A Family For Keeps

Vincenzo telephoned to say that he'd contacted Rosa's school and arranged for her to have a few days off for them to be together. But he hung up before Julia could thank him.

Late that night she waited up for him to return. There were so many things that she wanted to say to him too, if only he would be here. She resisted the thought that there was something ominous in his choosing to be absent.

As the hours passed she went to bed and lay awake, listening, longing for him. Now her heart reached out to him as never before as she understood the full extent of his generosity. He'd known from the start that he would lose Rosa as he had lost almost everything else. But he had put no barriers between them. On the contrary he'd done all he could to help the two of them rediscover each other, whatever the cost to himself.

She wanted to see him, hold him, and pour out her feelings now that the road was clear for them at last.

Eventually she heard the front door, then his footsteps. Throwing on a dressing gown, she went out to see him, and found him making up the sofa.

'You can't sleep there,' she said aghast. 'It isn't long enough for you.'

'It'll do for tonight.'

'But tomorrow-' Surely there was some way to say that his bed was big enough for two, if they squeezed in tightly. But why did it need saying?

'I've made arrangements for tomorrow. There's a tiny hotel just opposite. I've taken a room there.'

'A hotel?' she echoed, aghast.

'It's just on the other side of the canal. You can see it from here.'

'But when will I see you?'

'I'm not the one you need to see.'

'What about all the things we need to talk about?'

'Such as?'

There was no encouragement in his manner and so, instead of what she wanted to say, she blurted out, 'Money.'

His face seemed to close against her. 'Go ahead. Talk about money.'

'Now I've got my compensation I can invest some money in our hotel. And I've got the name of an Italian firm that goes in for this sort of thing. My lawyer in England has some international connections and he says these people are very good, completely trustworthy. Here.'

She handed him a scrap of paper, and he studied it before saying briefly, 'I've heard of them. They have a good reputation. Have you been in touch?'

'Certainly not. This is your show.'

'Really?'

'I only obtained their name,' she said indignantly. 'You said yourself that you're the world's worst businessman.'

'All right, all right.' He held up his hands as if fending off a swarm of bees.

It was going all wrong. Why didn't he take her into his arms and make everything perfect? Why couldn't he apparently see that now they were free to love each other? Unless he didn't want to see it.

'You'd better get back to bed,' he said. 'I'll sleep pretty well here. Goodnight.'

'Goodnight,' she said despondently, turning away to the door.

'Julia.'

'Yes?' She turned back, heart beating with hope.

'Thanks for all you've done-about the money and the hotel and everything. Goodnight.'

'Goodnight,' she said again, and closed the door behind her.

Vincenzo listened to her go into his room, cursing under his breath, wondering what was suddenly wrong with him.

Why should such an apparently simple thing have become so hard? She stirred his blood and his heart more than any woman had ever done, including his faithless fiancee. And what could be more natural than to ask her to be his wife?

But the words had frozen in him because he couldn't dismiss the picture of her face when she'd said it was better to use people than trust them. He closed his eyes, trying to blot out the memory, but it was replaced by another one: Julia saying, 'I'll do what I have to-whatever that might be.'

And if he could obliterate her voice and her expression, there was another memory that could never be dismissed because he could still feel it in his flesh: their first night together when she had loved him with wanton abandon, taking him on, challenging, demanding, giving, with a desire that was as fierce as it was dazzling.

Only afterwards, when he knew her story, had the niggling questions come.

Me? Or was I just the man in her bed when her need was great?

'Better to use people…' She had said it.

He wanted to shout a denial, to say she wasn't like that. But, as she'd so often told him, he knew nothing of her true self: as little, perhaps, as she did herself.

Today she had reclaimed her daughter's heart, but there were still matters to be sorted out. Not just living arrangements, but the child's attachment to himself and her baby brother.

For Julia, their marriage would make solid, practical sense. If he proposed now, she would say yes but he wouldn't know why. They would set up home with the children, the perfect picture of a happy family.

And he would never be quite certain of her or her love, as long as he lived.

The next day Vincenzo discovered the reason for Julia's numerous heavy suitcases. Somehow, in a mere two days, and in between dealing with lawyers, she'd found the time to buy up half the clothes shops in London.

Her hair had been cut short, brushed back and styled elegantly against her head. She no longer felt any need to hide her face from the world, or anybody in it.

She had drawn a line between her past and her future, and her transformation had rocked him onto the back foot. If he hadn't known what to say to her before, he was totally at sea now.

He concentrated on practical business, contacting the firm she'd mentioned. A posse of dark-suited men descended from their offices in Milan, looked the palazzo over and expressed enthusiasm. There were discussions with Julia. How much could she invest? What value did she put on her restoration work? Finally they declared that they already had investors on their books eager for just such an opportunity.

They agreed to the idea of a Carnival party to make the press announcement, after which serious work would begin, to have everything ready for the following year.

When they'd gone Vincenzo walked around the empty building, trying to come to terms with the way his life had been turned upside down yet again, but this time in a manner that offered him new hope.

'To come back,' he murmured. 'To see it come alive again.'

'It'll be wonderful,' Julia said. She had been keeping a little behind him, in the shadows.

He looked at her, thinking that here was something else to unsettle him. He was just about growing used to her changed appearance.

She might have stepped out of the pages of Vogue. She was elegant, groomed to perfection, wearing a white silk shirt and the very latest fashionable trouser suit in dark blue. The perfume that reached him was as clear and subtle as a spring flower.

She belonged in a palace, he realised. The lost soul he'd first met had been an aberration. Now she was mistress of the situation, mistress of her own life at last. She exuded confidence from every pore, every sleekly groomed line. He could almost feel her being carried away from him by an irresistible current.

'I'm going to start work down here,' she said, indicating the great hall.

'I thought this was where we were having the press party.'

'It is. This will give us a point of interest to show people.'

'I see. Good idea.'

Would they ever, he wondered, have anything else to talk about but business?

Julia watched him standing at the foot of the great staircase; looking up.

What did he see? Perhaps it was his fiancee, the woman he had loved more than all the world, slowly descending, receiving the tribute of his radiant expression? Was this why he had suddenly become unable to draw closer to her?

'I'd better be going,' she said. 'Rosa knows something's up, and she wants to be told everything.'