And now...
Her hand dropped the newspaper, slid across her stomach to ease the nausea that bit there.
Dear God, how great a fool she was!
‘Carla, darling, there you are!’
Her mother’s voice was a welcome distraction as Marlene emerged out of the villa. She paused, surveying her daughter.
‘How are you feeling this morning?’ she asked carefully.
Carla stood up. ‘I’m OK, Mum.’
‘Are you?’ Marlene’s eyes worked over her, concern in their expression.
She was about to say more, Carla could tell, and she needed to stop her. She picked up the newspaper.
‘There’s another piece in here about Viscari and Falcone,’ she said.
There was reproof in her voice, and she could see her mother’s colour heighten.
She held up a hand. ‘Mum, don’t say anything—we’re never going to agree on this. But I did treat Vito appallingly.’ She took a breath, saying what she had resolved. ‘I’m going to go to Rome. I have to see him—to...apologise. And also,’ she carried on, still not letting her mother speak, ‘I want to put my apartment on the market.’ She paused. ‘I’m never going to live in Italy again, so there is no point owning it. And besides—’
She halted. She would not tell her mother that she intended to do more than merely apologise to Vito. Since her mother had profited hugely from selling Guido’s shares to Vito’s rival, she would make what amends she could by gifting the proceeds from the sale of her flat—bought, after all, with Guido’s legacy to her—to Vito. He could use it to help fund his financial recovery. Pittance though it was, it was the only thing she could think of doing.
‘Darling...’ Her mother’s voice was openly worried. ‘Are you sure you want to go back to Rome? I mean—’
Carla shook her head. ‘No, I don’t want to—but I must.’
* * *
It was what she’d kept repeating to herself—right up to the grim moment when she bearded Vito in his office in Rome.
The ordeal was gruelling. From the moment she arrived she could feel eyes on her—curious...openly hostile.
Vito himself was stone-faced as she made her stumbling, tight-throated expression of her remorse.
‘I’m desperately sorry, Vito, and deeply ashamed of myself. I let my own misery over Cesare consume me. It made me behave vilely to you—and...’ she swallowed ‘...to...to your girlfriend.’ She paused again, uncomfortable. ‘I hope... I hope you were able to make it up with her after...well...since then.’
A bleak look passed across his face. ‘That wasn’t possible,’ he said.
Carla felt guilt bite at her again. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Would...would it help if I...if I went to see her? Apologised for what I said...what I did?’
The bleak look came again. ‘I have no idea where Eloise is. She’s vanished. I’ve been trying to find her since—’ It was his turn to break off.
‘Oh, Vito, I’m sorry!’
Carla’s voice was even more apologetic, her guilt ever deeper. There had been something in her step-cousin’s voice that she recognised in herself—a bleakness that matched her own.
Her face twisted. ‘I didn’t realise she was so important to you... I mean, you usually—’ She broke off again.
Vito looked at her, his eyes strained. ‘Yes, I know. I do usually have some long-legged blonde on my arm,’ he said, echoing the words she’d used. ‘But Eloise—’
He broke off again, and now Carla knew she could see something in his drawn face that she recognised only too well. Vito’s dark eyes looked at her with a nakedness in them that smote her.
‘Eloise was different. I wanted so much to spend time with her—to discover if...if she was the one woman I’d ever met whom I could—’
He broke off again.