And, knowing how things must appear, she did what would surely be expected of her—Bella emptied the bar fridge of the tiny bottles of liquor and took the nuts and treats. She picked up the money that Matteo had left on the bed and peeled off a couple of notes and put them in her bag, some she stuffed in her bra and the rest...
Bella pulled the rubber stoppers off her ridiculously high sandals and rolled the rest of the cash into two tight tubes and squeezed them into her heels, then she replaced the stoppers and strapped on her sandals.
She allowed herself one last glance around the room before she closed the door—oh, she had been terrified on entering it. Her cheek had been smarting from his slap, there had been angry tears falling from her eyes but now she stood smiling as she saw the chairs they had pushed back so they could dance together and make up for all the nights they had not had.
Her first night of work had been a pleasure rather than the hell she had anticipated.
Bella took the elevator down and her nostrils tightened as she walked into the bar. It was filled with the stale scent of last night’s celebrations that had been held to mark Malvolio’s release from prison and his not-guilty verdict.
‘How was it?’ Gina asked, referring to her night with Matteo, and Bella simply didn’t know how to answer such a question so she said nothing. ‘I hope he paid you well...’ Gina said. ‘Given that he kept you all night.’
‘I thought this one was on Malvolio.’ Bella shrugged and went to walk off but Gina halted her.
‘Are you trying to say that Matteo didn’t give you a tip?’ Gina frowned, clearly disbelieving Bella, and she held out her hand.
‘I thought that we would get to keep the tips.’
‘Half is for Malvolio and the rest we divide amongst us.’ Gina snapped her fingers and Bella opened her bag and handed over the money that she had earlier separated from the pile.
‘And?’ Gina said.
Bella took out a few of the tiny bottles of liquor that she had taken. ‘There,’ Bella said, and again went to walk off but was abruptly halted. Her long black hair was caught and yanked by Gina and Bella found herself face against the wall.
‘Don’t bullshit me,’ Gina said, and her hands searched Bella’s breasts, easily locating the wad of cash that she had stuffed into her bra.
She took out the cash and then let go of Bella’s hair and Bella turned around.
‘Don’t ever try to get one up on me again, Gatti. I know tricks that you haven’t even thought of yet.’
How Bella hated the world she had almost entered.
‘Here,’ Gina said, as if nothing had just happened, and she peeled off a paltry number of notes and handed them to Bella. ‘I’ll see you tonight.’
No, you won’t, Bella thought, but she nodded.
She walked home when she wanted to run but she forced herself to walk as if she had plenty of time on her side.
Out of the Brezza Oceana hotel Bella took the path that ran alongside the beach. Some fishermen were bringing in the morning’s catch and she drew some lewd comments and whistles from them.
She ignored them.
Further along Bella walked, past a small wooded area and a path that led to a small cove. Oh, she would have loved to have gone down to the water to visit it one last time—to take the tiny secret path that only the locals knew about and drink in the view she loved before she left Bordo Del Cielo for good.
But there was no time to linger and, anyway, Bella thought, there would be no Sophie there to chat with.
Her best friend had left last night and Malvolio was back and nothing now could ever be the same. Bella knew, if she really wanted to get away, she must not draw attention to herself.
No one must guess that she and her mother would be fleeing today.
So instead of heading down the secret path she turned and took the hilly street towards home. A group of tourists was standing on the corner, clearly the worse for last night, and their responses to Bella were pretty much the same as the locals had been.
She did not blush.
Never had Bella admired her mother more—Maria had always walked with her head held high and now, on this early morning, Bella did the same.
She carried on up the hill, her ankle giving way on the high heels several times, yet she gave a smug smile to herself when she thought of the money in them.
Yes, Gina might know a few tricks but Bella’s mother had taught her daughter so many more.
She actually laughed as she walked up the garden path, recalling her mother coming home some mornings and emptying out her shoes!
Her mother’s heart had just about broken last night as Bella had dressed for work. Now Bella pictured her face when she told her mother that Matteo had offered them both a way out of Bordo Del Cielo.
They were leaving today.
Her head was spinning with possibilities as she stepped into the house but then, in one second, it all changed.
Like stepping off a merry-go-round, everything slowed down and, stifling a scream, Bella took in the chaos. Their house was always neat but now the hall table was overturned and the vase of flowers from their garden lay strewn on the floor. And there, in the middle, lay Maria.
‘Ma!’
Bella dropped to the floor and cradled her mother. Blood was pouring out of a head wound and for a terrible moment Bella thought this must be Malvolio’s work. Briefly she wondered if somehow he had found out that she had made plans to leave...
‘I fell...’ Maria slurred.
‘Were you drinking again?’ Bella asked, because her mother had been so ill lately but she had promised that she had stopped all that.
‘No.’
It took a moment to register that her mother was only able to move one arm and when Bella saw that one side of her face was weak it dawned on Bella that at just thirty-four years of age her beautiful mother had suffered a stroke.
‘I’ll call for the doctor,’ Bella said.
As they waited, Bella ran and got a blanket from her mother’s bedroom and made her as comfortable as she could.
The doctor arrived and then he called for an ambulance. It was five minutes after nine as the ambulance blasted its way through the town and then took the road that ran the opposite way from the airport.
Bella knew that she would never get there now.
She held her mother’s hand as she held in her tears.
Her chance to escape had gone. She thought of Matteo at the airport, waiting for them to arrive.
* * *
He was.
Matteo stood with Luka, scanning the small airport, just waiting for the sliding doors to open and for Bella to appear.
‘We should go through,’ Luka said.
‘Soon,’ Matteo responded.
‘They’re boarding.’
‘I just have to make a call...’ Matteo had Maria’s number because he would call her before he came to collect any money for Malvolio. He waited and there was a small beat of hope as it rung out.
They must be on their way, Matteo thought, but after another twenty minutes all hope had gone.
‘Final call,’ Luka said.
When he could wait no more Matteo boarded.
‘Have you ever flown?’ Luka asked, frowning because his friend had always been so worldly, so completely ahead of everyone’s games, but it had just dawned on Luka he had never seem him out of Bordo Del Cielo and also he could feel Matteo’s tension.
‘Never,’ Matteo answered, then sat silent beside his friend as the plane taxied down the runway and lifted into the sky.
Matteo wasn’t nervous about flying, or leaving Bordo Del Cielo.
It was stay and become what, till now, he had avoided—a killer.
Or leave everything behind.
&n
bsp; He chose the latter.
CHAPTER ONE
Five years later
BELLA GATTI.
Matteo did not want to hear her name, yet tonight it had peppered the conversation.
Neither did he want to remember a love that had made him a fool.
And so he sat through his closest friend and business partner’s small engagement party, which was being held at Luka’s luxurious Rome penthouse, avoiding, as best he could, any references to an extremely chequered past.
Matteo and his girlfriend of three months, which was a bit of a record for him, had flown in from London for the occasion. Knowing that Luka and Sophie’s engagement was an extravagant farce, Matteo just wanted the night to be over and done.
Sophie Durante had turned up at Luka’s London office just a few days ago and demanded that, on her father Paulo’s release from prison, Luka uphold their long-abandoned engagement for the little time that her father had left.
Had Luka sought advice from Matteo they would not be sitting here now.
He had not and so they were.
Paulo kept speaking about Sicily, or rather the beautiful west and the people he had known there. Matteo, doing his level best not let his mind return there, had kept guiding the conversation back towards his true passion.
Work.
No, his passion wasn’t Shandy, the woman who sat beside him, even though she would prefer that it was.
Honest work was his passion.
Matteo’s reputation in the business world was his most prized possession. He had clawed his way back from less than nothing. He had made something of himself after a violent, criminal past and nothing and no one would ever reduce him or drag him back to the ways of old.
‘So when do you go to Dubai?’ Luka asked.
‘Sunday,’ Matteo answered. ‘Unless you’ll be needing the plane.’
Luka understood the slight taunt behind Matteo’s words—Matteo was convinced that Sophie wanted more than an engagement ring on her finger.
He didn’t believe Sophie’s sob story for a moment.
Matteo didn’t believe in anyone.
‘Sunday?’ Shandy checked. ‘But I thought you said that you didn’t have a firm date yet.’
‘I only just found out.’ Matteo’s jaw gritted. Shandy had got it into her head that she would be joining him on this business trip. If they wanted to share a room then a ring on her finger might well be required and he could feel her squirm in expectation. No doubt she was thinking that this sudden trip to Rome might have a deeper meaning.
‘Where are you staying?’ Paulo asked.
‘Fiscella,’ Matteo answered, referring to the luxurious hotel he had booked into.
‘It’s very romantic,’ Shandy said, but Matteo quickly crushed that.
‘Luka and I are thinking of buying it,’ he explained to Paulo. ‘It is a nice old hotel but it needs a lot of refurbishment. I want to check out a few things for myself.’
‘Doesn’t Bella work there?’ Paulo asked Sophie, and Matteo took a belt of his drink.
Bella.
The sound of her name had his throat tighten, so much so that he had to think, he actually had to tell himself to relax, in order to swallow the sickly limoncello down.
He loathed the taste, it reminded him too much of home and that was a place he had spent the last five years doing his level best to forget.
He did not want to think about his past and certainly Matteo did not want to hear what Bella Gatti was up to.
He’d already been told.
A couple of months after leaving, his half-brother Dino had told him that Bella was a regular at the bar.
He had told him a few other things that had had the bile rising in Matteo’s chest and burning the back of his throat, but he had kept his voice impassive when he’d spoken with Dino.
If his half-brother got even a hint that Matteo cared then Bella would be punished for his leaving, just for the pleasure of Matteo being told.
He swallowed down the liquor as Sophie answered Paulo’s question.
‘She does,’ Sophie said, and despite his best intentions not to delve further Matteo found himself asking Sophie a question.
‘Doing what?’
‘She’s a chambermaid.’ Paulo answered for his daughter. ‘Isn’t she, Sophie?’
‘Well, I guess it gives her access to a richer clientele.’ Matteo’s response was surly and, taking Shandy’s hand, he led her to the floor to dance.
He didn’t want to dance.
He just wanted to get away from the conversation.
Rome glittered beneath them. He could feel the pulse from the street below and the guarded Matteo suddenly wanted to escape the shackles and to shed his skin. He wanted to take a moped and explore the ancient, beautiful city. He wanted to ride high up and stare down at the ancient buildings and ruins, to drink cheap wine and be younger than his thirty years—only he wanted to do all of this with Bella.
Oh, he was dancing with the wrong woman tonight.
And every night since... He halted his thought process, for he never went back in his mind.
He just could not escape the truth today—for five years, long before Shandy, every night he had danced with the wrong woman and now, though his integrity at work was never in doubt, his reputation with women preceded him.
No, he could not escape the memories of them.
Matteo recalled Bella’s deep, slightly husky voice as she had told him about her favourite place in the world—a jewel deep in Bordo Del Cielo that he had never bothered to explore—the ancient baths that the Moors had built. She had told him how she would take herself off there at times and pretend that she had lived long ago, how she imagined the carved-out stone filled with spring waters and the sex and debauchery that must have gone on there.
Bella had played with his mind then and somehow she played with it even now.
‘I love Sophie’s dress...’
Matteo did not blink as Shandy pulled him out of introspection. Instead, he frowned at the intrusion as Shandy did what she did best—spent money in her head.
‘I want something similar,’ she explained. ‘I asked Sophie who made it. Gatti. She’s an emerging designer, apparently. I want to wear her before everyone else is. Tomorrow I want to see her studio...’
Studio?
Matteo’s teeth ground down.
More like a boudoir.
‘Let’s go.’
‘It’s too early,’ Shandy protested. ‘Anyway, I’m enjoying myself. You never said that it was Paulo Durante’s daughter that Luka was getting engaged to. I never thought we would be dining with such a high-profile criminal tonight. It’s exciting...’ Shandy said, and then dropped her voice. ‘A turn-on.’
‘Then you didn’t live through it,’ Matteo hissed, and dropped his arms. ‘We’re leaving now.’
He chose not to tell Shandy that Paulo was no big fish—the old man had been Malvolio’s puppet.
Malvolio had been the leader and had seen to it that Paulo had taken the fall for him.
And the reason they were here tonight was that Malvolio was Luka’s father.
Luka felt that he had a debt to pay and Sophie had called it in.
‘Thanks for this,’ Luka said, as he saw Matteo out. Shandy had gone to top up her make-up and the two men stood, uncomfortable with small talk.
Neither liked that their past was catching up with them.
They had made strong, good lives in London.
It felt strange to be back in Italy. Even Rome felt too close to Bordo Del Cielo tonight.
‘Will you let me know when the wedding is?’ Matteo’s voice was thick with sarcasm.
‘There will be no wedding,’ Luka said. ‘I just agreed to a
n engagement. You can surely see for yourself how sick he is. It’s a matter of days till all this is done and I can get back on with my life.’
‘Why are you going through with it?’ Matteo said. ‘You owe her nothing.’
‘I owe Paulo this,’ Luka corrected.
‘You owe that old fool nothing,’ Matteo insisted. Bile was churning and his venomous words were aimed at himself, because he had been but a day away from being Malvolio’s second man. ‘Sophie is just like Bella, both are up to no good. I’m telling you that she lies,’ Matteo said. ‘She’s not doing well, like she told you she was. That dress is not designer...’
‘Please.’ Luka shrugged. ‘I’m not like you, I don’t care for fashion and labels. You always were a dark, mistrusting bastard.’
‘A good-looking bastard, though,’ Shandy said as she returned. Matteo pulled on his jacket and checked his reflection in the mirror, and Luka gave a dry laugh.
‘Yes, Matteo, you look good,’ Luka said, and it was his turn to be sarcastic now.
Matteo and Shandy headed out to the street.
‘I like that you dress well,’ Shandy said, but her words simply irked.
Yes, he always had dressed better than the rest. His suits were the most expensive, his hair superbly cut, his stubble pure designer.
Bella Gatti knew why, though, for he had confided in her.
Never again.
His driver was waiting and opening the door but Matteo stood there in the street rather than getting in. ‘I think it might be good to walk...’
‘To walk?’ Shandy shuddered at the thought. ‘In these heels?’
‘No, I would like a walk alone,’ Matteo said. ‘It’s been a long time since I’ve been back in Italy.’
‘Well, it doesn’t suit you,’ Shandy said, because he had been at his brooding best since the plane had touched down. ‘Matteo, come to bed...’ Her mouth moved in to persuade him but he dodged his head back.
‘I’ll be in later.’
No apology, no excuses, he just walked off into the night.
And he did what he wanted.
Matteo bought a bottle of wine, and though the grapes were not from Bordo Del Cielo, they were from the west. He hired a moped and drove up, ever up, and then he parked it atop Capitoline Hill and stared down at the illuminated view and there, unlit, the lone horseman. But, though ancient and beautiful, it was the wrong view he gazed upon and, of course, there wasn’t Bella by his side.
His Sicilian Cinderella Page 2