glasses and a way of getting onto a really dull topic of conversation and then bedding down for the duration.
Rosie looked down. Down to the lively buzz of excited guests, down to the glittering Christmas tree, down to the clutch of leather chairs in the foyer, where a group of three people was gathering some papers, shaking hands, clearly about to leave.
‘And—’ she turned her clear blue-eyed gaze back to her sister ‘—I wasn’t going to say anything but…but… I’m just not in a good place for meeting Bertie, Diss. Or anyone, for that matter.’
On her lap, she crossed her fingers and told herself that this was a perfectly sensible way out of a situation that would turn Christmas into a nightmare. She didn’t want Bertie coming over. She didn’t want to have to face the full force of her family gently trying to propel her to a destination she didn’t want to go because they were concerned about her.
She leaned forward. ‘I’ve had my heart broken while I’ve been out here.’
‘What on earth are you talking about, Rosie?’
‘You say that I never go for the right kind of guy? Well, I did. I fell for one of the guests here. A businessman. As reliable and as stable as…as…the day is long. He was everything you and Ems and Mum and Dad would have wanted for me, which just goes to show that those types just aren’t for girls like me. I bore them in the end. It was just a holiday fling but I guess I got more wrapped up in him than I thought I would.’
‘I’m not sure I believe you,’ Candice said, eyebrows raised. ‘It’s very odd that this is the first I’m hearing of this and we’ve been sitting here for what…an hour? What a coincidence.’
‘I wasn’t going to mention it but I felt I had to when you told me that Mum and Dad were thinking of asking Robert and his parents over for the weekend. I’m just a little shaken up, that’s all. I know I’ve dated the wrong sorts but I really felt that this guy might be the one. I went into it with my eyes wide open and I was hurt. So… I just need a bit of time out to lick my wounds.’
‘And where is this mysterious disappearing man right now?’ But her voice was hesitant, on the cusp of believing.
‘As a matter of fact…’
And there was that group of three again. She recognised the elderly couple—Bob and Margaret something-or-other. She had given them both a lesson, filling in for their usual instructor who had called in sick when Rosie knew for a fact he had been suffering from a hangover. They had said were there to try and learn to ski because, although they were in their late sixties, they believed that old dogs could be taught new tricks and, since their daughter loved her skiing, they were up for giving it a try. They were going to be retiring. Selling up. A nice young man, Matteo, would be coming in for a flying visit to do the deal. Exciting times.
With his back to her as he shook hands with the older man, Matteo—or the man she assumed was Matteo, because who else could it possibly be?—was just the candidate for the role of businessman heartbreaker. There was no way she intended to spend her Christmas dodging Bertie, and a broken heart was the only excuse she could find that might save her from that dreadful possibility.
‘There he is. Matteo. With that couple about to leave. He’s here on business with them. He doesn’t know that I’m up here looking down at him. Thinks I’m out on the slopes giving a lesson. He’s probably completely forgotten about my existence already.’
She looked at her sister who stared down to the group of three, eyes narrowed.
‘That creep was the guy who hurt you?’
Rosie mumbled something inarticulate, meant to convey an affirmative reply without going into further detail. Not a liar by nature, she was guiltily aware that she was blackening a perfect stranger’s character with her little white lie.
Distracted, what happened next took her by surprise. It was so out of keeping with her cool, collected, elegant blonde sister. Candice was always so controlled! But here she was now, angrily rising to her feet, hands slapping down on the table, and then she was hurtling between tables, feet flying at a pace while… Rosie watched, mouth open, horror slowly dawning because she knew that this was not going to end well for her…
She would have to stop her sister before things went any further. She didn’t waste time thinking about it. She leapt up and followed in hot pursuit.
For once, Matteo Moretti wasn’t looking at his watch. He usually did. The end of a deal always awakened a restlessness inside him, an impatience to move on to the next thing. True, the signatures on the dotted line were technically not there yet, but that was a formality. Hands had been shaken and, as soon as the horror of the Christmas season was over and done with, the lawyers would be summoned and the finishing touches put to a purchase that meant a great deal to him.
Bob and Margaret Taylor, the most unlikely of clients, were beaming up at him. Bob, yet again, was congratulating him in his bluff, Yorkshire accent for getting past the post.
‘Land’s worth a bob or two.’ He slapped Matteo’s arm and winked. ‘Can’t tell you how many wanted to get their greedy paws on it but you’re the first person the missus and I feel we can trust to do the right thing.’
‘Honoured that you think that,’ Matteo responded with sincerity.
He’d been here at this eye-wateringly pricey resort for the past three days, wooing Bob and his wife. A different type of approach for a very different type of deal.
Around him, Yuletide merriment had been a constant backdrop, getting on his nerves, reminding him that it was high time he did what he always did every single Christmas—escape. Escape to his villa on the outskirts of Venice, which was a mere couple of hours from here.
He worked in London and had a penthouse apartment there, indeed lived most of his life there, but his elegant, yellow-stone villa here in Italy was his bolt-hole and the only place where he felt perfectly at peace. Every year he removed himself from the canned carols, the ridiculous Santa lookalikes ringing bells outside supermarkets and the pounding of crowds on pavements, frantically hunting down presents, wrapping paper, Christmas decorations and all the paraphernalia that seemed to arrive earlier and earlier in the shops with every passing year.
Two weeks away from it all, isolated in his sprawling manor with two trusted employees to cook and clean for him while he worked. God bless broadband and the Internet. It enabled him to avoid the chaos of the festive season while still keeping on top of each and every detail of what was happening in his various offices across the globe. He might live in England but he was Italian and this bolt-hole in Italy reminded him of his heritage and everything that went with it. He threw money at his PA, told her to do as she wished when it came to entertaining the troops at various office Christmas parties and he disappeared.
‘Just a couple more “i”s to dot and a couple more “t”s to cross and it’s yours, lad, and we couldn’t be happier.’
Intensely private and remote, Matteo felt the twist of something highly emotional swell inside him because this was the one and only deal he had ever done that had real personal significance. His background, his childhood—in a way the very reason he was where he was now—all lay in that land he was on the verge of buying and the halfway house within it. It was a place of retreat for foster kids, an escape where they could feel what it was
