Italian Summer with the Single Dad

by Ella Hayes

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Like running your own music bar?’ She smiled. ‘I think you’d be in your element, being around musicians more, playing gigs yourself, bringing guest musicians in. Ravello’s the city of music, after all!’

  He shook his head. It was a ludicrous idea. He was too busy with Casa Isabella to even consider it, and there was the new venue his father wanted him to find.

  He glanced at the piano then drained his glass. ‘In another life, maybe. In this one, I’ve been tasked with finding a second wedding venue on the Amalfi Coast. A new sister for Casa Isabella. Merrill Hotels is expanding its Italian interests! How about another drink?’

  She shook her head. ‘No—no, thanks.’ There was something in her eyes. She seemed upset. ‘I... Do you mind if I abandon you for a little while...?’

  ‘I thought we were having a drink...?’ Suddenly it felt as if everything was crashing around his ears. ‘Is it something I said?’

  She was reaching for her bag, standing up. ‘No, nothing like that. It’s just that I wanted to get some postcards and some tourist trash to take home.’

  He couldn’t let her leave. He started to stand up. ‘I’ll come with you...’

  ‘No!’ She put out a hand to stop him. ‘You’d hate it, poking around crowded shops.’ She glanced at the piano. ‘You should stay here, play some more... I’ll be back soon.’

  She didn’t give him time to reply, just turned away and hurried towards the door.

  * * *

  The light outside seemed too bright. It was prickling her eyes, making them water, or maybe it wasn’t the light. She slipped on her sunglasses and walked quickly down the narrow street towards the town centre.

  Why was everything such a mess?

  The morning after their dinner date, after they’d been so tender with each other, he’d been tied up with meetings and when they did see each other he hadn’t said anything about wanting her to stay on after her wedding shoots were finished, so she’d decided to be light and breezy about everything, not wanting him to think that she expected anything—and the whole week had felt weird, and today had been weird too. There’d been moments when things had felt normal, but at other times...

  She stopped walking, fell back against a shady wall. The problem was they were skating around a conversation they needed to have, stuck in a pathetic limbo because neither of them wanted to say What happens now?

  What happens now?

  That he could play the piano had been a revelation. She loved watching him, listening to him, the way he seemed to become this other person, as if the music was freeing him. And when he’d looked up at her something in his eyes had made her ache with longing, reminded her of how intimate they’d been, how much she wanted to feel that closeness again.

  And then, as she’d looked around the bar, it had come to her that his music was her proof. She loved his playing, treasured it like a precious thing, because it was all him, the purest expression of his spirit, the thing about him that had nothing to do with Isabella or the growing aspirations of Merrill Hotels. She wasn’t asking him to forget anything in his past but she wanted some part of him that was hers alone to take forward into the future. And so she’d suggested a music bar.

  ‘In another life, maybe.’

  His words had cut her down, because that was exactly what she wanted. She wanted him to have another life, not this one where he was married to Casa Isabella, sidelining his talent, enduring long Sunday phone calls with his father. She wanted to hear him play his music, she wanted him to have time for paddling pool afternoons with Alessia, for making pizza from scratch, for dancing...

  She pushed herself away from the wall and walked on. But how could she say those things to him? She had no claim on him, no say in how he lived his life. They’d spent a night together—not even a whole night—and the next morning it was as if too much time had passed and there’d been a gap between them that should have been filled with light and love and laughter, but wasn’t.

  In the town centre she crossed the piazza, wandered through the crowded alleys on the other side, past little shops and bars. She stopped to take a photo of some grapefruit-sized lemons in a basket, all pale and knobbly. Her dad would have laughed, would have picked one up to feel the weight of it. She squeezed into a busy gift shop, bought postcards—a nice one of the ‘most photographed tree in Italy’ with that blue sea beyond. Others of pretty pastel towns teetering on craggy cliffs. Several of the Cimbrone Gardens, then some random views: narrow streets with peeling doors...the cathedral. Pictures she would have taken for herself if she’d brought her proper camera. In another shop she bought souvenir bottles of Limoncello and a leather purse for her mum, then she retraced her steps to the piazza and sat on the warm cathedral steps with a hundred other tourists.

  She gazed across the square, remembered the first night she’d seen it—the cafés and bars all closed, Zach fidgety because she hadn’t said anything about his playing. It had mattered so much to him what she thought, and now he was trying to convince her that his music had been a young man’s dream, something he’d cast aside quite happily. She didn’t believe him.

  She pulled out her phone, looked at the photo of the giant lemons. Idly, she drew eyes on them, little shocked mouths, added a caption: Massive mutant lemons caught in the wild! She thought about her dad again, what he’d said about bringing her up to be a free spirit. She’d felt like a free spirit when he’d been there for her, watching her back, and then, after he left, she’d turned into this other person. A person who needed everything to be squared off, a person who was uncomfortable with loose ends. Someone who was frightened to speak out. She turned the phone over and over in her hands. Her parents had been wrong not to include her in their decision to separate but maybe she’d been too hard on them, too hard on her dad especially. He was only human; everyone made mistakes. She’d made hers, with Zach.

  Her dad was just at the other end of the phone if she needed him, probably up to his oxters in a river, but there all the same and thinking about that made her feel better. She attached the silly lemons photo to a text and sent it to him. What would he think when he got it? He’d be pleased. Maybe he’d feel a change in her—sense a return of the old Liv. She wondered what he’d advise her to do about Zach. He’d probably shrug, say he was the last person to ask and she’d laugh and tell him he was right. Her phone buzzed. He’d texted back! Laughing icon, thumbs-up icon, blowing kiss icon. Three symbols which felt like diamonds in her hand—symbols which proved that he was right there if she needed him. She swallowed a little sob of relief, wiped her eyes under her sunglasses.

  Zach would be wondering where she was. Imagining his eyes, his smile, she drew in a long, slow breath. She’d taken a wrong turn after her conversation with Lucia in the garden that morning. Instead of talking to Zach, she’d buried her head in the sand, turned into an avatar, some upbeat version of herself—a sightseer, for goodness’ sake!

  She picked up her bags, threaded her way down the steps through the tourists sitting enjoying the late-afternoon sun.

  Telling Zach what was in her heart wouldn’t be easy—she might well lose him—but she couldn’t put it off any longer. In a week she’d be shooting her last wedding and a few days after that she’d be leaving. She needed to talk to him. Ask the question: What happens now?

  * * *

  Her phone buzzed—Zach was texting.

  Where are you?

  She tapped out a reply.

  On my way.

  She walked along the narrow street, past the pale lemon walls of a smart hotel then onwards into a narrow pedestrian alley with grey crumbly-looking walls. In front of her a small knot of tourists melted away and then she saw him leaning against a wall, his phone in his hand. When he spotted her his eyebrows lifted and he broke into a smile—a smile that made her heart quicken.

  ‘Did you get wh
at you wanted?’

  ‘Yeah...’

  He was searching her face, his eyes so clear and blue, so intense, that she wanted to look away, or fall into his arms. She fiddled with the bag in her hand, wondering how to begin, when suddenly he said, ‘Liv, we need to talk.’

  She swallowed hard, met his gaze again. ‘Yes.’

  Silently, he took her hand, led her up the walkway and into a small public garden which overlooked the sea. There was a green bench with a curved back, happily vacant. He sat down and she sat beside him. It was a sheltered spot. The late afternoon sun was throwing long shadows, playing with texture in the pale stone walls and in the leaves, and the grass and the railings.

  He released her hand, smiled awkwardly. ‘Where to begin...?’

  She looked at him, tried to read the tiny fluctuations of light in his eyes, watched him drawing in a breath and letting it out again.

  He ran a hand through his hair. ‘I want to say sorry for the other night... I should never have—’

  ‘You regret what happened?’ The words had sprung from her mouth—defensive. She could feel her heart going fast.

  Breathe.

  ‘No!’ He shook his head. ‘You must never think that.’ His eyes softened. ‘Olivia, my feelings for you... It’s not a question of regret... But I didn’t think things through. Leaving you afterwards—it felt so wrong, but I had to get back for Alessia, and then the next day I wanted to talk to you, but you seemed different. All week you’ve been different, and I haven’t known what to say to you or what you’re expecting from me.’

  ‘Expecting?’ She looked at her fingers. ‘You make it sound as if everything’s down to me.’

  ‘Liv, please look at me.’

  She lifted her eyes to his.

  ‘Can’t you see that I’m in love with you?’ The light in his eyes, enfolding her, making her heart stop and start and quicken. ‘But I’m worried that I’m not what you want. I’m a fixed entity. I have a business, a child, a life here—’ He reached his hand to her face, stroked her cheekbone with his thumb. She felt her senses swimming, an ache of longing building deep inside. ‘I never expected to feel this way about anyone again and I’m floundering because where we go from here is up to you.’

  A little breeze caressed her neck and it seemed to steady her. ‘I don’t think it’s up to me, Zach.’ She lifted his hand away from her cheek. ‘You say you’re a fixed entity, but none of us is fixed.’

  She turned her gaze to the sea, examined the blur of sea and sky on the horizon. ‘For a long time I had this fixed idea about what I wanted in a relationship. A perfect love, starting out together, all the boxes ticked. No loose ends. The opposite of my parents. And then you came along and all those rigid ideas of what makes perfection started to crumble. My frame widened.’ She turned to face him. ‘I was falling in love with you, then I discovered I had room in my heart for Alessia as well.’

  He was looking at her intently, eyes filling with a hazy kind of light.

  ‘But one thing hasn’t changed. I don’t like uncertainty. I want commitment and I don’t know if you can give me that.’ He opened his mouth to speak but she had to finish. ‘You say you’re in love with me, but how can you be in love with me when you haven’t said goodbye to Isabella?’

  ‘Izzy’s gone—’

  ‘She’s gone, yes, but at the same time she’s everywhere.’ She felt tears gathering behind her eyes, swallowed hard. ‘On your boat, at Villa Cimbrone today. She’s probably here in these gardens too... At the house, every colour on every wall, every piece of furniture—her choice. And I understand, I really do. Surrounding Alessia with all the things her mother loved... I wouldn’t have expected anything less from a devoted father. But you must see that you’re wrong about everything being up to me.’ She saw his eyes cloud. ‘What I want, what I need from you is something that feels like a beginning.’

  ‘So you want me to...what—put the past behind me?’ He slumped backwards. ‘I can’t do that. Izzy’s inside me—she’ll always be there.’

  ‘I’m not asking you to forget the past, or your wife—I would never ask you to do that—but I need to feel that you can widen your frame too. Go forward...’

  He was shaking his head. ‘How?’

  ‘I’m talking about—’ she couldn’t bring herself to mention his music again ‘—being true to yourself. You joined the family business to make your father happy, you bought a wedding venue because Isabella was ambitious, and you’ve devoted yourself to making it everything she wanted it to be and more. And I’m not saying that those were bad decisions, that you weren’t happy to make them at the time, but the look on your face when you told me about the new wedding venue—it wasn’t the look of a man who wants to build a wedding empire.’

  He held her gaze then looked away across the sea.

  ‘You’re holding on so tightly, Zach, and I don’t know why. You won’t hand things over to a manager, not even so you can spend more time with Alessia, and if you won’t do it for your daughter there’s no hope for me. If you can’t let go of your old life then I can’t build a new one with you.’

  He turned to face her, eyes more grey than blue, shut down somehow. ‘So that’s it then.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE ROAD WAS quieter than he’d thought it would be and he was glad. Driving the coastal route towards Sorrento could be slow. It was usually clogged with tourist buses and local traffic, pedestrians walking, shrinking back as impatient scooters zipped through gaps. Carefully, he passed a line of dusty cars parked tightly against the kerb, impossibly close to one another, dents and scrapes in doors and wings. He accelerated out of the town, felt a flicker of elation.

  Driving! This sensation of forward motion, of clearing the bends and twists in the road with the sea at his shoulder and the sun on his face was exactly what he needed after days behind his desk, working with his father on the viability of a new wedding venue. He’d hardly seen Olivia. She’d cloistered herself away, editing, and he’d kept his distance because he couldn’t think of what to say to her.

  He’d felt bruised by her words in the Giardini Principessa di Piemonte. Chastened because she was right about Izzy being everywhere. He’d stood in those same gardens with Izzy, his arms wrapped around her, watching the sun sliding into the sea. And when she’d said, ‘You haven’t said goodbye to Isabella’, she’d unwittingly hit another nerve. A sigh shuddered through him. Losing someone so suddenly left no time for goodbyes, left no time for saying all the things you should have said, like—I’m sorry.

  He’d told Olivia what happened the night Izzy died, but he hadn’t told her everything. He hadn’t told her that on the way over to their friends’ house they’d had a disagreement about a fountain for the garden. He hadn’t flat out refused, but what Izzy had wanted was out of budget—although he’d bought Casa Dorato, Merrill Hotels was funding the renovation and he was under pressure to prioritise the internal work so they could start forward booking. They’d both been overtired—Alessia had been teething for weeks, waking them up at night. In the car, things had got a little heated and when they arrived they’d gone their separate ways. Him onto the terrace for a beer with his friends, Izzy into the house to chat to hers. And then she’d brought out the salad.

  After the funeral the first thing he did was put in the fountain, and then he’d kept going—doing everything she’d wanted. Trying to make amends. Guilt and sorrow bound up with atonement. It was a hard habit to break, but if he didn’t want to lose Olivia he would have to try.

  For days he’d been thinking about all the things she’d said, and she was right: building a wedding empire wasn’t his dream, but it was his family’s business and if Merrill Hotels wanted to expand then he was obliged to facilitate that. It was why he was making this trip—to view a prospective acquisition.

  At a junction he took a right and drove up a steep winding road un
til he arrived at a pair of stone pillars. A black sign with gold lettering confirmed that he was in the right place: Villa Fiori. He liked the look of the entrance: classy enough for Merrill Select. As he drove down the long shady driveway and parked the car he felt a lightening of spirit. Maybe running two venues would give him the push he needed, compel him to delegate the day-to-day running of things in both venues, and that would give him more time for Alessia. More time for living.

  Villa Fiori was completely different from Casa Isabella. The manager, Lorenzo, was very accommodating and showed him around with pride. It was a modern boutique hotel with pale marble floors, lots of glass and chrome—the kind of thing that Milo might have designed. The sea views were spectacular, the bedrooms and bathrooms large and luxurious. The function room had a glass ceiling and shutters which opened onto a terrace laid with wooden decking, sheltered from the wind by glass panels, stainless-steel rails running along the top. Zach liked the contemporary vibe, could see the kind of clients who would be attracted to such a place.

  The manager left him to go ahead and look at the grounds on his own. There was a large rectangular formal garden, well laid out with areas of cool shade under the mature trees. Olivia would know how to improve it for photography and thinking about her made him realise how much he was missing her, how much he liked being with her. He wondered what she was doing at that moment. Was she thinking about him? He felt a stab of anguish and walked on.

  There was an old lemon grove adjacent to the main garden, a suggestion in the sales particulars that the land could be developed for guest chalets or a gymnasium, but he already knew that if he bought Villa Fiori he would never destroy the lemon grove. He’d never shaken off the Englishman’s thrill of seeing lemons dangling from branches and as he walked through the trees, treading a path through a froth of groundcover, he thought about his wedding day... They’d got married in a place just like this. He looked up into the branches, caught little glimpses of the blue sky above, and for a moment he could feel the shape of her hand in his, see her eyes shining for him, full of love.