and she’d left him in the evening, promising to return in the morning. He’d lain awake that night, vowing to bring things to a head the next day.
But the next day there had been no sign of her.
He’d waited and waited, but she hadn’t appeared. One day had become two, then three.
He had never seen her again.
Now he stood in the shower, his eyes closed, keeping out the world. But at last he opened them and switched off the water.
Then he tensed.
She was there, just outside the shower, her shadow outlined on the glass. She was waiting for him.
He moved fast, hurling himself against the glass so hard that he nearly broke it, reaching out, trying to find her.
But his hands touched only air. There was nobody there. She had been an illusion as, perhaps, she had always been. He stood there alone, shaking with the ferocity of his memories.
He dried himself mechanically, trying to force himself to be calm. It shamed him to be out of control.
That was the mantra he’d lived by since the day she’d vanished into thin air. Control. Never let anyone suspect the turmoil of joy and misery that had destroyed and remade him.
He’d returned to Italy, apparently the same man as before. If his rambunctious hard living had been a little forced, his manner more emphatic, nobody had seemed to notice. He had kept his memories a secret, sharing them with nobody in the world—until tonight.
With Evie he’d come closer to confiding than with anyone else, ever. But he wasn’t a man who easily discussed feelings, or even knew what his own feelings were much of the time. So he’d gone just so far before retreating into silence.
Today, at his brother’s wedding, he’d sensed that Carlo had found a secret door and gone through it, closing it behind him.
For him the door had stood half-open, but then it had brutally slammed shut in his face, leaving him stranded in a desolate place.
All around him the villa was hushed for the night. It was packed to the rafters with people—many of whom loved each other, some of whom loved him. In the midst of them he felt lonelier than ever before in his life.
The flight from London had been delayed, and by the time Polly landed at Naples she was feeling thoroughly frazzled. The extra time had given her more chance to think about what she was doing and regret that she had ever agreed to do it.
There was a long queue to get through Passport Control, and she yawned, trying to be patient. A large mirror stretched the length of the wall, providing an unwelcome opportunity to anyone who could bear to look at themselves after a flight. For herself, she would gladly have done without it. There was nothing in her appearance that pleased her.
It was wickedly unjust that, equipped with much the same physical attributes as her cousin Freda, she had turned out so differently. Freda had been tall, slender, willowy—a beauty who’d walked with floating grace. Polly was also tall and slender, but her movements suggested efficiency rather than elegance.
‘And just as well,’ she’d tartly remarked once. ‘I’m a nurse. Who wants a nurse drifting beautifully into the ward when they need a bedpan? I run, and then I run somewhere else, because someone’s hit the alarm button. And when I’ve finished I don’t recline gorgeously on a satin couch. I collapse in an exhausted huddle.’
Freda, who’d been listening to this outburst with amusement, had given a lazy chuckle.
‘You describe it so cleverly, darling. I think you’re wonderful. I couldn’t do what you do.’
That had been Freda’s way—always ready with the right words, even if they’d meant nothing to her. Polly, prosaic to her fingertips, had seen that slow, luxurious smile melt strong men, luring them on with the hint of mystery.
To her there had been no mystery. Freda had done and said whatever would soften her audience. It had brought her a multitude of admirers and a rich husband.
Polly had even watched helplessly as a boyfriend of her own had been enticed away from her, without a backward look. Nor had she blamed him. She hadn’t even blamed Freda. It would have been like resenting the sun for shining.
Freda’s heart-shaped face had been beautiful. Polly, with roughly the same shape, just missed beauty by the vital millionth of an inch. Freda’s hair had been luxuriously blonde. Polly was also fair, and could probably have had the same rich shade if she’d worked on it. But life as a senior nurse in a busy hospital left her neither time nor cash to indulge her hair. She kept it clean and wore it long, her one concession to vanity.
Trapped in the slow-moving queue, she had plenty of time to consider the matter and come to the usual depressing conclusions.
‘I look like I’ve been left out in the rain by someone who’s forgotten. But is that so strange, after the way I’ve spent the last year?’
At last she was out, and searching for a taxi to take her to the cheap hotel she’d booked on-line, which was all she could afford. It was basic, but clean and comfortable, with friendly service. Judging it too late now to start her search, she dined in the tiny garden restaurant off the best spaghetti she’d ever tasted. Afterwards she showered and stretched out on the bed, gazing at the snapshot she’d taken from her purse.
It was a small picture, taken in a machine, and it showed Freda, gorgeous as always, sitting with a young man in his late twenties. He had dark hair that curled slightly, a lean face and a stubborn mouth. Freda was leaning against him, and his arm was about her in a gesture of possessiveness. His cheek rested on her head, and although he was half smiling at the camera it was clear that the rest of the world barely existed for him.
Polly studied him, trying to decide why, despite his air of joy, there was a kind of fierceness about him that defied analysis. He seemed to be uttering a silent warning that Freda belonged to him, and he would defend his ownership with his last breath.
But it hadn’t worked out like that. He had lost her for ever. And soon he would know it finally.
For a long time Polly lay looking at the ceiling, musing.
What am I doing here? I don’t really want to see Ruggiero Rinucci, and I’m sure he doesn’t want to see me.
Maybe I should have written to him first? But I don’t have his exact address. Besides, some things are better face to face. Plus, men are such cowards that if he knew why I was coming he’d probably vanish. Oh, heavens, how did I get into this?
On the edge of Naples stood La Pista Grande, a large winding track that was the scene of many motorbike races.
Here, too, the firm of Fantone & Rinucci tested their motorbikes, with Ruggiero insisting on doing all tests personally, and taking every machine to the limit.
‘If it doesn’t half kill him he thinks there’s something wrong with it,’ one of the mechanics had remarked admiringly, and when Ruggiero was on the track as many as possible of the workforce turned out to watch, cheer and take bets on his survival.
He
