“No worries.” She’d been putting in more and more time in the kitchen lately, and the change of pace was surprisingly enjoyable. It was a whole different kettle of fish to housekeeping. The interaction with customers that had, at one time, scared her, was now a highlight of her day.
“We’ve got a pile of orders waiting. You right to get straight to it?”
“Absolutely,” Sarah agreed. The busier she was, the better. “The more the merrier.” She picked up the first docket and put her gloved hands on the tray. It was Autumn in London, and the day had broken rainy and grey. Cold, too. Sarah had rugged up, and tried to find optimism in the promise of winter and Christmas. All of the fun things she could do with Andrew when the weather turned cold; and there was a trip to Milly and Jacob to plan.
She had so much on her agenda that she hardly had time to think about Sabato. In fact, barely a day went past when she didn’t think of him less than a thousand times.
The memories seemed to intensify the higher she went in the hotel. The few times she’d had to make deliveries to the suite at the very top, she’d come over faint and weak afterwards. The memories and the bliss were too hard to process.
But three months had passed, and it was all a very distant memory. He hadn’t contacted her, and she hadn’t called him. What they’d been to each other, for a brief window of time, had been proven to be false. They were sex, and nothing else. Just like she’d said.
And more fool her to believe someone like Sabato Montepluciano would ever want to be with her. No doubt he’d slept with plenty of women since her. The thought made her physically ill and so she suppressed it.
She surveyed the numbers on the doors, though she knew them all by heart.
The suite was at the end of the corridor. She wheeled the trolley and then pressed the button. How could she not remember, every time she made these deliveries, the meals she and Sabato had shared? In this very hotel, meals served on trays just like these.
She plastered a smile on her face as the door opened inwards.
Life went on. Eventually, she’d catch up with it.
“If you want my help, Raf, you need to do better than that,” Sabato responded grimly, staring at his brother with a look of impatience.
Rafaelo, a brother in all but blood, shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “It is a sound investment. We need only your name to assure the bank’s confidence.”
Sabato cast his eyes over the impressive brochure Rafaelo had produced. “And I told you I would think about it. Why have you come here today? Why the urgency?”
Rafaelo sat down heavily in one of the luxurious armchairs. “It’s father,” he said finally.
Sabato focussed every fibre of his body on his adoptive brother. “Father?”
“He’s …”
“Sick?” Sabato felt a swell of concern. He’d had his differences with Nico, but the man had raised him. He’d raised him when there’d been no obligation to do so. He’d taken in a small, stray child who trusted no one and was angry at the world, and he’d turned him into Sabato Montepulciano. A man considered legendary for his strength of character and confidence.
“No.” Raf was impatient. He was so like Nico. Then again, they shared blood in their veins, and also the same facial features. “He’s anxious. About money.”
Sabato compressed his lips. Several bad investments on the trot had seen a serious devaluing of Montepulciano family wealth. Though even a tenth of what they’d once possessed would still leave them with extreme wealth, the decline was regrettable. “I see,” he remarked slowly, reminding himself that Rafaelo had never been groomed for this life. Controlling the family’s business interests had fallen to him only when he, Sabato, had refused to take up the mantle.
“He would be pleased to see us working together,” Rafaelo tried another tack. “You know he misses you.”
Sabato grunted. “I see him often enough.”
“Bah. A few times a year. And you make it obvious that you can’t wait to leave from the moment you arrive.”
Sabato reclined in the chair thoughtfully. “You know why.”
“Yes. Because of the affair.” Rafaelo b
rushed it aside as though it were of little matter. “Di niente,” he muttered. “If mama can forgive him, why do you find it so difficult?”
That question was a mystery, even to Sabato. He scanned the room, forcibly ignoring the memories of the last time he’d been in the luxurious suite. “I value honesty,” he said, finally, though that alone didn’t explain the antipathy he felt to his father.
“It was ten years ago, Sab.”
“Si,” he shrugged.
“Are you coming home for mother’s birthday?” Raf asked, pouring two glasses of mineral water from a bottle on the bar.