you sure about that?’ Luka checked.
‘More than sure.’
‘Some welcome,’ Luka sneered, and then shook his head. ‘I’ve been in prison for six months, two of them spent in solitary, where the thought of seeing you was the only thing that kept me sane.’
Luka had had a lot of time to think and in that time the only thing that had kept him going had been her and the memory of that afternoon—sheets that had smelt like the sun and the future they had dared to glimpse. He had walked out of court and straight to the jeweller’s. It had been closed, of course, but he had gone around to Giovanni’s home and asked him to open up, and his first purchase had been the thing he craved most.
A future with the person he loved by his side.
‘What exactly did you say to your father?’ Sophie demanded. ‘I want to hear it.’
Now, instead of looking to the future, Sophie wanted to examine the past.
‘I’ve just been found not guilty, Sophie. I’ve just had my past and my all my dealings examined. I never thought I’d have to come out to be to be retried by you. I lied under oath for you.’
‘I don’t care about your lies under oath,’ Sophie said, her eyes blazing with anger. ‘I care about the parts that were true. You go to London, Luka, you go with your glamorous women, you don’t need to take the peasant along...’
It was that part that had killed her, that part that made her want to curl up right now and hide for ever, but instead Sophie came out fighting. She had never felt good enough for Luka, and hearing what he had said about her to his father had been more shameful than being paraded half-naked in front of the village. ‘You weren’t lying under oath then, Luka.’
‘It was a row that I had with my father. What I said was wrong, I know that. Sophie, I thought it the moment I opened the door to you and saw you standing there, so beautiful...’
Unwittingly he had hurt her again. The Sophie he had seen that day had been dressed in her finest, but he couldn’t know that. All his words did were reinforce her silent fear that if he knew the real Sophie, she wouldn’t be good enough.
From the ruins she had to dig deep to find her pride.
‘I’ll never forgive you for that,’ Sophie spat. ‘I’ll never forget the shame of my first lover calling me a peasant.’
‘Well, it was it clearly true.’ He hit completely below the belt but, hell, he was hurting. ‘Do you really think I want to be standing arguing, with you acting like a fishwife, on the night I get set free? I want champagne, Sophie. I want laughter and a beautiful woman.’
‘And?’ she demanded.
‘That about does it for me,’ Luka said, and shrugged her off.
HE DIDN’T FEEL ANYTHING.
Or rather, Luka thought as the car took him from the airport to Bordo Del Cielo , the feelings that he had were perhaps not at they should be on the day of his father’s funeral.
Yes, he was grieving.
Just not for Malvolio.
It had been five years since Luka had been back.
At least physically.
More than Luka cared to admit, his dreams regularly brought him back to this place.
The car turned and he looked out at the glittering Mediterranean and then another turn and there spread out before him were his childhood and teenage years.
The church, the houses, the rivers and roads that were all etched in his heart were on view now. Memories of summers and Christmases long gone when he had lived a life with the promise of Sophie in his future.
It had been a promise that he had backed out on, Luka reminded himself.
Today, on the day that his father was buried, when surely there should be a layer of grief for his father, instead it was all for Sophie and for that small slice of time they had been together.
She still resided in his heart.
With the benefit of hindsight he had often rearranged that day in his mind so that they had left for London as soon as she had come out of the shower, before the raid, before everything had fallen apart.
He arrived at the church and as he stepped inside Luka could only give a wry smile for it was practically empty.
Defiant only on Malvolio’s death, no one attended.
There was just Angela the maid, sitting midway down the aisle, and Luka gave her a nod and then headed to the front.
There was the sound of the door opening and he turned around because, yes, hope remained.
False hope, Luka thought as Pino, once a young boy on his bike, now a young man, came in and took a seat.
Luka nodded to him also but as he sat through the short service still his mind turned to Sophie.
She should have been here.
Had she cared for him, she would have been beside him today.
The burial was a sad joke.
Malvolio had paid for his own funeral and the huge oak casket with its glitzy trimmings went almost unnoticed, for everyone had chosen to stay at home.
Pino headed off and after Luka had thanked the priest he walked out of the cemetery with Angela.
‘I have put on some refreshments,’ Angela said, ‘back at the house. I wasn’t sure how many would be attending. I don’t think I’ll be hungry for a long time.’
Luka gave a wry smile. ‘You know, for all his power and wealth he had nothing,’ he said. ‘Nothing that matters anyway.’
‘I thought Matteo might come with you today. I hear that the two of you are doing very well.’
‘He is in the Middle East on business. He offered to come but I really just wanted to do this on my own.’
Or not on his own. Still his eyes scanned the street, hoping against hope that she might yet arrive.
He should leave now.
Luka knew that.
His lawyers were taking care of the estate. Luka could barely stand to hear the details—his father owned Paulo’s home and Bella’s mother’s too.
That was the mere start.
Most of the town had been handed over to his father in times of weakness or ill health, with the promise that Malvolio would take care of everything.
No wonder the church had been practically empty.
