by Liz Fielding
‘Grazie, Valentina. I’m working on my Italian but it might be kinder to your viewers if you did the talking.’ Valentina’s smile was strained and, on an impulse, she began telling her about the drama of Rattino’s appearance, giving it the full action treatment as she described Lisa’s horror, the women leaping on chairs, her diving under the table. By the end of the story they had gained a small audience and everyone was laughing.
‘Bravissima!’ Valentina clapped. ‘That! I want that! We’ll use subtitles. I gattini...where are they now?’
‘They’re in our apartment,’ Dante told her. ‘Why don’t you come and see them? Come to lunch tomorrow, both of you. I have a gift for Alberto—’ his father looked wary rather than pleased ‘—and I have a project that I’d like to discuss with Valentina.’
‘Oh?’
‘Angelica is an artist and we’re making a film about the need to preserve the heart of Isola.’
‘From people like me?’
‘It isn’t personal, Papà. It was never personal.’
There was another of those long looks, but after a moment his father nodded. They chatted for a few more minutes before Valentina spotted someone she had to talk to and the party broke up in a round of very Italian hugs. Only Geli saw that, while her husband was occupied with her, Valentina took the opportunity to whisper something in Dante’s ear, saw his nod of acknowledgement, imperceptible to anyone who wasn’t watching closely.
‘Would you like to go on somewhere?’ Dante asked as they climbed into their car.
‘No. Thank you.’
‘You can’t know how glad I am you said that. Did you have a good time? I saw you talking to our host.’
‘Did you? Actually, he was congratulating me on being the only woman present with the courage not to be wearing one of his gowns.’
‘Amore...’ he exclaimed. ‘I never thought. I’m so sorry.’
‘Why? It is what it is and when I explained that this dress had belonged to my great-grandmother he forgave me.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘That my dress is eighty years old or that he forgave me?’
‘Madonna, mia! Either...both. Is it really that old?’
‘My great-grandmother kept a ledger of her clothes. When she bought them, how much they cost, where she wore them. This one is by Mainbocher, the man who designed the dress Wallis Simpson wore when she married the Duke of Windsor. Great-grandma didn’t wear it after that. She disapproved of divorce, disapproved of the abdication...disapproved of pretty much everything, apparently, except beautiful clothes.’
She knew she was talking too much but Dante, it seemed, was disinclined to stop her. Maybe he was interested in vintage fashion...
‘We have trunks full of clothes in the attic, not just hers, but my grandmother’s too. She was a sixties dolly bird, a contemporary of Twiggy, but that’s more Sorrel’s era. Lucky for us that Elle had no idea of the value of vintage clothes when she was selling off the family silver to pay the creditors.’
Talking too much and all of them the wrong words.
‘The dress is perfect, Angel. You were so busy looking at everyone else that you didn’t notice that they were all looking at you.’
He reached across the back seat of the limo to take her hand but she pretended she hadn’t noticed, lifting it out of his reach to check the safety of a long jet earring.
‘The Maestro admired my belt, too,’ she said. ‘It’s a Dark Angel original.’
‘I hope you told him so.’
‘I did... He kissed my hand, gave me his card and asked me to go and see him next month. When the shows are over.’
‘I think that is what you call a result.’
‘Beyond my wildest dreams,’ she assured him. And maybe that was it. The jealous gods only let you have one dream at a time... ‘And you, Dante? Did you accomplish everything you wanted tonight?’
He sighed, leaned back. ‘Everything is not for mortal men,’ he said, eerily reflecting her own thoughts, ‘but as much as I could have hoped. The fact that you were already talking to my father made it a great deal easier.’
‘Did it? You sounded rather cross.’
‘No...’ He shook his head. ‘How did you come to be talking?’
‘Oh, the usual way. You know how it is at parties. We were in the same space at the same time. I was looking for you so that I could tell you about meeting the Maestro. He was looking for his wife and about to see her crying into your shoulder so I distracted him by introducing myself as the crazy cat lady.’
‘Then I’m not imagining the touch of chill in the air. Congratulations, Angelica. You have not only made a hit with the one man in Milan famously impossible to impress, but appear to have excelled yourself in diplomacy.’
‘My sisters would be astonished on both counts,’ she assured him. ‘I usually say exactly what I think and hang the consequences.’
‘I applaud your restraint but, since we’re alone, feel free to share your thoughts with me.’
She closed her eyes. That was it? No explanation, no attempt at justification? No reason for her to forget what she’d seen and...no, she would never forget the tenderness with which he’d held Valentina. She knew how that felt and she wasn’t in the mood to share.
‘I’m thinking that you took me to the party as an excuse to see Valentina. That, sooner or later, she will leave your father and come back to you and he knows it.’ When he still said nothing, made no attempt to deny it, she added, ‘And I think that new goldfish will be nervous, all alone in a strange tank. You should keep him company tonight.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
‘Eat ice cream for a broken heart. It freezes the heart and numbs the pain.’
—from Rosie’s Little Book of Ice Cream
DANTE TOLD THE driver to wait, walked Angelica upstairs to the door of his apartment, unlocked it and waited while she walked in, turned to him, blocking the way.
‘Angel—’
‘Don’t... Don’t call me that.’
‘I just wanted to thank you for everything you did this evening. You were kinder than any of us had a right to expect and we are all in your debt for ever.’
‘I didn’t do it for you. I did it to spare your father’s feelings.’
‘I understand, but whatever you think you saw...’ He wanted to tell her that what she’d seen was not what she imagined. She was right about Valentina—he had thought that meeting her on neutral ground with hundreds of other people present would be easier for both of them. He had been as wrong about that as Geli was about everything else. Valentina had almost fainted with shock when she’d seen him, had been desperate for reassurance that he wasn’t about to blow her life apart.
Now he was the one clinging on, hoping that Angelica would remember that he’d respected her enough to be honest with her about Lisa’s motives when he could have gone for the easy lie.
She’d been angry then, too, but not for long. She’d thought things through and accepted that he had been doing what was right.
All he could do was hope that, given time, she would understand that tonight—
‘Hello, you’re back early.’ Matteo, slightly tousled, as if he’d been asleep, appeared from the living room. ‘I thought you’d be going on somewhere.’
‘It’s been a long day,’ he said. ‘Any problems?’
‘No.’ He grinned stupidly. ‘Actually, I’ve been talking to my mother. She’s at home all day and she’d be really happy to take care of the cats. If it would help?’
Not in a million years. Right now, the only thing anchoring Angelica in his life was the cats and they were going nowhere.
‘We’ll talk about it tomorrow. Go down and wait in the car. I’ll give you a lift home.’
‘Thanks. Ciao, Geli.’ He grabbed his coat from the hook and thundered down the stairs.
When he had gone, Angelica opened her mouth as if to say something, but closed it again. Closed her eyes as if it was too painful to look at him.
He felt the shock ripple through her as he cradled her face, wiping away the tears squeezed from beneath her lids with the pads of his thumbs, but she didn’t pull away.
‘Carissima...’ Tears clung to her lashes as she opened her eyes. ‘May I offer some words of wisdom from a woman it is my honour, my privilege to know?’
‘Please, Dante,’ she protested, but she was still there, the door open.
‘Cherish the good things that happened to you this evening, hold them close. They do not come often.’
‘I know...’
‘Make a list of all the things that hurt you so that you won’t lie awake turning them over in your head.’ Her mouth softened a little as she recognised her own advice returned with interest and, encouraged, he continued, ‘Take a bath, not too hot. Sprinkle a little lavender oil on your pillow and then, while you wait for sleep, think of all the good things that you will do tomorrow so that you’ll wake happy.’
She swallowed. ‘Good things?’
‘The early shift in the café, flirting with Marco and all your other admirers.’ She shrugged. ‘The appointment with your client to finalise the scheme for his ice cream parlour.’ She might move out, but she wouldn’t walk away from a promise and it would keep her close. Give him hope.
‘That’s not in my diary.’
‘It’s in mine. Ten o’clock.’
Another shrug.
‘And then lunch with—’
‘You expect me to have lunch with you and... With all of you?’
‘I believe, in fact I’m certain, that if you will talk to my father about our film he’ll be more receptive.’
She frowned. ‘Why would he listen to me?’
‘Because you are a beautiful woman. My worst moment tonight was seeing you with him, watching him flirting with you. He has Valentina and yet he still cannot help himself.’
‘Maybe he’s protecting himself,’ she said. ‘Making an exit plan. Preparing to be left.’
‘Something you’d know all about, cara?’
‘What?’ She shook her head. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘You told me yourself that you’re scared to death to risk your heart, always holding something back, protecting yourself from hurt in case you’re left behind by those you love. Wearing mourning black in case they die.’
She opened her mouth to protest, but nothing emerged.
‘It isn’t going to happen. Valentina will stay with him because he gives her everything she ever wanted.’
‘Not you.’
‘She was the one who left, cara. I would never have made her happy and she had the sense to know that. The courage to go after what she wanted.’
‘Taking part of you with her. You still love her, Dante. Admit it.’
‘You’re right. She took something of mine, but love?’ He shook his head. ‘I was dazzled, infatuated, but in the end it was just sex.’
Enough. He’d said enough. He had to go before he heard himself begging to stay and he took her hand, placed his key in her palm and closed her fingers around it. ‘Take this.’
‘But it’s your key.’
‘Now it is yours.’ He bent to kiss her cheek and she leaned into him, drawn to him despite everything, and it took every ounce of self-control not to put his arms around her, hold her.
To his infinite regret, she’d seen him hold Valentina and it would be there, between them, until she could trust him, believe that he was hers, body and soul. He could show her in everything he did, but only she could choose to see.
‘Dormi bene, mio amore. Sogui dolci.’
* * *
Something inside Geli screamed a long desperate Noooooo! as Dante turned and headed down the stairs. The hand he’d kissed reached out to him but he did not look back and when she heard him hit the lower flight, she closed the door and leaned back against it, clutching the key he’d given her.
‘Now it is yours.’ What did that mean?
That he had locked himself out until she invited him in? But this was his apartment... No, wait. This evening, when Valentina had asked him where the cats were, he’d said that they were in ‘our apartment’. Not his, but our apartment. And Valentina hadn’t batted an eyelid.
But she’d cried in his arms. And whispered something in Dante’s ear before walking away.
What? What had she said to him? She tried making her lips form the words but it was hopeless.
She gave up, fetched a tub of ice cream from the freezer and ate it while the bath filled. Then she slid beneath the water and, letting its warmth seep into her, she blanked out Dante and his whole wretched family and did as he’d advised, focusing her entire mind on that moment when one of the world’s most famous dress designers told her that her belt was ‘quite perfect’.
She sprinkled a few drops of lavender oil on her pillow and then lay in bed and wrote down everything she could remember about the evening. What she’d worn down to the last stitch and stone—she should start keeping a clothes journal like her great-grandmother. She wrote how Dante had looked as he’d stood by the fire waiting for her because he was beautiful and she loved him and it was a memory to hold, cherish.
So much for nothing serious, not for keeps but for fun. If it had been that, then what had happened this evening would not have mattered.
So not like her mother...
She wrote everything she could remember about the limousine, about being snapped by the paparazzi as she’d walked the red carpet, the people she’d seen, every word that the Maestro had said to her.
Every word that Dante had said.
‘Our’ apartment. ‘Our’ film...
His certainty that Valentina would not leave his father because she had everything she was looking for. If that was true, why had she been crying into his shoulder? Guilt, remorse...?
What had she whispered in Dante’s ear?
It was the last thing she thought before Dancing Queen dragged her out of sleep.
Dante arrived on the dot of ten and they had a straightforward client/designer meeting downstairs in the room that was to be converted into an ice cream parlour, making final decisions about colours, furniture, artwork. They chose the ice cream cabinet and Dante used his laptop to go online and order it. Then he turned it around so that she could see a vintage jukebox he’d found.
‘It plays old seventy-eights.’
‘Boys’ toys,’ she muttered disapprovingly. ‘It’ll cost you a fortune to find records for it. And you won’t get anyone later than...’
‘Later than...?’
‘I don’t know. They pre-date my grandmother. Frank Sinatra?’
‘That’s a good start. See if you can find Fly Me to the Moon.’
She rolled her eyes but made a note then reached for her file as he picked it up to give it to her. Their hands met and, as he looked up, she might have forgotten herself, grabbed hold of him—
‘I’ll organise the decorators,’ he said, standing up. ‘Will you supervise them?’
‘It’s part of the job.’ She checked her watch. ‘If that’s all, I have to go and change for lunch.’
The cleaning staff had been in. There were fresh flowers and a soft cat bed had been placed near the freshly lit fire, glowing behind the glass doors, for Mamma Cat and her kittens.
She checked on the cats, changed into her black minidress, topped it with the red velvet jacket that Lisa had so admired and wore the laced boots from the night before. Her reflection suggested that it was too much.
It looked as if she was competing. She was at home and she should be more relaxed, informal, allow their guests to shine.
Our apartment...
She changed into narrow dark red velvet trousers and a black silk shirt which she topped with a long, dark red brocade waistcoat and ditched the boots for ballet flats.
Better. But, for the first time in her life, she wished her wardrobe contained at least one pink fluffy sweater. Because although she didn’t want Dante to be right, deep down she knew he wa
s.
She picked up his key and slipped it into the pocket of her waistcoat. It was a pledge of some sort. Of his sincerity, his commitment, maybe.
If only she knew what Valentina had whispered to him.
Her phoned beeped and, grateful for anything that would delay the moment when she’d have to go downstairs to the café, she picked it up and discovered a reply to the somewhat sharp message she’d sent to the bank.
Her balance had been restored, along with five hundred pounds for her inconvenience. What? Banks didn’t pay up like that unless they were being harassed by consumer programmes. Clearly they’d discovered some monumental error...
She had no excuse to stay now. Only the cats, but Matteo was desperate to give them a home.
She checked the clock. She couldn’t put it off any longer. It was time to go, in every sense of the word.
She could hear Dante talking to someone on the phone as she passed his office. The door was slightly ajar; she didn’t stop but she couldn’t help wondering who he was talking to. That was how it was when you weren’t sure. It was how Daniele must feel every day of his life but she couldn’t live like that.
She was checking the table that had been set up in the corner when Dante joined her.
‘Lunch first and then we’ll go upstairs for coffee so that Valentina can meet the cats. Did the basket arrive?’
‘Yes. Good thought. They’ll look adorable.’
‘If they’re going to be on television they need more than a cardboard box...’ He turned as the door opened and Valentina appeared in a gush of air kisses.
‘Ciao, Geli. Ciao, Dante... Daniele had to park around the back somewhere. He’s just coming. Can you get the door for him?’
Dante was calling out to Bruno behind the bar to bring water and menus as he opened the door so he didn’t immediately see what was hampering his father.
Then he turned, looked down and saw Valentina’s sleeping baby nestled in a softly padded buggy and in that moment Geli understood everything.