by Marinelli, Carol; Hayward, Jennifer; Stephens, Susan; Anderson, Natalie
In response to the best publicity he could have hoped for, Bastiano had tripled the rates.
Now there was a waiting list to get in, though they kept two places on constant reserve should a young royal or such need urgent respite.
Though he had several more exclusive retreats under his belt this was his base and served as his platform to the world. Thanks to his famous guests, Bastiano was a name on the most coveted guest lists. He travelled frequently and partied hard but it was here that he chose to return.
Yet lately these walls no longer felt like home.
‘I have Sultan Alim on the line.’
Bastiano picked up the phone.
‘How are you?’ Alim asked.
‘I am well,’ Bastiano said. ‘Very well. Have you sold that hotel yet?’
‘It is off the market,’ Alim replied. ‘Why, have you changed your mind?’
‘No.’ Bastiano was rarely awkward. ‘Actually, I was hoping to have a word with Gabi. I wondered if she had heard anything from Sophie.’
‘Sophie?’
‘The chambermaid…’
‘I know who she is. I thought you were back in touch.’
‘Why would you think that?’
‘Because your head of housekeeping called a while back for a reference. I gave her a glowing one.’
Sophie had been here?
Bastiano made a few noises and said a few words but in less than a minute he had ended the call. He rang Reception and asked that Karmela meet him in his office.
All this time he had been worrying and wondering, only to find out that Sophie had passed through.
‘Is anything wrong?’ Karmela asked, looking worried as she came in.
‘Nothing is wrong,’ Bastiano said. ‘You interviewed a young woman a couple of months ago…’
‘I interview many people.’
‘Sophie,’ he said. ‘She used to work at the Grande Lucia.’
‘Ah, yes.’
‘She wasn’t offered the position?’ he checked.
‘Indeed she was. Sophie was an excellent candidate and her references checked out, but when I rang to offer her the job she said that she had accepted another position.’
‘Where?’
‘I didn’t ask that,’ Karmela said. ‘I was disappointed and also cross that she had wasted so much time. I had even told her that there would be no problem when the baby came…’
‘Baby?’
‘You have always said that so long as their children are kept out of earshot you don’t mind if we employ single mothers.’
‘I meant, are you saying she was pregnant?’
‘Yes, about five or six months along,’ Karmela recalled. ‘She said she’d had to get out of Rome because she was having some issues with the baby’s father.’
The words were like knives.
‘Bring me her résumé.’
He was sweating.
Even in the blistering heat of a Sicilian summer Bastiano was so fit that he barely broke a sweat. Even when held by the throat by Raul and accused of causing the death of Maria, he’d stayed cool.
Not now.
He cast his mind back to the wedding and the last time he had seen her. If what Karmela was saying was correct, then Sophie would have been about three months pregnant then.
He would have known. They had made love the night before!
Yet the fast, frantic sex had been the result of pure need and as for the morning…
Karmela brought him the paperwork and though Bastiano wanted to be alone, there were questions he needed to ask.
Most of it was typewritten but her most recent employment was written by hand.
‘What is this address?’
‘A bar, and not a particularly nice one,’ Karmela said. ‘I didn’t bother to ring them for a reference.’
‘Why not?’
‘Sophie told me it was a live-in job but she didn’t feel particularly comfortable there and it would be made worse if her boss knew that she was considering leaving. I rang her previous employer instead, Sultan Alim.’
Bastiano waved his hand to dismiss her, for he needed to digest all he had just been told, but as she reached the door there was something he had to know, something that could not be gleaned from the pages he held in his hand.
‘How did she look?’
Karmela held out her hands and gave a somewhat helpless shrug, unsure what to say. ‘Signor Conti, it was a couple of months ago…’
‘How did she look?’ he asked again. Bastiano did not care if his questions led Karmela to think that the baby was his, for his only concern now was Sophie.
‘Tired,’ Karmela said.
‘And?’ Bastiano pushed.
Karmela thought for a moment. ‘Relieved. She seemed terribly relieved to have found this place. I got the distinct impression she was struggling where she was, which was why I was so surprised when she turned down the job.’
And Bastiano knew why she had.
Sophie had thought him wonderful when they’d first met—a gentleman who would not have her leave his suite in wet clothes.
She had seen only the good in him.
Until he had proved himself to be otherwise.
In the throes of love making she had pleaded for him never to let her down and he had.
It was time, Bastiano knew, to put things right.
* * *
‘It’s time to open up,’ Pino called as he rapped loudly on Sophie’s bedroom door.
‘I’ll be right there.’
It was late on a rainy afternoon and she was exhausted and had a headache to boot.
Lately she had been unable to sleep. She was simply too uncomfortable or too nervous with Pino prowling around, but this afternoon the baby was asleep and Sophie wanted to close her eyes and join it.
It wasn’t an option, though.
She hauled herself from the bed and pulled on her shoes. Running a brush through her hair, she braced herself for another long shift behind the bar and then cleaning glasses late into the night.
Sophie knew only too well she could not work for much longer. The baby was not due for another six weeks but her body was telling her that she needed to rest.
Where, though?
She had been so defiant when she had told her parents and the priest that she would provide for her baby but the truth was she had saved little. Her job covered board and meals but the wages after that were tiny.
As she walked out of the bedroom, there in the hallway was Pino.
He gave her the creeps the way he was always hanging around.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said as she headed down the stairs and he walked behind her. ‘You’re a good worker, perhaps you can stay on once the baby comes.’
‘Stay on?’ she turned at the bottom of the stairs and for a second, maybe two, she actually thought that Pino was being nice as he moved past her and unbolted the door.
‘You can move your things into the front bedroom at the weekend. It’s warmer there.’
It was the middle of January, and not cold as such, but it was wet and the building was damp—though it was not for that reason that Pino would have Sophie move her things.
The front bedroom was his.
Never.
But now the fight was over.
Sophie knew she would have to contact Bastiano.
Oh, she was more than aware that it took two to make a baby and he had responsibilities.
It was the extent to which he might meet them that broke her heart.
Sophie walked into the bar as the patrons trickled in. She knew most of their orders without asking, which was just as well for her mind was too busy for conversation.
Sophie knew that she had to leave.
And soon.
‘Sophie!’ Her name was being called from several directions and she poured their drinks but did not serve them with a smile.
There was an impatient drumming of fingers coming from the left.
He could wait.
Sophie had perfected ignoring an impatient patron until she was ready to serve.
‘Can I help you?’ Sophie finally asked the drumming fingers, yet before she had even looked up she was on high alert.
His nails were neat and manicured and there was an expensive scent that in this place was non-existent rather than rare.
Her eyes slowly lifted, taking in the tie and dark suit, and then she met the eyes she had ached to see yet had sought to avoid.
‘Bastiano…’
Her mind was moving slowly, trying to tell her that it was possible that he had been passing by and had just stopped in for a drink, while at the same time knowing this place was light years away from anywhere that he would frequent.
‘What can I get you?’ she asked.
‘I’d like to speak with you in private.’
His olive skin was pale and the scar on his cheek was so livid it looked as if it had been freshly seared into his flesh.
Sophie could taste his fury and she felt her chest constrict as his eyes looked down at her swollen stomach.
What she did not understand was that his fury was not aimed at her.
Bastiano had been observing Pino—standing with his arms folded behind the bar and watching Sophie work. Not only had Pino’s laziness incensed Bastiano, he had also seen the roaming of his eyes.
He wanted Sophie out of here.
‘I’m working,’ she told him, playing for time, for, even after many months preparing for a moment such as this one, still Sophie was none the wiser as to what to say, and so, of course, she said the wrong thing. ‘What can I get you?’
‘Sophie!’ he warned. ‘I want to speak to you now, outside.’
‘She already told you—she’s working.’
Bastiano did not even look over as Pino spoke on. ‘I think it’s time for you to leave.’
The bar fell silent.
Pino’s voice signalled danger and, after all, there was a stranger in town.
A slick, suited stranger and she watched as Pino looked out of the window at Bastiano’s rather flash car. It was clear to all that he did not belong here.
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ Bastiano said, and as he did so he looked right into Sophie’s eyes. ‘Until we have spoken.’
‘Bastiano…’ she attempted, and her voice came out a little high and strained. ‘Not now.’
She wanted to warn him not to make a scene here, for she had seen more than her share of trouble within these walls.
‘You heard her,’ Pino said, and then made an already tense situation a hundred times worse for he came over and put an arm around her shoulders.
Sophie shrugged him off but the damage was more than done.
To Sophie, apart from on that terrible morning, Bastiano had always been kind, but she saw the other side to him now.
He did not explode; instead, it was far worse. It was as if the bar had been placed in refrigeration.
She could almost see the white of Bastiano’s breath when he spoke for his words were pure ice.
‘Sophie,’ he said. ‘Go and wait in the car.’
She would be angry with Bastiano later.
Right now she simply wanted out.
But she wanted him to follow her out because she knew how rough the bar’s patrons could be.
‘We’ll speak outside,’ she suggested.
‘No,’ Bastiano corrected her, though his eyes never left Pino’s face. ‘You go and wait in the car and I shall collect your things.’
Bastiano lifted the flap of the bar and Sophie walked out. The patrons parted as the one lady present left; when she was inside his vehicle, with a bleep, Bastiano locked her in safely.
He was angry with good reason for he knew she had been too scared to give this man as a reference.
Bastiano knew exactly his type.
Uninvited and most unwelcome, he walked behind the bar and into the hallway.
Pino followed him.
Bastiano climbed the stairs and found the cupboard Pino called a room—and no doubt charged Sophie half her wages to live in.
It took two minutes to clear it.
There was an old wooden wardrobe that held a couple of skirts and a bag that felt like it held some shoes. The chest of drawers contained just as little and Bastiano had soon packed her things. He went into the bathroom and picked up her brush and make-up and pulled down all the underwear that dripped over the bath. Not because Sophie would be needing them, for soon she would have much finer things, more because he could not stand that Pino had seen them.
He went back to the room and looked under the bed and found another pair of shoes and then he lifted the mattress and found her purse and a small leather journal. He had been poor once too, and he knew all the tricks.
‘She owes me two weeks’ notice.’ Pino was at the door, watching his every move.
Bastiano said nothing, but as he stuffed Sophie’s belongings into the bag the journal fell open and there, pressed between the pages, was a rose. His rose.
‘I said…’ Pino continued, but that single rose was Bastiano’s undoing and he pressed the man against the wall.
‘You make me sick,’ Bastiano told him, and then he told him something else. ‘Lucky for you she has her own room because if I find out you have so much as touched her, I suggest you sleep with one eye open.’
Pino seemed to recognise the ferocity in Bastiano’s threat, so he put his hands up and Bastiano let him go.
He walked down the steps and out through bar with her bag over his shoulder; there were many fools present but not one game enough to speak out.
Or rather there was one fool.
From the safety of the top of the steps Pino had the last word.
‘At least I gave her shelter. Where were you?’
Sophie watched from the car and she waited for the sound of a fight yet it was all eerily quiet and then, to her confusion, as calm as anything, Bastiano walked out.
He unlocked the car and climbed in, throwing her bag into the back and fighting to contain his temper as Pino’s words replayed in his head.
‘You had no right to charge in—’ Sophie started, but Bastiano broke in.
‘Is it my baby?’
‘You know it is.’
‘Then I had every right.’
He wanted to pull off hard, to leave some rubber in his wake, yet he had never driven with a pregnant woman beside him before. ‘Why didn’t you come to me?’ He didn’t get it, he truly did not, and was doing his best to contain his temper as he drove. ‘You came to the Old Convent looking for work and yet chose to return here. Why?’
‘Because I found out you owned it,’ Sophie said. ‘I didn’t want you to know.’
‘Why?’ Bastiano demanded, but then gave in. Now was not the time for a row. He wanted her in Casta, he wanted her rested and fed.
‘We’ll talk back at the Old Convent.’
‘What will your staff think when I arrive?’
‘I have no idea,’ Bastiano said, ‘neither do I care.’
‘Well, I do,’ Sophie retorted, and now she too was angry. ‘Are you intent on ruining every job I get?’
‘Don’t worry, Sophie, you will never have to work again.’
‘I never used to worry about going to work,’ Sophie said. ‘I loved my job.’
She had, Bastiano knew that.
‘Why didn’t you come to me?’ he asked again. ‘I know I’m a ba
stard…’
‘I never said you were.’
She hadn’t.
They were coming to the stretch of road where he had witnessed Maria’s crash.
The convent was visible in the distance as they drove in angry silence.
‘It’s beautiful,’ Sophie commented as they passed a humble little church in golden limestone with a small bell tower.
Bastiano glanced over—pretty certainly wasn’t the word that came to his mind as they drove past, for behind the church was the graveyard that held only dark memories for him.
‘I’m glad you think so, given we’ll be there in a couple of weeks.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘We should marry before the baby is born…’
Should.
That single word said it all.
She would be his wife by duty and nothing more.
It was the real reason that she had chosen not to tell him and had done her very best to go it alone.
Bastiano was right.
They were the same.
She had known exactly what his response would be.
Sophie looked over at him, a man who, when she’d met him, had been considering marrying a woman he had never even dated.
‘You would take more care choosing an apple from the tree than in choosing a wife.’
‘I don’t pick apples.’ Bastiano shrugged. ‘They come to me peeled and sliced.’
‘You know what I mean.’
The car was approaching the entrance to the convent now and Bastiano did not need to buzz. The gates sensed his car and slowly opened as they approached.
‘You don’t have to marry me, Bastiano,’ Sophie said as the car idled, and she did not meet his gaze as he turned and briefly looked at her then offered his response.
‘Where we come from, Sophie,’ Bastiano responded as the car moved off, ‘I do.’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THEY BOTH CHOSE to leave it there.
It was dark and late and, though she did not say it, there was certain relief as the car came out from the tunnel the trees provided and the Old Convent loomed close.
The old building really was a comforting sight.
‘Where are we going?’ Sophie asked as the car veered away from the main convent and took a cobbled path that led towards the ocean.