Sicilian's Shock Proposal Read online

  ‘We need to get organised for tomorrow.’

  ‘I am organised,’ Sophie said. ‘We have the church booked, we have your plane to take us. I’ll call Teresa and then I’m going out.’

  It was amongst the hardest of calls she had ever made. Teresa was as cold and as hesitant as before, but, Sophie guessed, work was work for her and perhaps it was because of the mention of the Cavaliere name that Teresa agreed to cater back at the house for the wedding.

  ‘Grazie,’ Sophie said, and hung up.

  She collected her bag from the bedroom and gave her father a kiss on the cheek.

  ‘How long will you be?’ Paulo asked.

  ‘You’ll be in bed by the time I’m back.’ Sophie smiled. ‘I’ll see you in the morning. Just think, Pa, this time tomorrow you’ll be back in Bordo Del Cielo. You can sleep well tonight, dreaming of that. I love you so much.’

  It was getting harder and harder to say goodnight, never knowing if this would be the last time.

  She went over and gave Luka the necessary kiss. ‘Soon,’ Sophie said, as she lowered her head and kissed his mouth then whispered into his ear, ‘we’ll be living apart...’

  ‘What time will you be back?’ Luka asked.

  ‘You’re not my husband yet.’ Sophie smiled with her lips but not with her eyes and then she moved her mouth to his ear. ‘Dawn,’ she whispered, ‘so, as said, you can sleep well.’

  She could not stand another night spent next to a man she could never have so she headed to the door, but Luka followed her out.

  ‘The plane leaves at seven.’

  ‘I’ll be back well before then.’

  ‘Tonight might be our last chance to talk...’

  ‘What’s the point?’ Sophie said. ‘There’s nothing left to say. We both know what you’re going to do to me. You’re wrong, Luka, I’m not fourteen, you don’t have to prise me from you knee. I’ll be at the church, and if you’re not...’ Sophie shrugged. ‘I’ll survive. I’ve had an awful lot of practice.’

  She held it together until she made it to the apartment and only there, with Bella, did she finally let her guard down.

  ‘He says he wishes he’d never loved me.’

  ‘At least you have known love... Better to have—’

  ‘Don’t,’ Sophie warned. ‘If you start quoting Tennyson, I’ll scream!

  ‘Who’s Tennyson?’

  ‘I don’t really know,’ Sophie said, ‘but I don’t think he understood the heart...’

  But maybe he did, because the thought of never having known Luka’s love filled her with dread.

  ‘He’s going to jilt me.’

  ‘More fool him,’ Bella said.

  ‘And I had a bit of an argument with my father. He wants me to wear my mother’s wedding dress and I said no. I don’t want a marriage like theirs.’

  ‘I’m already making your dress,’ Bella said. ‘I guessed that this might happen when Luka agreed to get engaged so I’ve already started it. I kept some money back from our savings and I bought some chiffon from the market. I will work on it through the night.

  ‘I’m going to be there with you, Sophie.’

  ‘No.’ Sophie shook her head because despite her brave words to Luka she could not put her friend through that. ‘You have to work, and anyway...’

  ‘Anyway?’

  ‘Matteo will be there and...’ Sophie could hardly bear to tell her, but Bella already knew.

  ‘I know that he has a woman,’ Bella said. ‘And I know that she’s stunning. I’d love to come and be your bridesmaid, Sophie. And don’t worry about work—as of this morning I am suspended.’

  ‘Bella?’

  ‘I got in a lot of trouble,’ Bella said. ‘I spilt an ice bucket on a guest’s lap when I was delivering the breakfasts to the room.’

  ‘An ice bucket.’

  ‘It was mainly cold water. I tripped but his girlfriend kicked up a fuss and called for the manager. It was a simple accident. The room was dark. I didn’t see him—or rather they didn’t hear me come in with breakfast... They were otherwise engaged.’

  Sophie looked up to the sound of venom and mischief in Bella’s voice and her mouth actually gaped for a moment before speaking.

  ‘You threw a bucket of iced water over Matteo?’

  ‘I did.’ Bella grinned. ‘So, you see, now I am free to be at your wedding and I’m going to make your the wedding dress. Sophie, you’re going to be the most beautiful bride.’

  ‘Even if he doesn’t get to see me?’

  ‘Oh, he’ll see you,’ Bella said. ‘I’ll make sure Matteo takes a few pictures as you arrive.’ She hugged her friend and recited a Siclian saying. ‘“Di guerra, caccia e amuri, pri un gustu milli duluri.”’

  In war, hunting and love you suffer a thousand pains for one pleasure.

  ‘The pleasure will be yours,’ Bella said.

  ‘It won’t be, though,’ Sophie said.

  She was tired of the old ways, tired of false pride and sayings that spoke of revenge.

  She was tired, so tired of hollow victories.

  Maybe she had grown up.

  Sophie wanted the man she loved.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  SOPHIE’S FLIGHT BACK to Bordo Del Cielo was very different from the one she had taken when she had left.

  Then she had been nineteen—confused, hurting, angry and just so glad to be getting away.

  Now she was confused but the hurt was different.

  Paulo was asleep in the bedroom area; Bella was sitting in one of the luxurious chairs with a curtain around her because she didn’t want anyone to see the dress she was making for her friend.

  Sophie sat beside Luka, staring out of the window and watching the land she wanted to love but which had cost her so much come into view.

  ‘I was wrong,’ Luka said, and she turned.

  ‘Oh, you are so wrong,’ Sophie said. No doubt he was talking about something else but all she knew was that he was wrong not to give them this chance.

  Luka gave a soft, wry laugh as if he knew what she was thinking. ‘I thought you were lying when you said that you were an events planner but I know few women who could organise a wedding in a couple of days.’

  ‘It’s easy to when you know...’ Sophie shrugged. ‘Well, let’s just say I’m not too worried about how the cake is going to look and whether Teresa has had enough notice.’ She looked right into his eyes. ‘How could you even consider doing this to him, Luka?’

  ‘How could you have done this to us?’

  His words didn’t confuse her, they ate at her instead.

  She remembered standing on the beach, confused and ashamed and shouting, when their mouths should have been kissing.

  She remembered hurling the sins of his father at him when she should have loved him first.

  The plane came in to land and they sat in silence, but as they hit the tarmac, as they hurtled down the runway, Sophie didn’t care if the plane lifted now and took them away.

  But it came to a halt and they were home.

  ‘I’m not perfect...’ Sophie turned to him ‘...but I’d fight for us.’

  ‘Nice speech,’ Luka said. ‘Tell me, though, Sophie—when did you ever fight for us? Did you come to my father’s funeral? You would have known I had no one, the hell it would be to come home...’

  ‘I was going to,’ Sophie said, ‘but I had just found out that my father was terminally ill.’

  ‘He still is,’ Luka replied, unmoved. ‘You’ve held up the death card and I’m here. That’s not an excuse not to show up on the day you would have known I needed you the most.’

  He accepted no excuses for her carelessness with their love.

  Did she sit there now and tell him the tr
uth?

  That he was right?

  It hadn’t been her father’s illness that had stopped her contacting him.

  Did she tell him she couldn’t have afforded it?

  Would a man like Luka accept as an excuse that she’d had no money? That he’d have had to wire her the fare?

  ‘Did you fight for us on the beach, when I pleaded with you to come with me?’ Luka asked.

  ‘No.’

  Her single word moved him. She did not kick up with her usual defence as to how he had shamed her in court.

  ‘So when did you fight for us, Sophie?’

  ‘I’ll fight now.’

  Luka said nothing.

  He just stood as the passengers disembarked.

  ‘I’ll see you to your home,’ Luka said.

  It was a strange ride.

  Her father never stopped coughing. There was the angel of death in the car with them and turned backs on the streets as Sophie looked out.

  Yet it was home.

  And it was somehow beautiful.

  ‘Do you remember...?’ She stopped.

  Eight years old to his fourteen, she had found Luka crying for the first and last time, washing blood from his face in the river.

  ‘Did you fall?’ she had asked.

  ‘Yes, I fell.’

  They had sat eating nectarines and she had looked at his bruised, bloodied nose and closed eye.

  ‘One day,’ Sophie had said, ‘you will be taller than him.’

  ‘Who?’ Luka had asked, because then he had still been loyal to his father.

  ‘Taller than any man in this town,’ she had said.

  ‘I remember,’ Luka said, and she did not turn or jump to the sound of his voice.

  Here it felt normal.

  Here they were as entwined as the vines and the roots beneath them.

  They passed the school where she had left at fifteen to work in the hotel.

  ‘I cried the day I left,’ Sophie admitted. ‘I wanted to learn all the poems. I wanted to sort out the maths...’

  ‘You have the cleverest head on the planet,’ Luka said.

  ‘Yet I can’t work us out.’

  ‘We’re here,’ Bella said, and Sophie looked as they turned from the hotel and into her street.

  It was the same, except different.

  The neighbour’s house had changed and was tastefully renovated. ‘It smells of London.’ Sophie winked as she waved to her weekender neighbours.

  ‘I’ll leave you here,’ Luka said, having helped Paulo up the path.

  ‘You’re not going to come in for coffee?’

  ‘I’m going to go and check into the hotel,’ Luka said, once he had ensured everything was okay. ‘And then I am meeting with Matteo.’

  He didn’t want to go in.

  He didn’t want to see just how poor his father had kept them.

  ‘I might go for a walk,’ Bella said. ‘I would like to look at my old home, even if there are other people living there...’

  Sophie looked at Luka but he gave her a slight shake of his head and pulled her aside. ‘I haven’t told everyone what I am doing. I don’t want anyone feeling beholden. My lawyer will contact people once I’ve gone. Bella will find out soon enough that she has a home.’

  Thank God for the nurse, because she took an exhausted, overwrought Paulo to his room for some oxygen and medication.

  ‘It is your last day as a single woman,’ Paulo wheezed. ‘You should go out with Bella.’

  ‘I’m just happy to be home.’

  Sophie was. Though it felt so strange to be back.

  Happy her father was settled, she set to work. There was a lot to be done and also there was Teresa to pay.

  She walked into town, trying not to look up. She didn’t want to see Malvolio’s home spreading out over the top of the hill.

  She didn’t want to glimpse the bedroom where she and Luka had first made love and she averted her eyes as she passed the church where tomorrow he would leave her standing.

  Sophie walked into Teresa’s deli and, just as they had the last time she’d done so, the people in the deli fell silent. Angela was there, chatting with Teresa and a couple of other locals, and Sophie felt her cheeks turn to fire as she stepped up to the counter.

  ‘I’ve come to pay for the catering for the wedding tomorrow.’

  ‘Gratuitamente,’ Teresa said, and Sophie was about to slam the money down, as she had all those years ago, but she chose not to.

  She was older and wiser now, even if she’d prefer not to be at times.

  ‘Teresa, I know it must be difficult for you to know that my father is back. He just wants to see Luka and I marry...’ Just as Sophie always did, she held back her tears. ‘That is all we are here for, to give my father some peace in his final days. Soon we’ll be gone and out of your lives for good.’

  ‘Sophie?’ Angela asked. ‘How is Paulo?’

  ‘He’s weak. He just wants to be home and to see me married.’ She put down the money. ‘We don’t want any trouble.’

  She walked out of the deli. A part of Sophie wanted to go to the beach, to sit there a while and remember days when life had seemed so much simpler, but instead she made her way home.

  Bella was back from her walk and busy finishing off the dress, and Sophie dealt with the flowers and cleaning the house, as she had done so many times before. But then Paulo awoke and declared that he wanted to visit his wife’s grave.

  It was a long slow walk to the hill.

  And agony to walk back down.

  Spare me from your grief, she wanted to plead to her father as the nurse took him, weeping, to bed.

  ‘Another walk?’ Sophie smiled as Bella again headed out with a full face of make-up.

  ‘Who knows who I might bump into?’ Bella smiled.

  Almost the moment she left there was a knock at the door and, no, it wasn’t Bella to recheck her make-up, it was the priest.

  ‘Do you want to let your father know I am here?’

  Sophie nodded.

  He looked so tired when she went into his room and Sophie knew then that tomorrow might not be the embarrassment she was dreading. Luka had been right. The journey, no matter how luxurious, had depleted him and visiting Rosa seemed to have taken the last of his strength.

  ‘The priest is here,’ Sophie said. ‘Do you want me to send him through?’

  ‘Please.’

  She went out to the garden and lay on a sun lounger and tried not to think of what was happening. Her heart seemed to still as she felt a shadow fall over her and she looked up into the strained features of Luka.

  ‘You’re crying.’

  ‘No,’ Sophie corrected, ‘because I never cry. I don’t think I know how to. I’m just tired.’ She looked up into navy eyes. ‘The priest is in with my father. He is making his confession. I would expect him to be some considerable time.’

  He sat down by her knees on the sun lounger but she shrank away.

  ‘Please, don’t be a hypocrite,’ Sophie said. ‘Don’t offer me your arms and then remove them tomorrow. I’m drained, Luka. I’m tired of being a parent to my father. I’m exhausted from absorbing his tears so I’m going to sit and watch the sunset and then I’ll get up and put on my green dress, as per tradition, for a Sicilian bride on the eve of her wedding.’

  ‘About tomorrow—’

  ‘I’m not even thinking about tomorrow, Luka,’ she interrupted. ‘The day will bring what it shall bring and I’ll survive it.’ She looked up as the priest came out and stood to see him out.

  ‘He’s made his confession.’

  Luka heard the priest’s reedy voice as Sophie saw him out.

  It was, Luka knew, time for him to make
his confession.

  Just not to Sophie.

  * * *

  Paulo was sitting in bed, holding his rosary beads and a picture of Rosa, but he turned and smiled as Luka made his way over and joined him.

  ‘Is it good to be home?’ Luka asked.

  ‘It is,’ Paulo said. ‘I have made my confessions. Most of them anyway.’ He looked at Luka. ‘How long will you two pretend to be together for? Till after my funeral?’

  ‘What are you talking about, Paulo?’

  ‘I’m not a fool. I’ve always known that Sophie was lying to me. I knew, with what you said about her in court, that you were over before you even started.’

  ‘She doesn’t forgive easily.’

  ‘She is like Rosa.’ Paulo smiled. ‘Even if I believed at first you were together, we do see the news in prison. I’ve read about your affairs and your scandals. I’ve seen the many beautiful women that you’ve dated.’

  ‘You went along with it?’ Luka frowned as he sat on the edge of the bed.

  ‘She thought it made me happy knowing she was being taken care of.’

  ‘Yet here you are you are. pushing for us to get married, even though you know it is a ruse. Why?’

  ‘Because for all the mistakes I have made in my life, that wasn’t one of them. You two are right for each other. I hoped that maybe being forced to spend time together you both might see that. It didn’t work though.’

  ‘No,’ Luka admitted.

  ‘It’s time to be honest,’ Paulo said. ‘Now, while we still have time to be.’

  Luka gave a small nod.

  ‘You paid people a lot of money to work on my case these past months. What happened to make you suddenly want my release?’

  ‘I always thought you were weak,’ Luka admitted. ‘I saw you as my father’s yes-man but then I found something and I realised then that you had been protecting the person you love most.’ He went into his pocket and handed Paulo the cross and chain. ‘I found this amongst my father’s things.’

  Paulo let out a small cry as he took his beloved wife’s cross and chain and pressed it to his lips.

  ‘You knew her death was my father’s doing, didn’t you?’

  ‘Not at first but eventually I did,’ Paulo said. ‘Malvolio wanted to build the hotel on the foreshore but there were families, including Rosa and I, who did not want to sell our homes.’ He took a moment to take some long breaths from his oxygen mask and then continued speaking. ‘I said to Rosa that we should move away and just leave Boro Del Cielo but she would not be run out of town—she said that someone had to stand up to him.’ It was the most difficult conversation. With every sentence Paulo paused to breathe. ‘Rosa went to see him to give him a piece of her mind. A few days later there was a car accident. I didn’t connect the two at first. I was grieving and Malvolio was the white knight, the friend...’ He started to cough.