They ate in the dining room, and the empty chair at the head of the table impressed everyone with a sense of sadness. Conversation was slow, stilted, and Meghan, like all the family members, found her eyes straying to the chair several times throughout the night. Mostly, they discussed details for the funeral, which was expected to attract hundreds of mourners from all over the world.
Nobody fancied dessert that night, and coffee was served instead. Meghan sipped hers slowly, watching, when she thought it was safe to do so, Matteo. He caught her eyes once and his own response fairly burned through her, so intense was his look that she had to look away.
“How long do you intend to stay in Italy?” He asked her later, coming to stand beside her in the drawing room.
Her expression was filled with sadness. “You don’t need to worry. I’m flying out the day after the funeral.”
He frowned. “I was going to ask you to join me on an inspection of the medical centre in the village, if you have time.”
Startled, she stared up at him. “But...why?”
“You are a doctor, are you not?” He reminded her patiently.
“Do you always have to be so condescending?” She asked, rolling her eyes. “You understand why I’m surprised that you would invite me anywhere.”
“The document you left in my office. The research paper. Your study on rolling out subsidised vaccines is something I have provided a community grant for. It’s being installed in our local clinic, for the townspeople. It seems fortuitous to have someone with your experience available to consult.”
Her heart plummeted. Matteo had once confessed that he was goal orientated to a fault. As a business man who had specific objectives, he apparently reasoned that he could treat her civilly, so long as it met his needs. No matter what she felt and how his selective civility injured her.
But she was intrigued. She nodded slowly. “My flight is in the evening. I could probably make it.”
“Fine.” He nodded curtly. “We’ll leave before breakfast to make sure you have time to pack and depart.”
The finality of his words stung. She watched his retreating back, a crease in her forehead. Their estrangement could not continue. She had to tell him what had happened. To tell him everything.
She walked slowly back to the Rose Room, and was surprised to find Pete already there, propped in bed with a book. She leant against the door, watching him thoughtfully.
“Pete,” she exhaled, coming to sit beside him. “I have to talk to you about something important.”
He laid his book down on the pillow beside him. “What is it?”
She took his hand in hers. “You know you’re one of my dearest friends. I care for you a lot.”
He laughed. “Of course. Look at what you’re doing for me! Pretending to be my girlfriend is just about the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me. I can’t tell you what it means to me. For the first time in my life, I feel like my family sees me as a real person, with something to offer, and it’s all because of you.”
Guilt lanced through her. “I don’t think that’s true,” she mumbled. “Your family seems to love you a lot.”
He shook his head. “They love you. Even Matteo obviously thinks you’re interesting. He wouldn’t bother to insult you if you weren’t of interest to him.” He quipped.
She rolled her eyes, “Gee, that’s great. I so enjoy being shouted at in front of everybody.”
“Don’t worry about him. He’s a bad tempered git sometimes. What did you want to talk to me about?”
She gulped, and opened her mouth, but she couldn’t find the words necessary. How could she? How could she say what she needed to, knowing what it would mean for him. And so, for about the hundredth time in a month, she chickened out of saying the one thing that would free them all from this emotional torture.
CHAPTER EIGHT
A small drive from the Villa, at the foot of a rocky escarpment, bounded by lush green grass that seemed to stretch for miles, was the Maratelli family church.
Like the villa, it was built from locally quarried stone. Unlike the villa, its design was simple; austere. A rectangular shaped building but for the turret in front, with red terracotta roof tiles and an old brass bell that glowed a little as the early afternoon sun hit its tarnished surface.
She stood at a distance from the family as they formed a line to meet mourners, and behind her dark tinted sunglasses, she watched them.
Pietro, her friend, who she knew so well, was outwardly coping well with the day, though of course she knew he was incredibly upset. To him, Tony’s death had been sudden. He’d had none of the prior knowledge that Matteo had possessed. Pietro, in what he deemed to be further proof of his exile, and the low regard with which his family held him, had not been brought into the inner sanctum and confided in over matters such as health. His bitterness ran deep, and Meghan thought she knew now that much of it must have its basis in the business with Sofia.
It was one thing to believe your own brother had acted against you and sabotaged your relationship. But to believe that you had a personal stake was much harder. Seeing Sofia, Meghan didn’t think she would bother to hide a decision like abortion. She was a confident, straight-forward woman, who, Meghan thought, would have had no qualms in simply presenting her reasons for making such a decision. Besides which, it was something that she and Pete had both agreed on in the past, discussed at lengths, and so why should he have been so furious when she had simply carried out what was almost a pre-arranged plan.
Oh, she wasn’t stupid. She knew that a hypothetical baby was very different to an actual pregnancy, but something about the situation didn’t add up. She was the last person in the world to judge anyone, and least of all her friends, but she rather suspected Pete had shot himself in the foot there, and then been too proud to realise, and certainly too proud to make amends.
Nina and Giovanni stood beside Pete, their faces ashen, Nina’s usual poise and grace only slightly derailed by her sense of deep loss and sadness at the passing of a father-in-law she loved as a father. Giovanni, so different to Tony, and so different again to his own boys, had his shoulders hunched forward, and his eyes were bleary, most likely from having been up much of the night giving reign to his emotions. They were emotional, and Meghan valued that quality deeply.
Her own parents were emotionally distant to the point of neglect. Her father had been in his sixties when her mother – his third wife – had fallen pregnant, completely by accident. Like Pete and Sofia, neither of them had wanted children either, and yet when the embryonic Meghan appeared on the scene, it seemed to soften something in her father. Perhaps it cried out to some sense of eternal lineage. Meghan didn’t know. Whatever sparked their change of mind did not last long. By the time she was five, she was sent to a prestigious boarding academy in the United Kingdom, destined to see her parents only a couple of times per year, and even then, for the briefest of periods.
She loved them, but in that was that you were somewhat obliged to love family members. There was no true affection, not connectedness of spirit. The fact that she was the sole heir to her father’s fortune barely registered. She had, in fact, minimally dipped into her excessive trust fund endowments only twice: once to buy herself a sedate little Beetle car, and another time to help with the deposit to her flat. It felt hypocritical to Meghan to take from a family that hadn’t bothered to get to know her.
Shaking her head to clear away thoughts of her own family, she drew her eyes further along the receiving line, past Giovanni, to Matteo. What she saw there made her bite her lip, in an effort to stem the tears that were accumulating in her eyes. She blinked furiously. Matteo stood, unlike the others, tall and proud, his chest broad, his shoulders straight, his head held high. His dark brown hair was gelled back from his face, leaving his autocratic profile on display. As he spoke to people, she could clearly see the deference with which he treated everyone who had arrived, whether they were business colleagues or villagers from the n
earby township. He was comforting many, for, Meghan understood, Tony had long been a pillar of several communities, and his death affected many.
Well, hadn’t he had a huge impact on her, in such a brief time? She thought sadly of the man who, so apparently filled with vitality and mental agility, had known his death was imminent and not let it affect his approach to life. She thought of the man who had loved his wife so much that no doubt he had been looking forward to joining her now.
Matteo’s suit was impeccable. A deep, dark black, the colour of the inky night sky, pared with the crispest of white shirts. The image he presented was, even in these circumstances, breathtaking. Every tiny detail of his face was burned into her brain forever, and she was aware of small differences today. The dark smudges underneath his eyes, indicating his own tortured sleep; his face, pale beneath his tan, his eyes, haunted, though perhaps only to her.
She caught her breath as he turned in her direction, thankful that her sunglasses covered most of her face. She pretended to look beyond him, her heart beating frantically against her chest.
He looked away from her again, to greet a mourner who had just arrived. The woman would have been somewhere in her mid-forties, Meghan guessed, carried herself with the elegance she had come to expect from Italian women. Her silky dark hair was twisted into a chignon and the tailored black suit showed off a figure a twenty year old athlete would be proud of.
Matteo took her by the elbows and kissed her on both cheeks, and then turned once more in Meghan’s direction. This time, his eyes stared right through the tinted lenses of her glasses and pierced her soul. She swallowed nervously as, with an arm on the other woman’s back, he cut across the peopled courtyard, to stand before her.
“Meghan, this is Dottore Bonifazi. She oversees the medical funding our charity has allocated, including work in the village. I thought you two would like to meet.”
“Please, call me Anita,” The woman said in flawless English. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Meghan.”
“Likewise.” Meghan answered with a small smile.
Matteo departed with a punctilious smile aimed at them both.
“Come, let me tell you about our work,” Anita said, turning to lead them into the historic church.
Meghan followed and was pleased with the details the doctor was willing to share. Vaccination rates in the area had been steadily declining owing to various external factors, and the aim was to establish a wholly free clinical program for children and the elderly. Meghan had been involved in similar projects, and had researched their efficacy extensively. She knew she would have several pointers to provide to Doctor Bonifazi and her team.
“I would like to discuss it with you further, tomorrow, Anita.” She said thoughtfully. “And I have some research you might like to consider, likewise.”
“I’d be honoured. Matteo tells me you are one of the brightest minds he’s come across, and, as you know, he is not quick to praise, nor usually so lavish when he does so. That he is impressed by you makes me very eager to work with you.”
As they spoke, a priest took to the lecturn at the front, and began the formal proceedings, making further conversation impossible. Meghan watched as the family took their seats at the front of the church.
It was heartening to see Pietro, sandwiched between his mother and his brother, and at one point, his arm came to console his mother, wrapping around her shoulders and squeezing her tight. From where she was sitting, Matteo seemed immovable. An enormous object of emotional control.
It was not surprising to her that Matteo delivered the eulogy. He had taken over the family business when his father had shown neither interest nor inclination, and now he was shouldering the responsibility for farewelling Tony.
“You don’t speak Italian?” Anita whispered as he took the stand.
Meghan shook her head.
“Allow me to translate.” And in muted tones, she relayed Matteo’s delivery. His tribute to his grandfather began with a brief biography of his childhood, his education, and then meeting his wife. The woman whose influence would change his life forever, Matteo said.
“The way Tony told the story made it sound like their meeting had a divine hand. There were many other women more suited to him, many women his family had thought a wiser choice, but Tony had insisted that Esmerelda, from the small fishing village in the South, was the woman who would be by his side. And now, they are reunited. I am sure of it. Since her passing, eleven years ago, Tony has spent every day waiting to rejoin her, and finally, he has succeeded.”
Meghan felt a lump form in her throat and she swallowed compulsively, but it was no good. Warm, salty tears ran down her cheeks and she dabbed at them ineffectually. When Matteo stepped down, she hoped he would look to her, so she could try to convey some of her feeling for him, try to comfort him somehow with a look, but he did not. He stared straight ahead and then slid into the seat he had only recently vacated.
If she had been in any doubt as to the strength of her feelings, then this was her confirmation. She loved him. She loved him unequivocally and totally, and it was a mess. But she had to at least acknowledge to herself that her side of their strange coming together was now about more than just physical lust and temptation, pure white-hot desire. It was about the kind of soul-enriching love most people were lucky enough to feel once in a lifetime, and she had it within her reach, if only she could make amends for the horribly destructive lie that had muddied it all.
When the service drew to a close, Matteo, Pietro, Giovanni, Marco and two men she did not know, acted as pallbearers, carrying the coffin from the church. On either side, mourners cried and threw roses. Matteo’s face was strained, his eyes focussed on the doors at the end of the church.
It was a beautiful tribute to a man who had clearly touched so many. Whilst the ceremony had proceeded inside, more and more people had gathered on the stone steps and the lawned gardens beyond. What better sign of a life fully lived than such an overwhelming coming together of people?
Meghan followed Anita, once the church had already thinned of guests. Whilst Anita was eager to continue their conversation, she sensed that Meghan was distracted, her eyes seeking someone in the crowd.
She touched Meghan’s slender wrist and said, “I will look forward to meeting you again tomorrow, Meghan. Your research will be invaluable to me.”
Meghan nodded, forced a smile. “Likewise. Thank you, Doctor Bonifazi.”
Once Anita had retreated into the crowd, Meghan’s eyes scanned the sea of people. Finally, she found what she was looking for. Standing side by side, Pete, Matteo, and Marco.
Nervously, for Matteo had been mostly hostile to her over recent days, she cut through the crowd of darkly dressed guests, and slid her hand through Pete’s arm once she finally reached him. He looked down at her, his face surprisingly at peace. “Cara, Marco and I were just saying we will go to Roma tonight, for some lighthearted relief from all the sadness. You will join us, of course.”
Meghan, though used to Pete’s irreverent approach to life, still felt shocked by his insensitivity. “Light hearted fun?” She murmured, running a hand across her eyes. “You are about to bury your grandfather, Pietro. Light hearted fun should be the last thing on your mind.”
Unused to being chastised by her, he looked dazed. “Oh...” he mumbled. “I only meant that it would help us deal with our sorrow, to take our minds of it.”
She softened visibly at his words. “Perhaps. But you know it’s not my style. You go, by all means.”
He looked guilty. “I don’t feel right, leaving you here alone.”
She shook her head. “Don’t be silly. I’m exhausted. I’ll just get an early night.”
“She will not be alone, in any case.” Matteo promised, though when he spoke, it almost sounded like a threat. Meghan looked over Pete’s shoulder to where his brother stood, brooding, and what she saw in his face made her shiver. His eyes lingered on her lips, then slid to her pert breasts, outlined again
st the flimsy black fabric of the designer dress she wore, and then back to her eyes, and she felt an ache throb deep in her core at the intimacy of his stare.
She looked away, unable to process the feelings that he was creating.
“Of course,” Pete said, almost sounding relieved. “Matteo will look after you, won’t you?”
Matteo’s voice was husky, his true meaning detectable only to Meghan. “It will be my pleasure.”
Her skin flushed with goosebumps.
“Excuse me.” She said thickly, and left the group, in search of a cool corner to sit in whilst her heart rate returned to normal.
“Pete,” She called, a while later, when the crowd had thinned. “What do you think you’re doing?”
He stared at her blankly.
“This whole rouse was so that your family would like you better, see you as a grown up. Running off to party in Rome with Marco will hardly achieve that!”
He shrugged, his good-looking face showing his chagrin. “These are...unexceptional circumstances.”
“So show your strength of character. Stay. Support your mother, your father.”
He shook his head. “Bella, you know serious stuff isn’t for me. I can’t fight it. I’m not cut out for this kind of thing.”
She couldn’t hide her disappointment, and for the first time she realised that Pete wasn’t the man she thought he was. “I need to speak to you about something,” she said, woodenly, swallowing her nerves.
“What is it? You look worried.”
“It’s us. This pretend ‘us’, anyway. I think we need to come clean to your family.”
He blanched. “We can’t, Meghan! You must see how impossible that is.” His voice was a wine. His eyes were panicked.
She shook her head, not to be perturbed. “Nothing is impossible. We were wrong to deceive them like this.”
“You agreed to it at the time. What’s changed?”
She coloured. “I didn’t know your family then. Now that I do, I don’t feel comfortable lying to them.”
The Italian Billionaire's Betrayal: What if you fell in love with the one person you couldn't have? A story of forbidden love and overpowering need. Page 8