herself that he need never know the consequence of their one night together. What point was there, really, in raking up the past? It wouldn’t change things. It wouldn’t change him.
And yet Lucia knew if the positions had been somehow reversed she would want to know. Yet could she really assume that Angelo would feel the same? And if she did tell him, and he shrugged it off as irrelevant, wouldn’t that break her heart all over again? Just one brief conversation with him last night and already she felt it starting to splinter.
She was almost finished the third floor, her head and heart both aching, when she heard the muffled sobs coming from the supply room at the end of the hall. Frowning, Lucia pushed open the door and her heart twisted at the sight inside the little room stacked with towels and industrial-size bottles of cleaner.
‘Maria.’
Maria Dibona, another chambermaid, looked up at her with tear-streaked eyes. ‘Scusi, scusi,’ she said, wiping at her eyes. Lucia reached for a box of tissues used to supply the hotel bathrooms and handed her one. ‘Is it Stefano?’
Maria nodded. Lucia knew her son had left Sicily for a life in Naples, and his sudden defection had broken his mother’s heart.
‘I’m sorry, Maria.’ She put her arm around the older woman. ‘Have you been in touch?’
‘He hasn’t even called.’ Maria pressed the tissue to her eyes. ‘How is a mother to live, not knowing if her son is healthy or not? Alive or not?’
‘He will call,’ Lucia murmured. ‘He loves you, you know. Even if he doesn’t always show it.’ She meant the words for Maria, yet she felt their mocking echo in herself. Hadn’t she told herself the same thing after Angelo had left? Hadn’t she tried to convince herself that he would call or write, reach her, even as the heaviness in her heart told her otherwise?
When she’d rolled over and seen the smooth expanse of empty sheet next to her she’d known Angelo wasn’t coming back. Wasn’t writing, calling or keeping in touch in any way…no matter how desperately she tried to believe otherwise.
Maria blew her nose. ‘He was such a good boy. Why did he have to leave?’
Lucia just shook her head and squeezed the woman’s shoulders. She had no answers, no real comfort to give besides her own understanding and sympathy. She’d lived too long and experienced too much heartache to offer anyone pat answers. There were none.
She heard the sound of someone striding down the hall, someone walking with purpose and determination. Instinctively she stiffened, and then shock iced through as an all too familiar face appeared around the door of the little supply cupboard.
‘Lucia.’
She straightened and Maria lurched upright, dabbing her face frantically. ‘Scusi, scusi, Signor Corretti…’
Angelo waved a hand in quick dismissal of the other woman. His grey-green eyes blazed into Lucia’s. ‘I need to speak with you.’
‘Very well.’ Lucia hid her trembling hands in her apron. She hadn’t expected to see him again so soon, or even at all. She had no idea what he intended to say, but she knew she wasn’t ready for the conversation.
‘In my office.’ Angelo turned away, and Lucia glanced back at Maria, whose eyes had rounded in surprise. Maria was no gossip, but Lucia knew the news would still spread. Angelo Corretti had summoned her to his office for a private conversation. All the old memories and rumours would be raked up.
Closing her eyes briefly, she followed Angelo out into the corridor. They didn’t speak as they stepped into a lift that took them to the second-to-top floor that housed the hotel’s corporate offices, yet Lucia was all too achingly aware of the man next to her, the suppressed tension in every taut line of his lean body, the anger apparent in the tightness of his square jaw. She tried not to look at him, because if she looked at him she’d drink him in and she knew her need and want would be visible in her eyes, all too obvious to him.
Still. Still she felt that welling up of longing for him, a hopeless yearning that had her almost swaying towards him. It infuriated her, that her body and even her heart could want a man who had so little regard for her. At least her mind was strong. She straightened, lifted her chin. Angelo would never know how much he’d hurt her.
The lift doors pinged open and Lucia felt her cheeks warm as Angelo strode past a receptionist whose jaw dropped when she saw Lucia in her standard grey maid’s uniform, complete with frilly apron and ridiculous cap, follow him into his office like a scolded schoolgirl…or a summoned mistress.
No, she wouldn’t think like that. Couldn’t, even if everyone else would. Again.
Angelo strode towards the floor-to-ceiling windows with a view of Palermo’s harbour, one hand braced against the glass, his back to her. Lucia waited, her heart pounding even as her hungry gaze swept over him, the long, muscular stretch of back, the narrow hips, the powerful legs. The elegant, expensive suit that reminded her just how out of her league he was now.
Angelo swung around suddenly to face her, his eyes narrowed. ‘Why did you start working at this hotel?’
Lucia blinked. ‘Because I needed a job.’
‘Surely you could have found a suitable position somewhere else.’
She drew herself up even though she felt like curling into a protective ball, hiding her hurts. How could he be angry about her job? ‘Are you still angry that I broke my promise, Angelo?’ she asked, an edge to her voice. ‘That seems rather hypocritical.’
‘I didn’t make any promises,’ he said flatly, and she drew in one short, sharp breath. Felt the truth of his words cut her as if he were wielding a sword.
‘I know that.’
‘So why did you?’
She gritted her teeth, forced herself to sound calm. Strong. ‘I told you, I needed a job. Did you really call me up here to ask me that—’
‘Did you even think of that promise you made, Lucia?’ he cut her off harshly. His hands clenched into fists at his sides. ‘Did you think of me?’
Every day. She drew a painful breath into her lungs. ‘Did you think of me, Angelo?’ she asked quietly, knowingly, and he swung away again, his silence answer enough.
Lucia waited, her hands clenched in the folds of her apron. A minute ticked by in taut silence, and then another, and Angelo still didn’t speak.
‘Who was that woman you were with?’ he asked suddenly, and she blinked in surprise.
‘Her name is Maria Dibona. She works here, with me.’
‘I gathered that.’ Angelo turned towards her, but she couldn’t tell anything from his face besides the fact that he still seemed angry. But then Angelo had always seemed angry, except perhaps for when he’d been sad. And the few times he’d made her laugh, when they were children…precious memories she kept locked away, deep inside. Memories she couldn’t let herself think about now. ‘Why was she crying?’ he asked, and she shrugged.
‘Her son has left suddenly for Naples. She misses him.’
Angelo
