by Daisy James
‘Have you heard about Vincenzo?’ asked Luca, striding to the counter to rustle up an espresso as if he owned the place. Izzie wanted to giggle when she saw his expression as he took that first sip, as if tasting the rich, dark brown elixir for the first time and experiencing ecstasy.
‘Yes, Carlotta just rang. Do you know anything about what happened?’
‘Apparently, he was on his way to collect Carlotta to give her a lift to the villa with the food they bought yesterday, when a Fiat cut a corner and forced him off the road. I don’t think either vehicle will be taking part in a beauty pageant any time soon, but from eye witness accounts – Pani from the Café – both drivers had a lucky escape.’
‘Carlotta says he has a fractured collarbone.’
‘That’s right, but I think they’ll discharge him fairly quickly.’
‘Poor Vincenzo,’ muttered Izzie, shaking her head as she thought of the crazy driving antics she had seen on every corner and every street since arriving in Italy. Her heart filled with sympathy for the pain he must be enduring until her eyes landed on the stack of boxes Luca had brought with him. ‘So, what’s in the boxes?’
‘Well, I thought you might need a hand, so I’m at your disposal. Tuesday is my day off so just tell me what you want me to do and your wish is my command.’
‘Anything?’
‘Anything,’ confirmed Luca, raising his eyebrows suggestively as his lips twisted into a mischievous smile.
Izzie rolled her eyes at him, but a splash of heat radiated through her veins. However, two could play at that game!
‘Actually, I do have the perfect job for you.’
‘Great. Lead the way.’
Luca shoved back his chair and followed her outside to the pergola.
‘Any good at origami?’
‘Origami?’
‘Yes, these napkins need to be folded into the shape of a swan.’
‘You’re joking right?’
‘No. We have fifty to do. Then there’s the table linen to iron, the satin rosettes to make and tie to the back of every chair both in the congregation and in the courtyard, these ribbons to twist around the balustrade…’
Izzie paused, smiling at the scowl on Luca’s face as he attempted to make his square of cloth look like a swan rather than a squashed duck. She wanted to laugh, to relax and enjoy the sparks of attraction fizzing through her body at his proximity, but she couldn’t whilst her thoughts were fixated on what Oriana had told her. There was only one solution and that was to lance the boil, to say something, suffer the inevitable embarrassment, and then she could relegate her gaffe to the ‘dealt with’ pile and move on.
‘Luca?’
‘Mmm…?’
‘What do you know about this wedding?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, for a start, did you know that the bride and groom are, well, actors?’
‘Yes, of course, that’s why we’ve all be sworn to secrecy. Why?’
She could feel the warmth seeping into her cheeks and she was unable to continue to meet Luca’s gaze, preferring instead to finger her folder of papers that was still on the table. After a few seconds she looked back up and saw the realisation dawn on his face.
‘You don’t mean… you don’t mean to tell me that you were under the impression that the wedding was some sort of scene from a movie?’
‘Well, I told you that I stepped in at the last minute. All I had to go on was a brief conversation with Brad’s harassed wife, and an email forwarded to me by his PA from her hospital bed as she recovered from the after-effects of a severe case of food poisoning. Hardly an in-depth consultation on the requirements for an intimate Italian wedding in the rolling hills of Tuscany. And I would remind you that Brad is a film director, the bride and groom are actors, and my best friend has previously helped him to organise several shoots. We both thought it was for a scene from one of his movies!’
Izzie eyed Luca closely, scrutinising his reaction for any hint that he had known of her error and had purposely not told her in order to extract maximum amusement, but she couldn’t read his expression until his gaze fell on her purple folder that was open at the page marked Table Accessories.
‘What’s all this stuff?’ Luca reached over and picked up the clipboard with that day’s itinerary. ‘Is this a timetable?’
‘Yes, and you know what, I’m glad I’ve put so much effort into the organisation. Whilst I might just have been able to stage a location for a film, taking on the role of fully-fledged wedding planner is something completely different. This way, there’s a chance the wedding might actually go ahead on schedule. That file contains everything I need for the successful staging of the wedding ceremony, from the layout of the venue and the pre-reception drinks, to how the fabric should be draped around the gazebo, to what food will be served, and the design of the napkins we are folding – all as requested by the director of my humiliation, Brad Knowles, by best friend’s crazy brother.’
By the time she had finished her indignant monologue her cheeks were burning, and her breath was coming in spurts as she fought to rein in her rampaging emotions. However, when she met Luca’s gaze this time, far from the laughter she had expected to see reflected there, she saw understanding and interest.
‘From what you’ve told me, it was an easy mistake to make – and you’re absolutely right. It’s much harder to organise a wedding than a film shoot. A scene can be shot a hundred times, if necessary, but you only get one chance to stage the perfect wedding, although I’m sure neither would be a problem with Izzie Jenkins in charge. From what I’ve seen so far, Villa dei Limoni is shaping up to be a fabulous wedding venue.’
Izzie smiled. Well, that had been easier than she’d thought.
‘Thanks, Luca, you have no idea how much I needed to hear that. So, what do you think?’ she asked, holding up her napkin for inspection, proud that it did actually look like a swan – until the whole thing unravelled and all she was left with was a square of crumpled linen.
Izzie met Luca’s dark espresso eyes and saw the corners of his mouth curl upwards, causing the cute dimples to appear. She looked again at the napkin she held in her hand and this time a giggle escaped from her lips, Luca joined in and within seconds they were both howling with laughter. A blissful buoyancy seeped into her body and the concrete block that went everywhere with her melted away on a cascade of contentment.
The sun was shining, she was in one of the most beautiful parts of the world, and she was sitting next to the most handsome of men. What was she doing carrying around such misery when she should be appreciating her good fortune?
‘I think it’s all in the fold,’ said Luca, when they had mastered their merriment and returned to the task in hand. ‘Why don’t I fetch a few books from the library to press the material into shape?’
After the next two attempts, they got the hang of it and within twenty minutes there was a pile of beautifully folded napkins sandwiched between a pile of books nestled in the cardboard box that Izzie would take out on Friday morning when they set the tables in the courtyard. With Luca’s help, she ironed the enormous matching tablecloths and hung them to air on a clothes line he’d discovered in the outhouse where she had found the Vespa, finished all the rosettes that would decorate the chairs, tested the garlands of fairy lights they’d draped around the courtyard, and even brushed the terrace free of leaves.
Dare she hope that things were coming together at last, that she could actually do this?
As she stood back to survey their accomplishments, a sudden flash of guilt burst into her mind – surely Luca had a girlfriend desperate to spend her time with him on his day off? The thought caused perspiration to rush to her temples and she wiped it away with her fingertips.
‘Okay, it’s getting too hot out here and we deserve a break!’ declared Luca, towering over Izzie with his hands on his hips. Izzie, still deep in the process of formulating an image of what Luca’s girlfriend might look like, co
uldn’t meet his gaze for fear he would read her mind. ‘Ever made fresh pasta?’
‘No. My pasta comes in shiny cellophane bags,’ she laughed, emerging quickly from her reverie.
‘Come on. I’ll give you a tutorial in authentic Italian pasta-making,’ Luca grinned, his passion for all things food-related causing his eyes to sparkle with anticipation.
Once in the kitchen, Izzie realised what was in the boxes Luca had brought with him. As he unpacked the ingredients, she inhaled the taste-bud-tickling scent of the fresh, locally sourced produce – crispy loaves of home-baked ciabatta, ripe plum tomatoes, bunches of fragrant basil leaves. Amongst the final items Luca produced from his culinary box of tricks were two striped aprons; he wrapped one around his waist and handed her the other one.
‘What? You thought I was going to do all the hard work whilst you sat and watched, then gobbled up the end results?’
‘No, no, of course not.’
But she had been intending to do exactly that. Her cheeks coloured, but it was worth it when she saw those cute dimples appear around Luca’s lips.
‘Then come closer so I can show you what to do!’
She rolled up the sleeves of her T-shirt and took her place next to him, watching carefully as he emptied a mound of flour directly onto the wooden table, added a pinch of salt, and then reached for the eggs.
‘Okay, so the first thing to remember is that you should use the freshest eggs available, and they should be at room temperature. Now it’s over to you.’
‘Already?’
‘Just make a well in the flour, crack two eggs into it, and gently incorporate them into the mixture with your fingers until everything is combined.’
With a level of concentration she usually reserved for completing her business accounts, Izzie followed Luca’s instructions to the letter, struggling not to flinch whenever their fingers touched and a spasm of electricity shot through her veins. But there was worse to come. In order to demonstrate the correct kneading technique, Luca once again positioned himself behind her, his arms at her waist, directing her in the art of massaging the dough with the palm of his hand. It was like a scene from Ghost except with edible props!
‘If you don’t knead the dough well, it will be soft when cooked instead of al dente. Now we wrap it in clingfilm and allow it to rest whilst we make a simple tomato sauce.’
When they eventually sat down at the kitchen table with a bottle of rich Chianti, Izzie was ravenous and couldn’t wait to dig into her plate of steaming fragrant spaghetti. There was something so satisfying about eating a meal that you had prepared yourself from scratch and every mouthful tasted better than the last.
‘In Italy, food is about more than filling the body with fuel. It’s an expression of love; from sowing and nurturing the ingredients, to harvesting them, to preparing them for the sauce, to sharing the results around a table just like this one. My grandmother always used to say – A tavola non si invecchia – it means ‘at the table you never get old’. Italians never eat alone, we prefer to be surrounded by our family and our friends, of all generations.’
‘So, did you always want to be a chef?’
Luca smiled, but his eyes held a hint of sadness. ‘Yes, I always wanted to be a chef. Every aspect of the culinary process fascinates me; the textures, the aromas, the taste, the alchemy – how the most obscure ingredients can meld together to produce magic on the lips. I used to spend hours with my nonna, learning about flavours, listening to her advice, jotting down her recipes in a journal – I still have it and it’s my most precious possession. Some of her recipes were handed down from her own grandmother. I’m an only child so she wanted to make sure the Castelotti recipes remain in the family for the next generation. I don’t think my father ever forgave her,’ he added with a mirthless laugh.
‘What do you mean? Forgave her for what?’
Avoiding her eyes, Luca picked up his wine glass and sauntered outside to the terrace, pausing to stare at the view before dropping onto the bench in the shade of the pergola. Izzie sensed the ache of his internal conflict and decided to give him a few moments alone. She collected their plates, washed them in the sink – along with the utensils they had used – and returned everything to their allocated places in the cupboards. When she eventually sat down next to him, it was a while before he spoke.
‘I’ve dreamed of owning my own restaurant since I was ten years old, but when I told my parents they were horrified. My father’s a commercial lawyer in Milan and the last thing he wanted was for his only son to work in a kitchen. I won’t bore you with the details, the heated arguments, the guilt-filled silences that stretched into weeks, my mother’s distress. In the end, I caved in to parental pressure and went off to university in Siena.’
Luca paused, swirling the remains of his red wine in his glass, lost in his memories.
‘I graduated three years later with a degree in Economics that landed me a lucrative job in banking which made my parents proud and me miserable. I worked sixteen-hour days; I didn’t eat properly, never saw my friends, and my life became one long conveyor belt of work, eat, sleep, repeat. However, the prestigious career did have its compensations – I had a healthy bank balance and could afford to rent a great apartment in Florence and treat myself to the car I’d salivated over for years.’
‘The Spider?’ Izzie teased him, keen to raise his spirits.
She had never seen Luca look so despondent. Whenever she was with him, he always had a smile on his face, but now his eyes were downcast, his shoulders loose, his thoughts lost in the world he used to inhabit, the one his family had wanted him to pursue. Sympathy nipped at her heart. If there was one thing she knew, it was that living someone else’s dream didn’t make you happy, whatever the financial advantages. As the shadows from the branches overhead danced on the flagstones and the cicadas continued their hypnotic chorus, a mantle of calmness descended, and Izzie wondered if it was time to share a little of her own history with the man who, for whatever reason, had chosen to reveal a corner of his soul to her.
What if Meghan was right? What if talking about your past to someone who had no pre-conceptions about how she should be feeling, would help, even in a small way, to push her towards a place in her life’s journey where she could think about moving on?
‘I used to be a workaholic, too,’ she murmured, keeping her eyes trained on the contents of her wine glass so as not to be distracted by Luca’s facial expression when she opened up to a relative stranger for the first time in two years. ‘I had my own interior design business with a list of wealthy clients, an ambitious fiancé working his way up the ranks of the legal profession, a fabulous apartment overlooking the Thames, and this really cute sunshine-yellow cinquecento.’
She paused, wondering whether Luca would comment, or encourage her to continue, but he remained motionless, clearly not wanting to break the spell that had woven its tendrils around the pergola to provide a safe haven in which to talk about what had happened. She was grateful for his silence because she could already feel the monsters marching through her veins and into her brain, clambering to be released, to smell and taste the air of freedom, to run wild, and maybe, just maybe, vanish off into the distance.
‘My family always complained that they never saw me. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see them, I did, but after I graduated from college, I stayed on in London, and Cornwall seemed a world away… well, you know what I mean. But I always, always, always, made time for my sister during school holidays when she was released from her duties as a primary schoolteacher at the local village school where we grew up.’
Her thoughts zoomed back down the memory superhighway to some of the best days of her life when she and Anna had mooched around the capital’s cathedrals of consumerism, shopping for paint and fabric supplies; her, for her interior design business, Anna, for her beloved pupils’ art projects.
‘I can see her now, giggling as we modelled papier mâché masks for Year Three’s Halloween
party, or the macramé outfits for the Christmas play, or these amazing chiffon hats I wanted to display on bronze busts at an exhibition I was organising with Meghan.’
The clarity of the image of her sister, her head thrown back with laughter, caused Izzie’s courage to falter. The pain of her loss seared through her heart, still too raw to vocalise, and she was grateful when Luca relieved her of the conversation baton to give her the space to gather her thoughts.
‘I was engaged, too. Sabrina and I met at university, then when I landed my job at the bank we moved in together. She loved the glamorous lifestyle our salaries could afford; the weekend trips to Rome, the foreign holidays to Bali and New York, skiing in the Alps. I even made an offer on a house which I thought we could renovate together, but when I unveiled the project Sabrina baulked at the prospect – looking back, her reaction should have been my first clue.’
Luca leaned back in his chair and crossed his ankle over his thigh, nursing his empty glass, his eyes fixed on the horizon as though watching those days enfold on a film reel in front of his eyes.
‘After two more months of wheeling and dealing, I couldn’t stand the high-octane environment a moment longer. I’d completely lost sense of who I was, as if I was living someone else’s life. So, I resigned from the bank, took a job in a restaurant washing dishes, and within a week I knew I was exactly where I wanted to be. Of course, my salary nosedived but I didn’t care. I took a couple of roles as an extra in the movies filmed in Florence to make ends meet, but it wasn’t enough to maintain our previous lifestyle. Sabrina was horrified and accused me of neglecting her needs in favour of satisfying my schoolboy ambitions.’