The Millionaire Tycoon's English Rose

CHAPTER FOUR

‘WHERE are we going?’ he asked as he started up the car.

‘It’s a little café called the Three Bells.’

‘I know it.’

Silence. This was the first time they’d been alone together since the split, and suddenly there was nothing to say. Francesco, taken totally by surprise, was full of confusion.

When he first arrived in Italy he’d been sure she would contact him, but as the silence had stretched out he’d begun to realise that she’d really meant their parting to be permanent.

But parting was too light a word for it. Celia hadn’t left him, she’d cruelly dismissed him, tossing him out of her home as though desperate to rid herself of all traces of his presence.

Even then he hadn’t believed in the finality of what had happened. How could he when their love had been so total, so overwhelming? For him it had been unlike any other love. Transient affairs had come and gone. Women had spoken to him of love and he had repeated the words with, he now knew, only the vaguest understanding of their meaning.

Real love had caught him off-guard, with a young woman who was awkward, provocative, annoying, difficult for the sake of it-it had often seemed to him-unreasonable, stubborn and full of laughter.

Perhaps it was her laughter that had won him. He wasn’t a man who laughed often. He understood a good joke, but amusement hadn’t formed a major part of his life.

She, on the other hand, would never stop. With so much stacked against her she would collapse with delight at the slightest thing. Often her laughter was aimed at himself, for reasons he could not divine. At first it had been an aggravation, then a delight. Let her laugh at him if she pleased. He was her happy slave. Nothing would have made him admit that to anyone else, but within his heart he had known a flowering.

In her arms he’d become a different man, shedding the tough outer shell like unwanted armour and being passionately grateful to her for making it happen.

He’d known what had happened to him, and had assumed it was the same for her. He’d tried to take reassurance from this, reasoning that the sheer violence of her feelings meant that she was bound to change her mind about their parting. She would calm down, understand that their love was worth fighting for, forgive him whatever he’d done wrong-for he still wasn’t quite sure-even, perhaps, apologise.

But none of it had happened. She’d been there when he’d cleared out his things from the apartment, had made him a coffee and told him she was sorry it had ended this way. But that was all. The long, heartfelt discussion that should have marked the end of their relationship had simply never happened. Night after night he’d sat by the phone, waiting for her to call and say they must meet just once more, to clear the air. But the phone hadn’t rung. He’d sat there for hours, until the silence had eaten into him and he’d been close to despair.

He hadn’t called her after that. Not even when he was leaving for Naples. Why bother? It was over.

And now, when he’d just about taught himself to believe that they would never meet again, here she was, tearing up his preconceptions, stranding him in new territory, as awkward and unpredictable as ever. He wanted to bang his head against the steering wheel.

Sitting next to him in the car, Celia tuned in to his agitation and distress. That was easy-because she shared it. She had come to his home knowing she might meet him, thinking herself prepared. She had even congratulated herself on her well-laid plans, but they had all vanished the moment she’d heard his voice. In the surge of joy at being near him again she’d almost forgotten how carefully she had arranged everything, and for a wild moment had almost thrown herself into his arms.

But that would have been a disaster-as she’d recognised when she’d forced herself to calm down. In his arms, in his bed, she would forget the things that had driven them apart-but only for a little while. Soon it would all happen again, and the second parting would be final. At all costs she must prevent that.

She had come to Italy with a set purpose. She would reclaim him, and this time it would be for ever-or never.

Per sempre, she mused, practising her Italian. For ever. Per sempre e eternità. And if not-finita.

‘We’re just entering Naples now,’ he said at last. ‘Have you been to the Three Bells before?’

‘Yes, several times. I’ve got a favourite table in the garden, under the trees.’

As he drew up she said, ‘Thank you for the lift. There’s no need for me to trouble you any further.’

‘Don’t speak to me as though I was a stranger,’ he growled. ‘Let me escort you to the table. I won’t try to take your arm. That’s a promise.’

He spoke roughly, but she knew him well enough to hear the pain that would have escaped anybody else.

‘Don’t be silly,’ she said, also speaking roughly, to cover the fact that his unhappiness wounded her. ‘I’d like you to escort me. Then,’ she added, hastily recovering her self-possession, ‘I can buy you a drink and show off my Italian.’

‘It’s a deal.’

He opened the door for her, and there followed an awkward moment when she reached out for his hand, but it wasn’t there. Swearing, he lunged forward, trying to put things right, and stumbled over Jacko, who’d got himself into position. Celia instinctively tightened her hand on his, almost saving him from falling.

He swore again, louder this time, and with real fury.

‘I’m sorry,’ he snapped. ‘The hell with everything. I’m sorry.’

‘Let’s go and sit down,’ she said hastily.

He went ahead, followed by Jacko, with Celia walking afterwards. When they were seated at the table under the trees she was as good as her word, speaking to the waiter in Italian and ordering drinks for them both.

‘You did that very well,’ he conceded when they’d been served.

‘You’re a good teacher. I took your lessons to heart.’

‘Some of them,’ he remembered. ‘Some you tossed back in my face.’

‘Not about Italian.’

‘No, just everything else. It got so that everything I said was wrong-’

‘Only because you started every sentence with, “I’ll do that for you,” or “You shouldn’t be doing that.”’

‘And you ended up wanting to kill me,’ he remembered. ‘I suppose I’m lucky to still be alive.’

‘Yes, we were going downhill fairly fast,’ she said.

‘I’m sorry about what happened at the car. I thought I knew what you wanted, so I didn’t reach out my hand to you-’

‘But why not? You’d have assisted a sighted woman as a matter of courtesy, wouldn’t you? So why not me?’

He drew a slow breath of frustration.

‘Excuse me while I bang my head on the tree,’ he said at last.

Celia gave a sudden chuckle. ‘It’s like old times to hear you take that long breath. It always meant that you were clenching and unclenching your hands.’

Goaded, he spoke without thinking. ‘I don’t know what you’d do with eyes if you had them. You see everything without them.’

She beamed. ‘That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.’

‘Now you’re confusing me again.’

‘It’s the first time you’ve ever made a joke about my eyes,’ she explained.

‘It wasn’t exactly a joke.’

‘Pity. I thought you were improving. Anyway, don’t apologise about what happened at the car. If we’d both fallen it would have been my fault.’

‘Or your new friend’s, for moving when I wasn’t expecting him to.’

‘Don’t blame poor Jacko,’ Celia protested, instinctively reaching down to caress the dog’s head. ‘He was only doing his job.’

‘But who is he? Last time I saw you, you had Wicksy.’

‘Poor Wicksy was getting old, and it wouldn’t have been fair to bring him to a strange country. He’d earned a comfortable retirement, and that’s what he has. Remember how he liked children? There are three in his new home to make a fuss of him. I went to say goodbye before I came to Italy, and I could tell that he was happy.’

She stopped suddenly.

‘What is it?’ he asked gently.

‘As I left I could hear him playing with the children, barking with excitement, as though he’d forgotten me already. I’m glad of that, truly. I’d hate to think of him pining for me, but he was the best friend I had.’

‘And now you’re pining for him?’ Francesco supplied.

‘Yes, I am. We were such a perfect team.’

‘Aren’t you a perfect team with Jacko?’

‘It’s too soon to say. His name is short for Giacomo, and he’s a real Italian dog. He’s always lived in Naples, so he knows it well and I can trust him completely. He even understands the Neapolitan dialect.’

‘But how long will you have him? He looks quite elderly, too.’

‘He’s nine, and he might have retired when his previous owner regained his sight. But I needed a really experienced dog, so they assigned him to me for a while.’

‘Then what? Will they give you a younger one?’ Francesco asked casually.

Celia shrugged. ‘Maybe.’

He understood. Maybe then she would go home. He wished she would go home now.

He wished she would stay for ever.

He wished she had never come here.

The waiter served their drinks, and they sipped in silence for a while.

‘You’re very quiet,’ she said. ‘Did I offend you by turning up?’

‘Of course not. I’m just a little surprised.’

‘You told me so much about Naples I wanted to find out for myself. I used to look forward to coming here with you, and visiting all the places you told me about, seeing if it had all the lovely smells. You were right about that. I walk through the streets here and I can smell the cooking. Mmm!’

‘But how did you get here?’

‘I went home to my parents for a while, and they said it was time I explored the world a little. Dad gave me a large cheque and told me to blow it on enjoying myself.’

‘But you said you have a job here. Aren’t you supposed to be just a tourist?’

‘I’ve invested the money. I fancy myself as an entrepreneur. That’s how I’m going to enjoy myself. You taught me that.’

‘I did?’

‘You used to talk a lot about finance. It was your great interest in life. I listened and learned at the master’s feet.’

‘Is that a way of telling me that money is all I know?’

‘Don’t be so touchy. You showed me that making money could be fun, so now I’m going to double mine. Or treble it.’

‘Or lose it?’ he suggested lightly.

‘Oh, no, that won’t happen,’ she assured him.

‘How can you be so sure?’

Celia turned her head so that her clear blue eyes were facing him, so full of expression that he could almost swear she saw him.

‘Because I never lose,’ she said simply. ‘When I want something, I make sure I get it.’

‘And when you’ve finished with it you throw it out, marked “No longer needed,”’ he said quietly.

‘Francesco, do you know how bitter you sound? I wish you wouldn’t. We promised each other that we wouldn’t be bitter.’

‘Did we? I don’t remember.’

‘The day you came to collect your things,’ she reminded him. ‘We had a chat then.’

‘Oh, yes, it was all very civilised, wasn’t it? But I don’t remember that we talked things over. Five minutes over coffee and that was that.’

‘Well, there wasn’t much to talk about, was there?’

‘Except you throwing me out.’

‘I asked you not to be bitter because I didn’t want you to hate me. Still, I guess that wasn’t very realistic of me.’

‘I don’t hate you,’ he said gruffly. ‘But neither can I pretend that it didn’t happen.’

‘I don’t want to pretend that, either,’ she said with a touch of eagerness. ‘It did happen, and I’m glad of it. You left me with some of the most wonderful memories I’ll ever have, and I want to keep them. Don’t you want to?’

‘No,’ he said with sudden violence. ‘I don’t want to remember any of it. What use are memories when the reality has gone?’

She gave a little sigh. ‘I suppose you’re right. We’re agreed, then. No memories. We never met before.’

‘Why did you come here?’ he growled. ‘To have a laugh at my expense?’

‘No. Why should you say that? Why should I laugh? I can tell you’re doing very well without me.’

He shot her a look so fierce that he was actually glad she couldn’t see. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her that she didn’t know what she was talking about. Unless, he thought, she’d been trying to provoke him. He only wished he knew.

‘Who’s your customer?’ he asked, for something to say. It was strange how the silences troubled him more than her.

‘He’s not really a customer. I said that so as not to bore your parents with involved explanations. We work together. His name is Sandro Danzi. He owns a firm organising trips for blind people.’

‘Is he blind himself?’ he couldn’t stop himself asking.

‘Does it matter?’ she flashed back instinctively.

‘For pity’s sake! Aren’t I even allowed to ask?’

‘Why is it always the first thing you ask?’

‘It isn’t.’

‘One of the first. As though nothing else mattered in comparison.’

It mattered, but not in the way she thought. Another blind person understood things that she understood, was potentially closer to her than he could ever be, and that excluded him.

‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ he said, wishing he could find the words to say that he was jealous. Why couldn’t she simply understand?

Celia clenched her hands, hating herself. How often had she lashed out at him, wounding him for something that she knew he couldn’t help? But she couldn’t let down her guard. She didn’t dare. It was part of her fight not to be swallowed alive by her blindness, and it seemed the cruelest trick of fate that he should be ranged on the other side.

She sat listening. Even in the bustle of the café she could sense the silence that belonged only to him. She had never seen him, but she knew what he looked like-not the details of his face and body, but the tension of his attitude that told of misery.

‘Don’t look like that,’ she begged.

‘How do you know how I look?’ he demanded.

‘I know your silences,’ she said sadly. ‘I can always tell.’

Why was she here? she wondered. In a moment of madness she’d thrown up everything and followed him to Naples, hoping to teach him that he could love her and still let her be free. But within a few hours they were enmeshed in the old quarrel. Nothing had changed. However much it hurt, perhaps they were better apart. In a moment she would find the courage to tell him finally.

‘Are you hoping for a PR contract from Sandro Danzi?’ he asked, in the tone of a man determined to find a more pleasant subject.

‘No, I already have that. I’ve invested my money in his business, and I might go in a bit deeper.’

At Celia’s feet Jacko gave a small grunt and became alert.

‘What is it, boy?’ she asked, touching him gently.

‘He’s seen another guide dog,’ Francesco said.

The strange dog was leading a young man towards them.

‘Hey, there!’ he called.

‘Sandro!’ Celia’s face lit up. ‘This way,’ she called.

The newcomer was in his early thirties, tall and strikingly handsome, with a brilliant smile that appeared as soon as he heard her voice.

‘Go for it, boy,’ he instructed his guide, and the dog came forward confidently until he reached the table, gave Francesco an appraising look, and nudged Celia with his nose.

Francesco rose and stood back while Celia said the stranger’s name again, reaching out a hand to him.

‘Meet my friend Francesco,’ she said. ‘Can we talk English? My Italian isn’t up to a three-way conversation.’

Sandro put out a hand, which Francesco shook briefly. Sandro’s returning clasp was firm and confident, and although he had to reach behind him to find a chair he did so in the easy way of a man with no real doubts.

‘Francesco, this is Sandro,’ Celia said.

‘I’m her boss,’ Sandro said at once. ‘She does as I tell her.’

‘No way!’ Celia instantly riposted. ‘I’m his associate. I give advice, and he listens if he knows what’s good for him.’

Sandro laughed. ‘Well, it was worth a try. I’m always trying to get the better of her, but I haven’t managed it yet. Awkward, prickly, argumentative, difficult, contrary-did I miss anything?’

‘If you did, I’ll remind you later,’ Celia said through her laughter.

‘Tell me, Francesco,’ Sandro continued, ‘have you found her awkward?’

‘Don’t get him started on that subject,’ Celia said. ‘He becomes so annoyed with me that he may go off pop.’

‘You have my sympathy,’ Sandro observed to Francesco.

‘Thank you, but I don’t need sympathy,’ Francesco said, hearing himself sound pompous and stuffy, hating it, but unable to stop.

‘Really? I’d have thought anyone who’d experienced Celia’s more maddening ways had earned all the sympathy he could get.’

‘Oi!’ Celia cried indignantly.

‘The world should know the truth.’ Sandro sighed. ‘I’m black-and-blue from the bruises. At least, they tell me I’m black-and-blue. For all I’d know I could be pink-and-green.’

‘Red-and-yellow,’ Celia supplied.

‘Polka dot!’ Sandro declared triumphantly.

Celia loved that, Francesco noted grimly. She laughed and laughed, reaching out to Sandro, touching his arm until he took her hand, and they sat there shaking, united in mirth.

Francesco watched them, feeling lonelier and more excluded than ever in his life.

‘I’d better be going,’ he said politely. Part of him wanted to escape, but part wanted to say here and watch them.

‘Don’t let me drive you away,’ Sandro said politely. ‘Stay for a coffee.’

‘Just one, thank you,’ Francesco said.

Then he would go, leaving them with each other, and he would never see or think of her again. Meantime, he must make polite conversation.

‘So you’re in business together?’ he said. ‘Is it going well?’

‘It’s getting off the ground,’ Celia said.

To Francesco’s surprise this remark was greeted with a deep groan. ‘You promised…you promised,’ Sandro moaned.

‘Oh, dear-yes, I did.’ She looked overwhelmed with guilt. ‘Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa,’ she intoned, beating her breast.

‘You’re frightening the dogs,’ Sandro told her sternly.

‘Sorry! Sorry!’

‘She swore she wouldn’t make any more terrible puns,’ Sandro explained to Francesco. ‘And that one was truly terrible. It was the worst pun I’ve ever heard. And I’ve heard them all.’

‘Quit boasting!’ Celia ordered him.

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘But I don’t understand,’ Francesco said. ‘Where was the pun?’

‘We’ve got a little firm called Follia Per Sempre,’ Sandro told him. ‘Madness For Ever. It used to be mine until my friend here mounted a hostile takeover bid-’

‘I bought half,’ Celia put in quickly.

‘It exists to help blind people,’ Sandro resumed.

‘You mean, visual aids?’ Francesco asked.

‘Good Lord, no way. None of that sensible stuff. Madness means exactly that-helping the blind do crazy things.’

‘The crazier the better,’ Celia supplied.

‘Like deep-sea diving,’ Francesco muttered.

‘That, too, and parachuting,’ Sandro said cheerfully.

‘Parachuting?’ Despite his good resolutions Francesco couldn’t keep the outrage out of his voice. ‘You don’t seriously mean jumping out of aircraft and falling thousands of feet?’

‘And why not?’ Celia asked in a challenging voice.

‘Because-’ Francesco tried to control himself and failed. ‘Because you’re blind, that’s why not. Because it’s madness. Because you could be killed.’

‘Anyone can be killed,’ Celia riposted. ‘Why shouldn’t we be as free to take the risks as sighted people?’

‘You could say that we’re acting like a pair of damned fools,’ Sandro said, seeming to consider the matter seriously. ‘And you’d probably be right. But why not? There are as many sighted fools as blind fools, but we’re supposed to keep quiet about our foolishness.’

‘We’re supposed to keep quiet about a lot of things.’ Celia sighed.

‘That’s true,’ Sandro said at once. ‘But no more. The days of silence are over. We stand up for our right to act like idiots.’

‘Indeed, we do,’ added Celia sonorously.

‘Plenty of people think like you,’ Sandro said, in a voice so reasonable that Francesco wanted to commit murder. ‘They feel that blind people should know their place as semi-invalids, and be grateful that the world allows them to emerge into the light at all. Our firm exists to combat that view. The dafter it is, the more we want to do it.’

‘You could say,’ Celia added, ‘that stupidity is a human right, and it ought to be enshrined in law somewhere.’

‘Why bother?’ Francesco said crossly. ‘You’re doing fine without the law.’

‘Celia, I think your friend is afflicted with a severe case of common sense,’ Sandro said, shaking his head.

‘I know,’ she replied mournfully. ‘I’ve been trying to cure him, but I’m afraid it’s too late.’

‘But our fight continues?’

‘Indeed, it does. Never let it be said that we were deterred by common sense!’

‘Will you two stop?’ Francesco said, goaded beyond endurance. ‘People are looking at you.’

‘That’s all right,’ Sandro said cheerily. ‘We can’t see them, so it doesn’t bother us.’

It was the way they both said we that pierced Francesco like a knife. We-we who live in a world from which you are excluded.

‘I’ll leave you two to talk business,’ he said, rising.

‘Actually, we’re leaving, too,’ Celia said. ‘Did you bring the stuff?’ This was to Sandro.

‘All of it.’

‘Then we’ll listen to it on my machine at home.’

‘Let me drive you there,’ Francesco said.

Courtesy demanded that he make the offer, but it tore him apart. On the one hand it would tell him where she lived. On the other it would force him to deliver her there with another man, and then drive away while they went in together.

When they were in the car Celia said, ‘I live in the Via Santa Lucia. That’s near the shore.’

‘The quickest way from here-’ Sandro began, and proceeded to give every turning accurately.

‘You know the way very well,’ Francesco said through gritted teeth.

‘That’s because I used to live there. I designed the interior to suit my needs, and when Celia needed somewhere, and I’d already moved out-’

‘Yes, I understand,’ Francesco said hastily.

Before long he was drawing up outside a tall apartment block.

‘Thanks, we’ll manage from here,’ Sandro said. ‘It’s only on the lowest floor. Good evening.’

Francesco replied politely and stayed in the car, watching them go in. He could see the apartment. The only one in the building that was dark. He sat for a moment, waiting for the lights to go on, until it dawned on him that this wouldn’t happen. The two inside had no need of lights. United in confidence and laughter, they were also united in their indifference to darkness.

He pictured them going inside, turning on the computer, listening together, deep in their private world

Sandro would say, Who on earth was that?

And she would reply, Oh, that’s just Francesco. He’s nobody.

I thought he was getting a bit tense.

He’s always tense about something. Forget him!

And they would.

After a while he drove away.