bags in his car Lucio indicated the road that ran along the side of the river. ‘It’s not far. Just a quiet little place where we can get things sorted.’

But when they reached the café Charlotte backed off. Through the windows she could see tables occupied by couples, all seemingly blissful in each other’s company.

Not now, she thought. An air of romance wasn’t right for this discussion. She needed a businesslike atmosphere.

‘It’s a bit crowded,’ she said. ‘Let’s find somewhere else.’

‘No, they won’t bother us,’ he said, which left her with a curious feeling that he’d read her thoughts. ‘This way.’

He led her to a table by a window, through which she could see the golden glow of the water, and the little boats all of which seemed to be full of adoring couples.

But this situation demanded efficiency, common sense. The last thing it needed was emotion.

Her mood had calmed. She was even aware of a little shame at how hastily she’d judged him. But it still irked her that he’d taken control. She glanced up and found him studying her with a faint smile.

‘If looks could kill, I’d be a dead man,’ he observed lightly.

‘Unless there was some quicker way,’ she replied in the same tone.

‘If there was, I’m sure you’d know it.’

‘Well, you’ve got a nerve, just taking over like that.’

‘But I asked if you’d come with me. You said yes.’

‘And if I’d said no, what would have happened?’

He gave a smile that made her heart turn over. ‘I’d probably have taken the advice you offered me in Rome.’

‘I gave you advice?’

‘As I recall your exact words were, “Know what you want and don’t stop until you get it”. Impressive advice. I know what I want and, well—’ He spread his hands in an expressive gesture.

‘So you think you can do what you like and I can’t complain because I put you up to it.’

‘That’s a great way of putting it. I couldn’t have done better myself.’

‘I—you—’

‘Ah, waiter, a bottle of my usual wine, and sparkling water for the lady.’

‘And suppose I would have liked wine,’ she demanded when they were alone.

‘Not for the next few months. It wouldn’t be good for you or the person you’re carrying.’

His use of the word person startled her. How many men saw an unborn child as a person, still less when it had been conceived only a few weeks ago? She knew one woman whose husband referred to ‘that thing inside you’. But to Lucio this was already a person. Instinctively she laid a hand over her stomach.

Then she looked up to find him watching her. He nodded. After a moment she nodded back.

Now she’d had a chance to get her thoughts in order she found her brief hostility dying. She could even appreciate his methods.

When the waiter returned with the drinks Lucio ordered a snack, again without consulting her. But it was hard to take offence when he was ordering the same things she’d enjoyed in the outdoor café at the Trevi Fountain, a few weeks and a thousand lifetimes ago. How had he remembered her taste so perfectly? The discovery made him look slightly different.

Studying him, she discovered another change. The man in Rome had been a flamboyant playboy, handsome, elegantly dressed, ready to relish whatever pleasures came his way. The man in the vineyard that afternoon had worn dark jeans and a sweater, suitable for hard work on the land.

The man sitting here now wore the same clothes but his eyes were tense. His manner was calm, even apparently light-hearted, but there was something else behind it. She sensed apprehension in him, but why was he nervous? Of her? The situation? Himself?

When the waiter had gone he turned back to her.

‘I’m sorry for the way this happened, but I never dreamed you’d just leave like that.’

‘And I thought my leaving was what you wanted. Your silence seemed rather significant.’

‘My silence was the silence of a man who’s been knocked sideways and was trying to get his head together. You tell me something earth-shattering, then you vanish into thin air, and I’m supposed to just shrug?’

‘I guess I thought you were more sophisticated than this.’

‘What you thought was that this kind of thing happened to me every day, didn’t you?’

‘Nonsense,’ she said uncomfortably.

‘Be honest, admit it.’

‘How can I? I don’t know the first thing about you.’

‘Nor I about you,’ he said wryly. ‘That’s our problem, isn’t it? We’ve done it all back to front. Most people get to know a little about each other before they—well, anyway, we skipped that bit and now everything’s different.

‘I didn’t contact you earlier because I was in a state of shock. When I’d pulled myself together I picked up the phone. Then I put it down again. I didn’t know what to say, but I had to see you. I had to know how you feel about what’s happened. Tell me frankly, Charlotte, do you want this baby?’

Aghast, she glared at him. ‘What are you saying? Of course I want it. Are you daring to suggest that I get rid of it? I’d never do that.’

‘No, I didn’t mean—it’s just—’ He seemed to struggle for the right words. ‘Do you really want the child or are you merely making the best of it?’

She drew a slow breath. ‘I don’t know. I’ve never thought of it like that. From the moment I knew, it felt inevitable, as though the decision had been taken out of my hands.’

He nodded. ‘That can be a strange feeling, sometimes bad but sometimes good. You get used to planning life, but then suddenly life makes the plans and orders you to follow them.’

‘Oh, yes,’ she murmured. ‘I know exactly what you mean.’

‘And maybe it can be better that way. It can save a lot of trouble.’

‘You’ll have me believing that you’re a fatalist.’

‘Perhaps,’ he said quietly. ‘Things happen, and when you think you’ve come to terms with it something else happens and you have to start the whole process again.’

‘Yes,’ she murmured. ‘Nothing is ever really the way we thought it was, is it?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘That’s true, and somehow we have to find our way through the maze.’

She turned to meet his eyes and saw in them a confusion that matched her own.

‘I can hardly believe you’re pregnant,’ he said. ‘You look as slim as ever.’

‘I’m two and a half months gone. That’s too early for it to show, but it’ll start soon.’

‘When did you know?’

‘A few weeks ago. I was late, and when I checked—’ she shrugged ‘—that was it.’

She waited for him to demand why she hadn’t approached him sooner, but he sat in silence. She was glad. It would have been hard for her to describe the turmoil of emotions that had stormed through her in the first days after the discovery. They had finally calmed, but she’d found herself in limbo, uncertain what to do next.

When she’d discovered his likely location she hadn’t headed straight there. Her mind seemed to be in denial, refusing to believe she was really pregnant. Any day now it would turn out to be a mistake. She’d continued her trip around Italy, heading back south but avoiding Rome and going right down to Messina, then crossing the water to the island of Sicily, where she spent a month before returning north.

At last she faced the truth. She was carrying Lucio’s child. So she went to find him, telling herself she was ready for anything. But his response, or lack of it, had stunned her. Now here she was, wishing she was anywhere else on earth.

From the river below came the sound of a young woman screaming with laughter. Glancing down Charlotte saw the girl fooling blissfully with her lover before they vanished under the bridge. Lucio watched her, noticing how the glittering yellow burnished her face, so that for a moment she looked not like a woman but like a golden figurine, enticing, mysterious, capable of being all things to all men, or nothing to any man.

‘So tell me what you’re thinking,’ he said. ‘Tell me how it looks to you, and where you see the path leading.’

‘I can’t answer that. I see a dozen paths leading in different directions, and I won’t know which one is the right one until we’ve talked.’

‘If I hadn’t turned up just now where were you headed?’

She shrugged.

‘Home?’ he persisted. ‘To New York?’ He searched her face. ‘You don’t know, do you?’

‘Does it matter?’

‘What about your family? How do they feel about it?’

‘I haven’t told them yet.’ He stared. ‘What, nothing?’

‘Nothing.’

‘I see.’ He sat in silence for a moment and when he spoke again his tone was gentle.

‘When we talked in Rome you said there was a secret that you’d been the last to know, and you felt as though you weren’t really part of the family any more. You still feel like that?’

‘I guess so.’

‘All these weeks you’ve had nobody to confide in?’

‘It wouldn’t be a good time.’

The thought of her family had made her flinch. So much was going on there already—the truth about Matt and Ellie’s paternity, her feeling of isolation, her uncertainty about what a family really meant—she couldn’t confide in them until she’d made up her own mind. She didn’t even tell Matt. She’d always felt close to him before, but not now.

‘So there isn’t anybody—?’ Lucio ventured slowly.

‘Don’t you dare start feeling sorry for me,’ she flashed. ‘I can look after myself.’

‘Will you stop taking offence at every word? You don’t have to defend yourself against me. If you’d just given me a chance this afternoon—’

‘All right, I shouldn’t have dashed off the way I did,’ she admitted. ‘But you looked so horrified….’

‘Not horrified,’ he corrected her gently. ‘Just taken by surprise. It’s never happened to me before, and it was the last thing I expected.’ He made a wry face. ‘I just didn’t feel I could cope. I guess my cowardly side came to the surface.’

‘But there’s no need for you to feel like that,’ she said. ‘You don’t have to have anything to do with this baby. I told you because you had a right to know, but I’m not expecting anything from you—’

She stopped, dismayed at his sudden frozen expression.

‘Thanks,’ he said harshly. ‘You couldn’t have showed your contempt for me more clearly than that.’

‘But I didn’t—I don’t know what you—’

‘You’re carrying my child but you don’t expect anything from me. That says everything, doesn’t it? In your eyes I’m incapable of rising to the occasion, fulfilling my obligations. In other words, a total zero.’

‘I didn’t mean it like that. I just didn’t want you to feel I was putting pressure on you.’

‘Doesn’t it occur to you that there ought to be a certain amount of pressure on a man who’s fathered a child?’

‘Well, like you said, we don’t know each other very well.’

The words Except in one way seemed to vibrate in the air around them.

Seeing this tense, sharp-tempered man, she found it strange to recall the charismatic lover who’d lured her into his arms that night in Rome. How he’d laughed as they stood by the fountain, tossing in coins, challenging her to make two wishes—the conventional one about returning to Rome, and another one from her heart. She’d laughed too, closing her eyes and moving her lips silently, refusing to tell him what she’d asked for.

‘Let’s see if I can guess,’ he’d said.

‘You never will.’

That was true, for there had been no second wish. She had so many things to wish for, and no time to think about them. So she’d merely moved her lips without meaning, as part of the game.

She’d teased him all the way into her bedroom and the merriment had lasted as they undressed each other. They didn’t switch on the light, needing only the glow that came through the windows, with its mysterious half shadows. His body had been just as she’d expected, slim and vigorous, not heavily muscular but full of taut strength.

Everything about their encounter had been fun: it was scandalous, immoral, something no decent girl would ever do, but she enjoyed it all the more for the sense of thrilling rebellion it gave her. No pretence, no elaborate courtesy, no bowing to convention. Just sheer lusty pleasure.

His admiration had been half the enjoyment. In the glow of success she had soared above the world, but now had come the inevitable crash landing, and the two of them stranded together.

She looked around the café, trying to get her bearings. It was hard because there were lovers everywhere, as though this part of Florence had been made for them and nobody else. Glancing at Lucio she saw him watching the couples with an expression on his face that made her draw a sharp breath. Gone was the irony, the air of control that seemed to permeate everything else that he did. In its place was a haunted look, as though his heart was yearning back to a source of sadness from which he could never be entirely free.

She looked away quickly. Something warned her that he would hate to know she’d seen that revealing expression.

One couple in particular caught her attention. They were deep in conversation, with the girl urgently explaining something to the young man. Suddenly he burst into a loud crow of joy, pointing to her stomach. She nodded, seizing his hand and drawing it against her waist. Then they threw themselves into each other’s arms.

That was how it should be, Charlotte thought. Not like this.

‘No prizes for guessing what she told him,’ Lucio observed wryly.

‘I suppose not.’

He seemed to become suddenly decisive. ‘All right, let’s see if we can agree on something.’

Here it was, she thought. He was going to offer her a financial settlement, and she was going to hate him for it.

‘I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since this afternoon,’ he said. ‘And one thing’s clear to me. You mustn’t be alone. I want you to come and stay with me.’

She frowned. ‘You mean—?’

‘At my home. I think you’ll like it there.’

Seeing in her face that she was astonished he added, ‘You don’t have to decide now. Stay for a while, decide how you feel, then we’ll talk and you’ll make your decision.’

Dumbfounded, she stared at him. Whatever she’d expected it wasn’t this.

‘Please, Charlotte. You can’t just go off into the distance and vanish. I want you where I can look after you and our child.’

She drew a shaky breath. Of all he’d said, three words stood out.

I want you.

To be wanted, looked after. When had that last happened to her?

‘You surely understand that?’ Lucio said.

‘Yes, I—I guess I’m like you. I need time to get my head round it.’

‘But what’s difficult? We’re having a child together. That makes us a family. At the very least we should give it a try, see if it can be made to work.’

‘Well, yes, I suppose so….’

‘Good. Then we’re agreed. Nice to get it settled. Shall we go?’

‘Yes,’ she said slowly, taking the hand he held out to her, and letting him draw her to her feet.

The die was cast. She had no intention of leaving him now.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked as they stepped out into the street.

‘Yes—yes, everything’s all right.’

He led her to where he’d parked the car and ushered her into the front passenger seat. In a few moments they were heading out of Florence and on the road that led the twenty miles to the estate.

There was a full moon, casting its glow over the hills of Tuscany, and holding her spellbound by the beauty. Lucio didn’t speak and she was glad because she needed time to understand what had happened.

I want you.

Three simple words that had made it impossible for her to leave, at least for the moment. Later, things might be different, but for now she had nowhere else to go, and nobody else who wanted her.

With a few miles to go Lucio pulled in at the side of the road and made a call on his cell phone.

‘Mamma? We’ll be there in a few minutes…. Fine…. Thank you!’

As he started up the engine and drove on he said, ‘Fiorella isn’t actually my mother. She and her husband, Roberto, were the owners of the estate when I arrived here twelve years ago. I worked for them, we grew close, and I nearly married their daughter, Maria. But she died, and Roberto followed her soon after, leaving the estate to me.’

‘But shouldn’t he have left it to his wife?’ Charlotte asked.

‘Don’t worry, I didn’t steal her inheritance. He left her a fortune in money. She could go anywhere, do anything, but she chooses to live here because it’s where she was happy. She’s been like a mother to me, and I’m glad to have her.’

Her head was in a whirl at these revelations. Lucio had been engaged to Fiorella’s daughter. How would she feel at the arrival of a woman carrying Lucio’s child, a child that in another life would have been her own grandchild? At the very least she would regard Charlotte as an interloper.

‘You should have told me this before,’ she said.

‘Why? She wants to meet you.’

‘But it’s an impossible situation. Her daughter—you—however can this be happening?’

‘Charlotte, please, I know it’s difficult, but don’t blame me. You’ve known about this pregnancy for weeks, but you sprang it on me without warning. I had to make decisions very quickly, and if I was clumsy I’m sorry. Don’t look daggers at me.’

Since his eyes were fixed on the road he couldn’t see the daggers, but he’d known by instinct. She ground her teeth.

What did Fiorella know about her? What had Lucio said? What had Elizabetta, the housekeeper, said after she’d arrived, asking for Lucio, earlier that day?

In the distance she could see a palatial house, standing high on a hill and well lit so that she could recognise it as the one she’d visited. As they neared she could see two women standing just outside the front door. One of them was Elizabetta and the other must be Fiorella.

The two women were totally still as the car drew up. Only when Lucio opened Charlotte’s door and handed her out did they come forward.

‘This is Charlotte,’ he said. ‘She’s come to stay with us.’

Clearly neither of them needed to ask what he meant. Lucio had prepared the ground well. Elizabetta smiled and nodded, but Fiorella astonished Charlotte by opening her arms

‘You are welcome in this house,’ she said.

Charlotte’s head spun. She’d been prepared for courtesy, but not this show of warmth from a woman whose daughter Lucio had once planned to marry. It was Maria who should have borne his children, which surely made her an interloper.

She managed to thank Fiorella calmly, and the two women ushered her into the house while Lucio returned to the car for her bags.

‘A room has been prepared for you,’ Fiorella said. ‘And some food will be brought to you. Tomorrow we will all eat together, but tonight I think you are tired and need to sleep soon.’

She was right, and Charlotte thanked her for her consideration. Secretly she guessed that there was another reason. Now that she’d set eyes on her, Fiorella wanted to take Lucio aside and demand more answers. And she herself would be glad to talk to him privately.

He led the way up a flight of stairs, so grandiose that they confirmed her impression that this was more of a palace than a farmhouse. Then it was down a wide corridor lined with pictures, until they came to a door.

‘This is your room,’ Lucio said, leading the way in and standing back for her to see.

It was a splendid place, large and extravagantly furnished, with a double bed that had clearly been freshly made up, and a door that led to a private bathroom.

‘This is kept for our most honoured guests,’ Lucio said. ‘I think you’ll be comfortable here.’

‘I’m sure I will be,’ she said politely.

Fiorella appeared, followed by Elizabetta pushing a table on wheels, laden with a choice of food, fruit juice and coffee.

‘Have a good night’s sleep,’ Fiorella said. ‘And we will get to know each other tomorrow. Would you like Elizabetta to unpack your bags?’

‘No, thank you,’ Charlotte said quickly.

She wasn’t sure why she refused. But while she was still learning about this place and the people in it some instinct warned her to stay on guard.

‘Right, we’ll leave you alone to get settled,’ Lucio said. ‘Go to bed soon. It’s late.’

She would have preferred him to stay, but of course he must sort out final details with Fiorella. He would come to her later.

She ate the supper, which had clearly been created by someone who knew her tastes, meaning that Lucio had been at work here, too. Then she unpacked, hung up her clothes in the elegant wardrobes and took a shower. It felt wonderful. When she stepped out her flesh was singing and she felt better physically than she had for some time.

What to wear to greet Lucio when he came? Nothing seductive. That would send out too obvious a message. The nightdress she chose was silk but not seductively low-cut. Some women would have called it boring. Charlotte called it useful. They could talk again, but this time it would be different. She no longer felt the antagonism he’d provoked in her earlier. Tonight would decide the future, and suddenly that future looked brighter than it had for months.

It was only a few hours since she’d arrived at the estate, a confident woman, certain that she knew who and what she was. She would explain the facts to Lucio, they would make sensible arrangements and that would be that.

But nothing had worked out as she planned, and now here she was, in unknown territory. She knew there was much to make her grateful. Where she might have found hostility she was treated as an ‘honoured guest’. Lucio wanted their child, and was set on being a good father, which made him better than many men. But he was focused on the baby, not herself. What would happen between the two of them was something only time would tell.

She threw herself down on the bed, staring into space. One question danced through her mind. How much had Maria meant to him? How much did her memory mean to him now? He’d spoken of her without apparent emotion, but that might have been mere courtesy towards herself. Or perhaps they had planned no more than a marriage of convenience.

Surely that wasn’t important. How could it matter to her?

Yet, disconcertingly, it did.

Face it, she thought. He’s attractive. You thought so from the first moment in Rome, otherwise things wouldn’t have happened as they did. What was it someone used to say to me? ‘When you’ve made a decision, have the guts to live with the result.’ I made a decision, and this is the result. Perhaps even a happy one.

We could even fall in love. I’m not in love with him now, but I know I could be. But isn’t that a kind of love already? Well, it’ll be interesting finding out.

She smiled to herself.

And I could win him. Couldn’t I?

I’ll know when I see him tonight. He’ll be here soon.

But hours passed and Lucio did not appear.