Matteo looked up at the sound of his grandfather’s tired voice, and what he saw made his heart sink in dread. Giovanni looked not just pale, but so incredibly frail. His hair was as white as snow and his usually bright blue eyes seemed faded, and suddenly Matteo changed his mind—he wanted a lecture now! He wanted his grandfather to have brought him here to haul him over the proverbial coals, to tell Matteo that he must grow up, settle down and cease his hedonistic days. Anything other than what, Matteo had the terrible feeling, was about to come.
‘I’ve asked you to come here to tell you...’ Giovanni started but Matteo did not want to hear it. A master in diversion, he picked up the newspaper from his grandfather’s desk and unfolded it.
‘For all their comparisons they forget one vital piece of information,’ Matteo said. ‘He had responsibilities.’
‘I know that he did,’ Giovanni said, ‘but you have responsibility too. To yourself. Matteo, you are heading for trouble. The company you keep, the risks you take...’
‘Are mine to take,’ Matteo interrupted. ‘My father was married and had seven children when he died.’ He jabbed at the photo. ‘Well, seven that he had admitted to!’
‘Matteo!’ Giovanni said. This was not going as he intended. ‘Sit down.’
‘No!’ He argued not with his grandfather but himself. ‘For all they compare me to him they deliberately omit to mention that I don’t have a wife and children. I’d never put anyone through the hell he made.’
He never would.
It was a decision Matteo had made a long time ago.
He was single and staying that way.
Giovanni looked at his grandson and he worried for him.
Fun-loving and charismatic, Matteo not only acted like his father at times, he looked like him too. They had the same navy eyes, the same straight nose and even their hair fell forwards in the same way.
Giovanni, for his own private reasons, had never bonded with his son. He had never told anyone why; it was a secret he had intended to take to his grave.
In the aftermath of Benito’s and Anna’s deaths, five-year-old Matteo, a carbon copy of his father, had been too much of a visual reminder of Benito for Giovanni and, rather than learning from his mistakes, he had repeated them, and Giovanni had kept his distance from his grandson.
Matteo had run wild and that irrepressible personality had gone largely unchecked. When he had dropped out of college after just a year, a terrible row had ensued. Matteo had said that he didn’t need to be taught about the business world—playing the stock market was in his DNA and he wanted to set up a hedge fund rather than sit in lectures—and Giovanni had told his grandson that he was just like his father and that he feared he was heading the same way. Accusations that Matteo had not needed to hear and certainly not from his grandfather.
It was too late to tame him. Giovanni had shouted at the young man, and Matteo had fought back.
‘You never once tried!’ It was the only glimpse Matteo had ever given to another of the pain he carried. ‘You never once fought for me,’ he had shouted. ‘You left me to roam this house and make my own way. Don’t act now as if you care.’ Yes, harsh words had been said and their relationship still bore the scars to this day.
‘Take a seat, Matteo,’ Giovanni said.
Matteo didn’t do as asked.
Troubled by his grandfather’s appearance and unsettled as to what was to come, instead of sitting down, he walked over to the window. He looked out to the vast estate that had once been his playground. Matteo’s grandmother had died before he had been born, so his younger sisters had been taken care of by his older sister, Allegra, while his older siblings had all headed off to boarding school.
Matteo had pretty much been left to his own devices.
‘Do you remember when you used to visit me as children when your parents were still alive?’ Giovanni asked.
‘I don’t think about that time,’ Matteo answered.
He did his best to never look back.
‘You were very young, of course. Maybe you can’t remember...’
Oh, Matteo did.
He remembered only too well life before the Di Sione children had come to live here. He could still recall, with painful clarity, the fights that could erupt at any given time and just the sheer chaos of their existence. Of course, he hadn’t understood then that there were drugs involved. Matteo had just known that his family lived on the edge.
A luxurious knife edge.
‘Matteo.’ Giovanni broke into his dark thoughts. ‘Do you remember when I used to tell you all the story of the Lost Mistresses?’
‘No.’ Matteo shrugged and dismissed the conversation. As he looked out of the window to the lake, his gaze fell on a tree that was so high his stomach churned as he remembered climbing it and falling. A branch had broken his fall. Had it not, he’d probably have died.
No one had seen and no one had known.
Alma, the housekeeper, had scolded him for the grass stains on his clothes and had asked what had happened.
‘I tripped near the lake,’ he had said.
His ribs and head had hurt and his heart had still been pounding, not that he would let Alma see that.
Instead it had been easier to lie.
The sensation of falling still woke Matteo to this day but that wasn’t all that he recalled as he stood there staring out of the window. There was a darker memory that he had never shared, one that could still bring him out in a cold sweat—pleading with his father to stop, to slow down, to please take him home.
From that day to this, Matteo had never again revealed fear.
It got you nowhere. If anything, it spurred others on.
‘You surely remember,’ Giovanni insisted. ‘The Lost Mistresses...’
‘I don’t.’ He shook his head.
‘Then I’ll remind you.’
As if I need to hear this again, Matteo thought! He said nothing, though, and let the old man speak.
‘Don’t ask me how I came by them, for an old man must have his secrets...’ Giovanni started. Matteo remained standing, his face impassive, as his grandfather recited the tale. ‘But when I came to America, I had in my possession trinkets, my Lost Mistresses. They meant more to me than you can ever know but in order to survive I was forced to sell them. My Lost Mistresses, the love of my life, we owe them everything.’ Giovanni stopped speaking for a moment and looked at Matteo’s pale features and unshaven jaw, which was now clenched. ‘You do remember.’
‘No.’ Matteo was getting annoyed now. ‘I’ve told you I don’t.’ He loathed delving into the past and he didn’t want a trip down memory lane today. ‘Do you want to go out?’ he suggested.
