JACQUELINE BAIRD - Nothing Changes Love

As manager of the small, exclusive hotel it was Lexi’s job to make sure everything ran smoothly, and even now, when she was off duty and on her way down into Sorrento for the rest of the day, she could not help checking everything was in order.

Today it was slightly more than that, she admitted to herself with a wry smile. She was meeting Dante for lunch and he would be expecting to hear if she was going ahead with the divorce. It was still a niggling puzzle to Lexi why Jake Taylor, in almost five years, had never instigated divorce proceedings. It just didn’t make sense. The last night in London she had heard Jake and Lorraine discussing how to break the news to his wife of their involvement and they had even got around to discussing the money side of divorce, and wondering if Lexi would accept it. When she had faced Jake he had made no attempt to deny anything, was delighted she had overheard and was going to be sensible and actually suggested she join them in a drink.

For years she had been expecting to hear from Mr Travis, her solicitor, that Jake had approached him for a divorce but it had never happened. When Dante had asked her out a few months ago, she had decided it was time she got back into the world of male-female relationships, and to do so she had to be free. Finally, a week ago she had rung Mr Travis in England and, after a long conversation with the lawyer, she had confirmed in writing her desire to start divorce proceedings on the five years’ separation statute. This very morning she had received a letter from her solicitor confirming that the proceedings were progressing on her behalf.

Dismissing the problem from her mind, she strolled over to the reception desk and in her usual fluent Italian asked Franco, her young assistant manager, if everything was in order.

‘ Si , Lexi.’ His dark brown eyes swept over her appreciatively, taking in the rich tumble of golden-red curls flowing down her back and the seductive silhouette of her voluptuous figure outlined in a brief blue cotton jersey scooped-neck shift dress. Her shapely legs were bare and golden as was the rest of her exposed flesh. Five years in Sorrento and she had matured into a stunningly beautiful woman from the slim, rather solemn girl who had first arrived. Franco sighed dramatically. ‘Meeting Signor Dante? I think he is a very lucky man.’

Lexi grinned in acceptance of the compliment. ‘Forever the charmer, Franco,’ she quipped. ‘ Ciao. ’ And her strappy blue sandals tapped out her jaunty step as she crossed the marble floor and stepped outside into the brilliant blaze of midsummer sun.

She stopped for a moment beside the little Fiat Panda—it was a company car but Lexi considered it hers—she stared out over the roof of the car at the view before her. It never failed to lift her spirits, she thought musingly. The hotel was perched high on a hill overlooking the bay of Naples. The isle of Capri was visible on the left, an exquisite jewel set in a sea of azure. With a contented sigh, Lexi opened the car door and sat in the driving seat.

Why worry? she told herself. According to the solicitor, in six weeks’ time she could divorce Jake Taylor on the grounds that they had been apart for five years; she didn’t even need her husband’s consent. Dante should be satisfied with that. Very soon she would be officially free...

She started the little car and spun along the elegant drive lined with orange and lemon trees and turned right at the main gates on to the road down into Sorrento. She was singing softly to herself as she swung the wheel expertly around the first of half a dozen hairpin bends that zig-zagged down the hillside, only to gasp as, with lightning speed, a black Bugatti sports car swerved violently to pass her, only missing her car by inches.

The same blasted car again! Stupid macho oaf, she thought scathingly, as she registered the brief outline of a dark, greying man behind the wheel of the gleaming monster of a car. But, once more steadily driving along, she had the same uncomfortable feeling that there was something vaguely familiar about the driver of the Bugatti. She had seen the car a few times in the past few months. It was hard to miss; at first she had thought the driver might have been a guest at some time. But the hotel was small—only twenty luxuriously appointed suites, strictly for the very wealthy and discerning traveller, and she knew virtually all the guests, past and present.

She had never actually got a good look at the driver. But somehow she had the strangest feeling she knew the man on a more personal basis. Which was ridiculous when she thought about it; people with the sort of wealth that could afford a Bugatti were not in her social circle. Dante, her boyfriend, was comfortably off, owning two jewellery shops—one in Sorrento and another in Amalfi. He was a good, hard-working, serious-minded man and would make her an excellent husband and father to her children.

A shadow darkened her violet eyes, as she realised with a sense of shock it would be exactly five years tonight since she had lost her child. She had never completely got over the miscarriage, and sometimes in her darkest moods she couldn’t help asking herself if she had finally instigated divorce proceedings herself and was contemplating marrying Dante, more because she still had a desperate longing for a child, than through any great love for the man himself.

She dismissed the unsettling thought from her mind. Anyway, Dante hadn’t actually proposed yet, she smiled wryly, counting her chickens again! A bad policy, she remonstrated with herself, as she manoeuvred the car through the hectic lunch-time traffic in Sorrento and down to the Marina Piccolae. She had arranged to meet Dante at the Dolphin restaurant, a long wooden structure that stretched out on wooden stilts from the steep cliffs into the sea and served excellent fish dishes. She parked the car on a small cobbled side-lane and walked around the curve of the old port.

A tender smile curved the corners of her full mouth as she watched the local children playing in the sea. It didn’t seem to bother them that there were fishing boats tied up haphazardly around the water’s edge; in fact it appeared to add to their enjoyment as, like fish themselves, they jumped and dived off the boats.

Sorrento was a stunning town, built over a flat plateau that rose precipitously from the sea. On the top of the steep cliffs the big hotels had lifts cut through the rock and down to the base and the sea. Small beaches with large rectangular wooden pontoons greatly increased the available sunbathing areas and, for the swimmer, access to the sea itself, but at quite a substantial charge to the public. Certainly more than local children could pay.

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