Modern Romance July 2015 Books 5-8. Louise Fuller

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      She wasn’t like her father, though, Luka thought. She was as volatile and explosive as Rosa.

      ‘I’m going to look her up again,’ he said to Angela. ‘I will go and see Paulo and make my peace with him.’

      ‘And ask where his daughter is?’ Angela smiled.

      ‘I have an earring that needs to be returned!’ He smiled; he hadn’t expected to smile today but he did. It hurt to be back here but it had cemented some things in his mind.

      He and Sophie deserved another chance.

      ‘She might be married,’ Angela said. ‘She might—’

      ‘Then it’s better to know,’ he said.

      It was the not knowing that killed him.

      It hurt too much to be here, Luka thought. He wanted the future, he wanted to explore if there was still a chance for him and Sophie, so he drained his coffee and stood.

      ‘I’m going to head back.’

      ‘Do you want to go through his things first?’

      ‘Just take what you need,’ Luka said. ‘Get rid of the rest.’

      ‘His jewellery?’ Angela said. ‘Don’t you want that at least?’

      ‘No.’ Luka shook his head. He was about to tell Angela to sell it and keep what she made but then he hesitated—no doubt his father’s jewellery hadn’t all come by honest means and he did not want Angela in trouble for handling stolen goods.

      ‘I will drop it in to Giovanni on the way to the airport,’ Luka said, referring to the local jeweller ‘He can melt it down or whatever.’

      Angela led him up the stairs and into Malvolio’s bedroom.

      There was nothing he wanted from here.

      He opened up a box and stared at his father’s belongings with distaste and then Luka’s heart stopped still in his chest and then started beating again, only faster than it had been before.

      ‘Can I have a moment?’ he said, and somehow managed a vaguely normal voice. He didn’t even see Angela leave but she must have because a moment later he looked up from the jewellery box and she was gone, the door had been closed and he was alone.

      Luka watched his hand shake a fraction as it went into the heavy wooden box and pulled out a simple gold cross and chain.

      Yes, he remembered Rosa.

      Luka had heard in court how things worked and knew that her necklace must have been taken as a souvenir after her death.

      Did Paulo know? Luka wondered.

      He looked at the door.

      Angela too?

      He felt sick as he started counting dates in his head. Yes, he remembered Rosa shouting down the hallway, telling Malvolio that it would be over her dead body before she gave up her home.

      The next memory?

      Her funeral. Paulo, holding a smiling Sophie, who, at two years old, had had no real idea how sombre the day had been.

      He remembered his father delivering the eulogy, telling the packed church how he would support his friend and little Sophie.

      Even though he had surely been responsible for Rosa’s death?

      Was that why Paulo had always said yes to his father? Was that the hold that he’d had over him? Had Paulo done whatever had been asked of him just to keep Sophie safe from the same fate?

      Poor man.

      Luka had always considered Paulo weak.

      Now he glimpsed Paulo’s fear. He had done whatever it had taken to protect his child, and Luka knew that he had to help free him.

      He would get his lawyers onto it this very day, Luka swore there and then. He would get an apartment in Rome and work for however long it took to secure his release.

      There would be no contacting Sophie, though, Luka knew.

      There could be no second chance for them now.

      He knew Sophie well enough, and she would never forgive him if she knew that it had been his father who had killed her mother.

      Never.

      The glimmer of hope he had just started to kindle, the fleeting hope for some reconciliation with Sophie, died then as Luka pocketed the necklace.

      All he could do for her now was fight to set her father free.

       CHAPTER NINE

      ‘I SAW LUKA.’

      Sophie had always known that she might hear those words one day but when Bella actually voiced them, for a long moment Sophie did not know how to react.

      So much so that she said nothing and just lifted her side of the mattress and carried on making the huge king-size bed.

      Sophie had known that Bella wanted to speak with her. As well as sharing a very small flat in Rome, they worked as maids in Hotel Fiscella—a luxurious hotel in the very heart of Rome.

      The manager, Marco, had, at first, refused to put them together, knowing that they came from the same Sicilian town. However, when a gap in the roster had given him no choice, Sophie and Bella had set out to prove him wrong. They worked very well together, although they chatted a lot!

      Now, though, Sophie was silent.

      ‘I just saw him in the elevator when I went to collect the guest list for our floor.’

      ‘He’s not on our list? Sophie checked in horror, but thankfully Bella shook her head.

      ‘Looking at the way he was dressed and held himself, he would be on one of the top floors,’ Bella said, and that told Sophie he was doing well.

      The hotel was indeed luxurious but the top floors were reserved for the rich and famous.

      It had been five years since Sophie had last seen him.

      Five years since that walk on the beach.

      She knew that Malvolio had died a few months ago. Her father had been diagnosed as terminally ill on the very same day that she had heard the news. After that she had read that Luka had bought an apartment in Rome and now lived between here and London.

      Sometimes Sophie was nervous that she might see him in the street, that she would face him in her maid’s uniform when she had sworn she could do better without him. That she might face him in the street was bad enough, but knowing that he was at the hotel was far too close for comfort.

      ‘Why СКАЧАТЬ