A Legacy of Secrets

by Carol Marinelli

  She could cry it all off tonight when it was over, could take a bottle of his blasted champagne that she’d ordered up to her room and drink it warm if she so chose.

  She so didn’t want ice.

  It was the promise of that that got her through, because watching the final scene, with the ship behind them, watching the returning husband’s hands roam Taylor’s body and remembering Santo’s hands doing the same to hers, had her biting on her lip, willing the scene to be over, for this day to be over so she could say she had made it through filming.

  Oh, there would be some studio stuff, but the bulk of it was done, or it would be a few seconds from now.

  She watched husband and wife kiss, and as his hands explored her body, the infidelity was revealed. The whole set was in tears, even Ella. The ocean was just glimmering the ship, the extras all in harmony, and as the camera zoomed further in, Ella looked through her viewfinder. It could not be more perfect until she felt someone standing beside her, knew without turning her head that Santo had returned. And it could not be less perfect now because Santo was by her side and so badly she wanted him, despite everything, still she did and Ella was determined not to look around.

  ‘Call cut.’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Please,’ Santo said, ‘then I can take you back to the trailer.’

  He had to be joking.

  ‘I need to speak with you.’

  ‘I’m kind of busy right now….’

  But she called cut, because it was over, and there were cheers and applause from the crew as they wrapped up. Ella wiped her eyes with a tissue, saw the black streaks and let out a wry laugh. For all her effort not to cry over him, now she had to face him looking like a panda.

  ‘Those tears aren’t for you.’

  ‘I know,’ Santo said. ‘I was watching you.’

  She wished he wouldn’t. Ella tried to keep her mind on work—she couldn’t bring herself to look at him. ‘It’s all gone well. I need to go and congratulate—’

  ‘Not right now. I need you to come with me.’

  She turned and looked and it was like the first morning she had slept with him. His left eye was black, and there was a small cut above his lip, but this time she absolutely did not want to know the details. She wanted as far out of Santo’s personal life as possible.

  ‘There is something I need to tell you,’ Santo said, ‘something you may feel…’ His usually excellent English faltered. ‘You may feel that I have overstepped the mark.’

  Ella closed her eyes. Really, she had thought it something she could never forgive, and yet, in some masochistic streak, she had ensured Santo had his perfect choice of woman working for him, while she had sulked and hidden. Now she had to pay the price for dangling temptation in front of so readily tempted eyes. She had made a stupid move in a very grown-up game with a very liberal man, and now she couldn’t really stand here and protest that he had taken the bait.

  No, this wasn’t a conversation they could have here. They were being handed glasses of champagne and the party was starting. Ella followed him to his trailer, dreading this conversation, but preparing herself to face it.

  ‘I never really intended for it to happen,’ Santo said. ‘It was an impulse thing….’

  And she tried to play the grown-up game, to shrug it off, to say she understood, except tears were welling in Ella’s eyes and there was a burn in her gut. No, she couldn’t do it.

  ‘If a man deceives me once, shame on him. If he deceives me twice, shame on me.’

  She said the old Italian proverb that Santo must know off by heart, for it had been surely cussed to him many times. On this occasion he did not correct her Italian, and Ella spoke on. ‘You know, everything I love about you is the part I hate too.’

  He frowned.

  ‘I’m not going to forgive you.’ It was who she was. ‘I know that sounds really unsophisticated, but maybe that’s who I am. I can’t forgive….’ She closed her eyes, because she had withdrawn so rapidly that she had practically hand-passed him to someone else. ‘I never expected you to take this as seriously as me.’

  ‘Oh, I take this very seriously.’

  ‘I know about Marianna.’

  ‘Marianna?’ Santo frowned. ‘Marianna’s gone.’

  ‘Of course she is, because she slept with you.’ He had to see her point. ‘That’s why I can’t mix the two.’

  ‘Ella, I think it is crazy that we do not sleep together. It has been driving me crazy, but I respect it. But Marianna…’ He shook his head. ‘Do you really think I took it all so lightly?’ His hands moved in exasperation. ‘I had to fire her, she came on to me.’ He looked at her nonplussed face. ‘I came out of the shower and…’ He gave a tight shrug. ‘You do not need detail but there was champagne and too much lace and suggestion…’ He gave her the smile that melted, the smile that could well shoot her straight back to his bed. ‘Nothing happened—we did not even kiss.’ He gave a small yikes look. ‘I fear I have lost my prowess unless she comes with much baggage and is more focused on camera angles than me.’

  ‘You didn’t sleep with Marianna….’

  ‘I told you not.’ Santo never lied. Ella realised it then. Never once did he try to cover up his mistakes. ‘She tried, but I could not even be bothered to. Not even a stirring…’ He actually seemed to think about it for a moment. ‘Maybe a teeny one…’ He held his thumb and forefinger up. He was just so honest Ella actually smiled and that was all it took for him to move straight in for the kill. ‘I’ve missed you so much.’ He pulled her into him, buried his head in her hair. ‘I want you so much.’

  ‘Santo—’ she struggled ‘—you can’t just disappear and then come back as if nothing’s happened.’

  ‘I can…’ He was at her top, undoing the straps, just so impatient. ‘You’ll forgive me soon, but first I have to have you.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I have to…’ he moaned. He was peeling off her top now. ‘Ella, please, it’s been too long.’

  ‘Where the hell have you been?’ She looked at his battered face. ‘Santo?’

  ‘You don’t need to know now.’

  ‘I do,’ Ella begged. ‘I need to know what’s been going on. I’m sorry I shut you out. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you while you’ve been having problems. I was so locked into me, into looking out for me, that I forgot all you’re going through.’

  ‘And…’ Santo pushed her to go on, unhooking her bra as he did so and burying his face in her breasts.

  ‘I was wrong,’ Ella admitted.

  ‘Why?’

  He sucked her nipple. ‘Why?’ he growled.

  ‘Because…’ she flailed.

  ‘Because I need you to be there for me,’ Santo said. He took down her skirt and pushed her onto the bed and then undressed himself with Santo haste. ‘The same way I need to be there for you.’

  ‘Where have you been, Santo?’

  He was kissing her all over and then he paused.

  ‘Can I tell you after?’

  She lay there squirming and not just with indecision.

  ‘Do you really have to know now?’

  And she looked up at him, looked at the want and the passion that needed matching, not questions and answers.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Say it again.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No what?’

  ‘No, right now I don’t need to know where you’ve been.’

  ‘Because?’ He parted her legs, and she lay there naked and beneath him. And just like their first time it was Santo completely in control. He dragged out of her the truth, her answer, one she didn’t know till now. ‘Are you turning a blind eye, Ella?’ Santo asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Which means?’

  Yes, what did it mean? Ella asked herself. If she didn’t need to know where he’d been, if she didn’t require immediate explanation… ‘That I trust you.’

  And surely he should reward her with his naked length, but he was
a bastard, a good one though, because he made her wait, made her say it first.

  ‘Which means?’ Santo demanded.

  ‘That I love you.’

  ‘Right answer,’ and she got her reward then. She loved him—she’d always known it, had just held back on it. It actually didn’t matter in that moment if he loved her or not too, because it didn’t change things, and she learned more in those blissful moments than she could learn in lifetime.

  She loved him, like it or not, returned or not, quite simply she did. Ella stopped fighting it then, just gave into the bliss of being back in his arms as he took her to a place that only Santo could.

  After, she covered herself with a sheet, as she always did, Santo noted, and he turned to her. ‘You love me?’ He grinned.

  ‘Fool that I am.’

  ‘I am very lovable.’

  ‘So your nonna told me.’

  Santo laughed, but it faded as she squealed when, mortified, Ella dived under the sheets as the trailer door opened.

  ‘I didn’t see a thing,’ came a vaguely familiar voice, one that sounded not in the least embarrassed at what he had found. ‘I’ll come back….’ She was just burning with shame beneath the sheets. ‘I was told the interview—’

  ‘Paulo?’ She heard Santo speak, could not believe he was prolonging the agony. ‘How soon can you start?’

  ‘Is “now” the right answer?’

  Clearly it was, though Ella thought she might die as the conversation continued. Did Santo have to be quite so comfortable with sex? But then again, Ella realised, Santo’s PAs saw an awful lot, so Paulo might just as well get used to it.

  ‘I need you to sort out a selection of rings,’ she heard Santo say. ‘Engagement rings,’ he clarified as her heart stood still.

  ‘Is there anything in particular you have in mind?’

  ‘Her eyes are amber,’ Santo said, ‘but she would think that I was being superficial—’

  ‘As well as cheap,’ Paulo said.

  ‘I know.’ And she listened as Santo pretended he had come up with an idea, as if he hadn’t planned every second of this. He was a step ahead of her all of the time. ‘A diamond,’ Santo said, ‘as big as an ice cube, the shape of an ice cube….’

  ‘Princess cut,’ Paulo said. ‘Leave it with me.’ From beneath the sheet she heard Paulo move for the door. ‘And don’t worry, Ella,’ Paulo called out, ‘you don’t have to take me out for dinner.’

  ‘He seems good,’ Santo said as he pulled back the sheet. ‘And I can’t see myself ever fancying him. Still…’ He smiled. ‘You know what they say—never say never.’

  ‘You’re incorrigible.’

  ‘Only with words,’ Santo said. ‘And from now on, those words are only to you.’ She looked up at him. ‘I’m done,’ he said. ‘I’m through. I will have Paulo cancel my condom order from my shopping list and, if you will have me, I am exclusively yours.’

  It wasn’t the most romantic proposal but they were the nicest words she had ever heard.

  ‘I will never hurt you,’ Santo said.

  ‘I know.’

  She did.

  ‘I mean it, Ella. I want to marry you as soon as Paulo can arrange.’

  ‘We’ll just slip away…’ She couldn’t believe they were actually discussing a wedding, their wedding.

  ‘No.’ Santo shook his head. ‘We will do this properly. A good Sicilian wedding.’

  ‘How!’ Ella asked. ‘We’ve no idea where your brother is, and my parents would never come.’

  ‘Hey,’ Santo broke in. ‘I thought you said that you trusted me.’

  And she remembered then how much she did. ‘Teresa came and saw me.’ Ella turned to him. ‘She told me some of the stuff that’s going on in your family. I’m sorry I haven’t been there for you.’

  ‘You’re here now,’ Santo said. ‘And you can make up for lost time—believe me when I say that there is plenty more to come.’

  ‘I’m sorry your family is such a mess.’ She ran a finger over his bruises.

  ‘So is yours,’ Santo pointed out. ‘Your father likes to use his fists….’

  Ella didn’t want to talk about that now and she went to tell him that, but Santo spoke first.

  ‘I promise you though, I didn’t hit him back.’ He saw her eyes widen in realisation, an appalled look on her face as she realised that the bruises he wore came from her own stuffed-up family. ‘I went to ask your father for permission to marry you and I saw firsthand how it was.’

  ‘Santo!’ She was panicking, appalled at what must have taken place, what her mother was going through at this very moment. As she went to rise from the bed, he grabbed her, pinned her down with his weight.

  ‘Your mum’s here,’ Santo said. ‘She is staying for a couple of nights with my nonna and then we will take her to meet with her sisters.’

  It was too much to take in. ‘She left.’

  ‘She was scared to, but yes. She came back on the plane with me,’ Santo said. ‘You have to understand our ways. It is the same for my grandmother—they are loyal, their vows are more important than themselves.’

  ‘How though?’ Ella asked. ‘She wouldn’t leave for me. How did you convince her?’

  ‘I spoke to my nonna.’ He looked at Ella. ‘I wanted to better understand…I wanted to know what best to say when I spoke to your mother.’

  ‘How would she know?’ Ella didn’t get it. Yes, the two women were similar, both very locked in ways of old, but their lives were completely different. She looked to Santo and saw that for once he was struggling with words, not avoiding talking and not deflecting, just breaking a lifetime of silence. Ella knew how hard that could be.

  ‘Salvatore beat her.’ Santo’s lips were white as he said it, curling in disgust at what his own blood had done.

  ‘She told you?’

  ‘Never.’ Santo shook his head. ‘That is one reason she liked you. You played by family rules. You say things are fine, you stay for dinner, you do what a good Sicilian girl should, but I have told her that that ends now. There will be no silence on certain subjects and my nonna agrees. She had held her secret for too long.’

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘That birthday party she was talking about. I was listening at a door—I did a lot of that—and I heard my father confront him, said what he had seen all those years ago.’

  ‘What did Salvatore say?’

  ‘That is was just once.’ Santo looked at her. ‘That is no excuse.’ Ella just lay there. ‘No one else knows this, not even Benito, and I have told my nonna I will not repeat…except to you. It is her story to tell if she feels she needs to.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t he have told Benito?’

  ‘To spare him perhaps?’ Santo shrugged. ‘They were rivals, but at the end of the day they were still brothers.’

  She couldn’t believe he would go and speak with his nonna, that he would confront so boldly a shame from the past, just to better help her, and she told him the same.

  ‘Of course I would,’ Santo said. ‘I will always stand by you as in the coming months you will stand by me as my family tears itself to shreds.’

  ‘They might not,’ Ella said. ‘There must be some bond there—you’re related.’

  ‘The worst enemies to have,’ Santo said. ‘Because they never go away. But at times they prove to be the best allies too. My nonna said that despite all he had done, your mother would be scared for your father too.’

  ‘I’m scared for him,’ Ella admitted, for though she loathed all he had done, the thought of him alone and suffering did not bring comfort when once she had thought that it would. ‘I’m scared for him too.’

  ‘You don’t have to be,’ Santo said. ‘I have arranged a nurse daily, a housekeeper. He will be looked after, but not by your mother. I promised your mother all these things to get her to leave, and I did not hit your father back, but had I known what I do now, I might not have managed such restraint. I spoke at length with your mother. It is a
long flight from Sydney to here.’ He watched the colour spread across her cheeks and the tears pool and then fall from her eyes.

  ‘He beat you.’

  ‘Once.’

  It was a pale defence of her parents and his expression struggled not to move.

  ‘I left home as soon as I could and I got a place and enough money. Then a few months ago I went back to get her….’

  ‘How badly did he beat you?’

  And he insisted on details—he did not believe her mother’s version, he only believed in her—and so she told him. She pulled back her head and showed him the scar and that capped expensive smile, and his face never moved a fraction. ‘I should have gone to the police—pressed charges. But I knew that it would only make things worse for her. I just could not believe she would stay after what he did to me.’

  ‘She does not think you can forgive her.’

  ‘I’m trying to.’

  ‘I will try then too,’ Santo said. ‘I will never show her my anger, but…’ He swallowed it down. ‘She’s here now. I said that we needed tonight and we will go over tomorrow.’

  ‘That’s not very Sicilian.’ Ella smiled.

  ‘I know.’ He grinned back, but then he was serious. ‘You will work through it with your mother, I am sure.’

  ‘We’re already starting to. I almost rang her last night….’

  ‘Why do you think you were sitting drinking in a bar with my nonna?’

  She turned and grinned in quiet surprise.

  ‘You sent her!’

  ‘Of course! Surely you know that the Correttis are very good at arranging decoys. We were so worried you might ring home and get your father, so Teresa suggested we make sure that you were too tired to even think of ringing home.’

  Santo climbed from the bed. ‘And now,’ he told her, ‘we have an after-party to go to. I have been around long enough to disappear and be forgiven, but your career is still new.’

  Even in that, he was looking out for her. Ella looked over to him, to the man she could not wait to marry, to the man she could not wait to spend the rest of her life with. His eyes met hers and they told her he loved her just the same. There was time for one more kiss before they headed out to the party and then Santo suddenly remembered something.