Alfeo halted her as she stood to leave. ‘I don’t know why a guest of his standing would take such a personal interest in one of the maids...’
‘Perhaps he is just kind,’ Bella said, but there was a blush creeping from her throat to her cheeks.
‘From everything I have heard and read about him, Matteo Santini is not a kind man. He doesn’t give out favours,’ Alfeo said, and then he was blunt. ‘Do you?’
‘I don’t...I don’t know what you mean,’ Bella stammered.
‘Oh, but I think you do,’ he said, and then he warned her clearly. ‘If I ever find out that you are having intimate dealings with our guests...’
‘I’m insulted that you would suggest such a thing,’ Bella said, but her cheeks were still pink because had Matteo been alone...
‘Then I apologise.’
She headed out through the back entrance into the alley and then she saw Matteo leaning against a wall. Long limbed, elegantly dressed, his expression utterly unreadable, she wanted to run to him. Had he stretched out his arms or even beckoned a finger she might well have done that, but then she remembered he had someone, that Matteo was, in fact, engaged.
He was, Bella thought, far too beautiful for an alley.
So was she, Matteo decided as she walked towards him.
‘What happened with the duty manager?’ Matteo asked.
‘I think you already know—I get to keep my job, though of course not while you are here with your fiancée.’ She closed her eyes and tried to breathe through the surly note to her voice and to remember her place for he might soon be her boss. ‘Thank you.’
Matteo looked at her pinched nostrils and knew the effort behind those two words and he could not help but smile.
‘What is there to smile about?’ she challenged.
‘Plenty,’ Matteo said, which had Bella frowning.
There was not a lot to smile about, Matteo thought, but there was enough—they were here.
‘Do you want to go for breakfast?’ Matteo offered, and it completely took Bella by surprise.
‘Why?’ she asked. ‘Won’t your fiancée...?’
Matteo had already decided that it might be safer not to reveal to Bella that he and Shandy had broken up, or that they had never been engaged—he hadn’t needed to see Bella again for memories to try and make themselves known.
He had offered her his world and she had rejected it.
Want was still there, though.
No, it was far safer for him to keep a fiancée in the wings when she was around.
‘Surely two friends are allowed to catch up.’ Matteo took a breath. ‘I want to know how you are.’
She wanted to know how he was too and so she nodded but then looked down at what she was wearing—she had taken off her apron but the pale green dress and flat lace-up shoes were far from flattering. ‘I’m not dressed for—’
‘It’s only breakfast.’ Matteo shrugged. ‘But, sure, let’s go to your home so you can change.’
Bella gave a tight shrug and then walked alongside him.
He was perfection. In a gorgeous suit, with not a glimmer of sweat on his brow despite the bright morning sun. He slipped on dark glasses when they stepped out of the alley and Bella did the same. Only hers were cheap ones and did little against the glare, but she wore them so he could not see the tears in her eyes.
Oh, it was hard to see him so sleek and beautiful. Harder too to get out of her head the image of him in bed this morning with a woman that had not been her.
‘You share an apartment with Sophie?’ Matteo checked.
‘I do.’ Behind her glasses Bella blinked nervously. For Sophie’s sake she did not want Matteo to see how they really lived—they had done all they could to avoid the embarrassment.
For her sake too now, Bella thought.
‘Sophie told Luka that you worked from home.’
There was a slight inference there and, given her behaviour this morning and the way she had spoken to him, Matteo clearly thought she was topping up her wages with the oldest profession in the world.
Once a whore...
She recalled his words.
Bella knew what she had done to get here to Rome and she knew he would never forgive that.
He didn’t need to know the salacious details and certainly Bella never wanted to tell him.
In some ways it was easier to go along with his thinking, to be smart-mouthed and streetwise.
To pretend that facing him wasn’t the hardest thing she had ever done.
She glanced up at Matteo. He was so effortlessly elegant, so out of place by her side.
Yet, just as she always had, she loved him.
‘Wait here,’ Bella said.
‘You’re not going to invite me into your home?’
‘No.’
‘That’s not very Sicilian,’ Matteo teased lightly.
‘Ah, but we are in Rome,’ Bella said. ‘You know how city people are, peeking out from behind their door, terrified you might want to come in.’
‘I do.’
‘Well, you can’t,’ she said. ‘I won’t be long.’
She left him at the end of her street.
The buildings were high, and some of the ancient buildings contained apartments that had been beautifully renovated. He could not guess, Bella hoped, that hers was not.
She turned down another small side street, unlocked a huge iron security gate and wrenched it back, and then climbed the many steps that led to a very small apartment.
Their lounge was relatively spacious but bare. It easily held two small sofas and a coffee table. Off that was a kitchen and Bella headed straight to the fridge and took out a bottle of water and drank it down, but nothing was going to help her become cool and sophisticated this morning. All their combined efforts had gone into ensuring that Sophie could present herself to Luka looking chic and glamorous—Sophie had wanted to appear far from the peasant that Luka had admitted to calling her during the trial.
Had she given it proper thought, Bella might have known that if Luka was around, then Matteo would be too.
But you deliberately didn’t think, Bella reminded herself.
For five years she had done
