Yes, she had been given a pauper’s grave but there was a wooden cross and her name had been written on it and there were flowers, some new, some fading.
Yes, she had been loved by many.
No, she had not been forgotten.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE WEDDING DAY dawned and Matteo walked with Luka along the shore.
They were still in the suits they had worn last night.
They had drunk far too much, reminisced too much, and now as they walked to clear their heads, a vision clouded Matteo’s.
There was Bella. She was in a loose dress, her hair was down and blowing in the wind, and she was a dangerous sight for sore eyes.
‘Bella.’ Luka nodded to her.
‘If you are going to marry my friend I hope you meet with a razor, and if you’re to be the best man,’ she added to Matteo, ‘then I suggest the same.’
‘How is Sophie this morning?’ Luka asked, as Matteo stood silent beside him.
‘She’s fine,’ Bella said. ‘And she’ll be fine, whatever happens today. I doubt you can say the same.’
‘Meaning?’
‘I love my friend,’ Bella said. ‘I can’t imagine my world without her. You can tell me what that world is like tomorrow perhaps...’
She went to walk off.
‘Is Sophie at home?’ Luka asked.
‘She’s at the cove,’ Bella said, not turning her head. She was furious with Luka and what he was about to do.
She didn’t turn around, even when she heard footsteps coming up behind her and her name being called, but Matteo caught her wrist and he swung her around to face him.
And it wasn’t disgust she had seen in his eyes that day by the Trevi Fountain, Bella realised, it had been anger, and he was unleashing some of it now.
‘I gave you an out!’ he shouted. ‘I understand that your mother was ill but I left you enough money to leave later...’
Bella let out a hollow laugh, shrugged off his hand and kept on walking.
‘Gina took her share, Malvolio his, and what was left...’ She shrugged. ‘Three months of meals at the hospital, toiletries, and I bought my mother a scarf and some bed slippers and things. Do you want me to make a list?’ She turned and looked at Matteo.
‘You only needed to call, Bella.’
‘You didn’t give me your number.’
‘You could have called Luka.’
‘Have you forgotten just how poor Malvolio kept us?’ Bella raged. ‘I could have looked up his name on my laptop maybe, or used up the credit on my cellphone, trying to find him. Oh, but that’s right, I don’t have either. I had call boxes and coins, and when I got home my phone had been cut off. But I did call you, Matteo. My mother died the day after Paulo was sentenced...’ She watched as his face paled a little and he started to piece together the dates. ‘I got your number and I ran through a forest to escape and I did call you, but you were otherwise engaged.’ She looked him square in the eye and, no, she did not need dark glasses to hide behind any more. ‘Did you love her?’
‘Who?’
‘The woman you were busy with through that night...’
He had been trying to bleach out the thought of Bella and Dino. ‘Bella,’ Matteo admitted, ‘I can’t even remember who she was...’
‘Exactly,’ she said. ‘I know this much about her, though, and all the other women since. They loved your money. So tell me, who’s the real whore?’
Matteo didn’t answer.
‘Did you ever think to call me?’ she asked.
‘I called over and over,’ Matteo said, ‘and when you didn’t answer, I called Dino...’
They both knew what he had said.
Matteo cleared his throat. ‘Luka has gone to talk to Sophie,’ he said, about to suggest that they do the same, but Bella was too angry to let him finish.
‘I don’t need your running commentary, Matteo,’ she said. ‘I’ll hear what’s happening from my friend. How is the hotel?’ She glanced up at it and from here she could see the room they had shared that night and bitterness rose in her chest. ‘It’s just as well Shandy isn’t here, it would be a let-down after Fiscella.’
‘Not to me,’ he said, for he had one very pleasant memory of that place.
She looked back at him.
‘I’m in the same room,’ he said. ‘It hasn’t changed a bit.’
‘Oh, so what time do you want me there?’
‘Bella!’ he shouted at her. ‘I didn’t say it for that. I meant that I’m in the same room...’ And he screwed his eyes closed because how did you flirt with a whore? How did you tell her that the memories were killing him and it was agony to be back here?
A beautiful, black agony because it had kept him in the bar all night rather than go back to the room without her there.
‘Do you want me in a maid outfit?’ Bella said. ‘While your fiancée is away, we can play, perhaps...’
‘Yes...’
He would have her again, he would empty his wallet for her again, he would do anything he could just to go back to that night.
There was no thought really, just that.
His kiss was rough, it was fierce, she had been goading him, shaming herself, sure, just sure he would tell her where to get off, that Matteo Santini would not want her in the same way that he once had.
Yet he did.
It hurt. There were tears of shock as she kissed him back. It hurt her soul to taste again what she craved, and now, to give in, she was back at day one, aching with withdrawal, and so even as their tongues thrashed, even as their groins displayed their devotion, somehow, somehow she pushed him back. And then she said not that he couldn’t afford her but the truth.
‘I can’t afford to.’
For if she did, surely she lost her soul?
* * *
Matteo returned to that room and he lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling fan, rather glad of the seedy surroundings.
It had seemed luxurious at the time.
The memory still was.
He had spent five years fulfilling his promise to himself. He had let go of the past, built a reputation, and while he would throw it all away this very moment, still he thought of the impact on her.
Either face the press or live in isolation...
He thought of the sheikh he was meeting with soon to discuss a chain of hotels and how hard it would be on Bella to introduce her as his wife after the salacious headlines had hit...
Matteo was lying there, thinking of throwing everything he had worked for away for Bella, and he knew that he needed out of this place.
A clear head was not possible with her around.
‘Hey.’ Matteo was still lying on the bed in a prison cell called Bella when the reluctant groom called.
‘The wedding’s happening,’ Luka said. ‘For real. I don’t need a lecture. Sophie and I—’
‘I don’t need to hear it.’
He didn’t want to know his friend had found love, he didn’t want to know that he must now dance with Bella tonight.
He wanted his helicopter and he wanted it now. He wanted to be lifted out of the sky and back to the safe haven he had created, where women came loudly and then left, hopefully, quietly.
Instead, a few hours later he stood in a packed church.
All the locals were there.
Past sins forgiven.
But it was not the bride he noticed as Sophie walked down the aisle but the bridesmaid.
Bella was wearing a dress and the colour was ginger and Matteo knew it was the one she had worn for the Natalia party the night he hadn’t shown up.
It was.
She had made a few modifications.
The back was lower and the sleeves were gone.
It showed her slender figure, it brought out the deepest green of her eyes.
Yes, she knew how to dress as a lady and today she was one.
She gave him a very soft smile and then she focussed on the wedding and tried not to cry, because while she would love her friend for ever and did not begrudge her a moment of this day, there was a special pain, a unique loneliness that came when your friend found love.
Bella suddenly felt left behind.
Alone.
With her pride, though, Bella reminded herself.
It was a beautiful wedding but it wasn’t theirs.
Bella and Matteo walked out with the happy couple onto the street and there were cheers and celebration rice was being thrown.
There were drinks to be drunk and speeches to be made, and they did it all and looked out to the street with the olive trees dressed in lights that started to sparkle as evening came. There was no choice but to hold each other again as they danced that one dance.
It was cruel.
It was bliss.
She sank into his arms and he wrapped them around her just because.
He felt the same, Bella thought, he smelt the same, only she wasn’t the same.
‘I’m sorry that I offended you this morning,’ he said, and she looked up to him and nodded. ‘You offended your fiancée too,’ Bella said. ‘I don’t like her but don’t be that man who cheats.’ She said the same words she had on the night they had found each other. ‘I thought better of you.’
He was better than that, and it mattered enough to tell her.
‘We broke up,’ he said, ‘about ten minutes after you got fired.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ Bella said. ‘You say that just so I agree to go back to your room with you.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m saying that because this morning wasn’t about cheating or lying, it was about us and my wanting you.’