How long had he harboured a desire to be that Argentinian? The one whose heritage went so far back. The one who had fought and risen above hardship. One who didn’t have to worry about a place to sleep, a mouth to feed. A reputation to uphold. How remarkable that with effort you could buy that kind of stability. And he had. Centuries of tradition, and he now held it in his hand. How proud would his mamá and papá be now? How proud Lodo?
He swallowed his self-indulgent reflections, selected two etched antique-crystal glasses and made his way back to Frankie. She would enjoy these. She would appreciate the effort and pride that had gone into them.
The room was darkening with each passing moment. He reached for the control pad and flicked a switch. Lamps in corners began to glow softly. He turned. The sheen on Frankie’s dipped head gleamed. She looked right. There on that couch, in this room. Slowly, reverently, he poured, the full, fabulous scents wafting up as the liquid sloshed. He paced to her, handed her a glass.
‘Try this.’
She made a face as though it was an old tin cup of stagnant water. Reluctantly held out her hand. Why did she not know what this represented for him? She was normally so attuned to him …
He watched as she swirled the dark red liquid round the bulbous bottomed glass as if it was a science lesson.
He did the same, but sank his nose in for a proper smell.
‘What do you think of this vintage? This is the 2006 Malbec. The season went on until April that year. The aromas are immense—so balanced, no?’
Frankie stilled her eyes, cast her mouth into a tight little moue. ‘Yes, it’s amazing.’
Suddenly he felt a spark of anger.
‘No, what’s amazing is your churlish attitude.’
She did a double-take.
‘What? What did you say?’
He sighed. How to phrase this without turning it into the drama she was clearly spoiling for?
‘Frankie, the existence of Carmel de Souza in this world has nothing to do with you. I saw how you let her presence affect you at the party, but surely you’re smarter than to let a photograph of her affect you at your work?’
Her back was against the huge armrest of the couch. Her legs were curled up, knees bent. He watched her from the corner of his eye as he stared straight ahead, twirling the gorgeous liquor round and round, examining the patina on the glass as it sank back down before being swirled up again.
‘It’s only because of that damn party that I’m feeling like this,’ she said, cold steel jarring every word. ‘If I hadn’t been paraded about in front of all those cameras nobody would’ve even known who I was.’
She thrust her legs out, bare. She was wearing a T-shirt and shorts—not one of his shirts, he noticed. She gripped her laptop, held it steady on her lap.
‘I went down there today as a professional and came back as nothing other than the Hurricane’s current sex pet. And not a very impressive one at that.’
He raised his eyebrow—the only sign that he’d registered her statement. She needed to calm the hell down.
He swirled the wine one more time before drawing long on the scent and then finally tasting.
‘I bought this vineyard today. I’ve always been a fan of their wines.’
She fumed. Obviously.
‘Great.’
‘Meaning …?’
‘Meaning that it’s all in a day’s work for you to go shopping for a vineyard. Did anyone pile in to look at you and judge you? Make you feel as if you’d won last place in the celebrity-girlfriend competition? And that you were an idiot for getting your photo all over the front pages of some trashy magazine?’
‘No, because the only person who judges me is me. I choose who I sleep with, and it’s of no interest to me what anyone thinks of that.’
She reared up. The laptop slid to the couch. Her wine sloshed up the sides of the glass. She glanced at it and reached to put it on the side table, missed its edge in the gloom of the room. The glass wobbled and he lunged for it, caught it in his hand and righted it.
She opened her mouth, clamped it shut, then opened it again.
‘That’s all I am to you. Isn’t it?’
Halfway to his mouth, he stalled the progress of his own glass. So there it was. The gauntlet thrown down. All hope of a mature, considered conversation was gone—Frankie’s self-deprecating emotional show had just rolled into town.
‘Isn’t it?’ She stepped down from the couch, the shrill tone in her voice a sword being drawn from its sheath.
He lowered the glass.
‘We are currently lovers, if that’s what you mean.’
She stood within the circle of his personal space. If he reached for her she would fit his body perfectly. He would curl her into him and lay his chin on her head. She would press her head to his chest and then plant tiny kisses on his neck. She would clamber up him like a cat and he would hold her, carry her, make love to her and know that he had never before and never would again find a girl like her.
But standing here right now, less than eighteen inches apart, it was like being on either side of a crevice. One wrong move and the whole thing would disappear down into a chasm. Gone.
‘We are “currently lovers”?’ she repeated, the low tone of her voice unmistakable.
He would not give her more. Would not.
He looked at her, at the damp, dusky lashes closed over the huge hazel eyes that had gazed into his, at the small soft lips that had given him every type of pleasure imaginable, at the silken swish of hair that had lain across his body night after night. At the selfless, giving, generous, loving girl that she was …
She loved him. He knew it then. As she stood there right in front of him. An iron hand squeezed his heart and a steel glaze crept all over his skin. She loved him and he could not love her back.
Not in the way she deserved.
‘We can stay as lovers … like this …’ His voice was strained, as though the decade-old tannins in the wine had welded it shut. The glass now dangled at the end of his arm, preventing him from holding her. He should hold her. He should comfort her. Every second that ticked by deepened the chasm. But still he held the glass in his hand, cupped the delicate weighted ball of crystal.
‘Like what?’
One foot hovered over the edge.
He straightened his shoulders. Drew in a breath.
‘Frankie …’ he began, and he saw by the glimmer of hope that had flashed in her eyes and then slid down her face that she already knew what was coming next. If only he could save her, not pull her with him into the chasm …
‘Frankie, we’re great together …’
She closed her eyes. Clamped them shut as if trying to block him out.
‘But …?’ she breathed. ‘We’re great together but …?’ Every syllable rang with the dreadful, sonorous clang of defeat. ‘What are you telling me? What glib, half-baked reason are you going to trot out?’
‘Angel, please,’ he said, feeling the earth now leaving him, knowing that they were both falling.
She opened her eyes, looked at his arm, his shoulder, at a spot on the wall. In the distance he could hear the rumble of threatened thunder. A summer storm passing overhead. The land would be refreshed by morning, the air clearer and lighter. But he could already feel the aching black pain that would live in his heart as he rode the land, knowing she wouldn’t be there for him to come back to.
‘Shall I make it easy for you?’
She didn’t sound angry anymore—just desperately, desperately sad.
‘We’re great together because we have great sex. But that’s all there is and all there ever will be. We don’t work on any other level.’
‘That’s not true,’ he bit out.
She looked at him then. His Frankie. A dark sweep of hair hung over one eye, her stubborn chin was raised, her hazel eyes sunken and saddened.
‘It is, Rocco. You’re carrying around so much baggage, but everyone pretends it’s not there. Even Dante—even
he skips over all your moods and sulks. And God knows who you’d ever let get closer than him. A woman? A “weak little woman”?’
‘We are close, Frankie.’
‘I don’t feel it, Rocco. Not close enough.’
In the past five minutes the gap between them had widened and stretched. They were still standing in each other’s space, but light years apart—like dying stars in the cosmic darkness.
He swallowed. Words to beg her to stay—on his terms—words to beg her forgiveness for not being able to give her what she needed, words to erase the mask of pain he saw settle into the beautiful curves of her face, already gaunt and sunken—those words stuck deep in his throat. And his mouth sealed over them, bottled them up like uncorked wine.
She turned away as a huge sob forced her shoulders to shudder.
He’d save her. If he could save her. Give her the water and light that she needed. But she would always be parched of his love. His arms hung limp at his sides as she finally stepped from their space, bent for her laptop and left.
He stood in his room, the heart of his home, while the one chance he’d ever had of feeling true love slipped like a ghost from his grasp.
It always came back to this. It didn’t matter about walls or wealth. None of that mattered. He’d never felt happier than in the warmth of his mamá’s bed until he’d felt the warmth of Frankie. A cardboard bed cuddled up with Lodo … sleeping on the beach with Frankie. It was people that mattered. But she mattered too much for him to give her only half a life.
The glass in his hand weighed cannonball-heavy. He lifted it now, looked at the delicate white patterns cut out of the paper-thin crystal. He looked at the barely touched, carefully nursed vintage wine that coated and glazed the sides of the glass. Looked at the space on the couch. Moments ago he’d cared more about scents and flavours than the beautiful woman who’d sat there.
And then, with all his might, he lifted it past his head and heaved it at the wall.
And watched as the rich red liquid streaked down the plaster.
CHAPTER TWELVE
SUNDAY MORNINGS AT home hadn’t changed much in all these years. Frankie lay in her narrow single bed, staring at the low sloping ceiling as the scents of lunch wafted upstairs. Chicken and potatoes would be roasting; pan lids would be wobbling with vegetables boiling underneath. The windows would be steamed up and her mother’s rosy face would be peering into the oven, or she’d be wiping her damp hands on the cloth tucked into her apron.
In the lounge, only ever used on high days and holidays, her father would be marooned in a sea of Sunday papers like a grumpy old walrus, occasionally barking out his horror at what he read to anyone who cared to listen. Such was their life—the cosy, comfortable, mundane life that they’d shared for almost forty years.
Why had she felt horror at the prospect of such a life? Why had she fought against it every step of the way? Casting her net as far from this place as she possibly could. Determined never to be that woman, that wife.
Why—when she knew, now that it was so far from her grasp, that it was as important to her as all her other dreams. Maybe even more so …
Perhaps not here on a farm in County Meath, but maybe on an estancia in Argentina. Or in a studio apartment in Madrid. Anywhere, in fact, as long as it was with Rocco.
She rolled around in the narrow bed, tucking her legs in sharply when shafts of cold air scored them. Her head was under her pillow, a balled-up paper handkerchief clutched in her fist. When would the crying stop? When would the misery of knowing she would never be with him again finally ease?
She felt the thickening in her nose and the heat behind her eyes that warned her of another outpouring. Two weeks she’d been like this. One week in Spain, and then she’d finally caved and taken leave, coming back here for the holidays.
That week in Spain had been a blur, of course. She’d caught the Madrid flight she’d originally booked, much to the discomfort of her fellow passengers and the aircrew, who hadn’t quite known what to do with the agonised bundle of limbs she’d become, sleeping and weeping her way across the Atlantic.
Then, appearing for work, it had turned out she hadn’t needed the extra time after all—though God knew they’d encouraged her to take it when they’d seen that their waterproof mascara wasn’t quite so waterproof after all.
It was a miracle that she’d pulled herself together and finally got her moment in front of the board. Skirting over her lack of information about the Argentina growers, she’d made a one-sided, half-hearted presentation about the potentials of the Dominican Republic and openly accepted, when questioned that, yes, she had become ‘overwrought’ during her meeting with the Argentinian traders. And worse, yes—they probably could get better terms from India.
But Rocco Hermida wasn’t in India.
He wasn’t anywhere now.
And it was time she finally realised that. Since he’d walked out of her life she’d been chasing him. They were his steps she’d followed. He was the reason she’d cast her net so far and wide. He was the reason she’d taken a gap year, gone travelling, set herself higher and higher goals. She’d emulated him. She’d wanted to be worthy of him, even if she couldn’t actually have him.
The only incredible part was how blind she had been in not seeing all this before. And, even more worryingly, persisting for all those years when she should have realised as he’d slung his rucksack over his shoulder that morning ten years ago that he didn’t need her. Never would.
Tears burned and flowed again. The black jaws of agony yawned awake inside her again. She pushed her fist into her mouth to stop the howl. Her teeth scored her flesh, but the numb sting of pain meant nothing. She curled into a little ball and rocked herself into another day without him.
Eventually she became aware of someone moving about in the hallway. Her father, clearing his throat—his passive-aggressive way of telling her that she should be downstairs helping her mother.
Well, he was right about that. But that was all he was right about.
Since she’d come back they’d quietly circled one another, silently assessing but not engaging. She knew it upset her mother, but she was putting so much effort into not crying in front of them that she couldn’t risk getting involved in any arguments with him. But it was coming. She could feel it.
Slowly she sat up, dropped her legs out of the bed, let them dangle in the chilly air. How many times had she sat just like this over the years? Countless. And here she was again. She stood. Her heart was strong. It could beat seventy times a minute. It had just taken the pummelling of her life and it was still beating. Life was going to get better. It had to.
She shuffled her feet into slippers, shrugged her shoulders into Mark’s old Trinity College hoody and began to make her way along the hall.
‘So you’re going to join us?’
He was standing at the top of the stairs—just like he’d been all those years ago. Just standing there. Staring. Judging.
‘Yes,’ she said.
Something about his dark, solid, unflinching outline made her pause her steps. He was holding something in his hand.
‘I knew I was right. All these years …’
There was barely any light in the top hallway. A tiny skylight and a four-paned window at the end. The flower-printed shade that her brothers had to dodge as they passed held only a dim lightbulb that daubed the walls and carpet in dark beige patches the colour of cold tea. Her father’s anger radiated its own dark gloom.
She stared at him. The default denial—No, Daddy, I promise I didn’t—sank to the floor. She had no use for it anymore.
‘Yes. You were right. Does that make you happy?’
He seemed to take that like a blow, tipping his head back slightly with the shock of it. She couldn’t see his face properly, but she could sense the intake of breath.
‘Happy? How could any shame you bring on yourself make me happy? Then or now?’
‘I’ve never done anything shameful.�
�� She jerked her chin up at him. And she hadn’t. There was no shame in love. ‘But God knows you made me feel like I did. Treating me like an outcast—sending me away like that.’
‘It was for your own good.’
‘How can you say that? You ruined my life—selling my pony and imprisoning me in that convent.’
‘Your life wasn’t ruined by that—you were doing a good-enough job of that on your own. And you know we had to sell her. No one regretted it as much as I. But there was no option. Not with the run of bad luck we’d had with the others. And then Danny leaving. And anyway, the convent was the making of you.’
The convent was the making of you? He really thought that? The convent hadn’t been the making of her—it had been her life outdoors, the farm, nature all around. It had been leaving home and travelling, choosing a job in a country where she barely spoke the language. Highest paths, toughest challenges, always proving herself. Hadn’t it?
‘You were wild. Ran wild from before you could walk. You needed some anchors and there were none strong enough. The nuns trained you to stand still and focus yourself.’
She almost had to steady herself as her world was suddenly whipped up in the air and reordered.
‘I thought that you’d calmed down completely when you landed that job. But clearly not. The minute he appears you’re all over the place again.’
He thrust forward a magazine, held it in his hand like a folded weapon. She stared at it. He thrust it farther.
‘Read it. See what they’re printing. And then tell me you’re not ashamed.’
She lifted the magazine—the gossip section from his Sunday paper. She could barely make out the text, but his finger jabbed at a photograph and she could see by the stark colours exactly what it was.
The Turlington Club party. She was in white. Rocco was in black. She lifted it closer, tilted it to catch the gloomy brown light, and felt the fist around her heart squeeze a little tighter. Rocco was holding her as if they were dancing the most erotic tango. Bodies like licks of fire. Heat and light and passion bounced from the page. She turned away, clutching it, staring at it.
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