Modern Romance July 2015 Books 5-8. Louise Fuller

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СКАЧАТЬ they had read that Luka Cavaliere had purchased a residence Sophie and Bella had even gone to the library to use the computers and had done a virtual tour of the apartment. It had been a foolish thing to do because Sophie found she could picture herself there and all too often did.

      ‘Did he recognise you?’ Sophie asked, but Bella just laughed.

      ‘As if he would even glance at a maid! Though I stood behind the bellboy’s trolley just in case he looked over.’ she admitted. ‘But he didn’t.’

      ‘I don’t want him to see me like this,’ Sophie said in sudden panic. ‘I don’t want him to see that I am still a chambermaid. What if I have to deliver a meal to his room?’

      ‘Don’t feel ashamed.’

      ‘I’m not,’ Sophie said. ‘I just don’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing how little I have moved on.’

      ‘You won’t see him. I heard him say he was going back to London this afternoon.’

      ‘Good.’

      ‘What else do you want to know?’ Bella asked.

      ‘Nothing.’ Sophie shook her head. ‘I don’t even want to think of that man.’

      It was all that she did, though.

      Every night when she fell, exhausted, into bed he was there, waiting for her in her dreams. Every morning she awoke cross with her subconscious and how readily it forgave Luka, for her dreams varied from sweet memories of a sun-drenched childhood to a torrid recall of their one passionate afternoon.

      They finished making up the bed in silence and Bella went in to do the bathroom while Sophie dusted the flat surfaces of the hotel suite.

      Sophie didn’t want to ask questions; she wanted to shrug her shoulders and carry on with her day as if a bomb hadn’t just dropped in her world, but, of course, that wasn’t possible.

      She walked into the bathroom and Bella smiled in the mirror that she was polishing when she saw her friend hovering in the doorway.

      ‘Who was he saying it to?’ Sophie asked. ‘Who was he speaking with?’

      ‘A woman.’ Bella’s voice was gentle yet the words hurt so much.

      ‘Was she beautiful?’ Sophie asked, and Bella screwed up her nose. ‘I didn’t really notice.’

      ‘I want the truth, Bella,’ she said.

      Her friend nodded. ‘Yes, she was beautiful.’

      ‘Did she have a name?’

      ‘He called her Claudia.’

      ‘And how did he look?’ Sophie asked.

      ‘He looked well.’

      ‘Very well?’

      ‘Well, the last time I saw him he was just out of prison so, of course, he looked better than that.’

      Sophie knew her friend was trying to downplay things for her.

      ‘His hair is longer now but still very neat. He still has that scar over his eye.’

      ‘Did he look happy?’ Tears were in Sophie’s eyes as she asked the question, though she never let them fall. It was ridiculous that the man she hated, the man that had caused her family so much pain could still move her so much. That jealousy could rise in her just knowing Luka was carrying on as he always had—dating and living his life—while she Bella worked as maids in a hotel and could barely make ends meet.

      ‘Luka never really looked happy,’ Bella said. ‘That, at least, is the same.’

      Sophie was quiet.

      Bella was right—to others he never looked happy. He was sullen and dark but with her he had laughed and smiled.

      She had been privy to such a different side of him.

      Knowing that Luka had been here in the hotel had Sophie on edge all day, and it was a relief to get away from work.

      All she wanted to do was go home and sleep but instead she changed out of her maid’s uniform and into a skirt and a T-shirt and then took the bus. She had to stand nearly all the way to the prison infirmary her father had been moved to.

      Once there she put on a ring that had belonged to Bella’s mother and signed the visitors’ book.

      Her bag was searched and she was patted down and then she was allowed in.

      ‘Sophie!’ Paulo’s face lit up when he saw her walk onto the ward. ‘You don’t have to come and see me every day.’

      ‘I want to.’

      Now that he was in the infirmary, visits could be daily, and Sophie knew full well that he had little time left.

      ‘How is Luka?’ Paulo asked.

      Her father’s mental health had deteriorated throughout the trial and by the time he’d got to Rome he’d been a shadow of himself. He had never been a strong man, and was an exhausted man now.

      Sophie just wanted him to know a little peace so she had lied to her father over the years and pretended that she was with Luka.

      ‘He’s busy with work.’ Sophie smiled, grateful that her father was easily confused and very forgetful. ‘He says hello and that he will try to come in and visit you soon.’

      ‘Bella?’

      ‘She’s still working at the hotel.’

      It was the same questions most days and Sophie knew the routine well. She took out some fruit she had bought for him. A lot of her money went on bringing in Paulo treats, even though she couldn’t afford to.

      ‘This is too expensive,’ her father said, when she gave him a large bowl of raspberries, which had always been his favourite fruit. When she’d been growing up, they had been a very rare treat.

      ‘Luka can afford it,’ she said, and the bitter edge to her voice had her father frown, and Sophie did her best to rectify her small outburst. ‘He’s a good man,’ she said.

      ‘If he is such a good man, why hasn’t he married you?’ Paulo asked.

      ‘I’ve told you that,’ Sophie said. ‘He knows how much I want you to walk me down the aisle. We are waiting for that day when you are released...’

      It was never going to happen. Paulo did not have long left, maybe a few weeks of life, yet his jail sentence was forty-three years.

      ‘I want to see you married in the same church your mother and I were,’ Paulo said.

      ‘I know that you do.’ Sophie smiled. ‘It will happen one day.’

      ‘Maybe,’ he said, and Sophie swallowed back tears at the sudden СКАЧАТЬ