by Annie O'Neil
“You mean Casita Verde?”
Was that a shudder? Had his mother just shuddered at a mention of the incredible place her son had built from scratch?
She caught Matteo’s eye again. This time his expression was perfectly clear. It said, See? This is where I come from.
* * *
“You’re absolutely right, Mother. I have been remiss. Perhaps I should start now,” Matteo said brightly, rising from the table and nodding in turn to each of his parents. “Our visit was unexpected and you no doubt have plans for the evening. You wouldn’t mind if we missed out on coffee in lieu of a bit of a tour. Would you?” he added, as if they had a choice. He’d already circled the table and was pulling out Harriet’s chair so she, too, could rise.
“Of course.” His mother silently clapped her hands together, her forehead relaxing a bit as if the evening had, after all, been more taxing than she’d let on.
“It would be a shame for Harriet to miss out on the true delights of Buenos Aires. Why don’t you take her to the plaza?”
“Plaza Dorrego?” Matteo’s silver-haired father joined in with a glance to his watch. “Splendid idea. There won’t be too many tourists this time of year. Yes!” He clapped a hand on his son’s shoulder and spoke as if it had been his idea all along. “Take Harriet for a dance in the plaza. A splendid idea. Would you like one of the cars?”
“No, thank you, Papa. We can walk.”
Harriet had to press her lips together to suppress a smile at his parents’ collective horror at Matteo’s suggestion of walking. She jumped in to second his idea.
“Walking would be lovely. Especially after such a delicious meal.”
“But you hardly touched a thing!” his mother protested.
“I did! I really enjoyed it!” Harriet insisted, suddenly doubting her own words. The maids had been so deft in shifting away plate after plate she hadn’t really noticed if she had nibbled or devoured the four-course meal.
“Shall we?” Matteo reached out a hand to her. Warmth and comfort immediately worked their way through her as they touched. And she was grateful for it. Her mind was spinning from the evening. Maybe now he would explain what this had been all about. So he was rich. Or at least his parents were. And they behaved a bit like characters in a costume drama. Did that make him a bad person? Hardly!
They bade a hasty farewell and as they went out into the cooling evening air Harriet felt as though she was drawing her first true breath of the evening.
“They do that,” Matteo said, his eyes straight ahead, his warm hand still enveloping hers as they walked away from the city mansion.
“What?”
“Impose their world over the real one. I sometimes find it hard to breathe in there. You did well.”
Harriet nodded, hoping he would continue.
“Did you notice everything they didn’t talk about?”
“What do you mean?”
“What did they do when you mentioned Casita Verde?” He glanced at her before picking up the pace. It was clearly going to be a brisk walk to the plaza.
“I don’t really recall.” Saying she’d seen them shudder wasn’t really what she thought he wanted to hear.
“That’s because they didn’t say anything. They never do. Idle chit-chat—it’s all they can handle.”
“Why?”
“Because if we were talk about us...our lives, what I do and why I do it...it would be acknowledging their biggest mistake.”
Harriet was nearly jogging now, his pace was so fast.
“Sorry. Please, Matteo. My legs aren’t as long as yours.” She released his hand, needing to steady her pace. Too much was whirling round her mind to make sense of things.
“Lo siento, amorcita.” Matteo stopped, steepling his hands and pressing his fingertips to his lips. “I always get heated when I see them. I apologize. Here.” He took her hand again and turned her towards a small cobbled side street lit with string after string of lights bulbs twinkling over a scattering of outdoor tables and chairs. His hand slipped to the small of her back as they worked their way through couples and groups, all finding just the right place to sit and enjoy the balmy evening.
“Let’s get a drink and I will tell you what I should have told you when we first met.”
Harriet felt her heart lurch to her throat. So much for breathing more easily!
Matteo laughed softly when he looked at her expression. “Don’t be scared. It’s nothing to—” He stopped himself, his smile shifted into a tightening of his jaw. Whatever he’d been about to say was no laughing matter. “It will explain a lot.”
CHAPTER TEN
MATTEO GUIDED HARRIET to a quiet table away from the pedestrian traffic but close enough to the edge of the outdoor seating area to see the plaza spreading out before them. He could see the dazzle of lights reflected in Harriet’s eyes, her hips and shoulders shifting intuitively to the tango music that almost always played deeper within the plaza’s depths. How to begin?
He bought himself a few more precious seconds of thinking time by calling over the waiter and ordering a glass of Malbec from the Patagonia region for himself and a sparkling water for Harriet, knowing she would refuse an offer to join him with wine.
“You’re not going to tell me you murdered someone, are you?” Harriet giggled nervously, her paper serviette quickly being reduced to shreds between her fingers.
“No.” Matteo looked her in the eye. “But I am going to tell you about the death of my sister.”
Harriet’s hands flew to her mouth, her eyes wide with horror.
“I didn’t know you had a sister! Oh, Matteo...” She instinctively reached out a hand to touch one of his. “I am so sorry.”
“You weren’t to know.” He looked up, thanked the waiter for their drinks—waiting until he’d set them on the table and left before continuing. This story wasn’t just difficult to hear. It was almost impossible to tell.
He drew lines in the condensation forming on the table alongside Harriet’s bottle of chilled water as he spoke. “It was a long time ago. Well, when I was nineteen and Ramona was sixteen—so just over fourteen years. Fifteen?”
Harriet gave a small shrug. How would she know? It was his story to tell and it would be easiest if he just got on with it. He sucked in a breath and continued.
“My sister fell pregnant at sixteen and, as you can imagine now that you’ve met my parents, the news wasn’t something they would be thrilled about. The teenage daughter of Franco and Valentina Torres pregnant? The scandal it would’ve caused.” He tutted away the thought. “Rather than risk getting cut out of what you can imagine was a pretty substantial will by telling them, Ramona decided to hide it from us. At least, that’s what I am guessing happened—because she left her big brother out of the loop as well.” And it still hurt. Until the day he died it would hurt he hadn’t been there to help her. If only she had trusted him!
Harriet’s eyes remained wide. Free of judgment. Just a clear blue experiencing the pain he was reliving as the words tumbled out.
“I don’t know what she was thinking. Maybe she thought she could pay someone to raise it. Maybe she thought she’d find parents to adopt. I don’t know. She was too young to go off to Europe without our parents funding it. She never spoke to me or any of her friends. No one.” He took a deep draught of his wine before continuing. “Anyway, she was at boarding school, like I had been, so hiding things from our family wasn’t too difficult. School holidays? She’d be out with friends. Or so she said. Long story short, she was hiding her changing body from us. All of us. My parents put her prolonged absences down to her going through a wild spell. One she’d grow out of if they just pretended it wasn’t happening and I—” He stopped.
This part was on him. He had been at university, doing groundwork courses to become a d
octor, for heaven’s sake, and hadn’t noticed any changes in her. Sure, their paths had rarely crossed but he’d seen her more frequently than their parents had. And he hadn’t noticed a thing. She was his kid sister! Maybe a little plump—but what did that matter? She was his kid sister. He loved her. Love handles and all.
“Were you at uni?” Harriet put two and two together without his help.
“Yes.”
“It’s an incredibly busy time, university. Especially if you are staying on campus.”
He cursed under his breath. “You are kind, but you don’t have to make excuses for me.”
Harriet wanted to console him, but had second thoughts. She could see he needed to get it out. Purge the story that had been holding him hostage all these years.
He took a deep breath, sighing it out before bringing the tale to its painful conclusion. “She became pre-eclampsic. Hadn’t bothered getting seen. Hadn’t bothered going to a private hospital for check-ups, though, God knows, she had enough ‘pocket money’. Even if she’d had no money, the public hospitals are required to see you if you can’t afford treatment. But she was obviously trying to protect my parents from being caught in a pregnancy scandal. Social decorum over saving a life! It sickens me to think about it.”
Harriet’s fingers had crept back up, pressing the color out of her lips, her eyes just visible above her fingertips. A bit of fringe hung across one of her blue eyes. Instinct had him leaning forward to tuck it out the way before he could think better of it. Her fingers dropped away, leaving just a few centimeters between them. Their breaths, just for a moment, wove together before he abruptly pulled back and took another long draught of wine.
“So did you see her?” Harriet asked.
“Before she and the baby died? No.” He shook his head slowly, his mood shifting from charged to contemplative. “No. She was taken to a morgue by someone. We never found out who. And my parents paid off the staff at the mortuary to keep it quiet.”
“I can’t imagine how awful it must have been.” For Matteo. For his parents. Just—collectively awful. Harriet could hardly breathe.
“Losing Ramona was hard enough. It was how my parents dealt with it that made grieving worse.”
“Which was?”
“To pretend they’d never had a daughter.”
Dry-eyed, Matteo took on the polite persona of his parents, speaking as if he’d been explaining how to change a fuse or mentioning there might be some rain later. “Servants cleared her room. I have no idea where any of her things have gone. People had heard she’d died but that my parents weren’t receiving condolences. Or if they sent them staff were instructed to burn anything before my parents could see the messages. It was worse than her being dead. It was as if she’d never existed at all.”
“And is the reason you set up Casita Verde.”
He nodded. “It doesn’t solve many pregnant teens’ problems, but at least we help some girls. Some children.”
“From what I’ve seen, you’ve helped hundreds, maybe even thousands over the years! Not to mention the families who get to adopt those beautiful babies who will be loved and cherished.”
“I don’t know.” Matteo finished his wine and signaled for the check. “Sometimes it’s hard to see the point when you know there will never be an end to it.”
“But surely you know how much better things are for the girls because of you?”
“I don’t know about that. Perhaps.” His eyes locked with hers. “Sometimes I feel like it is eating me alive to give them their lives back.”
Harriet’s breathing caught in her throat. This was it. Whatever he was about to say was at the heart of Matteo’s grief.
“In order to do this—to keep the casita alive—I have to set limitations on my own life. I keep myself at arm’s length from everything...everyone.” He avoided her eyes as he continued. “No girlfriends, no family—absolutely no children. I need the perspective. I need not to care, because if I cared...how could I continue?” He choked out the words, his voice ragged with emotion.
“I hate to point out the obvious, but you don’t really seem as if you don’t care. What’s the point in it all if it makes you so miserable?” Harriet looked mystified.
Because I’ve met you.
It’s what he should have said but didn’t. He couldn’t lumber her with such a weight of misery. He gave a wry humph and when her expression told him it wasn’t enough to justify turning his back on the woman he loved and their unborn children, he continued. “It’s ridiculous, isn’t it? The unhappy do-gooder. But without my work I can never make it up to my sister. And with my work I keep reliving her senseless death again and again. I just keep hoping it will...the happiness of what we do there...I hope it will just happen one day. That one day I will be able to do my work with joy in my heart.”
Tears leapt to Harriet’s eyes as he fought the sting of emotion in his own.
“Do you not see it? All the good you do?”
“The bad statistics will always outweigh the good.”
“And that’s how you measure your worth? By the statistics?”
“No. It’s not that.” I should’ve been there for her!
“What is it, then?” she pressed.
“How can I take pleasure in something I wasn’t able to fix?”
“You can’t,” Harriet conceded. “You won’t ever be able to. But shouldn’t your life be about the future—not about the past? Don’t you take any joy from what you do now?”
“Sometimes. Rarely.” Matteo shook away both answers, knowing they weren’t quite right. He looked her directly in the eye. “When I’m with you.”
The silence between them grew as thick as the air. Strangely concentrated for the time of year—as if a tropical storm were brewing. Almost palpable, heated.
Why couldn’t he just say it?
Te quiero. I love you.
Anything else would just be hot air. Useless. But when he had nothing to offer her? No future as a family? What was the point?
He became aware of the music floating from the center of the square. He’d done enough talking for the night and knew what he needed now. What he wanted. To hold Harriet in his arms and just be, letting the story he’d just told her shift away into the ether to settle how it would.
“Care for a dance?”
“Oh...” A nervous laugh underlay her hesitation. “I’m afraid I’ve got two left feet.”
“I doubt that.” He rose, holding out a hand to her. This could be the last time he would hold her in his arms. He hardly deserved it, but he wanted it—wanted her—so very much. “Come, mi cariño. Will you dance with me?”
* * *
Harriet slipped her hand into Matteo’s, instantly feeling their connection deepen. She had believed her heart could not have felt more open to Matteo than in those moments when he had laid himself bare, had shown her everything that made him the man he was.
She pressed her fingertips into the back of his hand, hoping he knew she was accepting his invitation to take him as he was—a man struggling with the weight of grief. A man struggling to right a great wrong, unable to believe the good things in life were meant for him as well. A man who would live in her heart until the very end of time.
Her hand felt tiny in his. Protected. And yet, as she looked up to receive his gentle smile and an unexpected kiss on the forehead, she knew what she was feeling was true. She’d be able to tell their children their father was a good man. It didn’t make the pain of knowing they couldn’t be together any easier to bear...but his grief seemed too deeply entrenched for any external power to change. It would have to come from within and, from what she could see, something utterly earth changing would have to happen to him to change how he lived his life. She smiled back, enjoyed the kaleidoscope of green within his eyes, hoping to memorize
every detail she could for their children. Her smile turned bitter-sweet as the idea struck that the twins might get those magical eyes and she could have a glimpse of the man who’d won her heart every day.
People and shops, tables and glasses all took on the blur of a film as Matteo pulled her into his arms, slipping the pair of them among the two dozen or so slow-dancing couples. His every touch brought new life to her body. Life she hadn’t let herself believe she’d been aching for since they had been together in London. His fingers spread wide across the small of her back as he gathered her hand up with his other hand, holding it close against his chest.
They swayed in time with the music, its cadence adding an additional layer of sensuality to the dance.
She felt his voice vibrating in his chest before she registered the words.
“I’m so sorry.”
“Me too.” Her whisper was so soft she wasn’t even sure if he’d heard her. It didn’t matter. What did matter was the here and now. She pressed her cheek against the soft fabric of his dark blue shirt, willing herself to memorize his scent. As if she would ever forget it. Life had made sure of that. Matteo had made sure of that.
The musicians eventually packed up their instruments. Harriet’s chest tightened when Matteo finally released his close hold on her, forcing her to acknowledge the moment was over. Their walk home was lingering and silent, each of them at pains to keep the fragile bubble of intimacy they were sharing intact.
Outside the doors of Casita Verde Matteo pulled Harriet to him and kissed her with the slow, heated sorrow of a farewell. Her entire being ached to be with him. Body, heart and soul. It was almost painful—the ache to understand why they couldn’t be together. Why they didn’t deserve what so many people enjoyed—a simple family life—knowing, at the same time that things were never that simple. Wrong place. Wrong time. Wrong woman?