Italian Escape with Her Fake Fiancé

by Sophie Pembroke

  That was how life worked. She’d seen it clearly enough before she was even sixteen, and had it repeated plenty of times since. Her teachers might disagree, but even Daisy eventually learned her lessons when they were that obvious.

  Besides, her mother had been her biggest teacher—maybe not in reading or writing, but in how the world worked. She’d taught her that at the age of six, when she’d crept into her room in tears and told Daisy that she couldn’t do it any more. She couldn’t give up her own life, her own dreams, for a man who didn’t appreciate her, who kept her down and forced her into a life she hated. One where all that mattered was whether she had dinner on the table and kept quiet during the football. She loved Daisy, she promised as she laid her old mandolin beside her on the bed, hitching her own guitar onto her back. But she had to chase her own dreams too.

  Daisy had learned an important lesson when she’d woken up to find her mother gone: she wasn’t enough to make anyone stay. And dreams mattered more than love.

  She’d learned it again at fifteen when her stepmother had kicked her out for the first time, after another argument over what mattered more—babysitting her little brothers so her dad and stepmum could go to the pub and spend the grocery money again, or practising with her band so they could play some paid gigs.

  She’d come back and done as she was told that time. But she’d started planning, too.

  Daisy knew what she needed to know to survive. First, that she had to get out and chase her own future, because she could be damn sure that no one else would do it for her. Secondly, that she didn’t want to rely on anybody else to get it. She’d seen too many older girls from the neighbourhood settle for guys who weren’t right for them, just because they had a flat, or a job. She’d watched her dad and stepmum relying on hand-outs from the government just to live, after Dad lost another job. She’d seen her best friend and band mate give up what she wanted—what they both wanted—because she fell in love, and her new boyfriend didn’t like her playing in a band, let alone chasing big-time success.

  Daisy wouldn’t be like them. Not any more. She had made it, at last, and that meant she didn’t need to rely on anyone else. She wasn’t going to give up anything. Love, family...all that stuff came with a cost. And, as she’d learned since she left home and started to make it on her own, so did everything else. It was better to know what the cost was upfront.

  Which was why she was almost glad that the villa was a wreck. At least that made sense. Viv had obviously needed to get rid of it for tax reasons, or couldn’t be bothered doing it up herself, so had passed it off under the appearance of a gift. That, she could understand. It was like those smarmy guys from the record company who talked up all the ways they wanted to help her build her career—mentorships, support, opportunities. Daisy knew what they really meant.

  We want to make money from you. Here’s what we’ll give you so you don’t notice we’re taking advantage.

  She always knew when people were taking advantage, because people were always taking advantage. She just made sure that what she got in return was worth enough to her.

  In this case, the villa was an escape, and that was worth a lot. When it came to her career, music had always given her the same thing—the chance to escape home, to escape poverty, to escape fading away to nothing. The rest of it was beside the point.

  Except, somehow, it had also given her Jay, sitting beside her at the rustic wooden kitchen table, chewing the end of his pencil as he added to the list.

  ‘Is “fix the heating” on there?’ Daisy asked, shivering. ‘Or is that more of a “fix the broken windows” issue?’ The day had almost gone, and all they’d really done was potter around the village, buy food, scare a goat and cook a late lunch/early dinner that they’d eaten with one of the bottles of wine they’d bought. It had been nice—a break from the list, at least. But now the sun was sinking outside, although given the time of year she imagined it would take a few more hours to actually dip under the horizon.

  Jay looked up, his eyes shining in the fading sunlight. ‘Cold? That, at least, I can do something about.’

  Dropping his pencil onto the table, he crossed the room to the fireplace, and poked around for a minute or two. Daisy looked on, apprehensively.

  ‘Are you sure we should mess around with that? There might be squirrels nesting in the chimney or something. Maybe another goat.’

  Jay turned to her with an amused look. ‘You’re really not all that comfortable with wildlife, are you?’

  ‘Are you?’

  He shrugged. ‘I grew up next door to a farm.’

  That must have been nice, Daisy supposed, although she couldn’t actually imagine it. ‘I grew up in the city. I know rats and pigeons and that’s about it. Maybe an urban fox or something.’

  ‘And you’re right, the chimney probably needs cleaning.’ He gave her an assessing look. ‘But if you were up for it, we could build a campfire outside? I saw a fire pit out the back earlier.’

  ‘Can’t be any colder out there than in here,’ Daisy decided. ‘Come on.’

  Outside, Daisy settled onto a wooden seat, while Jay set about fetching firewood from the store. She watched, enthralled, as he laid the fire, then lit it, coaxing the flames to life. She tried to remember if she’d ever sat by a real fire, out in the countryside—rather than an accidental fire with sirens and engines, like the one at her school that time. She didn’t think so.

  She knew, in many ways, she was a lot younger than Jay. In years, maybe only six or so. But there were so many experiences out in the world that he’d had and she’d never even dreamt of. Like university—or a gap year in Italy.

  Of course, she’d had a lot of experiences she guessed he hadn’t either. Like sleeping on London’s streets, or running away from home. She wasn’t naive, never that. But despite growing up probably only fifty miles apart, their lives had been so totally different—until that festival in Copenhagen threw them together.

  She wondered what the label had given him to keep him in the job of her mentor. She couldn’t imagine he was doing it for fun. It was clear now what Kevin and the label got out of it—her under control, some great publicity via their new fake relationship, and maybe even some songs, if they ever got around to writing any.

  She just couldn’t figure out what Jay got.

  Once the fire was roaring away, Jay stood up and headed back for the house.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Daisy asked, panicked. She definitely didn’t want to be left alone in charge of wild flames.

  He shot her an amused look. ‘I’ll be right back. Try not to set the whole hilltop ablaze while I’m gone.’

  Yeah, that made her feel loads better.

  True to his word, he was back moments later, his guitar slung on his back in its case, her mandolin under his arm, and gripping one of his jumpers. He tossed the jumper into her lap. ‘Put that on until you warm up.’

  She should argue, Daisy was sure. But she was cold, and her packing had been more for sultry summer Italy, plus her ubiquitous leather jacket, neither of which were serving her particularly well right now.

  She tugged the jumper over her head, breathing in the familiar scent of Jay. Wait. When had that become familiar? On the tour, or when she’d crashed into him in the car...? She wasn’t sure. She just knew that for the rest of her life, she’d be able to pick his clothing out of a pile by scent alone.

  She was clearly a woman of many talents, most of them less than profitable. It was just as well she could sing, play, and pull a mean pint, or she’d be worthless to the world.

  ‘Are we writing?’ she asked, taking the mandolin from him. The instrument felt so familiar in her hands, her fingers smoothing over the wood and finding the strings instinctively, plucking and tuning it without thought.

  Jay shook his head. ‘Let’s save that for the morning. I just thought it might be fun to play
together.’

  Daisy looked down at her hands, plucking the strings lightly as she refined the tuning. It had been so long since making music had just been about having fun, if it ever had been. For her, music had been her way out—something she had that others didn’t, something that she could use to escape her home, her family, and find something more, as her mum had tried to do.

  Tried, and failed. But she didn’t like to dwell on that part.

  Nobody really knew what had happened to her mother. But Daisy knew what hadn’t happened. She hadn’t found the success she craved, or else everyone would know her name, her music.

  Like they were starting to know Daisy’s.

  Without her really thinking about it, her fingers began picking out a melody—an old song, a familiar one. One that seemed to have followed her around her whole life. Had her mother sung it, before she left? Maybe. Daisy couldn’t remember.

  But Jay knew it, too. Because he started playing along—all the right chords, moving with her tune, adding depth and dance to the music.

  There were words, too. About luck and stars and moonlight and possibility. As the sun sank behind the hill, Daisy’s hands flew over the strings instinctively as she opened her mouth and began to sing, Jay’s lower voice joining her on the harmonies.

  And for the first time in months, she felt as if she might be exactly where she was supposed to be. Even if she wasn’t chasing anything, for once.

  * * *

  Someone was hammering something.

  Jay had kind of assumed the banging was just inside his head, after last night’s wine and the smoke from the fire—plus the last three hours of trying to drag a tune he couldn’t quite hear out of his head. Why was it so easy to make music when it didn’t matter, when they could sing and play anything they dreamt of or remembered—but so damn hard to do it when it was important? When they needed to write the songs they’d promised Kevin they’d work on during the break?

  ‘What the hell is that noise?’ Daisy scrunched her nose up and dropped her pen on the floor.

  Right. The hammering.

  ‘I’ll go and find out.’ Jay put down the guitar he’d barely played all morning anyway and headed outside.

  The source of the banging quickly became apparent: the builders they’d met the day before in the village square had taken out one of the broken window frames.

  ‘We finished our job,’ the one with the better English said. ‘So now we are here. We fix this.’ He gestured to the window. Or possibly the whole house. And the goat that was still loitering on the edge of the cliff.

  ‘Great. Thanks. Um...grazie.’ See? He hadn’t forgotten all his Italian.

  The builder nodded. ‘This place has been empty too long. It is good to see it being cared for again. We’re glad to help.’

  ‘We’re very, very glad you’re helping too.’

  Leaving them to their work and heading back inside, he filled Daisy in on the latest developments.

  ‘So they’re...fixing my house? I mean, I haven’t paid them a deposit or anything. They haven’t even given me a quote. They’re just...fixing it?’ There was a small line between her eyebrows that made her look like a confused child.

  ‘Apparently so. I mean, I expect they’ll want paying at some point, but...’ He shrugged. They both knew that money wasn’t exactly an issue for him—and she couldn’t exactly be broke either. He knew what she was getting paid for this tour, and that was before he factored in the income from a number-one record. She could afford it, and if she couldn’t, he would.

  But Daisy didn’t seem quite so relaxed.

  ‘I need to give them money.’ She jumped up from where she was sitting, cross-legged on the floor, and headed for the door. Jay watched her go, all fire and fury, and wondered which of her many triggers he had hit this time.

  He wasn’t under any illusions that Daisy had enjoyed the same happy childhood and opportunities that he had in his life. He didn’t know her story—had never felt close enough to her to ask before—but that much was obvious from the barriers she threw up whenever anyone did ask about her past. Or her present for that matter. Anything personal, and Daisy wrapped that leather jacket of hers around her like armour.

  Her usual weapons of deflection were sarcasm, her incredibly sharp tongue, and a blank, incredulous look that left the object of her attention feeling like the stupidest person on the planet.

  He’d been the subject of that look too often already for him to push for more answers.

  Except...

  He’d sat with her last night and sung to the stars and felt more himself than he had since long before Milli. He’d come here with her to this place. And if they had three weeks together, just them, he couldn’t see that distance lasting. She’d managed to maintain it on the tour, even living on a bus together. But this was different, somehow. There was no Harry to run interference, no busy schedule to keep them too rushed to think, no fans to sign autographs for every night, no interviews to give, and no Kevin with that damn tablet scheduling their every second.

  It was just the two of them.

  And two Italian builders.

  And a goat.

  Belatedly, Jay followed Daisy outside and found her trying to hand euros to the bemused builders.

  ‘We fix this. Then you pay us,’ one of them was saying.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Daisy sounded so confused, so uncertain, that Jay had to step in.

  ‘Just say grazie, and we can get back to work,’ he said, taking her arm and tugging her back towards the front door.

  ‘Grazie!’ Daisy called back over her shoulder.

  ‘Paying people after the job is done isn’t exactly unusual, you know,’ he pointed out as they headed back inside. ‘What’s the issue?’

  Daisy gave an uncomfortable shrug. ‘I don’t know. Just...they don’t know us at all. They don’t have to be here—it’s Sunday, for crying out loud. They could be home, with their families.’

  ‘Maybe they need the work,’ Jay suggested. ‘Or maybe they saw how desperately we needed the help. One of them said to me that this place had been empty a long time. I think they’re happy that someone wanted to fix it.’

  Daisy looked thoughtful. ‘When you mentioned it yesterday, and the woman at the café pointed to the hill...they all seemed kind of excited then, too.’

  ‘I guess this place has been abandoned and crumbling a while, but they still consider it part of their village.’

  ‘Or they know who owns it,’ Daisy said suddenly. ‘That would make sense.’

  ‘You own it,’ Jay pointed out.

  ‘Well, yeah, now I do. But they don’t know that. I bet they know who owned it before me, though.’

  ‘And do you know?’ It had been a mystery, hadn’t it? Some weird legacy from a relative she hadn’t even known she possessed. At least, that was what Jay had believed. Watching Daisy squirm now though, he thought otherwise. ‘I take it that it wasn’t Great-Aunt Felicia?’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘There is no Great-Aunt Felicia. You know that.’

  ‘So who gave you the cottage?’

  ‘I think... I think it might have been Viv Ascot.’

  Jay’s eyebrows jumped so high he felt them hit his hairline. Of all the answers he’d expected—if he’d expected any at all—that was probably bottom of the list.

  ‘Multimillionaire heiress and businesswoman Viv Ascot?’ he asked, just to be sure.

  Daisy nodded. ‘I met her at the same festival I met you. My friends Jessica and Aubrey and I—well, they weren’t my friends then, because we’d only just met, but they are now—we helped find her dog when she lost it and took her to hospital because she’d hurt her ankle chasing him. We exchanged social-media details, but didn’t really hear much from her again. But now Aubrey and Jessica have both received dream gifts this summer too, and I...’

/>   ‘Got the crumbling villa in Italy,’ Jay finished for her, still trying to process the story she was telling him. ‘But why do you think it’s Viv Ascot?’

  ‘Because she is literally the only thing the three of us have in common, apart from being female. Different nationalities, different careers, very different personalities. The only thing that links us is that we all helped Viv.’

  ‘Huh.’ He supposed that made a sort of sense. ‘What did the others get?’

  ‘Jessica got the chance at a dream job in New York, which is brilliant, because she’d really shrunk her world to just her hometown since we met in Copenhagen.’ That little frown was back, just a small line between her eyebrows. God help him, but it was adorable. ‘Although we haven’t actually heard from her since she got there. Hopefully that means she’s having too much fun, not...’ She shook her head. ‘Anyway. Aubrey messaged me just before we left for Italy. She’s been gifted the money to complete her dream trip of a lifetime, touring Europe. She had started when we met, but then she got sick and had to go home and it was kind of terrifying for a while. But now she’s better she can have all the adventures she always dreamed of.’

  ‘Sounds to me like they both got exactly what they needed.’

  ‘Yep. That’s what I figured.’ Jay was pretty sure he knew exactly what was causing the disappointment in her voice.

  ‘And you can’t figure out why Viv Ascot would think you needed this place?’ he asked.

  ‘Can you?’ She looked up at him, eyebrows raised. He wasn’t entirely sure if it was a rhetorical question, but he didn’t get the chance to answer it anyway.

  Without warning, a huge crash sounded from the side of the house, followed by some fast-flowing Italian that Jay was pretty sure consisted entirely of words he wouldn’t repeat to his mother. There was a panicked bleat, and then the goat jumped in through the open window, almost landing on Daisy’s guitar before she yanked it out of the way.

  ‘Maybe she thought you needed a quiet, secluded place to write some duets with a friend?’ he suggested weakly.