‘No, your father and I were with him at the end.’
‘But…’ Melinda frowned, not understanding. ‘You said he was alone in the car.’
‘He was.’ Viviana’s voice was dry. ‘It’s been touch and go for the last couple of days whether he would pull through.’
It took a moment to sink in. And when it did, Melinda was furious. ‘Hang on, it happened a couple of days ago? My brother was in hospital—in Intensive Care—and you didn’t call me?’
‘There was no point. You wouldn’t have come.’
Oh, this was outrageous. Not only had her family kept the news of Raffi’s accident from her, now they were trying to make her feel guilty about it. Thinking for her instead of letting her make her own decisions. Just the way it had always been.
And they’d taken away her chance to say goodbye.
She’d never forgive them for this.
And how come she hadn’t read about in the papers? Unless her parents had hushed it up. Come to some agreement with the press so Raffi wouldn’t be hounded in hospital by the paparazzi.
‘Of course I would have come,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘He’s my brother.’
‘Apart from the fact you two barely speak when you do see each other,’ Viviana pointed out, ‘you’re still playing at being an English country vet.’
‘I am not playing.’ She twisted the end of her hair round her fingers. ‘This is my life now, Mamma, my career, and—’ The twisted hair started to hurt, and the pain brought her back to her senses. What was she doing, letting her mother get to her like this? ‘I am not going to argue with you. Not with Raffi dead. It’s the wrong time.’ And surely even her mother would see that. ‘When is the funeral?’ She just about managed to bite back, Or weren’t you going to tell me about that either?
‘Two days’ time.’
‘Then I will come back to Contarini.’
‘Bene. I will send the jet tonight to your nearest airport. Which is…?’
‘I can’t fly out tonight. Mamma, I have responsibilities here.’
‘You have responsibilities to your family, Melinda,’ Viviana said, her voice like cut glass.
‘I can’t just drop everything and leave George to sort out my patients and my surgery tomorrow. It’s not fair. We need time to sort out a locum for me.’
‘Locum?’ There was a shocked pause. ‘You mean, you are actually planning to go back again?’
‘Of course. It’s my job. My vocation, Mamma.’ Not to mention the fact the man she loved and was going to marry lived here in Cornwall. Though now was most definitely not the time to tell her mother about that.
‘While you were the middle child, we were prepared to let you play.’
Play? A degree in veterinary sciences meant long hours and hard work. Years and years of study and exams. She twisted her hair again, and the sharp pain made her pause instead of saying something she knew she’d regret. She’d let that ‘play’ comment slide. For now. ‘Nothing has changed.’
‘Raffi is dead. You are the eldest now. Which means that you have responsibilities and duties here, Melinda. You are the next in line to the throne, and you need to come back to Contarini for good.’
‘I’ll come back for Raffi’s funeral and to see you, Papà and Serena. But I’m not promising any more than that.’
‘Why must you be so difficult? So headstrong?’ Viviana demanded.
Headstrong? Melinda nearly laughed. She wasn’t the one who drove fast cars and fast boats and fast planes, who went through money as if a fresh supply could be printed every day, or whose champagne bill was legendary. She was the one who’d always been quiet, bookish, who’d spent her time in the stables and the kennels. Raffi was the headstrong one and Serena was the one who wore pretty dresses and had beautiful manners and charmed people. Melinda was the odd one out, and everyone knew it. A very square peg whose corners just couldn’t be rubbed off to make her fit the role they wanted her to take.
A role she didn’t want.
A role she’d never wanted.
‘Mamma, I am too tired to argue. I can’t fly out tonight. I’ll talk to George, then I’ll catch a flight from here to London tomorrow and from London to…’ She thought rapidly. Palermo was nearer to Contarini, but Naples was probably a little more discreet. ‘To Napoli. I’ll text you to let you know my flight times, d’accordo?’
‘Then we will see you tomorrow.’
And that was it. The line went dead. No ‘I love you’. No warmth or affection. Just as it had always been when she had been growing up—her parents had always been too busy and their duty had come first.
Maybe, she thought, if Viviana and Alessandro Fortesque had spent more time with their children, Raffi would have learned to control his impulses.
Gritting her teeth, she dialled her boss’s number. She knew the burly vet would be understanding, but she still hated the fact that she was letting him down.
‘George? I’m sorry to bother you on your night off.’ She took a deep breath. ‘My mother just called. I need to go home for a few days.’
‘Something’s wrong?’
‘My brother…died. In a car crash.’ It felt weird, saying it. And she felt cold, so cold. She really needed Dragan. Needed to feel his arms round her.
‘Oh, love, I’m so sorry. Of course you have to go. Look, I can cover for you tonight. Go now. Don’t worry about a thing.’
Dear George. She could have hugged him. ‘I can’t get a flight until tomorrow anyway. I’ll still do tonight on call. But if I could leave first thing in the morning—and I’ll write down a list of my patients and what have you—that’d be…’ She swallowed hard. ‘That’d be really appreciated.’
‘Are you on your own? Do you want me to come over, or do you want to come over to us?’
George, his wife and four children lived in a sprawling old farmhouse just outside Penhally. At the Smiths’, you could always be sure of a warm welcome, a cat to curl on your lap in the big farmhouse kitchen and a dog to sit by your feet.
‘No, no. I’ll be fine. I’m, um…Dragan is keeping me company this evening. I’m hoping I don’t get another callout because I have Cassidy here.’
‘Violet’s parrot? Why?’
‘I think he ate some chocolate and his system’s reacting to it.’
‘Chocolate’s poisonous to parrots—as well as to dogs,’ George said.
‘Essatamente. So he needs nursing here in a heated cage for a few days. I’ve given him the electrolyte powders tonight, but he’ll need them twice a day and a gradual return to his normal diet.’
‘Leave me your treatment plan and I’ll ask Sally to come in early tomorrow and take over,’ George said.
Melinda was happy that the practice nurse would follow the treatment plan exactly. And she was so experienced that she’d probably seen a few sick parrots in her time: Melinda often thought Sally knew as much as the vets did. ‘George, thank you so much. I really hate it that I’m letting you down. And if I’m not back by Saturday—’
‘Then young Tina Chamberlain can shadow me for the morning. She might like to come and see what we do with the livestock, so she sees the other side of the practice and not just the small-animal work,’ George finished. ‘I’ll clear it with Lizzie first. Don’t worry about a thing. Just ring me if you need me or there’s anything I can do, all right? And we’ll see you when we see you.’
‘Thank you, George.’
She’d just put the phone down when the doorbell rang.
Dragan.
She went down to meet him and unlock the door; he followed her back up the stairs to her small kitchen, carrying two wrapped parcels. ‘Sorry I was so long. There was a queue, and then I had to wait for fresh chips. But at least they’re really hot,’ he said with a smile. And then he frowned, taking in her expression. ‘What’s wrong, Melinda? Cassidy’s worse?’
‘No.’ She dragged in a breath. ‘My mother called. My brother…’ She rubbed a hand over her face. She sti
ll couldn’t quite believe it. ‘He died yesterday after a car accident.’
‘Oh, Melinda.’ He put the fish and chips on the worktop and held her close. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘I have to go back.’
‘Of course you do. How are you getting there?’
‘I haven’t booked a flight yet. But I’ll take the first one I can get tomorrow from Newquay to Gatwick, and then Gatwick to Naples.’
Dragan could remember the feeling. The black hole inside when he realised he’d lost his entire family. That he was the only one left. And although he realised that Melinda wasn’t close to her own family, he knew she would do the right thing. She’d go back and help her family with the funeral, comfort her parents.
Though it was a tough thing to do on your own. Especially when you felt you didn’t fit in—the one thing she had admitted to him over the last few months.
‘Do you want me to come with you?’ he asked, stroking her hair. ‘For support?’
‘Bless you for asking, but no. I can do this.’
But her expression was grim. She was clearly dreading this. ‘Melinda, you’re not on your own,’ he said softly. ‘You have me. And if there’s anything I can do, all you have to do is say so.’
‘Right now, just hold me. Please.’ Her voice sounded hoarse, broken—as if she was trying to hold back her tears. Typical Melinda, being brave and not leaning on anyone else.
‘Let the tears come, piccola,’ he said softly. ‘They will help.’
She dragged in a breath. ‘Right now I feel like the most selfish, horrible woman in the world.’
‘Why?’ He really didn’t follow. Ignoring the fish and chips, he led her over to the sofa and settled her on his lap.
‘Because you…you’ve lost your family. And you were close to them. I’m not close to mine—and I feel horrible telling you that, because I have what you’ve lost and I don’t want you to think I’m just…oh…not appreciating it, throwing it all away like a toddler having a tantrum with her toys.’
‘Of course I don’t. I’d already guessed you weren’t close to them. But it doesn’t make me love you any less. Not all families are like mine—I see plenty of difficult relationships in my job,’ he reminded her. ‘Let me go with you, tesoro. So at least you have someone on your side.’
For a moment he thought she was going to say yes. But then she shook her head. ‘I won’t drag you into all this mess. And I…I could strangle Raffi for being so reckless, so stupid. And my parents, for not letting me say goodbye to him. The accident happened days ago. He died yesterday. And they didn’t tell me until today, until after he was dead and it was too late for me to say goodbye.’
‘Maybe it was grief,’ he suggested. ‘Maybe they couldn’t find the words to tell you.’ It had been hard for him to tell people after his family had been wiped out. Most of the time it had hurt too much to articulate. And when he had managed to say it, the pity on other people’s faces had choked him.
‘It’s not just them. I’m so angry with him.’
Anger was one of the stages of grief, he knew, along with denial and bargaining and depression. And finally there would be acceptance. But she really needed to talk about this. As she’d said to him so recently, bottling things up made them worse. ‘Why?’ he asked softly.
‘He always had to have the fastest car. And he always drove like a maniac. He knew Papà was expecting him to take over—but would he be careful? No. Scrape after scrape after scrape. And I always had to bail him out.’ She shook her head. ‘The day before my Finals started, he expected me to go back to Contarini and sort things out with our parents. He’d been stupid and lost a lot of money in a card game.’
So her parents were wealthy? Dragan wasn’t that surprised. She had an air of breeding about her. Though he’d just bet she’d been like him and worked her own way through college—not because she’d had to but because she was too independent to rely on a silver spoon.
Maybe that was why she’d reacted so badly to his teasing ‘princessy’ comment.
‘But I said no. I’d worked too hard for my exams to give it all up for something I knew would just happen again and again—because Raffi only ever did what he wanted and he never stopped to think things through before he acted.’ She gritted her teeth. ‘And he barely spoke to me afterwards, because I made him stand on his own two feet for once.’
‘He probably still knew you loved him.’
‘And that’s another reason I don’t like myself. Because I’m not so sure I did love him.’
‘You can love someone without liking them,’ Dragan pointed out, stroking her hair.
‘I don’t fit in with my family. I never have. And I know the second I step off that plane the pressure’s going to start.’
‘Pressure?’
‘To go back to Contarini. To do what they want me to do. Give up being a vet—but I can’t. This is who I am, Dragan.’
‘Then let me come with you. Take some of the flak for you.’
‘You can’t.’ She shook her head. ‘That’s really not fair to you.’
‘Carissima, you didn’t ask. I offered. Look, I’ve lived through a war. Nothing scares me any more because I know there is always a light at the end of the tunnel, no matter how dark things seem at the time. And I can help you through this.’
‘You can’t,’ she repeated. ‘We’ve got that appointment lined up with Reverend Kenner tomorrow.’
‘He won’t mind putting it back. Besides, I can’t discuss the wedding without you.’
‘Yes, you can. Otherwise it holds everything up.’
He frowned. ‘What difference does a couple of days make? Why the hurry?’
‘Because I don’t want to wait for the rest of my life to start.’
Something was going on here, and he really wasn’t sure what it was.
‘Dragan. I love you,’ she said softly. Urgently. ‘I want to marry you and I don’t want my family interfering.’
He didn’t understand why they’d interfere. At twentyseven, Melinda was more than capable of making her own choices. ‘So you haven’t told them yet? About us, I mean?’
She shook her head. ‘And now isn’t the right time. Not with Raffi’s funeral.’
‘But if you want to get married as soon as we can, you’ll have to give them some notice. Surely they’ll want to come to the wedding?’
‘I’ll tell them when we’ve set a date. Which you and Reverend Kenner can sort out tomorrow.’ She twisted her hair round her fingers. ‘At least I’ll be able to come home to you and to happy news.’
He rested his cheek against her hair. ‘All right. If that’s really what you want me to do. But at least let me drive you to the airport tomorrow. And I can pick you up when you get back.’
‘Thank you.’ She held him tightly, almost as if she were drowning and he was the only thing keeping her afloat. ‘Dragan. There is something I should tell you about, something we need to discuss. Something…’
She sounded worried sick, and he dropped a kiss on her forehead. ‘Not now. You’ve just had a horrible shock. Whatever it is, it can wait until you’re back from Contarini. Everything’s going to be fine.’
‘I love you. And I don’t deserve you.’
He scoffed. ‘Of course you do.’ Or was this why she wasn’t close to her family? Was this why she’d chosen to move to another country, because they were always putting her down and telling her she wasn’t good enough? Wealthy parents were often ambitious for their children—and if she’d resisted going into a long-standing family business, that was probably the root of the difficulties between them. A career that would make any other parents proud might disappoint hers because they’d expected something else for her. ‘And I love you, too. You need to book that flight—but eat first.’
She grimaced. ‘I can’t face anything. Not now.’
‘And the chips are probably cold by now. I could put them in the microwave,’ he suggested.
‘Dragan Lovak, and you
a doctor!’ She shook her head in apparent disbelief. ‘Tut-tut. Think of the bacteria. Reheated food that hasn’t been chilled properly in between…it’s an absolute breeding ground. And, besides, the chips will go soggy if you put them in the microwave.’
‘Perhaps you’re right.’ But at least he’d made her smile again.
Though the look in her eyes disturbed him. The desperation. Would it really be so bad for her, going back? ‘I’m here,’ he said softly. ‘And nothing’s going to hurt you while I’m around.’
If only that were true. As soon as he found out about her family…Oh, Dio. She had to tell him, she really did. But now wasn’t the time or the place. And he’d said it could wait…
Coward that she was, she was relieved. The risk of losing the man she loved right on top of losing her brother was just too horrible to contemplate. She knew he’d be hurt that she hadn’t told him before—and maybe angry that she hadn’t trusted him—and she felt bad about it. Guilty. But she just hadn’t been able to find the right words or the right time.
Though she’d tell him the truth about herself tomorrow morning. First thing.
CHAPTER FIVE
‘I’LL go and check on Bramble,’ Dragan said, ‘while you sort out your flights.’
‘You can bring her back here, if you like,’ Melinda said. ‘She’s no trouble.’
Having a dog to make a fuss of might help her, he thought.
Even though he lived just round the corner, to save time in the morning he drove over to Melinda’s and left his car in the surgery car park. If people talked—well, let them. After his meeting with Reverend Kenner tomorrow, everyone would know anyway.
Melinda had given him her key; he unlocked the door to her flat and carried Bramble up the stairs. Strictly speaking, he knew she could manage it herself, but he also knew what a lively dog she was—and her leg still hadn’t healed properly. If she slipped on the stairs and cracked a bone or shifted the pins again, she might have to lose the leg. And he really wanted to avoid that if possible.
Brides of Penhally Bay - Vol 2 Page 5