Luca glanced down at her and his voice was quiet now, his grey eyes dark with purpose. ‘Those photos are good, Emily. Don’t let Howard’s voice stay in your head telling you they aren’t.’
‘It’s not that easy. If you went to your mentor and he said you only had the talent to produce mass chocolate what would you have done?’
‘Gone away and produced the best mass-produced chocolate in the business and gone back to the drawing board. I’d have proved him wrong.’ He shrugged. ‘But there is a big difference here. My mentor is a gentleman. Yours sounds like a bully. And bullies have power. I don’t think Howard’s opinion of your work was unbiased.’
‘You can’t know that.’
‘No, but I do know a bully when I see one. And I remember what it is like to be taunted and put down—not in the same context, but I know how much it can hurt. I am telling you this so you know what I am saying is not just empty words.’
Now she focused on him, saw the remembered hurt in his eyes and knew this was a trip down memory lane he didn’t want to take.
‘I told you that when my father left life was tough. But after a while my mother pulled us through the toughest bit, there was more money, I was settled in school, life became more normal. But then things began to change. As Dolci grew so did the publicity around the Casseveti name. A boy at my school figured out who I was and he latched onto it. Asked where my dad was, why I never saw him, told me my dad didn’t love me because I was so weak, came up with different reasons and made me repeat them...and soon it caught on and then it escalated. Into relentless bullying.’
‘That’s awful.’ Her heart cracked as she imagined the young Luca, a small boy having his vulnerabilities displayed and exploited; she could almost feel how much each taunt must have seared his soul. And to force him to list reasons why his dad had left took cruelty to a new level, was tantamount to Howard listing out all her faults and flaws and making her repeat them. At least he had stopped short of that. ‘I’m sorry you had to go through that.’
He shook his head. ‘I didn’t tell you because I want your pity. I told you because I know what that treatment does to you. It undermines you and makes you insecure and miserable. It eats away at your soul and makes you crumble inside. It erodes your confidence and it can make you doubt everything about yourself. I endured it at school, you had to live with it. Howard forcing you to spot the difference, his constant put-downs, his dismissal of your achievements as frothy and frivolous. He is a grown-up version of the boy who made my life so miserable.’
His words made her pause. Of course, she knew Howard was a full-scale cheating rat, a man who had cheated on his pregnant wife, a man who had quite simply not given a flying fish for his unborn child. Yet because the man’s photographic talent could not be questioned, she’d still accepted that all the put-downs, all the criticisms of her work were justified.
Just as she was sure Luca would have believed the awful cruel taunts of his persecutor. Would have believed his father’s abandonment was his fault. The idea heated anger in her veins as well as compassion for the child he’d been.
‘I hope that boy got what was coming to him, or at least some help. I hope he saw the error of his ways, but before he did I hope someone bopped him on the nose or something.’
His expression crinkled into amusement and she frowned. ‘It’s not funny.’
‘I know it’s not, but I guess we are both displaying a violent streak. I was just thinking how I wish Howard were here so I could kick him round Jalpura.’
They both contemplated the idea and then she turned to him and without even realising it she slipped her hand into his. ‘What happened?’ she asked. ‘With the bullying?’
‘Nothing. I endured it. I was too ashamed to tell my mum. Things were finally going well for her. She’d qualified as a lawyer, she’d even started another relationship. And I didn’t want to tell her. I was meant to be the...’ He broke off and she completed the sentence.
‘The man of the family.’ And her heart cracked a little more even as anger surged at James Casseveti for leaving his son so heartlessly.
‘Yes,’ he acknowledged. ‘And to be frank the whole situation was far from manly. I couldn’t tell anyone, so I endured it. Until one day I snapped. They decided to take it a step further; they brought my mother into it, started trying to make me say filth about her. I saw red. I went for the leader. I’d love to say I won but I didn’t. But he did get bopped on the nose—my only satisfaction is that I did get in a good few punches and kicks and I certainly surprised him. But he was bigger than me and had a couple of friends there too. The teachers pulled us apart and obviously after that adults were involved. I didn’t tell the whole of it, but other kids were questioned and they did. I wish they hadn’t.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it made me feel weak. As though I needed to be looked after.’
‘You did need to be looked after. You were a child.’
‘I get that, but it didn’t feel like that back then. It felt humiliating and as if I
’d let my mum down. That’s what bullying does to you—it makes you lose perspective.’
‘So what did your mum do?’
‘She let rip at the school, and before I knew it she had pulled me out of school and decided we were moving to Italy, that we were changing our name to her maiden name, Petrovelli.’
‘So that was why you had a new start.’
‘That’s why. Mum’s new relationship didn’t work out, but she said it didn’t matter because she fell in love with Italy instead. We all did. So it all worked out.’
Suddenly he halted and turned so they faced each other, took her other hand in his as well. ‘I’d like it to work out for you too. Don’t let Howard ruin your chance to do something you want to do with your photography. Don’t believe his words.’
‘It’s not that easy.’
‘I know,’ he said softly, and she wondered if he still believed the words of those bullies so long ago. Still believed it was his fault his father had left. ‘But you can try.’