THE UNCOMPROMISING ITALIAN

by Cathy Williams

  ‘Good,’ Alessio said brusquely.

  But the atmosphere between them had changed, and when he flipped open his lap-top and began working Lesley took the hint and excavated her own lap-top so that she too could begin working, even though she couldn’t concentrate.

  What she had said had put his nose out of joint, she decided. He wanted her to be his, to belong to him for however long he deemed it suitable, until the time came when he got bored of her and decided that it was time for her to go. For her to talk to him about dating other men would have been a blow to his masculine pride, hence his reaction. He wasn’t upset, nor was he jealous of these imaginary men she would soon be seeking out. If they existed.

  Her thoughts drifted and meandered until the plane began its descent. Then they were touching down at the airport in Liguria and everything vanished, except the reason why they were here in the first place.

  Even the bright sunshine vanished as they stepped out and were ushered into a chauffeur-driven car to begin the journey to his house on the peninsula.

  ‘I used to come here far more frequently in the past,’ he mused as he tried to work out the last time he had visited his coastal retreat.

  ‘And then what happened?’ It was her first time in Italy and she had to drag her eyes away from the lush green of the backdrop, the mountains that reared up to one side, the flora which was eye-wateringly exuberant.

  ‘Life seemed to take over.’ He shrugged. ‘I woke up to the fact that Bianca had as little to do with this part of Italy as she possibly could and, of course, where she went, my daughter was dragged along. My interest died over a period of time and, anyway, work prohibited the sort of lengthy holidays that do this place justice.’

  ‘Why didn’t you just sell up?’

  ‘I had no pressing reason to. Now I’m glad I hung onto the place. It may have been a bit uncomfortable had we been under the same roof as Rachel and Claudia, given the circumstances. I hadn’t planned on saying anything to my mother-in-law about our arrival, but in all events I decided to spare her the shock of a surprise visit—although I’ve told her to say nothing to Rachel, for obvious reasons.’

  ‘Those reasons being?’

  ‘I can do without my teenage daughter scarpering.’

  ‘You don’t think she would, do you? Where would she go?’

  ‘I should think she knows Italy a lot better than I do. She certainly would have friends in the area I know nothing about. I think it’s fair to say that my knowledge of the people she hangs out with isn’t exactly comprehensive.’ But he smiled and then stared out of the window. ‘I shudder to think of Claudia trying to keep control of my daughter on a permanent basis.’

  The conversation lapsed. The sun was setting by the time they finally made it to his house, which they approached from the rear and which was perched on a hill top.

  The front of the house overlooked a drop down to the sea and the broad wooden-floored veranda, with its deep rattan-framed sofas, was the perfect spot from which you could just sit and watch the changing face of the ocean.

  Only when they had settled in, shown to their bedroom by a housekeeper—yet another employee keeping a vacant house going—did Alessio inform her that he intended visiting his mother-in-law later that evening.

  ‘It won’t be too late for her,’ he said, prowling through the bedroom and then finally moving to the window to stare outside. He turned to look at her. In loose-fitting trousers and a small, silky vest, she looked spectacular. It unsettled him to think that, even with this pressing business to conclude, she had still managed to distract him to the point where all he could think of was her returning to London and joining the singles scene.

  He wouldn’t have said that his ego was so immense that it could be so easily bruised, but his teeth clamped together in grim rejection of the thought of any man touching her. Since when had he been the possessive type, let alone jealous?

  ‘It will also allow Rachel to sleep on everything, give her time to put things into perspective and to come to terms with returning with us on the next flight over.’

  ‘You make it sound as though we’ll be leaving tomorrow.’ Lesley hovered by the bed, sensing his mood and wondering whether it stemmed from parental concern at what was to come. She wanted to reach out and comfort him but knew, with unerring instinct, that that would be the last thing he wanted.

  Yet hadn’t he implied that they would be in the country for at least a week? She wondered why the rush was suddenly on to get out as quickly as possible. Did he really think that she had been using him? Had he decided that the sooner he was rid of her, the better, now that she had bucked the trend of all his other women and displayed a lack of suitable clinginess?

  Pride stopped her from asking for any inconvenient explanations.

  ‘Not that it matters when we leave,’ she hastened to add. ‘Would I have time to have a shower?’

  ‘Of course. I have some work I need to get through anyway. I can use the time to do that and you can meet me downstairs in the sitting room. Unlike my country estate, you should be able to find your way around this villa without the use of a map.’

  He smiled, and Lesley smiled back and muttered something suitable, but she was dismayed to feel a lump gathering at the back of her throat.

  The sex between them was so hot that she would have expected him to have given her that wolfish grin of his, to have joined her in the shower, to have forgotten what they had come here for...just for a while.

  Instead, he was vanishing through the door without a backward glance and she had to swallow back her bitter disappointment.

  Once showered, and in a pair of faded jeans and a loose tee-shirt, she found him waiting for her in the sitting room, pacing while he jangled car keys in his pocket. The chauffeur had departed in the saloon car in which they had been ferried and she wondered how they were going to get to Claudia’s villa, but there was a small four-wheel-drive jeep tucked away at the side of the house.

  She had all the paperwork in a backpack which she had slung over her shoulder. ‘I hope I’m not underdressed,’ she said suddenly, looking up at him. ‘I don’t know how formal your mother-in-law is.’

  ‘You’re fine,’ Alessio reassured her. A sudden image of her naked body flashed through his head with such sudden force that his heart seemed to skip a beat. He should have his mind one hundred per cent focused on the situation about to unravel, he told himself impatiently, instead of thinking about her and whatever life choices she decided to make. ‘Your dress code isn’t the issue here,’ he said abruptly and Lesley nodded and turned away.

  ‘I know that,’ she returned coolly. ‘I just wouldn’t want to offend anyone.’

  Alessio thought that that was rather shutting the door after the horse had bolted, considering she had had no trouble in offending him, but it was such a ridiculous thought that he swept it aside and offered a conciliatory smile.

  ‘Don’t think that I don’t appreciate what you’re doing,’ he told her in a low voice. ‘You didn’t have to come here.’

  ‘Even though you made sure I did by dangling that carrot of a fabulous new big job under my boss’s nose?’ She was still edgy at his dismissive attitude towards her but, when he looked at her like that, his dark eyes roving over her face, her body did its usual thing and leapt into heated response.

  As if smelling that reaction, Alessio felt some of the tension leave his body and this time when he smiled it was with genuine, sexy warmth.

  ‘I’ve always liked using all the tools in my box,’ he murmured and Lesley shot him a fledgling grin.

  His black mood had evaporated. She could sense it. Perhaps now that they were about to leave some of his anxiety about what lay ahead was filtering away, replaced by a sense of the inevitable.

  At any rate, she just wanted to enjoy this return to normality between them. For that little window when there had been tension between them, she had felt awful. She knew that she had to get a grip, had to put this little escapade
into perspective.

  She would give herself the remainder of what time was left in Italy and then, once they returned to the UK, whatever the outcome of what happened here, she would return to the life she had temporarily left behind. She had already laid the groundwork for a plausible excuse, one that would allow her to retreat with her dignity and pride intact.

  It was time to leave this family saga behind her.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THE DRIVE TO Claudia’s villa took under half an hour. He told her that he hadn’t been back to Portofino for a year and a half, and then it had been a flying visit, but he still seemed to remember the narrow roads effortlessly.

  They arrived at a house that was twice the size of Alessio’s. ‘Bianca always had a flair for the flamboyant,’ he said drily as he killed the engine and they both stared at an imposing villa fronted by four Romanesque columns, the middle two standing on either side of a bank of shallow steps that led to the front door. ‘When we were married and she discovered that money was no object, she made it her mission to spend. As I said, though, she ended up spending very little time here—too far from the action. A peaceful life by the sea was not her idea of fun.’

  Lesley wondered what it must be like to nip out at lunchtime and buy a villa by the sea for no better reason than you could. ‘Is your mother-in-law expecting me?’

  ‘No,’ Alessio admitted. ‘As far as Claudia is concerned, I am here on a mission to take my wayward daughter in hand and bring her back with me to London. I thought it best to keep the unsavoury details of this little visit to myself.’ He leaned across to flip open the passenger door. ‘I didn’t think,’ he continued, ‘That Rachel would have appreciated her grandmother knowing the ins and outs of what has been going on. Right. Let’s get this over and done with.’

  Lesley felt for him. Underneath the cool, composed exterior she knew that he would be feeling a certain dread at the conversation he would need to have with his daughter. He would be the Big, Bad Wolf and, for a sixteen-year-old, there would be no extenuating circumstances.

  The ringing of the doorbell reverberated from the bowels of the villa. Just when Lesley thought that no one was in despite the abundance of lights on, she heard the sound of footsteps, and then the door was opening and there in front of them was a diminutive, timid looking woman in her mid-sixties: dark hair, dark, anxious eyes and a face that looked braced for an unpleasant surprise until she registered who was at the door and the harried expression broke into a beaming smile.

  Lesley faded back, allowing for a rapid exchange of Italian, and only when there was a lull in the conversation did Claudia register her presence.

  Despite what Alessio had said, Lesley had expected someone harder, tougher and colder. Her daughter, after all, had not come out of Alessio’s telling of the story as an exemplary character, but now she could see why he had dismissed Claudia’s ability to cope with Rachel.

  Their arrival had been unannounced; they certainly had not been expected for supper. Alessio had been vague, Claudia told her, gripping Lesley’s arm as she led them towards one of myriad rooms that comprised the ground floor of the ornately decorated house.

  ‘I was not even sure that he would be coming at all,’ she confided. ‘Far less that he would be bringing a lady friend with him...’

  Caught uncomfortably on the outside of a conversation she couldn’t understand, Lesley could only smile weakly as Alessio fired off something in Italian and then they were entering the dining room where, evidently, dinner had been interrupted.

  Standing a little behind both Claudia and Alessio, Lesley nervously looked around the room, feeling like an intruder in this strange family unit.

  For a house by the coast, it was oddly furnished with ornate, dark wooden furniture, heavy drapes and a patterned rug that obscured most of the marble floor. Dominating one of the walls was a huge portrait of a striking woman with voluptuous dark good looks, wild hair falling over one shoulder and a haughty expression. Lesley assumed that it was Bianca and she could see why a boy of eighteen would have been instantly drawn to her.

  The tension in the room was palpable. Claudia had bustled forward, but her movements were jerky and her smile was forced, while Alessio remained where he was, eyes narrowed, looking at the girl who had remained seated and was returning his stare with open insolence.

  Rachel looked older than sixteen but then Lesley knew by now that she was only a few weeks away from her seventeenth birthday.

  The tableau seemed to remain static for ages, even though it could only have been a matter of seconds. Claudia had launched into Italian and Rachel was pointedly ignoring her, although her gaze had shifted from Alessio, and now she was staring at Lesley with the concentration of an explorer spotting a new sub-species for the first time.

  ‘And who are you?’ She tossed her hair back, a mane of long, dark hair similar to the woman’s in the portrait, although the resemblance ended there. Rachel had her father’s aristocratic good looks. This was the gangly teenager whose leather mini-skirt Lesley had stealthily tried on. She reminded Lesley of the cool kids who had ruled the school as teenagers, except now a much older and more mature Lesley could see her for what she really was: a confused kid with a lot of attitude and a need to be defensive. She was scared of being hurt.

  ‘Claudia.’ Alessio turned to the older woman. ‘If you would excuse us, I need to have a quiet word with my daughter.’

  Claudia looked relieved and scuttled off, shutting the door quietly behind her.

  Immediately Rachel launched into Italian and Alessio held up one commanding hand.

  ‘English!’

  It was the voice of complete and utter authority and his daughter glared at him, sullenly defiant but not quite brave enough to defy him.

  ‘I’m Lesley.’ Lesley moved forward into the simmering silence, not bothering to extend a hand in greeting because she knew it wouldn’t be taken, instead sitting at the dining room table where she saw that Rachel had been playing a game on her phone.

  ‘I helped to create that.’ She pointed to the game with genuine pleasure. ‘Three years ago.’ She dumped the backpack onto the ground. ‘I was seconded out to help design a website for a starter computer company and I got involved with the gaming side of things. It made a nice change. If I had only known how big that game would have become, I would have insisted on putting my name to it and then I would be getting royalties.’

  Rachel automatically switched off the phone and turned it upside down.

  Alessio had strolled towards his daughter and adopted the chair next to her so that she was now sandwiched between her father and Lesley.

  ‘I know why you’ve come.’ Rachel addressed her father in perfect, fluent English. ‘And I’m not going back to England. I’m not going back to that stupid boarding school. I hate it there and I hate living with you. I’m staying here. Grandma Claudia said she’s happy to have me.’

  ‘I’m sure,’ Alessio said in a measured voice, ‘That you would love nothing more than to stay with your grandmother, running wild and doing whatever you want, but it is not going to happen.’

  ‘You can’t make me!’

  Alessio sighed and raked his fingers through his hair. ‘You’re still a minor. I think you will find that I can.’

  Looking between them, Lesley wondered if either realised just how alike they were: the proud jut of their chins, their stubbornness, even their mannerisms. Two halves of the same coin waiting to be aligned.

  ‘I don’t intend to have a protracted argument with you about this, Rachel. Returning to England is inevitable. We are both here because there is something else that needs to be discussed.’

  He was the voice of stern authority and Lesley sighed as she reached down to the backpack and began extracting her folder, which she laid on the shiny table.

  ‘What’s that?’ But her voice was hesitant under the defiance.

  ‘A few weeks ago,’ Alessio said impassively, ‘I started getting emails. Lesley cam
e to help me unravel them.’

  Rachel was staring at the folder. Her face had paled and Lesley saw that she was gripping the arms of the chair. Impulsively she reached out and covered the thin, brown hand with hers and surprisingly it was allowed to remain there.

  ‘It’s thanks to me,’ she said quietly, ‘That all this stuff was uncovered. I’m afraid I looked through your bedroom. Your father, of course, would have rather I didn’t, but it was the only way to compile the full picture.’

  ‘You looked through my things?’ Dark eyes were now focused accusingly on her, turned from Alessio. Lesley had become the target for Rachel’s anger and confusion and Lesley breathed a little sigh of relief because, the less hostility directed at Alessio, the greater the chance of him eventually repairing his relationship with his daughter. It was worth it.

  It was worth it because she loved him.

  That realisation, springing out at her from nowhere, should have knocked her for six, but hadn’t she already arrived that conclusion somewhere deep inside her? Hadn’t she known that, underneath the arguments about lust and learning curves, stepping out of comfort zones and finding her sexuality, the simple truth of the matter was that she had been ambushed by the one thing she had never expected? It had struck her like a lightning bolt, penetrating straight through logic and common sense and obliterating her defences.

  ‘You had no right,’ Rachel was hissing.

  Lesley let it wash over her and eventually the vitriol fizzled out and there was silence.

  ‘So, tell me,’ Alessio said in a voice that brooked no argument, ‘About a certain Jack Perkins.’

  * * *

  Lesley left them after the initial setting out of the information. It was a sorry story of a lonely teenager, unhappy at boarding school, who had fallen in with the wrong crowd—or, rather, fallen in with the wrong boy. Piecing together the slips of paper and the stray emails, Lesley could only surmise that she had smoked a joint or two and then, vulnerable, knowing that she would be expelled from yet another school, she had become captive to a sixteen-year-old lad with a serious drug habit.