From Rome with Love

by Jules Wake

  ‘That’s because in the eighties and nineties the paintings were restored and a lot of the figures were undressed again.’

  ‘I know someone I’d like to see undressed again,’ breathed Will playfully in her ear, his lips barely skimming her skin.

  She pinched her lips before whispering, ‘Behave.’

  ‘Do I have to? All this naked flesh is giving me ideas.’

  ‘Ssh, you might get struck down.’

  Will’s attempt at penitence made her giggle. He didn’t do sombre particularly well.

  Finally cultured-out, they took refuge in the courtyard gardens, managing to snag a bench in the shade.

  Lisa looked at her watch. A few hours to go.

  ‘You sure you don’t want me to come with you?’

  ‘No, I’ll be fine.’ Lisa knew that Will could see right through her confident response.

  ‘I can cancel my meeting.’

  She linked her arm through his. It meant a lot that he was prepared to do that for her. His business was important to him. ‘Honestly, I’m a bit nervous. No, make that a lot nervous. But I need to do it.’

  ‘Your phone is fully charged, isn’t it? Text me if you need rescuing.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I’ll text you when my meeting is over and I can either come and join you or meet you back at the apartment. Unless you want to spend more time with your dad. Either way, let me know.’

  ‘I’m going to play it by ear.’ She had absolutely no idea what to expect. Sitting here now, with only a few hours to go, she felt rather sick.

  ‘It’s quite spectacular,’ said Will, looking back across the garden at the museum. ‘But slightly unnerving. I feel as if I don’t belong here. I’m too much of a heathen.’

  ‘No, not heathen. You’re a good person. You might not be religious, but you have the right values.’

  ‘What on earth gave you that impression?’ asked Will, gruff all of a sudden.

  ‘I just know.’ She gave him a steady look, ignoring the brief look of panic in his eyes.

  ‘I think you might bring out my better side.’

  Lisa smiled. He was much better than he pretended to be.

  ‘Come on, we’ve got plenty of time to go to St Peter’s.’

  Chapter 26

  Getting lost had made her slightly late and now she was horribly conscious of her flushed cheeks and slightly damp hair clinging to her neck and face. St Peter’s had been awe-inspiring, but also overwhelming. Lisa had found the excessive opulence and wealth slightly unsettling, especially after the riches of the museum.

  Trying to cool down in the shade of a group of trees across the street from the restaurant, she scanned the people sitting outside. Most of the tables were full. Healthy wariness mixed with skippy excitement as she assessed each group.

  Not the family of four generations with a gummy, ice-cream-smeared baby, nor the two middle-aged women in immaculate tailored shift dresses sipping at their matching glasses of Prosecco. She also dismissed the two older men with greying hair and comfortable paunches and a trio of young mothers, seemingly oblivious of their children playing with a cat under the table, which left several men on their own.

  There were three potential candidates – a man engrossed in a map, a blonde man reading a newspaper and a very handsome man in a smart business suit, his hair with a touch of sophisticated grey at the temples talking on his mobile. The first one she ruled out as a tourist and the second was too fair to be Italian. She studied the man in the suit more closely, grateful for the dappled shadows of the trees. Despite the grey, he looked in his mid-forties, which was probably the right age; her mother had been quite young when she’d had her.

  Lisa bit the inside of her cheek, knowing that all this surmising and theorising amounted to prevarication – big style. The last thing she wanted to do was approach the wrong man and make a complete fool of herself. The man in the business suit put down his phone, his call obviously over.

  It came to her – she could phone him. Congratulating herself on the neat solution, she fished out her mobile, grateful for once that she’d charged it properly. Her hand shook slightly as she unlocked the screen and brought up the number. Turning away slightly, but keeping an eye on the scene, she made the call and held her breath, waiting for it to connect.

  The call tone in her ear made her stiffen as she waited. Like an echo, she heard a phone ring and her heart almost bolted into her mouth. The man in the suit went to pick up his phone, his hand hovering over it. Adrenaline surged through with a heady rush, but he didn’t pick up. Seriously? He wasn’t going to pick up? She willed him to answer the call. Disappointment seared. He wasn’t going to answer? Had he seen who the call was from? She almost didn’t realise that the phone had stopped ringing her end.

  ‘Hello, Lisa.’

  What the hell? Had she missed someone? The sound of the Italian-accented voice made her swallow hard, with stupid gulps, as if she were trying to get down a boiled egg whole. Like a Le Carré spy, she subtly shifted her stance, sliding back into the shadows, allowing her gaze to rove over the other patrons.

  No? Really?

  It had never occurred to her, in a million light years, that her father might be blonde. She’d presumed he’d be dark. Weren’t all Italians dark-haired? Fair men came from the frozen North, of Scandinavian origin and dark men from the Latin south. At least, that’s what she’d always assumed.

  The blonde man had picked up the phone and she could see him talking. Even though she doubted herself for a minute, convinced she’d made a mistake, his mouth moving in time with the words in her ear confirmed everything. He was Vittorio Vettese, her f …’ He turned, his profile outlined against the white stucco wall of the restaurant.

  Her phone slipped from her fingers into her bag. No. Surely not.

  A vice clamped around her lungs as she stared. Stared and stared. It couldn’t be. But there was no denying the straight nose. Strong chin. The familiar dip between chin and lips. The shape of his forehead, where it met his nose. All horribly, horribly familiar.

  It was like looking at Will. An older Will, but unmistakably Will.

  The implications splintered into her brain like a mirror shattering, the shards slipping from its frame into an ugly sharp, jagged mess. Awareness stabbing with physical pain.

  Now she realised. Dorothea’s face hadn’t been full of embarrassment. It had been horror. No wonder Nan didn’t want her and Will to get together.

  And, of course, her fingers closed over the ring box in her pocket, that’s why her mother had wanted the ring to go back to their father. Will was older than her. The first-born. Italians were traditional.

  The older son inherited. The older sibling. Her brother. Half-brother. Who said two halves make a whole?

  With sickening fascination, she took another look at Vittorio Vettese, despite the evidence in front of her, still hoping she’d got it wrong and had imagined it.

  She’d kissed those lips … no, not those ones but, oh so, similar. Bile rose in her throat, burning at the back of her tongue.

  Mesmerised, she watched as he put the phone down with a puzzled frown. Thank God he hadn’t thought to look around. Instead, he took a sip of his coffee, his attention going back to the newspaper on the table in front of him, completely oblivious to her whole world imploding a few feet away. She envied him his poise and nonchalance. He was so like Will, with his long legs tucked under the table.

  Unable to take her eyes from him she took a step back, conscious of the breath in her lungs, so heavy it almost dragged her down. She wanted to sink through the floor, down, down, far away from anyone. She took another step backwards, then another and another, before bumping into someone, who glared at her.

  She kept backing up, praying that he wouldn’t look up until she was far enough away to turn the corner of the street and break into a run.

  Her breath rasped out of her mouth, hauled back equally quickly, as if her body could barely spare it. Blo
ody bloody bloke. She’d slammed into him, even though he’d had ample time to move out of the way. His hands were a little too all over her as they steadied her after the impact. It gave her the jar she needed to stop and focus. At least focus on where she was.

  She bent double, trying to regain her breathing pattern. Running was not normal. She never ran. And now she remembered exactly why! It hurt when you did it, it hurt when you stopped and it really hurt the next day. But nothing could hurt as much as this. The pain of her heart shattering.

  She should have known better. Being independent shielded you from this sort of pain. Being on your own meant you didn’t have to feel like this.

  Will. Her brother. Her half-brother. But there was brother in the sentence whichever way you looked at it.

  Brother. Brother. Brother.

  How the hell did she tell him? Or face him?

  She’d just found him. Numbness settled around her. What on earth did she do now?

  The only place she could think to go was home.

  She reached for her phone. Not there. It had to be here somewhere. She checked every pocket of her bag, twice.

  It had gone. She remembered the man bumping into her, holding onto her a few seconds too long. She’d misconstrued his flirty smile when something far more underhand had been going on.

  It summed up her day.

  Chapter 27

  When he opened the door, he stopped and listened. The apartment was silent and still with that curious, quiet heaviness that settles when no one is at home. He pulled his shirt from his waistband and flapped it, the coolness of the interior very welcome after yet another very hot and sticky day in Rome. The thought of a nice cool shower was so welcoming, he almost stripped off at the front door. Even if Lisa had been in, she probably wouldn’t have minded, and he smiled to himself. Perhaps he should wait for her and persuade her to join him.

  Lisa had clearly had a great time with her dad. Forgotten the time and him. Will quashed the grumpy thought. It was the first time they’d met. She was bound to lose track of time. She’d have loads of questions to ask him.

  Even so, she could have texted. He’d bloody insisted her phone was fully charged this morning. It couldn’t have run out of battery again.

  When they got back to England, he was going to buy her a new phone.

  In search of cold beer, he strolled into the kitchen and pulled one straight from the fridge and started to head out to the balcony. At this time of day, now in the shade, it was the perfect spot to sit and put your feet up. His meeting had gone well and in the absence of any word from Lisa he’d stayed and chatted to the owner before taking the scenic route back.

  Halfway to the balcony, he realised he’d forgotten a bottle opener. When he retraced his steps back, he spotted it straight away.

  His heart collided with his ribs at the sight of the box, placed dead centre in the middle of the table.

  The careful positioning, like some clue in a macabre murder mystery, triggered an instinctive sense of unease.

  Lisa had been back.

  He reached out and opened the box. The ring sat cushioned in the faded velvet, its big fat diamond winking innocently at him.

  Lisa had left this here for a reason. Her dad must have wanted her to keep it. But the precise placing, for him to see, didn’t feel like triumph.

  He dropped the ring box on the table.

  ‘Lisa!’ he called, even though he knew the apartment was empty. He hurried to the bedroom.

  It was exactly as they’d left it this morning, when Lisa had insisted on straightening the bed, making it neat and tidy. He noticed the phone charger from beside the bed had gone.

  And then he realised her pull-along cabin case was also missing.

  Despite knowing they would all be empty, he checked the drawers and wardrobe and then the bathroom with stubborn thoroughness, as if there might be a chance that her things were there and there was a reason for her case not being there, but it was no good. Everything had been taken.

  Lisa had gone.

  Run away? That wasn’t her. She was the type to stand up and face things. Like when he’d never called. She still showed up at the pub to do her shifts. Admittedly with her nose in the air and ignoring him as much as she could, but she hadn’t run away from it.

  What on earth had happened with her father? Surely if he’d greeted her like the prodigal daughter and invited her to go and stay with him, Lisa would have left a note or at least recharged her sodding phone to call him.

  Maybe he’d snatched her and sold her into a trafficking ring. Okay, now that was far-fetched but what other reason could there be for her not being here?

  As he looked around the bedroom, the image of her lying in the lamp light last night played like a constant reel in his head.

  He snatched up the beer and opener to wrench off the lid, took a long swallow, slammed the bottle down and picked up his phone.

  ‘Hello?’ It was answered after one ring.

  ‘Hi, is that Vittorio?’

  ‘Yes, who is this?’

  ‘My name’s Will Ryan. I’m here in Rome with Lisa. She was meeting you today. I wondered if she was still with you.’

  ‘No. She did not arrive.’

  ‘What?’ He sat down with a thump. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I waited for an hour. She never came. Although she did call but hung up before she said anything.’

  ‘That’s odd. She went to meet you. I’ve got back to our apartment and she’s gone. What time did she call?’

  ‘At a few minutes past three.’

  Will didn’t understand. She should have been there in plenty of time. She’d left him a few streets away. Even with her dire map-reading skills she couldn’t have got lost. Had she chickened out? In those fifteen minutes?

  There’d been absolutely no sign that she wouldn’t turn up. It was totally out of character. Lisa didn’t let people down. He didn’t understand.

  And if she hadn’t met Vittorio, what was it that had changed? What had made her suddenly pack up and leave the apartment without a word?

  It had to be something to do with her father.

  And why didn’t he sound more bothered? He almost sounded relieved.

  Will realised he was stroking the ring box. The least he could do was go and meet Vittorio and offer him the ring back. Perhaps it might answer a few questions.

  As he finished his beer, he heard a noise and leapt to his feet, relief spilling through him. She was back. Delight warred with anger. She had some explaining to do. Forcing himself to stay put and not going racing to greet her, he waited, sitting at the table with feigned nonchalance as footsteps came closer.

  ‘Will.’

  The deep voice made him jump.

  ‘Giovanni!’

  The young Italian tossed his bag on one of the kitchen chairs. ‘What a journey. I’d forgotten how hot it is here.’

  Will wilted on the spot.

  ‘You’re back.’

  Giovanni shook his head. ‘Not for long. Nonna is much better, but Mama has been very shaken. I came back for some papers.’ He looked around. ‘Where’s Lisa?’

  Will shrugged, hiding his unease. ‘I don’t know.’

  Giovanni beamed. ‘Still out sightseeing?’

  Will couldn’t answer.

  ‘I can’t stay. Will you let her know?’

  ‘Know what?’

  Giovanni frowned. ‘That I was back and that I’m sorry I can’t stay.’

  ‘I can do that.’ His clipped tones made Giovanni stare at him.

  ‘And Lisa is, well?’

  ‘She’s fine.’

  ‘She managed with the maps?’ Giovanni was checking through his pockets before pulling out a key. ‘I must go over to the house.’ Will could see he was mentally elsewhere.

  ‘She managed just fine.’ Will snapped, irritated by his complete thoughtlessness.

  Will managed to snag the very last table in the crowded restaurant and immediately ordered a
Peroni. He didn’t know if it was a good or a bad omen to arrange to meet Vittorio in the same place, but it was close to the apartment and apparently convenient for Vittorio’s girlfriend’s place.

  He played with his phone as he waited. Giovanni hadn’t hung around, which he was relieved about. What he and Lisa had was too precious and fragile to hold up to the light, to share with or explain to anyone else.

  Dismissing Giovanni from his thoughts, he forced himself to put down his phone. He wouldn’t check his texts until the waiter had taken his order. He wouldn’t check his phone again until the waiter had walked past three times. He wouldn’t check either until the family over the way had packed up their baby and two toddlers.

  The silly challenges didn’t make it easier or make the time pass any quicker. Lisa still hadn’t been in touch.

  A shadow fell across the table. He looked up into curious blue eyes, the same shade as his own, as his pulse took up an uncomfortable tattoo.

  ‘Vittorio.’

  ‘Will.’

  They nodded at each other. The colour drained out his face so suddenly he could almost feel the veins constricting. It was very weird looking at your older self. Someone familiar and yet not.

  Vittorio tilted his head to one side. ‘Hmm. Let me guess, you are Eloise’s son.’ Puckish mischief flitted across his face and he broke into a broad smile. The depth of the lines fanning from around his features suggested it was something he did frequently.

  He hailed a waiter and with a nod towards Will’s drink, he indicated he’d a have beer too.

  ‘So it would appear,’ said Will, his voice dry, hiding the surge of fury at the irreverent amusement of the other man. A sense of absolute powerlessness almost felled him.

  This morning, as he swam up from sleep with Lisa at his side, that first waking moment had been suffused with utter certainty. His life suddenly complete. No questions, no queries, no perhaps, maybes or what-ifs. Just bone-deep certainty. And with it came calm, the relaxed feeling of knowing that everything was going to be alright.

  Now, in one fell swoop, a dizzying death-knell plummet, the bottom had dropped right out of his world.