‘When did you first want to start directing?’ He had dusted her breasts with chocolate powder and was now licking it off. The white sheets—like Santo, an absolute disgrace—but right now, Ella didn’t care.
‘Always,’ Ella said.
‘Always?’ Santo checked. Ella thought for a moment, remembered being five or maybe six and just shutting herself in her room, closing off from the noises downstairs and making movies with her mind. Not just once, but over and over, changing the camera angle, concentrating on a scene, getting it so right. Any money she’d had went towards buying scripts, and later it was bliss to find them online. She was twenty-seven and had no experience, but she had been training for more than two decades now. ‘It’s what I’ve always wanted to do.’
‘So why are you a PA?’ Santo asked. ‘You told me that was your passion when I interviewed you.’ And he smiled as he remembered the very determined, extremely smart woman who had arrived in his office unannounced.
Then he licked around her areola till she was wet, rather sticky, and she thought she might die if he didn’t take it all in his mouth. ‘You told me you took great pleasure ensuring your boss’s life ran seamlessly.’
‘I lied.’ Ella smiled. ‘As one does at interviews. Being your PA is my second passion in life, Santo.’
He could hear the wry note to her voice and it should have offended him. Why then did she make him smile? ‘Third,’ Santo said, because he wanted her again, but Ella was still talking about the film and she was lost to his hands for a moment, sitting up in bed with the sheet loosely wrapped around her, as if hiding herself from him as she spoke about the script.
It was a beautiful movie about a soldier going missing at war, presumed dead, and his wife turning to the soldier’s best friend for comfort. Both drawing on each other in grief, resulting in her pregnancy, only to find out that her husband wasn’t dead.
‘It has to remain a love story,’ Santo said. ‘But really, there are a couple of parts where it doesn’t gel for me,’ Santo admitted. She loved that they could talk about movies, that they both shared this passion, because often Ella knew that she bored others with her observations and thoughts, but Santo was just as into it as her. ‘I can’t see how, if she loves him, she could just forget so soon.’
‘She doesn’t forget him though, not even for a minute.’
‘If she can so easily sleep with someone else so soon after—’ Santo was firm on this ‘—then he was not the one love of her life.’ He frowned at her smile. ‘What?’
‘You’re a fine one to talk.’
‘I’ve never been in love,’ Santo said. ‘I don’t even know that it exists—this love-match you speak of.’ He pondered it for a moment, scanned through his family history and shook his head. Then, as he opened up a little, Santo also convinced himself he was speaking with Ella for the sake of the film, rather than for his own peace of mind.
‘My nonna said she fell straight in love with my grandfather.’
‘See.’
‘I never said it was returned. Salvatore loved power first—like my father.’ He thought a moment more. ‘My uncle, Benito...I thought he loved his first wife, but...’ He gave a tight shrug. ‘You know...’ Ella watched as, for the first time she saw him pensive. ‘Whether or not true love exists, in the film it has to be believable and that is going to be the struggle, because when Taylor and Vince make love the scenes are so passionate.’
‘They don’t make love,’ Ella corrected. ‘They have sex. She’s grieving so badly and he comforts her.’
‘A few days after the love of her life goes missing.’ Santo gave a rueful smile. ‘See now why we need a good actress?’
‘Oh, yes.’
He looked over to her. ‘Have you ever been in love, Ella?’
‘No.’ She looked over to him and smiled. ‘I’ve been in lust.’
‘I’ve seen.’
‘But really,’ Ella said, ‘I’m not sure I’d want to be in love. I think it makes for less than sensible decisions.’
‘Such as.’
Ella shrugged. ‘I don’t forgive and I never forget, which is a requirement apparently.’
‘Apparently?’
‘Well, from what I’ve seen.’ She wasn’t going to tell him about her family. She wanted nothing to dim this day, so she spoke about more casual acquaintances. ‘I’ve got a friend back home and I’ve spent more hours watching her crying over the love of her life than I have seen her smiling. I’ve got another who—’
‘What about your parents?’ Santo interrupted her, realising just how little he knew about the woman who had been in his life for some considerable time now, by Santo’s standards at least.
‘Oh, I’ve seen a whole lot of forgiving and forgetting there too.’ She gave him a grim smile, but refused to elaborate. ‘So, all things considered, I think I’ll stick with lust.’
Santo had no problem with that.
Or just a slight one, because he actually wanted to know a little more. But Santo was fast realising as he lay there that Ella was as skilled at deflecting personal conversations as he was. To prove his point, she returned to the discussion about the script.
‘Do you think he forgives her?’ Ella asked about the husband’s return, about the kiss that would leave the audience hopefully reeling. It was the million-dollar question, the one he wanted the audience to be asking as they walked out of the theatre.
‘I wouldn’t.’ Santo’s response was decisive.
‘Why not?’ Ella challenged. Talking about film she was more animated than he had ever seen her, and for Santo, long may it continue because as she spoke, as her hands moved to make certain points, more and more of her left breast was being exposed.
‘How can he?’ Santo said. ‘It’s supposed to be the love of his life.’ Then he gave a rueful smile, because of course there was no such thing as love. ‘Perhaps,’ he said, but he honestly didn’t know. Really, he did want her opinion on this. ‘What about you?’
‘I don’t know,’ Ella admitted. ‘I think that’s the point of it though, that it’s for the viewer to decide. I can’t wait to see how Taylor will play it.’
‘Nor me,’ Santo admitted and they were quiet for a moment, sharing a similar vision, going over it in their minds—the script and a kiss that to the viewer must seem seamless but was actually going to be incredibly complicated to film. Ella had read the script over and over. Nothing was actually said at the end. It all came down to one kiss, an incredible reunion , relief mingled with fear as his hands roamed her body, as the soldier noticed the subtle changes, as he realised the love of his life had slept with someone else a matter of days after his supposed death.
This film had to work.
It had always been important to Santo, but never more so than now. With Alessandro gone, with the family name about to be smeared over the papers, for once there was a chance to prove himself, a chance to step out of his older brother’s shadow and show that he wasn’t a lightweight. He was dangerously close to telling Ella that.
He actually opened his mouth to. He looked at the woman in his bed and maybe that angry fist of Alessandro’s had loosened something in his head, because for a second he thought about telling her what it was like growing up with Carlo as a father, how as the second son he had just been dismissed. He had even had the boardroom closed in his face once. Not one smile of approval from his father—not one. Not that Santo needed it, but there was something to prove now.
But even as he opened his mouth to tell her that, Santo changed his mind. There were things you didn’t think about, let alone discuss with another, and he looked where the sheet had slipped and her breast was exposed. There was a welcome, most pleasing distraction from his race of dark thoughts.
‘I think we need to sort out a few technicalities.’ Santo smiled, and reaching for the bottle he topped up her glass.
‘Oh, really?’
‘I’m still struggling with the ending.’
‘Which is why you are paying big bucks to someone like Taylor, to carry it off...’ But her voice trailed off as she realised they were no longer actually discussing the film. Instead Santo had replaced the bottle then dipped into the ice bucket and pulled out a cube. She stared, fascinated, clutching on for dear life to her champagne glass, as his fingers approached her naked breast.
‘The script reads that he notices the small changes to her breast...’ He watched her bite down on her lip as he ran the ice cube around her nipple.
Her free hand went to move his, to stop him, but she wanted the full Santo experience. Instead she looked down at her nipple, tight and erect, and then, just as it was surely unbearable, she got the warm reprieve of his mouth. He sucked, gently at first and then deep, and just when it was too much, just when her body was begging for conclusion, his hand dipped back into the bucket for more ice.
‘And realising that she might be pregnant—’ Santo’s voice was low as they worked through the script, as between words he kissed her ‘—his hand moves to her stomach...’ And Ella’s eyes screwed closed as in the film Taylor’s must, but in Ella’s case it was because his hand was full of ice. ‘And still he kisses her,’ Santo said, taking the dripping ice into his mouth and kissing her with a very cold tongue. ‘Why would he still kiss her when he knows she has been unfaithful?’ Santo lifted his head and asked her.