Reunited with Her Italian Ex

‘I think I just might have,’ Mario said, grinning.

‘No doubt,’ Damiano said cheerfully. ‘After all, look who taught you.’

This was a reference to Damiano’s successful career as the owner of several hotels. Mario had learned the trade working in many of them and had finally become ambitious for his own establishment.

‘That’s right, I learned from the best,’ Mario said. ‘And having a place in Verona is a help. Several of us hoteliers have got together to promote the Romeo and Juliet angle.’

‘The city of lovers,’ Damiano said wryly. ‘That should suit you. You’d hardly believe some of the tales I’ve heard about you.’

‘Not recently,’ Mario said quickly.

‘No, you’ve settled down these last couple of years, but before that I remember you gave a whole new meaning to the term “bad boy”.’

‘Most of us do before we find the right woman,’ Mario pointed out.

‘True. I wasn’t a saint before I met Sally. But you haven’t met your “Sally”, so what made you suddenly become virtuous?’

‘Virtuous? Me? No need to insult me.’

Damiano grinned. ‘So is it just a smokescreen?’

‘No. I really have changed, not necessarily for the better.’

‘Don’t say that. You’re much improved—quieter, more serious, more grown-up...’

‘More suspicious and demanding, nastier sometimes,’ Mario said quietly.

‘Hey, why do you put yourself down?’

‘Perhaps because I know myself better than anyone else does. I’m not the nice guy I used to be—if I ever was.’

‘So what made it happen?’

Mario clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Don’t ask me. It’s a long story, and one that—well, that I don’t care to think of too often. Let’s leave it. I’d better be going. Giorgio has hired a journalist he says will be brilliant at promoting the Romeo and Juliet angle. I’m meeting her for dinner when I get back tonight.’

‘Best of luck. Goodbye, brother.’

They embraced each other. Damiano stood back, waving as Mario turned out of the car park and across the causeway that led to the mainland.

From Venice to Verona was nearly seventy-five miles. During the journey Mario reflected wryly on his brother’s words. Damiano didn’t know that one of the turning points in Mario’s life had been Damiano’s marriage to Sally, four years earlier. Mario had been strongly attracted to Sally, something he’d had to fight. He’d fought it by working in Damiano’s hotels in Rome, Florence, Milan, only rarely returning to Venice.

Until then his life had been free and easy. He was young, charming and handsome, with no trouble attracting women. He’d had many girlfriends. Too many, he now realised.

He’d returned to Venice for the birth of his brother’s son and found, to his relief, that Sally no longer attracted him, except as a sister. He’d settled into a life of work and pleasure.

Then had come the other great turning point in his life, when he’d met the one woman who could make a difference, drive away the loneliness and give his existence meaning.

Fantasy dictated that she should feel the same and throw herself into his arms. The bitter reality was that she had walked out on him, slamming the door in his face, condemning him to a bleak isolation that was all the worse because he had glimpsed a glorious future, and come so close to embracing it.

Buying the hotel two years ago had been a lucky chance. The owner was eager to sell and accepted a discounted price, and now Mario felt that he was headed for success and independence. If he did nothing else in his life he would triumph in this, he vowed to himself. With that hope to guide him he could banish the pain and bleakness of the last two years.

At last he reached the hotel. Giorgio came to the entrance to greet him.

‘It’s all set up,’ he said.

‘Has the lady arrived?’

‘Yes, an hour ago. She’s not who I was expecting. The agency made a last-minute change, but she seems serious and professional.’

‘I can’t wait to meet her.’ As they walked across the elegant lobby, Mario looked around him at the place he was beginning to regard as his kingdom. ‘You know, I have the best possible feeling about this,’ he said. ‘We’re on the right road, and we’re going to reach a great destination.’

‘One where the money is,’ Giorgio supplied with a grin.

‘Of course, but that’s not the only thing. Somehow, everything is beginning to feel right.’

‘That’s the spirit. Get settled in and then I’ll introduce you to... Mario? Mario, is something wrong?’

But Mario didn’t hear him. His attention had been drawn to the great staircase that led to the next floor. He was staring at it like a man stunned. A young woman was walking down the stairs. She moved slowly, pausing to look at the paintings on the wall, so that at first she didn’t seem to notice Mario standing by the bottom step.

When her eyes came to rest on Mario she stopped suddenly, as if unable to believe her eyes.

* * *

A terrible stillness came over Natasha as she looked down the staircase, trying to understand what was happening. It was impossible that Mario should be standing there, staring up at her with a thunderstruck expression.

Impossible.

And yet it was true. He was there, looking like a man who’d seen a nightmare come to life.

She tried to move but the stillness enveloped her. Now he was climbing the stairs slowly, as though unwilling to approach her too quickly or come too close. When he spoke it was uneasily.

‘I believe...we’ve met before.’

A dozen answers clamoured in her head, but at last she heard herself say, ‘No, never.’

That took him off-guard, she could see. While he struggled for a reply, Giorgio’s voice reached them from the bottom of the stairs.

‘Aha! I see you two are getting acquainted.’ Waving cheerfully, he climbed up to join them.

‘Natasha, let me introduce Mario Ferrone, the owner of the hotel and President of the Comunità. Mario, this is Natasha Bates, the lady who’s going to tell the world about Verona.’

Mario inclined his head formally. ‘Buongiorno, signorina. It’s a pleasure to meet you.’

‘How do you do?’ she said, nodding towards him.

‘Let’s go and eat,’ Giorgio said, ‘and we can have a good talk.’

Downstairs, a table was laid for them in a private room overlooking the river. Giorgio led Natasha to the chair nearest the window and drew it out for her.

A waiter hurried in, eager to serve the hotel’s owner. His manner was respectful and she was reminded of Giorgio’s words:

‘When he gives his orders we all jump to attention...’

She’d known him as a cheeky playboy, always ready to laugh and use his charm. It was hard to see the man he’d been then as the stern authoritarian that Giorgio described now. But his face had changed, growing slightly thinner, firmer, more intense. Even his smile had something reserved about it.

Turning her eyes to him briefly, she caught him glancing at her and realised that he was studying her too. What did he see? Had she also changed, becoming older, sterner, less relaxed? Probably. Perhaps she should be glad, for it would make her stronger. And she was going to need strength now.

Giorgio claimed her attention, filling her wine glass, smiling at her with an air of deferential admiration. He had probably been handsome in his youth, and still had the air of a practised flirt.

‘How much were you told about this job?’ he asked her.

‘Only that some Verona hotel owners had got together to promote the city’s connection with Romeo and Juliet,’ Natasha said.

‘That’s right. It’s already well promoted by the council, which works hard to bring tourists here. But the hotel owners wanted to enjoy a bit more of the spotlight, so they formed the Comunità di Verona Ospitalità so that they could make the most of being in the town that saw the greatest love story in the world.

‘Shakespeare didn’t invent Romeo and Juliet. There really were two families called Montague and Capulet, and they did have children who fell in love, and died. It happened in the early fourteenth century. In the next two hundred years the story was told and retold, until finally Shakespeare based his play on the legend. Tourists come here to see “Juliet’s balcony” and imagine the balcony scene happening there.’

‘Which it didn’t,’ Mario observed drily. ‘The house belonged to a family called Capello, but the council added the balcony less than a hundred years ago.’

‘But if everyone knows that—’ Natasha mused.

‘They know it but they ignore it,’ Giorgio said cheerfully. ‘People are often tempted to believe only what they want to.’

‘How true,’ Natasha murmured. ‘That’s why we’re all so easily taken in.’

She didn’t look directly at Mario as she said these words, but she had a sense that he was watching her with an air of tension that matched her own.

‘And that’s what we can make use of,’ Giorgio said. ‘Juliet’s balcony, Juliet’s tomb, where Romeo killed himself because he couldn’t bear life without her, and where she killed herself for the same reason. Is it true? It is if we want it to be.’

‘Oh, yes,’ Natasha mused. ‘True if we want it to be—until one day we have to face the fact that it isn’t true, however much we want it.’

‘But that’s show business,’ Giorgio said. ‘Creating a fantasy that makes people happy.’

‘And what more could we want than that?’ Mario asked.

He raised his glass and drank from it, seemingly oblivious to her. But the next moment he said, ‘Tell us something about yourself, signorina.’

She turned her head, meeting his eyes directly. ‘What did you say?’

‘I said I’d like to know about you. I’m sure there is much you could tell us. What are your family obligations? Are you free to live in Verona for several weeks, or is there someone at home who will be missing you?’

‘I suppose there must be,’ Giorgio said. He assumed a chivalrous air. ‘This is a lovely lady. She must have crowds of men following her.’

‘That doesn’t mean that I let them catch up,’ Natasha teased.

‘Some women are very good at keeping out of sight,’ Mario said.

‘Of course,’ Giorgio agreed. ‘That’s the secret. Let them chase after you, but don’t let any of them get close enough to know what you’re thinking and feeling.’ He kissed her hand gallantly. ‘Signorina, I can see you’re an expert in keeping your admirers wondering.’

‘But just what are they wondering?’ Mario asked. ‘Will any of them arrive here to assert his “rights”?’

‘What rights?’ Giorgio demanded. ‘She’s not married.’

‘That’s irrelevant,’ Mario observed. ‘You have only to study Romeo and Juliet to see that men and women make that decision within a few moments of meeting. And nobody dares get in their way.’

‘When people fear betrayal they can get violent,’ Giorgio agreed.

Natasha nodded. ‘And if they know for sure that they’ve been betrayed, there’s no knowing how far they’ll go to make someone sorry,’ she mused, letting her glance rest on Mario.

She was glad to see that he understood the silent message. Before her eyes he flinched and averted his gaze. When he spoke again it was in a voice so defiantly businesslike that it told its own story.

‘So we can expect a jealous lover to follow you out here?’ he said curtly.

She faced him, reading the chilly hostility in his eyes, answering it with her own.

‘On the contrary. You can be certain that nothing will make me leave before my work is finished,’ she said calmly. ‘Unlike some people, I’m honest about my intentions. I don’t make promises and break them.’

‘That’s not exactly what I asked.’

No, she thought. You asked whether I’d had the nerve to replace you with another man.

She gave him her most confident smile, as though his questions merely amused her.

‘Let me assure you that I am free,’ she said. ‘No man tells me what to do, and if anyone tried—’ she leaned closer to him ‘—I would make him regret that he ever knew me.’ She added significantly, ‘I’m good at that.’

‘I believe you,’ he said.

Giorgio glanced at them curiously. ‘Hey, do you two already know each other?’

‘No,’ Natasha said quickly, before Mario could speak.

‘Really? I feel like I’m watching a fencing match.’

‘It’s more fun that way,’ she said lightly. ‘Go on telling me about Verona. Unless, of course, Signor Ferrone has decided he doesn’t wish to employ me. In which case I’ll just pack up and go. Shall I?’

She made as if to rise but Mario’s hand detained her.

‘No need for that,’ he said harshly. ‘Let’s get on with the job.’

‘Yes, that’s the only thing that matters,’ she said, falling back into the chair.

For a moment he kept his hand on her arm. ‘So we are agreed? You will stay?’

‘I will stay.’

CHAPTER TWO

MARIO RELEASED HER. ‘As long as we understand each other.’

Natasha drew a tense breath as the bitter irony of those words swept over her. They had never understood each other. Nor could they ever, except on the lines of mutual defensiveness and mistrust.

She turned to Giorgio, assuming her most businesslike tone.

‘So it’s time I consulted with the Publicity Manager. Tell me, what are my instructions?’

‘We must go on a trip around Verona,’ he said, ‘studying all the significant places. Especially the balcony. These days you can even get married in Juliet’s house. And afterwards the bride and groom always come out onto the balcony for the photographs.’

‘Useful,’ she said, taking out her notebook and beginning to write. ‘The balcony scene is the most famous part of the story.’

‘Yes, people love to imagine Juliet standing there, yearning for her lover, saying, “Romeo, Romeo, where art thou Romeo?”’

‘She doesn’t say “where”,’ Natasha objected. ‘She says “Wherefore”. It means “Why?” She’s saying “Why did you have to be Romeo, a Montague, and my enemy?” In Shakespeare’s time, if you wanted to know why someone had behaved in a certain way, you’d say—’ she assumed a dramatic attitude ‘“—Wherefore did thou do this, varlet?”’

‘Varlet?’ Giorgio queried.

‘It means rascal. You’d say it to someone who’d behaved disgustingly.’

Giorgio gave a crack of laughter. ‘I must remember that. Rascal—briccone.’

‘Or traditore,’ Natasha observed lightly.

‘Aha! So you know some Italian words?’ Giorgio said eagerly.

‘One or two,’ she said with a fair assumption of indifference.

‘I’d give a lot to know how you learned that particular one,’ he said cheekily.

‘You’ll just have to wonder,’ she chuckled.

Mario wasn’t looking at her. He seemed completely occupied with his wine.

A man appeared in the doorway, signalling to Giorgio.

‘I’ve got to leave you for a moment,’ he said. ‘But I’ll be back.’ He laid a hand on Natasha’s shoulder. ‘Don’t go away. I have a very good feeling about this.’

‘So have I,’ she said. ‘I’ll be right here.’

When Giorgio had gone, Mario refilled her wine glass.

‘Be cautious about Giorgio,’ he said. ‘He turns on the charm as part of his trade.’

‘But of course,’ she said cheerfully. ‘It’s a form of show business. No harm in that.’

‘As long as you’re not taken in.’

‘I’m not. These days, nothing and nobody manages to deceive me.’

He raised his glass to her in an ironic salute.

‘This is quite a coincidence,’ he said. ‘I wonder which of us is more shocked.’

‘We’ll never know.’

‘Just now you were very determined to say we didn’t know each other.’

‘Would you have said differently?’ she asked, watching him.

‘No, but I doubt I’d have said it so fast or emphatically. You denied knowing me as though your life depended on it.’

‘But we didn’t know each other. Once we believed we did but we were both wrong. You thought I was easy to fool or you wouldn’t have wasted your time on me. You never reckoned on Tania turning up and showing me what you were really like.’

‘I admit I once had a relationship with Tania, but it was over.’

‘Was it? I don’t think she believed that. She still felt you were hers. That’s why she felt so betrayed when she saw us. No, it was me you were planning to leave. That’s why you kept hinting about something you wanted to tell me. You said it wasn’t easy, but then it’s never easy to dump someone, is it?’

He turned very pale. ‘Isn’t it? You dumped me without any trouble.’

‘Dumping you was the easiest thing I’d ever done, but that’s because you gave me cause.’

‘But the way you did it—vanishing so that I could never find you. Can you imagine what I went through? It was like searching for a ghost. I nearly went mad because you denied me any chance to explain—’

‘Explain what? That you were fooling around with both of us? If you’d been the man I thought you— Well, let’s leave it there. You weren’t that man and you never could be. It’s best if we remain strangers now.’

‘Remain?’ he echoed sharply. But then his voice changed to wry, slightly bitter acceptance. ‘Yes, we always were strangers, weren’t we?’

‘Always were, always will be. That’s a very good business arrangement.’

‘And you’re a businesswoman?’

‘Exactly. It’s what I choose to be. Capisci?’

He nodded. ‘Capisco. I understand.’

‘From now on, it’s all business. The past didn’t happen. It was an illusion.’

‘An illusion—yes. I guessed that when you vanished into thin air. And now you’ve reappeared just as suddenly.’

‘Another illusion. I’m not really here.’

‘So if I look away you’ll vanish again?’

‘Perhaps that’s what I ought to do.’

‘No,’ he said with a hint of suppressed violence. ‘No! Not again. You could never understand how I— Don’t even think of it. Capisci?’

‘Capisco. I understand very well.’

‘Promise me that you won’t leave.’

‘All right.’

‘On your word of honour.’

‘Look—’

‘Say it. Let me know that I can trust you this time at least.’

‘Trust me this time? As though I was the one who deceived— You’ve got a nerve.’

‘He’s coming back,’ Mario said hurriedly, glancing to where Giorgio had appeared. ‘Smile.’

She tried to look at ease but it was hard, and as soon as Giorgio reached the table she rose.

‘I’m going to bed,’ she said. ‘It’s been a long day for me, with the flight.’

‘You’re right; get some rest,’ Mario said. ‘We’ll all meet here tomorrow morning at nine.’

They shook hands and she departed at once.

Giorgio watched her go, then eyed Mario wryly.

‘What’s going on with you two?’ he queried. ‘You’re on edge with each other. For a moment I really thought there’d been something between you.’

‘Not a thing,’ Mario assured him. ‘And there never could be.’

‘Pity. Romeo and Juliet were “star-crossed lovers”. It could have been interesting to have them promoted by another pair of star-crossed lovers. After all, if a couple is meant for each other but just can’t get it together—well, it’s not in their hands, is it? They just have to enjoy it while they can, but then accept that fate is against them.’

‘Isn’t that giving in too easily?’

‘It’s what Romeo and Juliet had to accept.’

‘And then they died.’

‘They died physically, but it doesn’t usually happen that way. Sometimes people just die inside.’

‘Yes,’ Mario murmured. ‘That’s true.’

‘I’ll call the other members of the group and fix a meeting. They’ll just love her. We’ve found the right person. Don’t you agree?’

Mario nodded and spoke in an iron voice. ‘The right person. Not a doubt of it. I must be going. My work has piled up while I’ve been away.’

He departed fast, urgently needing to get away from Giorgio’s sharp eyes that saw too much for comfort.

Upstairs, he headed for his bedroom, but paused before entering. The room allocated to Natasha was just across the corridor and he went to stand outside, looking at her door, wondering what was happening behind it.

The evening had torn his nerves to shreds. The woman he’d met had been as unlike the sweet, charming girl he remembered as steel was unlike cream. His heart told him it was impossible that they should be the same person, but his brain groaned and said it was true.

This was the heartless creature who had vanished without giving him a chance to defend himself, leaving him to hunt frantically for weeks until he’d realised that it was hopeless. And her manner towards him had left no doubt that she was enjoying her triumph.

A sensible man would have sent her away at once. Instead, he’d prevented her leaving, driven by instincts he didn’t understand, nor want to face.

From behind her door came only silence. He moved closer, raising his hand to knock, then dropping it again. This wasn’t the right moment.

Instead of going into his room, he turned away again and went downstairs into the garden, hoping some time in the night air would clear the confusion in his mind. But also doubting that anything would ever be clear again.

* * *

Natasha paced her room restlessly. After such a day she should have been ready to collapse into sleep, but her nerves were tense and she feared to lie awake all night, thinking the very thoughts she wanted to avoid.

Mario had blamed her for disappearing without giving him a chance to defend himself, and in so doing he’d touched a nerve.

Perhaps I should have let him say something, she thought. Why didn’t I?

Because I’m my mother’s daughter, said another voice in her mind. And I can’t help living by the lessons she taught me. Never trust a man. Don’t believe his explanation because it’ll be lies and you’ll only suffer more. In fact, don’t let him explain at all. Never, never give him a second chance.

She’d fled Mario because she feared to listen to what he might have to say. Thinking the worst of him felt safer. That was the sad truth.

But now, meeting him again and getting a sense of his torment, she felt uneasy about her own actions.

‘No,’ she said. ‘No, I’m not going down that road. What’s done is done. It’s over.’

In the last year she’d often suffered from insomnia and had resorted to some herbal sleeping pills. She took them out now, considering.

‘I’m not lying awake fretting over him. This is war.’

She swallowed two pills but, instead of going to bed, she went outside for a few minutes. The tall window opened onto a balcony where she could stand and look down on a narrow strip of garden. There were flowers, a few trees and beyond them the Adige River, glowing in the evening light. Now it was easy to slip into the balcony scene and become Juliet, yearning over the man who’d captured her heart before she knew who he was. When she’d realised that she’d fallen in love with an enemy, it was too late.

‘Too late,’ she murmured. ‘The last thing I wanted was to meet him again. I came here to start a new life. Mario, Mario, wherefore art thou, Mario? But it had to be you, didn’t it? When I’m looking forward to meeting new people, you have to pop up. Wherefore did thou do this, varlet?’

In her agitation she said the words aloud. Alarmed at herself, she retreated through the window, shutting it firmly.

* * *

Outside, all was quiet. Darkness was falling, and there was nobody to notice Mario standing, alone and silent, beneath the trees. He had come straight into the garden after leaving Natasha’s door, wondering if some light from her room would reassure him. What he had seen stunned and confused him. Her whispered words seemed to float down, reaching him so softly that he couldn’t be sure he’d actually heard them.

To believe what he longed to believe was something he refused to do. That way lay danger, disillusion—the things he’d promised himself to avoid in future. So he backed into the shadows, his eyes fixed on her window until the light went out and his world was full of darkness.