CAROL MARINELLI - Her Passionate Italian - The Passion Bargain / A Sicilian Husband / The Italian's Marriage Bargain

‘I’m sorry, Francesca, but I can ’ t talk about him!’ she threw after her. ‘It’s—complicated,’ she added awkwardly. ‘And Bianca only knows the bit she gleaned out of me when she caught me rowing with him on the phone in the office the other day. ‘

‘So he is married?’ She turned to look at her.

Sonya looked down and stubbornly closed her mouth.

The urge to tell her what a fool she was being leapt to the edge of her tongue—then was stopped when she remembered the ‘you sound like my mother’ stab from this morning. So she changed her mind about saying anything at all and turned back to her bedroom.

‘I’m going to change,’ she said. ‘I’m meeting Angelo in a hour—’

‘No, you’re not.’

Once again she stopped and swung round. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘He rang here—a few minutes ago—to say he’s still in Milan and won’t be coming back until tomorrow.’ For some reason relaying all of that also poured hot colour into her cheeks.

Francesca’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. ‘Have you two been fighting again?’

‘No,’ Sonya denied.

‘Then why the guilty face?’

‘OK, so we fought a little bit,’ Sonya snapped. ‘Stop getting at me, Francesca! I can’t help it if—’

‘So, why didn’t he call me on my mobile to tell me this?’ Francesca cut in. She was not going to let Sonya start one of her character-assassination jobs on Angelo again. One a day of those was enough.

‘He said you weren’t answering.’

Francesca glanced at her bag then went to recover it. The moment she fished inside the uniform brown leather satchel she knew why he couldn’t reach her. In her rush that lunchtime she must have left the phone in her tote bag.

‘Idiot,’ she muttered and went into the bedroom to get it so she could return his call—only to find Sonya had followed her and was standing in the doorway, wearing the oddest expression on her face. Francesca couldn’t quite read it—anxiety, pleading? Or was it pain from the tooth?

‘Are you feeling all right, cara ?’ she probed gently. ‘You look terribly flushed.’ She put a cool palm against Sonya’s cheek and was surprised just how hot she felt. ‘At the risk of being accused of mothering you, would you like me to tuck you into bed and bring you a nice hot chocolate drink?’

The tears arrived then, turning gentian-blue into midnight pools in a face that was so classically beautiful it was no wonder she’d been screen tested by a film director once. ‘Don’t be nice to me, Francesca,’ she murmured.

‘I love you,’ she smiled, moving her fingers into the straight, glossy pelt of her friend’s long, flaxen hair. ‘Why shouldn’t I be nice?’

‘Because I don’t deserve it.’ Sonya stepped away from her so she could use the sleeve of her bathrobe to wipe her eyes with. ‘I use your friendship dreadfully.’

‘Only because I let you.’

‘Yes…’ Sonya agreed and looked momentarily devastated. The phone went then, breaking the moment. Sonya went into the sitting room to answer it and a few seconds later was calling Francesca to come to the phone.

’ Ciao, mi amore .’ It was Angelo, his voice sounding weary and flat. ‘You don’t answer your cellphone because you don’t want to speak to me and I cannot blame you.’

‘I didn’t have my phone with me so I couldn’t answer it, you sweet idiot,’ she chided, her eyes flickering sideways to watch Sonya disappearing into her bedroom. The moment the door shut behind her Francesca lowered her voice into soft, loving tones. ‘I’m sorry you’re stuck in Milan.’

‘So am I,’ he agreed. ‘I am about to get ready to take dinner with some business colleagues when I should be on my way to share a romantic dinner with you. Ah, misero ,’ he declared feelingly.

‘Poor caro ,’ she commiserated.

Angelo heaved out a sigh. ‘But enough of this.’ He firmly pulled his mood out of the doldrums. ‘Tell me about your day.’

‘Well, my plans fell to pieces much as yours did…’ She went to explain, leaving out the incident at the traffic lights and editing some of the more contentious events involving Sonya so she didn’t invite him to vent his frustrations on the one person guaranteed to earn his wrath. ‘But I did manage to find a dress for Saturday,’ she finished on a high note.

To her surprise he made no cruel remarks about Sonya’s toothache. In fact he skimmed right over the fact that she’d even been mentioned at all and asked about her dress instead. She refused to tell him and there followed a few minutes of soft teasing that was much more like the man she loved. Then he had to go and the call ended, leaving Francesca feeling loved and filled with that golden warmth that was her Angelo.

Sonya didn’t come out of her bedroom again that evening. Francesca went in to check on her a couple of times but all she could see was the crown of her head peeping out from beneath a mound of duvet and eventually left her to sleep off the ordeal with the dentist.

By the next morning she was herself again and ready to face Bianca’s wrath head-on. They rode down the Corso side by side on similar Vespas and dressed in the same red uniforms. Their day was busy as always.

Angelo called at lunchtime to break the news that he was going to be stuck in Milan for another night. The next day was Saturday and they were supposed to be driving into the Alban Hills together but that plan had to be shelved. ‘I have arranged with my parents for you to travel with them,’ he told her.

It wasn’t a prospect that filled her with delight. She had discovered quite early on in her relationship with Angelo that his parents were not the kind of people who were ever going to welcome her with open arms. She harboured a suspicion that she was not what they’d been hoping for as a wife for their precious only son and if it wasn’t for her very loose connection to the Gianni name they would have been actively against Angelo marrying her. As it was, Mrs Batiste had grilled her once about her mother, then surprised her by confessing that she and Maria Gianni had attended the same convent school. ‘You look very like her—apart from the hair,’ she’d said, Maria’s hair having been as glossy Latin black as hair could be. ‘I’m sorry she had such a difficult life, Francesca. I hope your marrying my son will give you a happier one—for Maria’s sake—and that Bruno Gianni relents his foolish stubbornness one day for your sake. But until then I think we will not mention him again.’

And that had basically been it. The Gianni connection was smoothly sidelined, which suited Francesca because she didn’t like talking about it and was happy to keep it that way.

The journey to Frascati wasn’t too bad. Angelo’s parents’ manner towards her might be cool but it wasn’t frigid. She loved Angelo, they loved Angelo, so that was their line of communication. They were almost at their destination when Angelo’s mother voiced her annoyance that her son should have been held up in Milan this week of all weeks.

‘It is his own fault,’ her husband returned without any sympathy. ‘Angelo knows it is not good business practice to keep busy people kicking their heels while they await his late arrival.’

‘It wasn’t as if he intended to be late. He overslept and missed the flight,’ Angelo’s mama defended loyally.

He did? thought Francesca. It was the first she’d heard of it.

‘No one else missed the flight,’ the father made the succinct distinction. ‘Whatever they had been doing the night before, they still managed to get to the airport on time.’

In the back of the car Francesca shifted slightly, catching the attention of Mr Batiste via his rear-view mirror. ‘My apologies, Francesca,’ he said, ‘I was not being critical of the late hours you young people keep, only Angelo’s failure to rise from his bed when he should,’ bringing a flush of heat into her face when she realised what he was assuming.