Love Like Ours. Sophie Love

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ there for dinner tonight. But we were planning on going to that meatball restaurant, weren’t we? So I’m just telling her we’ll take a rain check.”

      But rather than the response she was hoping to get from him, Cristiano looked thrilled by the prospect of meeting Keira’s mom.

      “We can get meatballs anytime,” he said with a shrug. “If your mom wants to cook for us, we should really let her. I’d love to meet her.”

      Keira let her head drop into her hands. With a sigh, she relented.

      “Fine,” she said into the phone. “You win, mom. We’ll be round at eight.”

      “Seven,” her mom corrected.

      “Seven,” Keira repeated glumly.

      “Oh how wonderful!” her mom gushed. But Keira cut the call off before she’d even finished speaking. She looked up at Cristiano. “You don’t need to be so polite, you know.”

      He laughed. “Politeness isn’t my motivation, Keira. I’d very much like to meet your mom.”

      “She’s cooking lasagne,” Keira added in a dry voice. “I can only assume because you’re Italian.”

      “Well that’s perfect,” he replied. “Because I love lasagne.”

      Keira sighed. Cristiano may be ready to meet more of her pazza family members but she certainly wasn’t. Having him here was becoming more and more stressful for her by the second.

      Chapter Five

      Mallory Swanson still lived in the same apartment where she’d raised her two daughters. Keira always felt a strange sense of nostalgia whenever she returned home. Though her childhood had been filled with love and laughter, the absence of her father was always presence. That he’d lived in that house with Bryn and her mom before she had been born was always at the back of her mind, because shortly after she’d been born, he’d left the family. She’d always grown up feeling like his shadows lurked in the house, like things just weren’t quite at they were supposed to be.

      She and Cristiano took a cab straight from town. Keira hadn’t wanted to return to Bryn’s apartment first and have to endure the journey with all three of them in the cramped conditions, so had told her sister just to meet them there. At least Bryn’s ability to keep time was useless so they’d have a bit of breathing space on arrival.

      They walked up the steps to the red brick apartment building. The basement apartment was owned by the same old woman who had been living there for her whole life. Her numerous cats lay out on the sidewalk or sat perched on the railings meowing at them.

      Keira rang the bell and a moment later, her mom appeared at the door. She was wearing a stained apron over her clothes and her hair was in disarray.

      “There she is! My wandering nomad of a daughter!” Mallory cried. She flung her arms around Keira and squeezed tightly. Then she released her and looked at Cristiano. “Well, aren’t you handsome?” she gushed. She hugged him too. “Now, quick, everyone inside. I left the lasagne in the oven and I don’t want it to burn.”

      She ushered them inside. Keira walked up the dingy staircase that led to the first floor apartment. It seemed narrower than usual, the dark green walls more stained than she remembered. It didn’t help that most of the bulbs in the corridor had blown. It gave the corridor a horror film vibe.

      They made it into the apartment and were immediately assaulted by heat radiating from the oven. The smell of strong cheese permeated the air.

      “So this is where you grew up?” Cristiano asked, looking politely around Mallory’s modest apartment.

      Keira nodded. It was a far cry from his parent’s villa in the hillsides of Florence. There wasn’t a single piece of furniture in the house that looked like it belonged on the pages of a designer furniture magazine. It couldn’t even be claimed that the house was shabby-chic. It was just shabby.

      Keira felt the weight of embarrassment pressing down on her. She had worked so hard at school and college specifically to leave this sort of life behind. She worried that the impression Cristiano was getting of her must be a million miles away from what he’d been expecting when he first agreed to get on that plane with her. So much for the high flying reporter from New York City. There was no way of hiding that she’d come from humble beginnings now.

      “Why don’t you take a seat?” Mallory yelled over her shoulder as she busied herself in the kitchen.

      Keira gestured to the table. Her mom had covered it in a weird vinyl table cloth. Cristiano sat in one of the chairs. Keira noticed it wobbling beneath him but of course he was too polite to say anything.

      Mallory came over with a steaming dish and placed it on the table. The lasagne was a mess to look at, the tomato sauce bubbling up through the pasta, the cheese burned to a crisp at the edges. It was probably a world away from what Cristiano was used to eating back home in Italy!

      “What are those?” Keira asked, pointing at small, round balls on the top.

      “Hazelnuts,” Mallory said.

      “On a lasagne?” Keira asked, frowning.

      “I read it in a magazine,” Mallory replied ambivalently.

      Keira felt her body growing heavier and heavier.

      “Shouldn’t we wait for Bryn?” she asked her mom.

      “I told her seven,” Mallory replied. “She can read a clock. It’s her fault if she’s not here on time.” She grinned at Cristiano and poured a glass of wine for him. “I hope you like rosé.”

      Keira hunkered in her seat, remembering how much of a wine connoisseur Cristiano was, how he knew what wine to have with what dish. You didn’t need to be a connoisseur to know that rosé didn’t compliment anything!

      Politely, he picked up his glass of pink colored wine.

      “To our handsome guest,” Mallory announced, and they all clinked glasses.

      Keira was so embarrassed she wanted to disappear.

      The door opened then and in waltzed Bryn. Any signs of the hangover she ought to be sufferings were completely gone. Her eyes were bright, her hair clean and glowing, and she’d dressed to impress.

      Keira couldn’t help the jealousy she sometimes felt over her beautiful older sister. She had years of memories of boys swooning over Bryn to back it up. The only saving grace was that her sister was a bit on the unstable side. You just wouldn’t know it to look at her. To look at her, you’d think she was a supermodel, all grace and poise.

      Bryn sat down at the table with flourish and helped herself to a large portion of lasagne.

      “I did an hour and a half in the gym today,” she boasted. “I’m allowed to treat myself.”

      Keira couldn't remember the last time she herself had been to the gym. In fact, the last two months had been a blur of eating and drinking. From all the Guinness and fried breakfasts in Ireland, to the pastas and gelatos of Italy, she was quite frankly surprised to have not yet become obese. It was only thanks to all those hills in Italy and muddy walks in Ireland that she’d managed to stay in any kind of shape at all.

      “Do СКАЧАТЬ