Reunited with Her Italian Ex

by Lucy Gordon

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  WHAT FOLLOWED WAS the worst night of Natasha’s life.

  It was over. Everything was over. She had lost Mario and nothing could ever matter in her life again.

  Why didn’t I tell him earlier? her heart cried.

  But she knew the answer. However he had learned about the letter, he would have hated the fact that she’d relied on it. In his heart he no longer believed that she loved him. And now everything might be over between them. He had even hinted that he might not be there for the wedding.

  For a moment she thought of chasing after him, but he’d had time to disappear and she would never find him. Her best hope was to wait for him to return.

  She lay down, trying to control her wild thoughts and believe that there might still be hope. For an hour she lay there, listening for some sign of his return, but all she heard was the party breaking up.

  Then there was silence and darkness, leaving her with an aching heart and terrified thoughts.

  Why didn’t he return?

  Would he ever return?

  She slept for a while and awoke in the early hours. There was no sign of Mario, but perhaps he’d gone to his own room. She slipped out into the corridor and went to his door, where she stood listening for a moment. But there was no sound from within.

  Tentatively, she opened the door and slipped inside. The bed was empty. He had not returned.

  ‘Come back,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t let it end like this. Come back to me.’

  But another two hours passed with no sign of him.

  A terrible sense of irony pervaded her. Suddenly it felt as though she was Juliet again, a star-crossed lover facing the final destruction of her joy.

  There was nothing to prepare her for what happened next.

  A shrill from her mobile phone made her look to find a text. Incredibly, it was from Jenson.

  You think you’re clever, setting your lover on me. Take a look at this.

  Below it was the address of a website. Studying it, Natasha realised that it was an English provincial newspaper, doubtless belonging to Jenson.

  He’d said he knew something about her, implying that he could smear her in print. But she couldn’t think of anything she would be reluctant to have known.

  She got to work on her laptop, typing in the web address. There on the screen was a printed page with a photograph. A cry broke from her as she recognised her father.

  Forcing herself under control, she looked closely at the text. It was dated eight years ago and named the man as Charles Bates. It seemed to be part of a series about people who had been brought down by misfortune. Charles Bates had turned to crime and gone to prison following a tragic crisis in his life.

  He had given the interview two days after being released. As she read what he’d had to say, Natasha felt her blood run cold.

  ‘I blame my wife. I loved her and the girl I thought was my daughter. But then I discovered she wasn’t mine. It broke my heart. I ran away as fast as I could go.’

  So her mother had betrayed her husband and she, Natasha, was not his child. She struggled to deny it, but lurking in her memory was a quarrel she had overheard between them. Her father had shouted, ‘Who was he? Tell me!’ And he’d called her mother some terrible names. The next day he had gone.

  Another memory returned—Jenson walking into the room as she was telling this story to a fellow employee. How sympathetic he had been, encouraging her to talk. How kind she had thought him, while all the time he was softening her up so that he could pounce on her, while storing the information in case it could be a useful weapon. That was his way. He liked to have weapons against everyone.

  Checking back, he’d found that one little item and made a note of it. Mario’s action over the advertisements had convinced him he had nothing left to gain, and still he’d lashed out to hurt her for revenge.

  Now she saw that years of being warned not to trust men went back to this point. Her mistrust had made her wary of Mario, but it was based on a lie. And that lie threatened the love they shared.

  Unless she could find a way to solve the problem.

  Suddenly she found words whispering through her head. I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins, That almost freezes up the heat of life.

  Juliet had spoken those words, faced with the decision that would change everything. And now Natasha felt the cold fear running through her. She must do something to make Mario return. But what?

  ‘She will know,’ she said. ‘I’ll go and ask her.’

  Hurriedly, she flung on some clothes and rushed out of the room and downstairs.

  Damiano was just crossing the hall. ‘Just on my way to breakfast,’ he said. ‘No Mario?’

  ‘He’ll…be a while,’ she stammered.

  Damiano chuckled. ‘Ah, still asleep, is he? I guess you must have exhausted him.’

  She managed a smile. ‘Something like that. I have to hurry away for a while.’

  She quickly went out, seeing the hotel driver just outside. She approached him.

  ‘Please take me to the Via Capello.’

  In a moment they were away. She didn’t notice Giorgio standing in the doorway with a puzzled frown.

  For the whole journey she sat tense, watching Verona glide past her, wondering what the city would mean to her in future. The place where she and her Romeo had achieved their happy ending? Or the place where the star-crossed lovers had been forced to accept that their love was never meant to be?

  At last they drew up outside the Casa di Giulietta and she got out.

  ‘Shall I wait for you?’ the driver asked.

  ‘No. I don’t know how long I’ll be. Thank you, but go back.’

  He drove off, leaving her standing there. Then she went to the house, which had just opened for the day. A doorman greeted her, recognising her as a bride who was booked in a couple of days ahead.

  ‘You’ll find everything just as you’re hoping for,’ he called cheerfully.

  ‘I’m sure I will,’ she called back politely.

  But would her wedding be as she was hoping for? Would anything in her life be right again?

  As always, Juliet was standing in the courtyard. Natasha headed for the statue, glad that for the moment they were alone.

  ‘I never asked your advice before,’ she said. ‘I believed you were just a fantasy. But now my whole world is upside down, and maybe you’re the one person who can help me.

  ‘What can I do? I made a silly mistake but I was confused. I didn’t want to hurt Mario. I just couldn’t understand what it would mean to him. Now he thinks I don’t really love him, but I do. How can I make him believe that?’

  Silence.

  ‘Oh, please, you must help me. You know more about love than anyone. Tell me what I can do.’

  She pressed her hand against her chest.

  ‘You understand that, don’t you?’ she said to Juliet, who also had a hand on her breast. ‘You know what it’s like to press your hand over the pain, hoping to make it go away. But it doesn’t go, and you become frantic trying to think of something that will help. I can’t think of anything. What can I do?’

  She took a step closer to Juliet, seeking to look her in the eye. She told herself not to be fanciful, otherwise she might have imagined Juliet’s soft voice saying, He’s as troubled and unsure as you are.

  I know. He’s suffering terribly and it’s my fault. I thought the worst of every man because of my father, but now I realise that I shouldn’t have done.

  Discovering that you’d read the letter hurt him. He hasn’t completely recovered.

  Nor have I.

  You’re coping better than he is.

  Truly? What can I do now?

  Be kind to him. He is confused.

  But what is it that confuses him?

  You. You always have, although he would never admit it.

  Does our love really have a future?

  Who can tell? You can only hope.

  And
hope might come to nothing. That fact had to be faced. She would return to the hotel and find him not there because he no longer wanted her. It was over. He would never return.

  Tears filled her eyes, blurring her vision so that the street around her seemed to become a swirling mass. She groped her way forward, missed the edge of the pavement and crashed to the ground. She was intensely aware of pain going through her head before she blacked out.

  *

  The first person Mario met on his return was Damiano.

  ‘So there you are!’ his brother exclaimed. ‘I thought you were still upstairs, sleeping it off while Natasha was away.’

  ‘Away?’

  ‘She came downstairs a few hours ago. She went off somewhere in a hurry.’

  ‘Went somewhere? You mean she’s gone? Where?’

  ‘She didn’t say where she was going. Just walked out and didn’t come back. You don’t mean there’s something wrong, surely? The two of you are getting married tomorrow. She’s probably making last-minute preparations for the wedding.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Mario said in a voice that was deliberately blank to hide the storm of alarm that was rising within him.

  ‘I expect she’s preparing a special surprise for you.’

  Yes, Mario thought desperately. Natasha was preparing a surprise for him, and he had a dreadful feeling that he knew what the surprise was.

  ‘Oh, no!’ he breathed. ‘How could she do this to me?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Damiano demanded.

  ‘She’s done it again.’

  ‘Done what again?’

  ‘What she did before—leaving without a goodbye, when I wasn’t there to see. Disappearing into thin air like she’d never existed.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re wrong about that,’ Damiano protested.

  Mario tore his hair. ‘You have no idea,’ he raged. ‘She vanished and I spent weeks looking for her before I realised that I’d never find her because she’d shut me out of her life.’ His voice rose in anguish. ‘Now she’s done it again.’

  Nobody had noticed Giorgio entering the hall. He stood watching Mario with a puzzled frown.

  ‘What’s happened?’ he asked at last.

  ‘Have you seen Natasha today?’ Mario demanded.

  ‘Yes, I saw her get into the car with the chauffeur a few hours ago. He was only gone half an hour.’

  ‘Fetch him,’ Mario said.

  Giorgio went out and returned with the chauffeur.

  ‘Where did you take her?’ Mario demanded.

  ‘To the Via Capello.’

  ‘And you brought her back?’

  ‘No, she told me not to wait for her.’

  ‘So she’s gone,’ Mario muttered. ‘She’s gone.’

  He turned away so that they shouldn’t see his face, which he knew must betray his pain, greater than any he’d known in his life before. He’d wanted so much to believe in her. Since their quarrel the night before he’d brooded over what lay before him. A life with her, always worried about the strength of her love? Or a life without her?

  He’d paced the dark streets for hours, trying to understand his own heart. By the time he’d arrived home he knew that Natasha mattered more than anything in the world. However hard it was for him, he would do what he had to for their love to succeed; the thought of losing her was unbearable.

  And he had arrived to find her gone.

  He wanted to howl with rage, but even more with misery. She had betrayed his love, abandoned him, while knowing what it would do to him.

  ‘Why don’t you look in her room?’ Damiano said. ‘If she’s really gone she’ll have taken everything with her.’

  ‘All right,’ Mario said heavily.

  What was the point? he thought. He would find her room deserted and the brutal truth underlined. Moving mechanically, he went up to her room and opened the door. Then he grew still.

  The wardrobe was open, and inside it he could see her clothes. Pulling open drawers, he found more clothing.

  ‘She hasn’t gone for good,’ Damiano said, coming in behind him. ‘Or she would never have left all this behind.’

  ‘But where did she go?’ Mario asked hoarsely.

  ‘The chauffeur said he took her to the Via Capello,’ Giorgio said. ‘Surely she went to Juliet’s house.’

  ‘Yes,’ Mario said at once. ‘I understand that now.’

  Everything was becoming clear to him. Natasha had gone to consult Juliet, and now she would know how the two of them could put things right.

  One thing was clear. He must join her as soon as possible. He headed for the front door.

  ‘Hey, Mario,’ Giorgio called. ‘Where are you going?’

  Mario paused and looked back at him. ‘I’m going to find my lady,’ he said.

  As he drove himself to the Via Capello the words haunted him, as they had many times before. It is my lady. Oh, it is my love.

  ‘“Oh, that she knew she were,”’ he murmured.

  At last Juliet’s house came in sight. He parked and ran down the street to the alley that led to the courtyard. There was no sign of Natasha. All he could see was Juliet, staring ahead, coolly indifferent to her surroundings. He placed himself in front of her.

  ‘Was she here?’ he demanded. ‘Did she come to you and ask your help? Did you help her?’

  No response. Nor had he expected one. Nobody else could help them now.

  He wandered through the house, seeking her without success. In one room he stood looking around him, reflecting that this was where their wedding was supposed to take place, and wondering what the future held.

  Once more he returned to Juliet. A small group of tourists had gathered in front of her, pleading for her attention.

  ‘It’s very tempting to talk to her, isn’t it?’ a woman said to Mario. ‘We came here earlier and there was a lovely young woman talking to her as if it really mattered. But I don’t think she had any luck because as soon as she left she got hurt.’

  ‘Hurt? How?’

  ‘I’m not sure what happened. She just seemed to lose her balance. She went down hard and hit her head on the pavement. The last I saw, she was being taken to the hospital.’

  Barely able to speak, he forced himself to say, ‘You said she was a young woman. What did she look like?’

  ‘Pretty, blue eyes, blonde hair.’

  ‘And how did she seem?’

  ‘Not sure, really. She wasn’t moving. I suppose she might actually have been dead.’

  He swallowed. ‘Thank you for telling me,’ he said hoarsely.

  It took him ten minutes to get to the nearest hospital. There, he tore inside and up to the desk.

  ‘A young woman was brought in this morning,’ he gasped. ‘She had a fall in the Via Capello. I must see her.’

  The receptionist made a phone call and a nurse appeared.

  He followed her into a small side ward and held his breath at the sight of Natasha lying on the bed. Her eyes were closed and it seemed to him that she was frighteningly still.

  ‘Is this the person you are looking for?’ the nurse asked.

  ‘Yes, this is the person I was looking for.’

  ‘Please tell me who she is.’

  ‘Her name is Natasha Bates.’

  ‘And who is her next of kin?’

  ‘I am. I’m her husband. At least, I will be in a few days. If she lives.’

  He had to force himself to say the last few words, but the fear was more than he could endure.

  ‘We don’t yet know how seriously she’s hurt,’ the nurse said. ‘She’s still unconscious, but hopefully she’ll soon come round.’

  He moved to the bed, looking down at Natasha lying there. She seemed different to the strong, determined young woman he remembered: smaller, more frail and vulnerable.

  A sudden fearsome echo haunted him: Romeo coming to Juliet in the tomb, seeing her lying there, silent and motionless, believing her dead. He tried to fight the thought away but he had a terrified
feeling that she would leave him unless he could prevent her.

  ‘Natasha,’ he said, taking a chair beside the bed. ‘It’s me, darling. Can you hear me?’

  She neither moved nor spoke.

  ‘Are you there?’ he begged. ‘Please tell me that you’re there.’

  His heart sank. Her breathing told him that she was still alive, but in another sense she wasn’t there. She was living in another universe, one where she might be trapped for ever.

  ‘You went away from me once,’ he whispered. ‘I thought I would go mad at your rejection, but you came back and we found each other. Then today I thought you’d abandoned me again, and losing you was even worse than before.

  ‘What happened was my fault. I couldn’t bear discovering that I’d been living in a fantasy, that you loved me less than I’d thought. But if that’s true—’ he hesitated ‘—if the love is mainly on my side, then…then I’ll live with that as long as I can have you. Do you understand? I’ll accept any conditions as long as I don’t lose you again. Even if—’ he shuddered ‘—even if you never really wake up, but stay like this always, I won’t leave you. I’ll care for you and love you for years and years, until the day we can be finally together for ever.’

  He leaned closer to murmur into her ear, ‘Don’t leave me. I’m yours in every way and I always will be. Natasha? Can you hear me?’

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered.

  ‘I followed you all the way to Juliet’s house. You went to ask her help, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’ She whispered the word so softly that he wasn’t sure he’d heard properly.

  ‘What?’ he asked eagerly, leaning closer.

  ‘She was very kind to me.’

  He was suddenly sure that they understood each other. He must seize this moment, lest there should never be another.

  ‘I tried too,’ he said. ‘But she stayed silent. I reckon she was telling me to see the truth for myself.’ Inspiration came to him. ‘And the truth we have to understand is that we love each other more than we can say in mere words. We’ve always known that, but we’ve never managed to face it before. But now the time has come and if I do nothing else in the world I have to make sure that you know.’