Bride By Choice

‘Stuff that! Do you think I want their good opinion at your expense? Act as if everything’s normal between us.’

‘I’m not sure what that means,’ Helen said, pulling herself together. ‘What is “normal between us”? We’ve always been playing parts, right from the start when we were just going to be friends.’

He gave a grunt of laughter. ‘I used to take cold showers every night, just thinking of you.’

‘That’s what I mean. We’ve never been honest with each other about anything.’

‘I suppose that’s true,’ he mused. ‘Perhaps it’s time we started.’

Something in his tone made her look up to discover his mouth close to hers. He brushed her lips lightly, but did no more, watching for her reaction.

‘That wasn’t wise,’ she said in shaking voice.

‘It was honest,’ he said. ‘And I wanted to do it.’

‘But you said-’

‘What did I say?’ he whispered, so close that his breath touched her face.

‘I forget.’

Their lips were touching again and joy seemed to stream through her as though a window had opened onto sunlight. She had been so unhappy, and now it seemed as though everything might be given back to her. This time she would know how to protect and treasure it.

‘Come back to the villa,’ he murmured. ‘There’s so much we must talk about.’

‘All right.’

He led her back to the table. While she was gathering her things Helen was vaguely aware of Lorenzo lifting a paper that had been slipped under his wine glass. When she looked at him he was staring at it, frozen. She reached for it too quickly for him to stop her.

It was a swiftly drawn sketch, crude but effective, of a woman walking a poodle on a leash. The woman’s face was just recognisable as her own, while Lorenzo’s face had been substituted for the poodle’s.

‘That’s what they think of you because you act like a civilised human being?’ she raged. ‘And you ask what I’ve always held against this place. Doesn’t this explain it?’

He was deadly pale. ‘It doesn’t matter. I care nothing for them beside-’ He checked himself.

‘I’m not going to let this happen again, Lorenzo. I won’t accept a sacrifice. Please tell your mother that I’m sorry I can’t come over Christmas. In fact, I can’t see you again, ever. Can’t you understand that I mustn’t?’

He didn’t try to prevent her leaving. Just watched her go with a face that was dark with anger, and tore the paper into shreds.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE Elroy-Palermo opened in a blaze of glory. Helen’s call to Frank had produced the goods in the form of a pair of Hollywood starlets about to tie the knot. After some negotiations they married in Palermo and held the reception at the hotel, courtesy of Elroys. The pictures were glorious and they appeared in magazines all over the world. Helen also managed a nifty deal on video rights, providing herself with the perfect publicity weapon.

‘Well done,’ Lorenzo said, taking her aside at the reception. ‘You’ve made a brilliant success.’

‘I didn’t know you were going to be here.’

‘It should have been Renato but I persuaded him to let me come instead. It was the only way I could get to see you since you’re avoiding us.’

‘I’m not-’

‘You wouldn’t come for Christmas, you wouldn’t join us for the christening in the cathedral. They named Bernardo and Angie’s baby Marta, by the way. After his mother. The whole family was there except you.’

‘How could I come, knowing what happens to you if we’re seen together? Or even if we’re not.’

‘That’s all over.’

‘You mean that crowd of punks don’t bother you any more?’

‘Of course not. They’ve lost interest.’

‘Lorenzo, I hear all the gossip in this place.’

‘And the gossip features me, does it?’ He spoke casually but she could see his chagrin.

‘In neon lights.’

‘It’s been two months since we saw each other,’ he growled. ‘You’d think they’d find something better to talk about.’

‘I’ll bet they send you things in the mail too, don’t they?’ He shrugged. ‘Oh, it’s unspeakable!’ she snapped. ‘Why don’t you do something to stop them?’

‘Like what?’ he demanded.

‘How should I know?’

‘Are we back to the blood feud again? My father had an old shotgun somewhere. I could look it out if you think my dignity demands it. Only I’ve never used it before, and if I aimed it at you I’d probably miss and break Mamma’s best vase, and then she’d get mad at me and-’

‘Not as mad as I’m getting. Why can’t you take it seriously?’

‘Because I can’t keep a straight face when you talk that vendetta nonsense. You’re a real hot-blooded Sicilian, aren’t you? You terrify me. Why don’t you get the shotgun if you’re so determined on action?’

She ground her teeth. ‘There’s no point in me taking action when you’re the one with the cause for a vendetta.’

He made a wry face. ‘I’m sorry, Helen. I guess I must be a real disappointment to you.’

There was no way past the shield he put up against her arrows. She recalled Heather saying how he’d once taken a tipsy swing at a British policeman. But that had been another Lorenzo. This was a man so rock-solid in his knowledge of, and confidence in, himself, that he could endure smarts that would destroy a lesser man.

She felt a sudden dread at the thought that he wasn’t doing this for her at all. Perhaps he was simply proving something to himself, and she was almost irrelevant. It hurt far more than it should have done.

She would have returned to the battle, but he drifted away, calling, ‘Congratulations on a great day,’ over his shoulder.

This so incensed Helen that the next day, with the praises of Head Office ringing in her ears, she fled the hotel, jumped into her car and drove out to the Residenza, just as she’d promised herself she would never do.

‘There’s no doing anything with him,’ she said stormily when Baptista had greeted her with pleasure, and settled her down on the sofa. ‘He’s totally unreasonable.’

‘I’m afraid he is,’ Baptista agreed.

‘He can’t talk sense about anything.’

‘He’s never been able to.’

‘And when it concerns me, he’s completely off his head.’

‘Since the day he met you, my dear,’ Baptista agreed placidly. ‘He tried to hide it, but I knew at once that “Elena” was special.’

‘He doesn’t call me Elena now,’ Helen said sadly. ‘It used to make me angry, but now I’ve realised that he called me that when he loved me. Now I’m just Helen.’

‘Which is what you wanted,’ Baptista observed.

‘It was what I wanted then. I hadn’t understood a lot of things-then.’

‘And that is the beginning of wisdom.’

‘What’s the point of my being wise now?’ Helen asked passionately. ‘When it’s too late. When I think of what he’s going through-’

‘Some stories reach me. He tells me nothing.’

‘The things that come in his mail-no, of course, he wouldn’t show you.’

‘His mail doesn’t come here. Lorenzo doesn’t live in this house any more. He moved out to the villa weeks