Lucy Gordon - The Rinuccis - Carlo, Ruggiero & Francesco

After a moment she emerged in her street clothes, paid her bill, and gave her room number for the dress to be delivered.

‘And the other things, for the young man?’ the assistant asked.

‘Oh, yes—deliver them to me, too.’

A brief glance at the paperwork showed Carlo that she had spent about ten times as much on Sol as on herself.

They left the boutique and headed for the coffee bar next door. Carlo seemed thoughtful, and she guessed that he now had a lot to think about.

‘Does that dress really suit me?’ she asked. ‘Or did Sol merely say so to get me to pay for his stuff?’

‘Why would he bother?’ Carlo asked wryly. ‘He knew you were a soft touch, whatever he said.’

‘Well, of course. Don’t be fooled by the fact that he looks grown-up. He’s only twenty-one, and has only just left college. Who’s going to pay his bills if I don’t?’

‘He could get a job and start paying his own way,’ Carlo suggested.

‘He will, but he had to visit his father first.’

‘Fair enough. But does it occur to him to curb his extravagance for your sake?’

‘Why should he? When he sees me book into one of the most expensive hotels in Naples he probably reckons I can afford a few shirts.’

He shrugged. It was a fair point, but he still didn’t like it.

‘Does his father help?’ he asked after a while.

‘His father has three other children by various mothers—the first one born barely a year after we broke up.’

‘So you’ve always worked to support Sol?’

‘I’m his mother.’

‘And some woman is always going to have to be,’ he pointed out, with a touch of grouchiness.

‘What a rotten thing to say!’ she flared. ‘It’s not like you.’

It was true, making him annoyed with himself.

‘Ignore me,’ he said, trying to laugh. ‘I just got a nasty shock when I first saw you together. I thought you had another guy. He looks older than he is.’

‘Twenty-one—I swear it. And I’m thirty-seven,’ she said lightly. ‘Thirty-seven!’

‘Why do you say it like that? As though you were announcing the crack of doom?’

‘We’ve never talked about my age before.’

‘Why should we? There were always more interesting things to do.’

‘But sooner or later you had to know that I was middle-aged—’

‘Middle-aged? Rubbish!’ he said, with a sharp, explosive annoyance that was rare with him. ‘Thirty-seven is nothing.’

‘I suppose it may seem so, if you’re only thirty.’

Suddenly his face softened.

‘You’re a remarkably silly woman—do you know that?’ he asked tenderly.

‘I’ve known it ever since I met you.’

‘And just what does that mean?’

‘A sensible woman would have taken one look at you and fled before you turned her whole life upside down.’

‘So why didn’t you?’ he asked curiously.

‘Maybe I didn’t mind having my life turned upside down? Maybe I wanted it? I might even have said to myself that it didn’t matter what happened later, because what we’d had would be worth it.’

He frowned. ‘But what do you think is going to happen later?’

‘I don’t know, but I’m not looking too far into the future. There’ll be some sadness there somewhere—’

‘You don’t know that—’

‘Yes, I do, because there’s always sadness.’

‘Then we’ll face it together.’

‘I mean after that,’ she said slowly. ‘When it’s over.’

He stared at her. ‘You’re talking about leaving me, aren’t you?’

‘Or you leaving me.’

‘Dio mio! You’re planning our break-up.’

‘I’m not planning it—just trying to be realistic. Seven years is quite a gap, and I know I should have told you before—’

‘Perhaps,’ he murmured. ‘But I wonder exactly when would have been the right moment.’

As he spoke he raised his head, looking at her directly, invoking a hundred memories.

When should she have told him? When they’d lain together in the closeness that was life and death in the same moment? When they’d walked in the dusk, arms entwined, their thoughts on the night ahead? When they’d awoken together in the mornings, sleepy and content?

He didn’t speak, but nor did he need to. The questions were there, unanswerable, like a knife twisting in her heart.

‘We didn’t have to talk about it,’ he said, more gently, ‘because it doesn’t matter. It can’t touch us.’

‘But it has to touch us.’

‘Why? I knew you were older—’

‘Just a little. Not that much older. And, darling, you can’t pretend it didn’t give you a shock. There was a moment back there when you were looking from Sol to me as if you were stunned.’

He stared at her, wondering how two people who loved each other so much could misunderstand each other so deeply. What she said was true. He had been totally stunned, reeling like a man who’d received a shattering blow.

But it wasn’t her age. It had been the moment when he’d seen her in Sol’s arms and thought she’d betrayed him. The extent of his pain had caught him off-guard, almost winding him. Nothing else had ever hurt so much. Nothing else would ever do so again.

It had confronted him with the full truth of his love, of the absolute necessity of his being with her and only her as long as they both lived. He’d thought himself already certain, but for a moment it had been as if she’d been snatched away from him, and he’d stared into a horrifying abyss.

And she thought he was worried about a trifle like her age.

‘It’s true,’ she urged. ‘You need to think about it.’

‘I’m not listening to this,’ he said impatiently. ‘You’re talking nonsense.’

‘All right.’ She made a placating gesture. ‘Let it go.’

His eyes flashed anger. ‘Don’t humour me.’

‘I just don’t want to waste time arguing.’

‘And I don’t want you brooding over it to yourself.’

‘But it’s not just going to vanish—not unless I suddenly lose seven years.’

‘Will you stop talking like that?’ he begged. ‘Thirty-seven is nothing these days. It doesn’t have to bother us unless we let it.’

‘Are you going to wish it away?’ she asked fondly.

He shook his head. ‘I’ll never wish you other than you are.’

‘But one day—you might.’

His response to that was to pull her close and kiss her. There were faint cheers from other customers in the little café, for lovers were always popular.

As they drew apart she smiled and sighed, letting it go at that. Now time must pass while he took in the full enormity of what he’d discovered. Already she guessed that he was beginning to understand, which was why he’d moved to silence her. Then he would realise that a permanent love was impossible, but together they would enjoy their time together while they worked on the series. It all made perfect sense, and one day perhaps it would no longer hurt so much.

The spent that evening, as they had spent others recently: dining in her room before going to bed. Over the food and wine he told her more about his family, preparing her for the next evening.

‘Justin and Evie won’t be there, because they live in England and Evie’s heavily pregnant with twins. But Primo and Olympia will be there, and so will Luke and Minnie, down from Rome for a couple of days.’

He tactfully forbore to mention that he’d had a call from Luke, his adopted brother, now living with Minnie ‘in a state of fatuous bliss’, according to his brother Primo. But since Primo himself had lowered his prickly defences for the sake of the divine Olympia, he was, as Ruggiero had tartly remarked, hardly in a position to talk.