Modern Romance August Books 5-8. Julia James

at the hotel just to stay afloat. Alfeo was wrong—she wasn’t some magpie, she didn’t crave nice things, she just ached to make them, to bite her scissors into fabric, to create, to sew, but that was a dream that was fast fading. ‘You have never seen my work.’

      ‘I saw it last night,’ Matteo said. ‘Sophie was wearing one of your creations. She pretends to be rich...’

      Bella’s breath tripped. She and Sophie had done everything they could so that she could be proud of herself when she asked Luka to do her this one favour.

      ‘I know that she lies,’ Matteo said, and it was the strangest thing because even with the most private of conversations, even with her best friend’s secret on her shoulders, there was somehow trust that the discussion taking place was between them.

      ‘Does Luka know that she lies?’

      ‘I don’t know,’ Matteo admitted. ‘We really don’t speak about our pasts. All I know is that Sophie contacted him and asked him to go along with a fake engagement to appease her father. Now she wants marriage.’ His lips curled a little. ‘I have warned him it will be an expensive divorce.’

      ‘This isn’t about money,’ Bella swiftly retorted. ‘This is about giving Paulo peace in his final days.’

      ‘We shall see.’ Matteo shrugged. ‘Why else would she lie and make out that she is wealthy?’

      ‘Perhaps she needed to feel some pride to look an ex-lover in the eye and ask for help,’ Bella said from behind her dark glasses.

      ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘whatever game Sophie is playing, if what she was wearing last night was one of the dresses you made, then your work is amazing.’

      ‘It would take just one beautiful woman to make the headlines wearing one of my gowns.’ A smile finally came to her face. ‘Perhaps you could ask Shandy to wear one at one of the functions you attend...’

      ‘I don’t think so.’ Matteo’s own smile was wry. The waiter came and Bella glanced through the menu as he ordered a panino.

      ‘Brioche with a side of pistachio and cherry gelato,’ she said.

      ‘That sounds a lot like home,’ he commented.

      ‘I don’t eat out a lot,’ Bella said. ‘And so, when I do, I want something that I know for sure I’ll like.’

      Her words hit him between the legs. She could make the water the waiter was pouring a reference to sex, he thought as Bella excused herself and walked into the restaurant.

      There was no need to be shy now. As Matteo Santini’s breakfast date, the door was held open.

      A machine in the wall offered various solutions and normally Bella wouldn’t even deign to give it a glance.

      Today wasn’t a normal day, though, and so she fed some coins in.

      Some splurge, Bella thought as half a milligram of lip gloss was delivered to her palm.

      She painted her mouth, she rearranged her top, she tried to breathe through the images that her mind kept delivering.

      Their first kiss, their one dance.

      She took her time but felt better for it and as she walked back out the waiter was already returning with her order.

      Matteo could have kicked himself for bringing her here. He could see a group of women look down at her shoes and then whisper something.

      All he had thought since their eyes had met this morning was how amazing she looked. Now, thanks to others, he could see that her little black skirt was a little faded, that her shoes were scuffed and that her amazing black hair was split and could use a good cut. It had never been his intention to place her under public scrutiny and yet he had done just that.

      Here, looks mattered, clothes mattered, down to the bag you carried and the sunglasses you wore.

      She thanked the waiter as she sat down and he wished he could take her hand and tell her not a scrap of it mattered to him. She, above everyone he knew, must know his thoughts on all that.

      Because that long-ago night he had told her.

      Bella slit the bread open and scooped the gelato into it and closed her eyes as she took a bite, and when she saw Matteo watching her she sliced her bread into two and handed him half and they spoke a little of Bordo Del Cielo.

      ‘I hear it is busy now, that the tourists come to the hotel,’ Bella said. ‘Too many of them apparently, though the people are much happier now that Malvolio is dead.’

      ‘We will see for ourselves at the weekend,’ Matteo responded, and he watched as the bread paused by her mouth.

      Bella didn’t even attempt a bite. Instead, she put the food down. ‘What do you mean—we’ll see for ourselves at the weekend?’

      ‘Sophie hasn’t spoken to you yet?’ Matteo checked.

      ‘No.’

      ‘I got a phone call this morning. She and Luka have booked their wedding for Sunday and I am to be the best man. I have heard that Sophie shall ask you to be bridesmaid.’

      ‘I’m working,’ Bella said quickly, her mind dancing with the news. Luka had been adamant that he would never marry Sophie and she wanted to hear from her friend exactly what was going on.

      ‘No,’ he reminded her. ‘You’re not working, remember.’

      ‘Is that why you said I couldn’t start back till Monday?’

      Any hope that he wanted her there, that he had somehow arranged things so that she might be in Bordo Del Cielo for the wedding, were immediately removed by a rather adamant shake of his head.

      ‘I heard about the wedding after I spoke with your manager.’

      ‘So your efforts to keep me from Shandy will be in vain.’ Bella gave a hollow laugh. ‘She’ll get a surprise when she sees me at the wedding. Perhaps she will throw a bucket of water over us when we dance...’

      Matteo didn’t correct Bella and tell her that Shandy wouldn’t be there. Instead, he outlined how it would be. ‘Ah, but we will be behaving,’ Matteo said, while knowing it was close to an impossible task.

      He wondered if he should tell her not to worry about a dance that would possibly kill them both but he chose to leave it to Sophie to tell her that the wedding would not be going ahead.

      They sat silent for a moment and then, aching to see her, Matteo reached over and took off the dark glasses that hid her eyes.

      Bella let him.

      ‘You look tired,’ he commented.

      ‘Because I am tired,’ she said. ‘And I am uncomfortable here too. People keep looking at us.’

      Matteo said nothing, he couldn’t deny that people were.

      ‘I don’t like the scrutiny,’ she said.

      Matteo called for the bill.

       CHAPTER FOUR

      ROME WAS SO beautiful today, Bella thought as they stepped out into the sun.

      There were tourists and lovers and all the scents of a city and how strange it felt to be here with Matteo and not to be holding hands.

      Not to be pressed up against a wall this hot morning and kissing with all the promise of later falling into bed.

      ‘Not a cloud...’ Matteo looked up. ‘I thought your note said there would be storms.’

      ‘I’m the storm.’ Bella smiled and so did he.

      ‘I did some sightseeing last night,’ he said, and she gave him a sideways frown because she couldn’t really imagine