“I will have my name listed as the father on the birth certificate because Veena and I are still married. I know it drags out the divorce, and I’m sorry…”
“I don’t care.”
“You asked me to marry you, in Corsica.”
Canna shrugged. “I was just trying to prove to you that I was serious, but I don’t care about getting married. Marriage won’t change us.”
“I want to give the baby a home, but I don’t even have a place to live. Since Veena kicked me out, I have been staying in Holly’s old one bedroom apartment. She moved in with Erik after the wedding, and I’m just some lonely bastard in a sparse London flat. I’m not doing well at work. Virtuosi is a mess - Lea and Henri run the project, but they fight a lot and Dane and I don’t get along too well yet. He loves to point out that he is dating Rebecca, and they’re happy while I’m alone in London. Erik and Holly are so perfect and happy at work, and good for them… but I’m still suffering from all that went on with you and me during the European tour.”
Canna nodded. The lies, the drugs, the emotional affair that wrecked the world’s most popular opera quartet. “Okay. So all you need is for your estranged wife to let you see your child that she wants to share with her new boyfriend. You need to get a new house in London that is baby friendly, and you need to mend all the burnt bridges in Virtuosi, so you can put out a hit number one album.”
“Yeah,” Claudio scoffed. “That’s all.”
“Leave it with me.”
Claudio brought one hand to her face. “That simple, is it?”
“It can be. Trust me. We will go sailing in Malta for a week, and then we will sort out your troubles. I promise.”
“And your troubles?”
“I’m as cold and dead inside as ever. I’ll be fine.”
“You don’t give yourself enough credit.”
Canna’s eyes drifted away from Claudio’s gaze to down between his legs. “Wow. You okay down there?”
Claudio took a quick look at his erection. “I’m sorry. Now is not the time. We’re talking seriously. Please ignore it. I… you make a man run on instinct.”
“Nothing wrong with instinct.” She reached down and took him in her hand, and watched him take a deep breath. “Maybe I should take it as a compliment,” she whispered. “I’m miserable and disfigured, and still you flatter me with your arousal.”
“You can take it that way.” The way Canna stroked him made his insides feel as if he were about to turn to warm butter. “But, I promise I’m listening to you.”
“I know.” Canna could see that he had a hard time maintaining eye contact while she rubbed the pad of her thumb over the tip of his erection. It was already wet. “It would be a shame to let it go to waste.”
Claudio chuckled. “You’re the boss.”
“We may as well play now. Tomorrow we are going to the boat, and we have to be only friends.”
Claudio frowned. “Why?”
“Come and make love to me, and forget it. Like I said, leave the details to me.”
Claudio nodded as she took his hand and let him out of Giuseppe’s bedroom. He forgot the details the moment she had him on his back. But they would be back.
~~~
Claudio blinked a few times as the room around him came into focus. He rolled over to find Canna not there. He lay half covered, one leg tangled in the twisted bed-sheet. He smiled as he remembered how he got tangled. Claudio glanced at the clock on the wall. 05.30. Maybe sailors got up early.
The bedroom door banged open, and Canna stumbled in with two cups in her hands. “Fuck, sorry,” she said. “I was attempting to come in quietly.”
Claudio sat up with a smile. “Since when did you ever make a quiet entrance?”
“You don’t have to be an asshole so early in the day.” Canna set the cups down on the floor, since the nightstand was missing from the unfurnished room, and she jumped on the bed. Her messy bun of hair wobbled when she jumped, which made Claudio laugh.
“What?”
“Nothing,” he smiled and leaned over for a kiss. She looked so thin in her oversized robe. “You didn’t wake me, so you can be your crazy, noisy self.”
“Fuck you! I’ll drink your peppermint tea myself.”
“I like when you bring me tea.”
“Reminds you of a time when I was your assistant?”
“Getting you to obey an instruction is even harder now than it was then.”
“I was going to ask you if you wanted breakfast in bed, but I won’t now.”
“You would cook for me?”
“I’m a good cook.”
“I know, you showed me that in Madrid.”
“I wasn’t even going to cheat and get the maid to cook.”
“You have a maid?”
“She worked for Giuseppe. I couldn’t just fire her; she is the only member of her family who has work at the moment. So she comes in each day and cooks and cleans for me. I had to go into the other bedroom and mess up the bed, to make it look like you slept there.”
“Why can’t I be seen sleeping in here? Why are you keeping me a secret?”
“Can’t ‘you and me’ belong to just us? I don’t need people thinking that I’m a whore who is spending her husband’s money. La bella figura, the beautiful image, it’s all about looking good.”
“I know la bella figura is all about the good life, however you want to live it, but is the perfect image really the way to enjoy life?”
“You don’t have the slightest idea what it’s like to be disrespected. Everyone loves you. I have to scrap for every drop of respect I can get at work. People already think I’m dating Giorgio, and fuck knows who came up with that idea. If I’m going to get away with overdosing Giuseppe and get my hands on the money, I need to look flawless. No lovers.”
“So, if I come to Malta with you, we can only be friends?”
“We’re sailing, Chachi.”
“Please don’t use the nickname my wife gave me.”
“Fine, Claudio. We’re sailing, not taking a lovey-dovey cruise.”
“Lovey-dovey,” he chuckled. “That’s not what I meant. I mean, do I need to follow some set of rules?”
“Oh, don’t be like that,” she teased. “Trust me, it will all be fine. I promise. It is time for an adventure.”
CHAPTER 4
MALTA
The plane window gave Canna a magnificent view when they came into land in Valletta, Malta’s capital. Claudio looked eager to go out and explore the country he had never visited. Canna loved Malta; she had visited many times, and the Middle Sea Race, one of the world’s premier racing events, gave her an excellent reason to visit again. As the chauffeured limo took them through the city to the Grand Hotel Excelsior, Claudio looked like an excited kid. The hotel was just across the street from the Royal Malta Yacht Club and Canna’s yacht, Vincitore, the Italian expression for ‘Winner’.
The stone buildings hugged the shoreline of the island nation, taking up every inch of space. The view the glorious place dazzled Claudio as he stood at the window of the hotel room on a sunny but cool October day. “This is fabulous!”
“Malta is great, and I have the bonus of being the helmsman on the yacht,” Canna smiled as she stood next to him. “The crew sleep on the boat while we get ready to sail, but I get a hotel room.”
“You should get a hotel room; it’s your boat, you’re the boss.”
“Well, I chartered the yacht. Yuri is the skipper of the boat; he pays the bills.”
“Even better, you get to play, and he gets to pay.”
“A position as a crew member is much more fun than being the owner. When I ran Team Savelli, I spent more time worrying about costs than sailing. I took a step down the ladder and it has worked wonders. I love the whole arrangement.”
“As long as you don’t start loving Russian billionaires more than is healthy.”
“I’m no xenophobe; I love all billionaires equally.”
“Ju
st don’t marry another one.”
“Ha! Marry again? Never.”
“Never?” Claudio asked, but she either didn’t hear him, or didn’t want to listen.
Canna turned away from the window with her hands on her hips and looked around the room. “First duty, my love. We need to get into uniform.”
“Uniform?”
“You bet.” Canna dialled a number on her phone and tapped her foot while it rang. “Doug! Answer your God-damn phone when I call you!” she yelled, but Claudio could see her wide smile. “I’m in Valletta, in my hotel room. Where is my crew kit? Plus I need an extra set; we have a new crew member.”
~~~
A quick stroll from the hotel and Claudio found himself on board a 100 foot yacht, with a sleek dark blue hull and off-white deck. To him, yachts looked much the same as each other, but this yacht gave him a sense of stealth. Claudio had no knowledge of yacht racing, which left him to wait while Canna worked with the others who climbed over the well-polished machine.
“It’s not what I imagined.”
Canna looked up from her spot at the stern of the yacht, and she frowned over her sunglasses. “In what way?”
“I don’t know,” Claudio sighed. “I imagined a superyacht to be grand.”
Canna put down the length of red rope she had been splicing. “You imagined opulence? Staff running around, fetching you drinks while you sit below deck on stylish furniture and admire the oil paintings?”
“Pretty much.”
“This isn’t a superyacht. Vincitore is a mere 100 feet long. She is a racer, so the interior is stripped bare to save weight and increase speed.”
“That’s why we have to sleep on bunk hammocks that fold out from the inside of the hull?”
“Exactly. By the time we have sails, clothing and food on board, the yacht is full. Don’t worry, I don’t share my bunk; I’m not part of the sleep shift system. You can share with me, so whenever I’m awake, you can sleep.”
“You know how to show a man a good time, don’t you?”
“We aren’t on holiday, Chachi. We’re at work here.”
Claudio looked around. The deck sparkled as about a dozen people wandered around to do various jobs he didn’t understand. Work. This was work for some people. It was a paradise – courtesy of the seasickness tablets that Canna had insisted he take even though they were still in port.
“Canna,” one of the Italian guys, Michele, called from the other end of the boat. “I have the revised forecast for tomorrow. We have to put the mainsail up to check it in the morning. The wind will be in by 7am.”
“Sweet, I’ll be here,” she said and went back to her ropes.
Claudio couldn’t understand what Canna was doing with the ropes; cutting into it and twisting it around itself to make complicated knots. It seemed quite a skill, with precise tools for the job. He looked at himself, a world away from his usual well-presented persona. He sat in a white t-shirt and navy knee-length shorts, covered in the logos of Canna’s boatbuilding yard and the name of a Russian company owned by Yuri. It was standard crew uniform. Everyone was the same, except Canna, who wore a polo shirt instead of a t-shirt since she was the helmsman.
“How much work left?” he asked. Claudio was the sole person without a task. When Canna had told the crew that they were taking along a passenger during the race, they had cringed. A tag-along, a dead weight, someone who didn’t look comfortable on a yacht.
“There isn’t too much work,” Canna mumbled without looking up at him. “The guys have done most of it. Doug is my guy who takes care of the detail. The food is on board. The crew bags go on the morning of the start of the race, and the sails are tomorrow’s job. The safety inspection is whenever the guy shows up to see me, but I know all the safety gear is ready.”
“Safety inspector?”
“We need to be signed off by the race committee, so they’re aware we’re safe for racing. Life rafts, lifejackets, first aid kits… important things. It’s under control. Mitchell, who is downstairs, has got the navigation gear organised, and the wet weather clothes should be loaded on board today… so we’re looking good.”
“It’s a lot of stuff to do for one race.”
“We have an average weather forecast, so we need to be ready.”
“Average is good?”
“Average is bad. A glamour forecast is good.”
“I don’t understand your kiwi language.”
“Bloody Spaniards. The wind may blow hard, and we will get the race record. We might be becalmed so need to prepare for a slow race. Because we don’t know what to expect, the forecast is average.”
“Everyone seems to be very busy.”
“If we do something wrong in an emergency, someone could die, someone could drown. The yacht could sink. We will be prepared, so accidents are unlikely.”
“Is this race difficult?” Claudio swallowed hard. Sailing seemed far more dangerous than expected.
“It’s fine; we aren’t that far from land at any time.”
“Like what? A mile?”
“Much more than that. If the mast fell over, for example, we could have trouble getting a boat this size under control. We need to be ready, just in case.”
“This doesn’t feel fun anymore.”
Canna smiled and rubbed her bare foot against his. “We’ll all be fine.” She looked up to see her assistant, Doug, a young Australian guy, on the dock next to the boat. “Hey, Doug,” she called out. “This woman has an itch that needs to be scratched.”
“Let me guess,” he called back, “you feel a big one coming on?”
“I feel a big one coming on,” she called out. “I feel an EPIC one.”
The guys cheered back in response, and Claudio had no idea what she meant. “We start here and then head to the yacht club. Yuri doesn’t get here until tomorrow, so all we have is tonight.”
“The lady has an itch, and needs a big one,” said Ryan, an English sailor. “That sounds filthy, you know.”
“That’s just your dirty mind, Ryan,” she said. “If you bother me, I will call your wife back home and tell her about how you screwed the girl who works at the marina security desk.”
The guys burst out laughing. “Now that she hasn’t got a husband, sounds as if Canna is on the prowl for another man,” Ryan laughed.
“Easy, tiger,” Canna replied. “My husband has only been dead a few months.”
“Too soon to ask you to get your tits out for us,” Michele commented.
“What the hell? How could you use that language in front of a woman?” Claudio cried.
Everyone shut their mouths. They had been introduced to the man, but none understood his connection to Canna.
“If you want to get paid, I suggest you tone down the language in front of our guest.” Canna didn’t look up from her rope work.
“Sorry, Canna,” Michele replied.
“You should be sorry.” Canna glanced up; the race committee safety inspector had arrived. “I just need to talk to this guy,” she said to Claudio. “Then our big one can begin.”
“What’s a big one?”
“A hot night out. Party time. Doug can organise drinks and food and then we move the party from the dock to the yacht club for more drinks and laughs.”
When Canna stood up, Claudio reached out and grabbed the edge of her shirt, and she turned back. “You can’t drink, Blinky. Not after drug rehab.”
Canna smiled. “I have ways of making you relent your watchful eye over me.”
Claudio sat, shoulders slumped, next to the steering wheel and watched Canna jump onto the dock and greet the guy who waited nearby. Never mind Milan, and its ability to do Canna psychological harm and push her back into drug use. It sounded as if her retreat, sailing, might be the undoing of her addiction recovery.
As the sun set over Vincitore in the Valletta marina, Claudio grew worried. The men had packed most of their gear away as the party supplies arrived. A giant barbecue had appeared f
rom somewhere and got set up on the dock. Claudio waited while the dock filled with hundreds of people. Canna had taken up cooking duties with Doug. Claudio frowned; Doug was around half Claudio’s age, and tall, blonde and athletic. Why did Canna surround herself with good-looking guys? All these guys were good-looking, fit and aged between twenty and fifty. Claudio didn’t like it. He made small talk with various people, unsure of what he should talk about. He stuck to his day job of opera, which appeared to be met with admiration. For Claudio, the party was a chance to be someone other than the miserable man he had been in London. But he couldn’t say that he was Canna’s lover. That had to be a secret. He was a secret lover, at his age.
The time for self-pity halted when Claudio glanced over to see Canna swallow a whole bottle of beer with too much ease. He knew how well she could binge drink. He watched her make eye contact with him through the crowd, and she smiled her smug, greedy grin. Canna knew she shouldn’t drink alcohol. After four months of sobriety, Canna had just undone all her work while Claudio had his attention diverted.
Canna watched Claudio step through the crowd, and she dropped her empty beer bottle and flicked the lid off another. She put the bottle to her lips as he approached her. “Can I have a word?” he asked.
Canna sighed. “No, not right now.”
She watched Claudio look around them; teammates and competitors surrounded them. She was the charming girl in the sea of men who appeared far too interested in her. “Catherine…”
“Fuck, I’m in trouble,” she laughed and took another swig on the bottle of beer. She frowned when Claudio took her by the arm, and they stepped away from the others, right on the edge of the dock against the boat.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m having a big night. I always host a party before a big race. It’s the neighbourly thing to do… in a boat way.”
“This must cost a fortune.”
“So? I’m rich, and I don’t care. I didn’t earn the money I have, so I don’t care how I spend it all. Rights without responsibilities. That’s me.”
Claudio ran his hands over his mouth. “I realise this is the culture around here. Parties are fine, but you are only just out of rehab.”
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