“Ra-af!”
He laughed. “You’re cute when you’re annoyed.”
She scowled at him but it broke into a grin pretty quickly. “I am annoyed,” but she didn’t sound it. “Seriously, I don’t want Yaya to wonder where I’m am. God, I don’t want her to guess where I am…”
“You think she’s developed some psychic abilities in the last twelve hours or something?”
“No, but if she gets someone to go looking for you and for me and neither of us is there…”
“No one, in a million years, is going to guess that we’re seeing each other. We’ve been too careful for that.”
“Yes, I guess you’re right. Still…”
“We’ll go in a second, I promise.” He wrapped his arms around her back, pulling her against his body. “I want you to think about something today.”
“What?”
“We’re both staying at Villa Fortune for the foreseeable future. It’s stupid not to just share a room. My room.”
She opened her mouth in protest and he rushed on with his thought.
“It’s off limits to anyone. Even the cleaning staff don’t come in when I’m staying. It’s in the family wing of the house. No one will see you come and go. You can use the doors to the citrus grove, if you’re worried.”
Her eyes held his, emotions floating through them.
“I like sleeping with you.” His grin showed the unintended double entendre. “I like sleeping, in the same bed, with you. I like waking up with you.”
“But – it’s not –,”
She didn’t finish her sentence, but he could see the idea taking hold, and that was enough. It wasn’t a rejection. “Just – think about it,” he suggested. “I like being with you.”
She continued to stare up at him.
He added the one thing he thought she needed to hear, smiling so she saw the sincerity. “I promise, I won’t fall in love with you just because you’re in my bed.”
Her eyes flickered and then a smile crossed her lips, a little dismissive. “I’m glad to hear it. Now, we really need to go.”
It was hard to focus. Lauren’s head was all over the place. Yaya was midway through her second cup of tea and Lauren could barely keep up with the conversation.
“You’re tired?”
Yaya missed nothing.
“I’m – a little.”
“Why? You’re not sleeping well?”
Heat suffused Lauren’s entire body. “I stayed up late reading,” she mumbled, unable to meet the older woman’s sparkling eyes. They were beautiful eyes, intelligent and perceptive, always bright.
“At twenty eight it should not be reading that keeps you up at night,” Yaya said, her lips forming a teasing smile. At Lauren’s surprised glance, Yaya laughed. “Relax, Lauren,” Yaya said the name with a thick accent. “It’s a joke. And rude of me, too. Now, I’m tired of being here.”
“Where?”
“Here, in my bedroom. Will you help me escape?”
Lauren’s heart raced. The doctor had given permission for Yaya to have some short visits out of her room, and Lauren had noticed, in previous days, that Yaya’s strength was returning, not abating. It was unusual, and beyond Lauren’s expectations, but the reasons she’d been called to Villa Fortune in the first place – to help an elderly woman accept that her life might be ending – seemed less and less valid every day. Lauren was familiar with death and it no longer felt as though it were inevitable here.
Or was it possible she’d lost her objectivity?
Guilt thundered through her quickly. She was always careful to keep an emotional distance from her patients, but something about Yaya had made that impossible. And Raf?
She swallowed past a lump in her throat and nodded. “Yes. I’ll be your accomplice,” she promised. “Let me get the wheelchair.”
“No. No wheelchair today,” Yaya said, a challenge in those perceptive eyes of hers. “You’ll help me.”
Lauren considered that for a moment. “Where would you like to go?”
Yaya’s smile transformed her face, making her look decades younger. “To the office, first.”
Lauren dipped her head to hide her smile. “Well, let’s not be too ambitious. We’ll start at the office and see how you feel.”
“I feel strong today.”
“You seem strong,” Lauren agreed quietly. She stood up and cleared their tea tray, then prepared to help Yaya from the bed. She was a little unsteady as she stood, at first, but then she took a step and the difference was obvious. The tentative weaknesses Lauren had been conscious of on previous occasions were barely appreciable.
“Which way?” Lauren asked at the door.
“Of course. You wouldn’t know where the office is. I forget you haven’t spent much time here.”
“No, only a few weeks,” Lauren said. Not even a month. It didn’t seem right. On the one hand, she felt as though she’d been here a lot longer, that she’d known Yaya for longer than that, but on the other, she was surprised to find she was so far into this assignment.
“Funny, of all the people who’ve come to help me, you’re so different.”
Yaya’s voice was thin with the exertion of walking. Lauren didn’t reply in an effort to stem the conversation – it was better for Yaya to focus all her energies on the physical act, but she was full of things to say that morning. “You remind me of her, you know.”
Lauren frowned. “Who?”
“Camilla. My daughter.”
Lauren shifted her gaze to Yaya’s face. “In what way?”
“You look similar. And you’re both of a comparable temperament.” Yaya’s voice grew thin and Lauren understood why. Camilla had died after a long period of estrangement – such a pain for a mother to bear.
“I didn’t realise it at first, but it must be why I like you so much.” Then with a shake of her head. “I didn’t mean that.” Frustration clipped her tone. “Sometimes I say things now –,”
“That’s a normal side effect,” Lauren soothed. “I know what you meant.”
“Just that it’s easy to feel that I know you, because it’s like we’ve met before. But you’re easy to be around.”
Lauren compressed her lips. “I don’t know if that’s true. Most people find me too reserved.”
“People can be very stupid,” Yaya said with condemnation. “They don’t look beneath the surface often enough for my liking.”
Lauren’s heart lifted. Yaya paused a moment, catching her breath, and Lauren scanned her face. She would offer to take Yaya back to her room but knew the answer would be ‘no’. She was a woman on a mission today.
“Here,” she pointed down the hallway. Lauren moved with her, deeper into a part of the house she hadn’t spent much time in. They reached a wide door that was pulled closed.
Lauren reached for the handle but Yaya shook her head. “I’ll do it. Aspetti.”
Lauren did so, stepping to the side, keeping one arm around Yaya’s waist, though she was realising that each step was giving Yaya confidence and strength. It almost felt as though she no longer needed Lauren to lean on. It almost felt as though she no longer needed Lauren at all, but that was something Lauren would contemplate at a later point.
The door pushed inwards to reveal a large office, decorated in an eclectic, somewhat old-fashioned style. A huge timber desk stood at the centre, a leather wing-back chair behind it. Windows framed a picturesque view of the vineyards that climbed over one of the trees behind the villa. Art decorated the walls – renaissance in style and, as she looked closer, undoubtedly original.
“Here,” Yaya pulled away from Lauren, moving on her own now, shuffling quickly. Lauren stared in surprise before quickly closing the gap, putting an arm around Yaya’s slender waist.
“Don’t fuss,” Yaya warned.
“I’m your accomplice to an escape, but I still have a duty to take care of you.”
“Do I look like I need that?”
“You look – wonderful,” Lauren sai
d honestly. “But it’s still early days.”
“You’ve been watching. You see it too, I know you do. Every day I am stronger than the day before. My family is good for me. Moving is good for me.”
She paused, her face, scrunched in contemplation. “I know I am old now, Lauren. I am not stupid. But the world is waiting for me to die and I suppose it’s about time I tell everyone I have no intention of doing that, yet.”
Lauren blinked, surprised by several things. The outburst – which showed strength and determination Lauren hadn’t fully comprehended. And the truth, because yes, Lauren had seen this. Every day, she’d noticed small things, tiny details that revealed an ongoing improvement in Yaya’s condition. Had she ignored them because her brief had been the same as always – to come and guide someone towards the end? Or was there another reason she’d been blind to Yaya’s improvements?
Was it that she knew with Yaya’s progressive good-health, there was no longer a need for Lauren’s services?
It was time for her to leave.
To leave Yaya and Villa Fortune would be hard enough, but there was Raf as well, and despite everything they’d agreed to, the idea of that was like shrapnel flying fast into her chest.
But she couldn’t stay now. Not when it was so clear that Yaya was improving. There were other patients who weren’t so lucky, other people who needed Lauren. Her heart weighed heavily. She couldn’t stay. This had been a beautiful, heaven-sent respite for Lauren but her real life was out there, waiting for her, and apparently it was time for her to get back to it.
“In here.” Yaya braced her palms on the top of a sideboard, the sound of her heavy breathing filling the room. Lauren waited, watching, as Yaya wiggled a drawer open – determined to do it all herself – and pulled out a thin book. No, not a book, a plastic album, a small one that held only one photo per sleeve.
“Come,” Yaya entreated as she shuffled towards the desk, her breathing still loud as she pulled the chair back and sat down. For a moment, her shoulders hunched and a blade of worry sliced through Lauren. Perhaps she was wrong? Maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea. She put her fingers on Yaya’s wrist, to check her heart rate, but Yaya shook her hand away with a croaky laugh. “I’m okay, cara. It’s just a sore heart, not a damaged one.” Her smile was wistful. “This was his office. Whenever I sit here I almost feel as though he’s with me.” She shook her head. “Living without him is – impossible to describe.”
“You miss him,” Lauren supplied quietly.
“Every minute of every day. He was a part of me. I’d had boyfriends before, but when I met Gianfelice - Oh, I was still so young, you know, just a teenager – but it was like we’d known each other forever. And it was more than that. There was an inevitability to it. I felt as though any piece in my life could be moved and he would be the one constant.”
Lauren’s heart spasmed. It hadn’t been like that for her and Thom. Theirs wasn’t a lightning-bolt kind of love. It had grown over time, over years of friendship, dependency and affection. It had been calm, measured, reasoned. Perhaps it was the fact she knew she was leaving soon, but she heard herself say, “I was married, once.”
Yaya’s eyes narrowed. “Uh huh. Now we are getting somewhere.” She pressed her hand to the top of the desk. “Sit. Tell me about him.”
And Lauren did. She poured it all out to Yaya – how she and Thom had been best friends, and then they’d married even knowing they wouldn’t have long. How hard it had been to know what was coming, but how happy she’d been to be able to love him through the end, to give him a slice of normality when everything else was shifting and fading. And Yaya listened, an impassive look on her sweet, lined face. Every now and again she’d make a little ‘hmm’ noise of encouragement, but otherwise she was content to sit and let Lauren pour everything out.
It was cathartic and necessary. For years Lauren had held onto her own grief while absorbing the sadness of others. She hadn’t realised how it had festered, how badly she’d needed to speak about Thom and how his loss had affected her, and with Yaya who understood.
“Loving like this is – a gift,” Yaya said, finally, when Lauren was done. “But also, it is a burden.” She put a hand on Lauren’s knee, her fingers swollen at the knuckles. “You are lucky to have had him, even if it was only for a short time.”
“Yes,” Lauren wondered why she’d never really thought of it that way. “I think I was.”
“And since this husband of yours?”
Lauren lifted her shoulders. “No one.” The lie was difficult to say, but Raf wasn’t worth mentioning, was he? It wasn’t a real relationship, just sex. But no, that didn’t sit right either. Raf was hard to explain – and definitely to his own grandmother! “No one important,” she amended, even when that still felt wrong.
“Everyone who comes into our life is important, cara. We can learn a lesson from them, no?”
“I suppose,” Lauren agreed, with a small frown. What had Raf taught her? The answer surprised her. A lot. Just as he’d said – she needed him to remind her what it felt like to live and breathe and experience passion and fun.
“You’re young, Lauren. Too young to have decided you want to be alone all your life.”
“I’m not alone,” she reminded Yaya with a voice that rang with false contentment. “I have my work, my patients.”
“Hmmm.” If Lauren knew Yaya as her grandchildren did, she would know that ‘hmmm’ was generally not a good sign. It meant she was ruminating on things, possibly even hatching a plan. It often signalled disapproval or disagreement.
“This is my daughter.” She flipped the album open to reveal a photograph of a young woman with shimmering blonde hair and green eyes. At a distance, they did look a little alike, she supposed. “Isn’t she beautiful?”
There were many forms of grief and she felt Yaya’s now – the loss of her daughter, twice. First to a marriage and estrangement and then to death.
“Yes,” Lauren reached out. “May I?”
Yaya’s nod was all the permission Lauren needed. She took the album but held it low, so Yaya could see the pictures too. She flicked through slowly. The first half of the album was packed with photographs, Camilla with her brothers, Camilla swimming, Camilla horse riding, Camilla cooking, Camilla with a younger Yaya. But then, the photos stopped and crudely cut out pictures from newspapers and magazines took their place – wedding photos, a photo of Camilla dressed in a very ornate and beautiful robe, then another – obviously pregnant – and the last picture, a photograph of Camilla holding the hand of a little boy with dark brown skin and chubby legs, and eyes that seemed to look through the camera lens and break the veil of time.
Silence fell. Lauren had no words to offer, but sitting together in the quiet of Gianfelice’s office seemed to restore Yaya’s equilibrium. “I like to look at her photographs, when I can bear it. It makes me feel closer to her.”
“I can understand that,” Lauren murmured. She brushed her hand comfortingly over Yaya’s. “Would you like to go back to your room?”
Yaya’s eyes met Lauren’s. “Cristo, no. I feel like I’ve been couped up in there a millennium, at least.” Her grin was pure wicked disobedience. “Let’s go to the terrace. We’ll have more tea.”
Chapter Twelve
“ALESSIA!” LAUREN STOPPED SHORT in the corridor, only a few metres from Raf’s door. Guilt flushed her skin. “I didn’t know you were here?”
Alessia’s smile was welcoming. “Max had some business to go through with Raf. I decided to come too and check up on my favourite patient.”
It felt to Lauren as though her heart had taken up residence in her throat. It was seven o’clock at night. What would Alessia think of Lauren strolling down the family corridor?
“How did you find her?” Lauren asked quickly, wondering if she kept conversation moving Alessia might not have noticed where they were. She began to move in the direction from which she’d come; Alessia fell into step beside her.
&nbs
p; “Lauren, she’s wonderful,” Alessia’s smile was radiant. “I knew she was a fighter and I hoped, even as I prepared everyone for the worst, that I might be wrong, but oh, she’s doing so well. This evening I thought she was almost like the old Yaya.”
“And she’s had a big day, too,” Lauren murmured. “She woke up with renewed energy and has refused to sit still for long, despite my best efforts. We’ve been to the office and the terrace, she even sat on the edge of a sun lounger, low enough that she could dangle her feet into the pool.”
Alessia’s eyes flew wide and she shook her head. “That lady is made of iron, I tell you.”
“She’s remarkable.”
Alessia’s features shifted, morphing into a look of discomfort. “I’m only sorry I dragged you out here. You must think this has all been a waste of your time.”
Lauren’s heart skipped a beat. She shook her head in silent demurral but was saved from making an answer when Raf and Max emerged from a room a few doors down. Lauren’s eyes locked to Raf’s and her heart began to thunder. Would he guess where she’d been going?
“I bumped into Lauren just now,” Alessia explained. “We were just discussing how well Yaya is doing.”
“Yes,” Max smiled, moving towards Alessia and putting his hand around her shoulders. “She’s in fine form tonight.”
“She’s not pushing herself too hard?” Max wondered.
“Perhaps,” Lauren conceded. “But honestly, try and stop her.” Then, with a tilt of her head. “I have to say, in my experience, recovery takes two paths. Paula is on a good one, and while there are no guarantees, I think she’s out of immediate danger.”
Raf’s eyes flicked to hers. Emotions surged. He understood what that meant. Lauren didn’t think, for even a moment, that he wasn’t completely overjoyed at Yaya’s prognosis, but the speed with which she’d recovered complicated things. Or did it simplify them? Wasn’t leaving now the best thing she could do?
Butterflies flew through her belly.
“Anyway,” she was awkward suddenly. “I’ll leave you three to it.”
But Alessia put a hand on Lauren’s wrist. “You don’t have to rush off. We were just going to have dinner. Why don’t you join us?”
Nothing Lasts Forever (The Montebellos Book 4) Page 13