Venetian Masquerade (14 page)

Amy spent the next two days interviewing prospective staff to start work at the hotel in the middle of January. Thanks to a friend of a friend of Gabriel’s, she found two chefs, Paulo and Carlo, who seemed to come as a pair. They had references to die for and seemed temperamentally perfect.

“He’s the artist,” said Paulo, indicating his partner, “but I am the organizer. We’ll need a kitchen hand, of course.”

Amy would have promised them two.

“Give us three months, and you will have the most prestigious restaurant on the Lido. Now, we would like to check the kitchen equipment to make sure we have everything we need, and then we’ll want at least half a dozen meetings to discuss menus.”

“We’ll be having a gala opening night at the beginning of the Carnival. Can I rely on you to provide food for about forty people?” she asked them.

“Standing on our heads, darling,” they chimed together. “What fun!” Then they disappeared to make an inventory of the kitchen.

If only everything else in my life could be that simple,
she thought.

Chapter Twelve

J
ames’s school broke up for Christmas the following Thursday. As he and Amy walked home, he was in high spirits, cheeks flushed with excitement, having excelled as a donkey in the class nativity play. “Donna was good as Mary, wasn’t she, Mama?”

“Fantastic.”

“When are we going to Rome?”

“Tomorrow.” Amy’s heart thumped at the prospect, but she kept her tone light.

“I can’t wait,” squeaked James, jumping between cracks in the pavement.

“And I can’t wait until we are safely back in Venice,” Amy muttered to herself.

After a sleepless night spent tossing and turning, Amy was up at six o’clock, her eyes sore and tired. She took a long, hot shower, dressed with care in black trousers and high-heeled boots with a pale blue sweater, and packed everything they might need before waking James, who bounded out of bed and was washed and dressed in record time. She forced some breakfast down both of them before catching an early
vaporetto
to the airport. Irrationally, she kept hoping the flight had been cancelled and they wouldn’t have to go, but it was on time, and by ten thirty, they were landing at Leonardo da Vinci Airport.

As they emerged through the Arrivals gate, Alessandro stood waiting for them. He was dressed for the winter chill and was, as always, the picture of sartorial elegance.

James rushed towards him, then stopped just short and regarded him warily, suddenly unsure of himself.

Alessandro ruffled the child’s hair and took his hand, indicating to his chauffeur to take the case from Amy. He greeted her with a kiss on the cheek, murmuring, “I trust that was allowed.”

Amy, overcome by the nostalgic scent of him, could only nod.

He led them to the car, and they headed toward the city, where they were embroiled in the mayhem of Roman traffic. James bounced up and down with excitement as they passed the Forum and Coliseum. But they drove straight through the city past all the hotels, without stopping. Horrified, Amy suddenly realized that Alessandro was taking them to his mansion. The house held so many memories of their time together, and she began to panic.

“Alessandro,” she protested, “you promised we could stay in a hotel!”

“Amy, it will be far more convenient if you stay at the house. As you will recall, there are endless bedrooms, and James can see where I live. It is ludicrous to keep driving into the city to see you, when you can stay quite comfortably with me.”

“But what about—”

“Sophia?” he asked dryly. “Sophia is not there.”

Well, that at least was a relief, thought Amy, but the idea of spending three nights under the same roof as Alessandro was going to be torment.

As they pulled into the forecourt of the glorious Palladian house with its classical white columns, she remembered the many times she had come here with Alessandro during their affair. How they had sometimes burst through the door, tearing their clothes off, and often had not made it to the bedroom before making love. The sofa, the Persian rug in front of the fire, even the stair landing held erotic memories that instantly replayed as she walked through the door. She glanced at Alessandro and saw from the darkening in his eyes that he was replaying the same memories. She wanted to turn and run—hail a taxi back to the airport—to be anywhere but here. James was running from room to room, wildly excited.

“Mama, there’s a swimming pool downstairs!”

“I know, James.” That was another place they had made love…and in the sauna. A flush came to her cheeks, and Alessandro took pity on her.

“Let me show you your rooms. Lucia, my housekeeper, won’t be back until this evening. It’s her day off.”

Amy was pleased to see that her bedroom was at the opposite end of the corridor to Alessandro’s, and James’s was opposite hers across the hall. Both were palatial, with
en suite
bathrooms, and she thanked him with a wan smile. She reflected, as she looked out of the window onto the acre or so of garden, that this house actually felt more like a hotel than a home. She hadn’t noticed when she had been here as Alessandro’s lover—but then, she hadn’t really noticed anything except him, during those months. Now, everything seemed too perfect, too expensive, and somehow, it looked as though it had been furnished by an interior design team, rather than by the people who lived in it. There was nothing of Sophia, nothing particularly feminine about the house, which, after five years of marriage, she would have expected. But perhaps, she mused, Giovanni’s prophecy had come true, and maybe Sophia now spent very little time here.

Quickly, she unpacked and went downstairs with James. Alessandro was in the kitchen, hunting among the cupboards for coffee and biscuits; clearly, it was uncharted territory for him.

“Are you tired, James?” he asked.

“No, I’m all right. Thank you.” James wriggled onto his mother’s lap, overawed, and put his thumb in his mouth, a sure sign that he was out of his comfort zone.

“Then, Amy, I suggest we go and look at the property I told you about before lunch so that we can discuss it later this evening.” He had finally wrung coffee out of the machine.

“Very well.” She accepted a cup while James drank his milk and scattered biscuit crumbs all over the table. “Oh, James…” Somehow, this was not a house where crumbs would be welcome, and she went to wipe them away.

“Amy, relax. It’s fine. Now, if you are both ready, shall we go?”

The drive to the suburb of Rome took about half an hour, but finally, they pulled up outside a large, scruffy building with boarded-up doors and windows; graffiti was scrawled all over it, and half-torn posters for long-past events hung limply on the walls.

“The building is worth nothing, of course, but the land is conservatively worth two million euros.”

“What?” Amy was staggered.

“I doubt Maria had any idea, to the day she died, that this old dump was her single most valuable asset. It will cost several million to turn it into a commercial venture, but I know we would get planning permission for three levels of offices, with shops and restaurants at ground level, which you can either sell or let. Either way, you will have a very handsome return on it, and so will James. You look rather pale, Amy. Come on, I’ll buy you lunch. Where would you like to go?”

“McDonalds, please,” piped up James.

“Good heavens. All right, it will be a first for me,” said Alessandro with a grimace, and Amy could barely keep a straight face a while later as she watched him gingerly working round a large hamburger and picking at his French fries. “Do you do this often?” he asked.

“No, it’s definitely a treat.” Amy laughed.

“A treat?” He grimaced.

By the early evening, James was exhausted, and by seven thirty, after an early tea, he was fast asleep. Alessandro’s housekeeper, Lucia, had returned and was happy to babysit, so Alessandro asked Amy to go to a restaurant for dinner.

“And if we are seen together…?”

“Who is going to care?”

Amy assumed he was inferring that it was nothing unusual for him to be seen around town with a woman who wasn’t his wife, so with a shrug, she accepted. It was better than being in the confines of the house with him all evening. She wore a simple green silk shift dress and black sandals and left her hair loose, cascading around her shoulders. Alessandro took her to a predictably expensive restaurant, where the headwaiter almost scraped his nose on the floor while ushering them to a private table in an alcove. After they had ordered, Alessandro leaned back in his chair and studied her.

“Amy, this really can’t go on.”

“Meaning what?”

“This stupid situation between us. You know that sooner or later, you are going to end up in my bed, so I really don’t understand why you are fighting it. Every move, every glance tells me that you feel exactly the same as I do, and all you are doing is torturing us both.”

“You’re very sure of yourself,” she replied, wishing she could deny every word he had said.

“I have reason to be. Your face when we walked through the door at my house gave you away, even if nothing else had. You could see us, naked and entwined on the sofa—and all the other places—as clearly as I could. And you were just as aroused as I was. It was in your eyes. It’s still in your eyes.”

She lowered them from the intensity of his gaze, which was now burning the top of her head.

“Amy, look at me and tell me you don’t still love me.”

At last, she raised her gaze to his, but kept her mouth mutinously closed, afraid of what words might spill out. Yes, she still loved him, but she was in mortal danger of turning the clock back six years—of becoming his mistress; her friends would despise her, and his friends would abhor her in their society. She would be in limbo, and she had worked too hard and gone through too much to tolerate that.

“Amy, everything my father told you on that night was a lie. I had a few girlfriends, of course, but they were never serious and I never deceived them. Nobody got hurt. Sophia’s family and mine are distantly related, and as often happens in dynastic families like ours, there was a hope that we would marry. Dolores was particularly keen on the idea, and Sophia and I were old friends. We went out on dates together from our teens, but I never had any intention of marrying her.”

“Then, why did you?”

“After you left, I was devastated and had no idea why you had gone or where. Certainly I had no idea you were pregnant. I couldn’t imagine what I had done to make you run away, and I was humiliated and angrier than I have ever been in my life. If I had known then what my father had told you, I think I might have killed him. I looked for you for a year, but you did a good job of disappearing. I had to reason that if you had really loved me, you would have contacted me sooner or later with an explanation. But you didn’t—so in the end, I bowed to family pressure and married Sophia. There didn’t seem to be a reason not to, except I wasn’t in love with her—nor, as it turned out, was she with me.”

“Where is she now?”

“In Florence, with her lover.”

“You separated?”

“We divorced, Amy. Two years ago. We are still extremely good friends, and there was no legal wrangle afterwards.”

“You’re divorced!” She gasped incredulously. “You could have told me that weeks ago.”

“If you remember, when I saw you at Danieli’s in Venice, you appeared to be madly in love with Gabriel. I needed to find out how serious that was before I bared my soul to you. In fact, I still don’t know.”

“I love him dearly—but no, I’m not in love with him, and I’m not going to marry him. And who were you with that evening?”

“My cousin, Louisa. She runs the Venice office for us.”

Alessandro raised his eyebrows quizzically at her. “But we were talking about Gabriel… You’re not in love with him, but he sometimes stays overnight?”

“If we’re working late on plans for the hotel, he sometimes stays at the villa—in a separate room. We’re not lovers. There hasn’t been anyone else. Not that that is any of your business…” she added defensively.

“I think it is.” His eyes softened and he reached for her hand over the table but she snatched it away.

“No, Alessandro. It isn’t as easy as that.”

“Why not?”

“I’m scared.”

“Scared of what, my darling? Of making love with me, scared of the way your body responds in my arms, scared of the joy, the pleasure, the ecstasy we had together?”

“I’m scared to come into your world, Alessandro. I have a wonderful life in Venice—friends, security, a home, and now a new business. It’s all real, and it matters to me and to James. He’s a happy little boy, and it would be cruel to uproot him again. I would hate to live in Rome, hate the artificial lifestyle, the people…”

“My family?”

“I only brushed up against them once, and look what happened!”

He was silent, and the waiter came to take away the cold food, which had been sitting in front of them for half an hour.

“You never have to see them again. In fact, I positively forbid it.”

“But…James is their grandchild. Won’t you want them to meet him?”

“No.” He looked grim and intractable. “And I don’t want to talk about them tonight.”

“All right… It has nothing to do with me anyway. Would you take me back to the house now, please? I should check on James. He had a bit of a headache earlier from all the traveling.”

“Of course.” Tight-lipped, he signed a slip for the waiter, and neither spoke on the way back to the house, where all was quiet; clearly, James and Lucia were soundly asleep.

“Would you like a brandy?” he asked, ushering her into the salon, where a log fire had been lit.

“Yes, thank you.” She slipped off her sandals and curled up in an armchair, watching him fix the drinks. He wasn’t married, she thought, still astonished by the knowledge—and he wanted her…but in what role? Wife, or mistress? But even more amazingly, he didn’t want her to allow his parents to meet their grandchild. But then, she supposed James was a grandchild they would probably look on with disdain, just as they had dismissed her as not good enough for their son.