Modern Romance July 2015 Books 5-8. Louise Fuller

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.

       CHAPTER EIGHT

      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. No doubt the moment Luka left they would celebrate the end of his father’s dictatorship.

      They would, Luka knew, have reason to celebrate properly soon for he had instructed his lawyers carefully.

      He needed nothing from his father’s estate. It would take some work and a lot of unravelling but, in time, all the homes that his father had procured through less than honourable means would be returned to their rightful owners or their descendants. The locals would only find that out long after he had left Bordo Del Cielo, though.

      They arrived at his car and Luka looked at Angela’s tired, strained face.

      ‘How long until I have to leave the house?’ Angela asked.

      ‘You don’t ever have to leave,’ Luka said. Yes, he was handing it over to his lawyers, but he did not want Angela spending another night in fear. ‘I will be transferring the house into your name.’

      ‘Luka!’ Angela shook her head. ‘Bordo Del Cielo is a popular holiday resort now, the properties are expensive.’

      ‘It is your home,’ Luka said. ‘Hopefully, now it can be a happier one.’ He gave her a small smile. ‘Can I ask you to keep it to yourself for a little while?’

      Angela nodded tearfully.

      ‘Come back to the house,’ she said, but Luka shook his head.

      ‘There are few good memories there...’

      ‘Come back for a little while at least.’

      There was one good memory, though, and after a moment of quiet thought Luka nodded.

      He hadn’t been home since the night of the police raid.

      On his release, after pleading with Sophie to join him in London, instead of going to the bar to celebrate his and his father’s freedom he had sat on the sand, going over and over Sophie’s words.

      He went over them again now as he stepped into the kitchen and remembered her sitting on the bench and tending to his eye.

      ‘I might take a look around,’ Luka said, and took the stairs, trying and failing not to remember their frantic kisses there, and then went into his old bedroom.

      It was like entering a time warp.

      Angela must have dusted it but it was just as he had left it.