‘Call cut.’
‘Not yet.’
‘Please,’ Santo said, ‘then I can take you back to the trailer.’
He had to be joking.
‘I need to speak with you.’
‘I’m kind of busy right now....’
But she called cut, because it was over, and there were cheers and applause from the crew as they wrapped up. Ella wiped her eyes with a tissue, saw the black streaks and let out a wry laugh. For all her effort not to cry over him, now she had to face him looking like a panda.
‘Those tears aren’t for you.’
‘I know,’ Santo said. ‘I was watching you.’
She wished he wouldn’t. Ella tried to keep her mind on work—she couldn’t bring herself to look at him. ‘It’s all gone well. I need to go and congratulate—’
‘Not right now. I need you to come with me.’
She turned and looked and it was like the first morning she had slept with him. His left eye was black, and there was a small cut above his lip, but this time she absolutely did not want to know the details. She wanted as far out of Santo’s personal life as possible.
‘There is something I need to tell you,’ Santo said, ‘something you may feel...’ His usually excellent English faltered. ‘You may feel that I have overstepped the mark.’
Ella closed her eyes. Really, she had thought it something she could never forgive, and yet, in some masochistic streak, she had ensured Santo had his perfect choice of woman working for him, while she had sulked and hidden. Now she had to pay the price for dangling temptation in front of so readily tempted eyes. She had made a stupid move in a very grown-up game with a very liberal man, and now she couldn’t really stand here and protest that he had taken the bait.
No, this wasn’t a conversation they could have here. They were being handed glasses of champagne and the party was starting. Ella followed him to his trailer, dreading this conversation, but preparing herself to face it.
‘I never really intended for it to happen,’ Santo said. ‘It was an impulse thing....’
And she tried to play the grown-up game, to shrug it off, to say she understood, except tears were welling in Ella’s eyes and there was a burn in her gut. No, she couldn’t do it.
‘If a man deceives me once, shame on him. If he deceives me twice, shame on me.’
She said the old Italian proverb that Santo must know off by heart, for it had been surely cussed to him many times. On this occasion he did not correct her Italian, and Ella spoke on. ‘You know, everything I love about you is the part I hate too.’
He frowned.
‘I’m not going to forgive you.’ It was who she was. ‘I know that sounds really unsophisticated, but maybe that’s who I am. I can’t forgive....’ She closed her eyes, because she had withdrawn so rapidly that she had practically hand-passed him to someone else. ‘I never expected you to take this as seriously as me.’
‘Oh, I take this very seriously.’
‘I know about Marianna.’
‘Marianna?’ Santo frowned. ‘Marianna’s gone.’
‘Of course she is, because she slept with you.’ He had to see her point. ‘That’s why I can’t mix the two.’
‘Ella, I think it is crazy that we do not sleep together. It has been driving me crazy, but I respect it. But Marianna...’ He shook his head. ‘Do you really think I took it all so lightly?’ His hands moved in exasperation. ‘I had to fire her, she came on to me.’ He looked at her nonplussed face. ‘I came out of the shower and...’ He gave a tight shrug. ‘You do not need detail but there was champagne and too much lace and suggestion...’ He gave her the smile that melted, the smile that could well shoot her straight back to his bed. ‘Nothing happened—we did not even kiss.’ He gave a small yikes look. ‘I fear I have lost my prowess unless she comes with much baggage and is more focused on camera angles than me.’
‘You didn’t sleep with Marianna....’
‘I told you not.’ Santo never lied. Ella realised it then. Never once did he try to cover up his mistakes. ‘She tried, but I could not even be bothered to. Not even a stirring...’ He actually seemed to think about it for a moment. ‘Maybe a teeny one...’ He held his thumb and forefinger up. He was just so honest Ella actually smiled and that was all it took for him to move straight in for the kill. ‘I’ve missed you so much.’ He pulled her into him, buried his head in her hair. ‘I want you so much.’
‘Santo—’ she struggled ‘—you can’t just disappear and then come back as if nothing’s happened.’
‘I can...’ He was at her top, undoing the straps, just so impatient. ‘You’ll forgive me soon, but first I have to have you.’
‘No.’
‘I have to...’ he moaned. He was peeling off her top now. ‘Ella, please, it’s been too long.’
‘Where the hell have you been?’ She looked at his battered face. ‘Santo?’
‘You don’t need to know now.’
‘I do,’ Ella begged. ‘I need to know what’s been going on. I’m sorry I shut you out. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you while you’ve been having problems. I was so locked into me, into looking out for me, that I forgot all you’re going through.’
‘And...’ Santo pushed her to go on, unhooking her bra as he did so and burying his face in her breasts.
‘I was wrong,’ Ella admitted.
‘Why?’
He sucked her nipple. ‘Why?’ he growled.
‘Because...’ she flailed.
‘Because I need you to be there for me,’ Santo said. He took down her skirt and pushed her onto the bed and then undressed himself with Santo haste. ‘The same way I need to be there for you.’
‘Where have you been, Santo?’
He was kissing her all over and then he paused.
‘Can I tell you after?’
She lay there squirming and not just with indecision.
‘Do you really have to know now?’
And she looked up at him, looked at the want and the passion that needed matching, not questions and answers.
‘No.’
‘Say it again.’
‘No.’
‘No what?’
‘No, right now I don’t need to know where you’ve been.’
‘Because?’ He parted her legs, and she lay there naked and beneath him. And just like their first time it was Santo completely in control. He dragged out of her the truth, her answer, one she didn’t know till now. ‘Are you turning a blind eye, Ella?’ Santo asked.
‘No.’
‘Which means?’
Yes, what did it mean? Ella asked herself. If she didn’t need to know where he’d been, if she didn’t require immediate explanation... ‘That I trust you.’
And surely he should reward her with his naked length, but he was a bastard, a good one though, because he made her wait, made her say it first.
‘Which means?’ Santo demanded.
‘That I love you.’
‘Right answer,’ and she got her reward then. She loved him—she’d always known it, had just held back on it. It actually didn’t matter in that moment if he loved her or not too, because it didn’t change things, and she learned more in those blissful moments than she could learn in lifetime.
She loved him, like it or not, returned or not, quite simply she did. Ella stopped fighting it then, just gave into the bliss of being back in his arms as he took her to a place that only Santo could.
After, she covered herself with a sheet, as she always did, Santo noted, and he turned to her. ‘You love me?’ He grinned.
‘Fool that I am.’
‘I am very lovable.’
‘So your nonna told me.’
Santo laughed, but it faded as she squealed when, mortified, Ella dived under the sheets as the trailer door opened.
‘I didn’t see a thing,’ came a vaguely familiar voice, one that sounded not in the least embarrassed at what he had found. ‘I’ll come back....’ She was just burning with shame beneath the sheets. ‘I was told the interview—’
‘Paulo?’ She heard Santo speak, could not believe he was prolonging the agony. ‘How soon can you start?’
‘Is “now” the right answer?’
Clearly it was, though Ella thought she might die as the conversation continued. Did Santo have to be quite so comfortable with sex? But then again, Ella realised, Santo’s PAs saw an awful lot, so Paulo might just as well get used to it.
‘I need you to sort out a selection of rings,’ she heard Santo say. ‘Engagement rings,’ he clarified as her heart stood still.
‘Is there anything in particular you have in mind?’
‘Her eyes are amber,’ Santo said, ‘but she would think that I was being superficial—’
‘As well as cheap,’ Paulo said.
‘I know.’ And she listened as Santo pretended he had come up with an idea, as if he hadn’t planned every second of this. He was a step ahead of her all of the time. ‘A diamond,’ Santo said, ‘as big as an ice cube, the shape of an ice cube....’
‘Princess cut,’ Paulo said. ‘Leave it with me.’ From beneath the sheet she heard Paulo move for the door. ‘And don’t worry, Ella,’ Paulo called out, ‘you don’t have to take me out for dinner.’