Striving to keep his features neutral, he watched his parents step forward to pay their last respects to their nephew. They didn’t look at him, their son, but he knew his father sensed him watching.
Matteo hadn’t exchanged a word with them since he’d legally changed his surname five years ago in the weeks that had followed the death of his own brother.
So much death.
So many funerals.
So much grief.
Too much pain.
When the burial was over and the priest led the mourners into the castello for the wake, Matteo hung back to visit a grave on the next row.
The marble headstone had a simple etching.
Roberto Pellegrini
Beloved son
No mention of him being a beloved brother.
Generations of Pellegrinis and their descendants were buried here, going back six centuries. At twenty-eight Roberto was the youngest to have been buried in fifty years.
Matteo crouched down and touched the headstone. ‘Hello, Roberto. Sorry I haven’t visited you in a while. I’ve been busy.’ He laughed harshly. In the five years since his brother’s death he’d visited the grave only a handful of times. Not a day passed when he didn’t think of him. Not an hour passed when he didn’t feel the loss.
‘Listen to me justifying myself. Again. You know I hate to see you here. I love you and I miss you. I just wanted you to know that.’
Blinking back moistness from his eyes, his heart aching, his head pounding, Matteo dragged himself to the castello to join the others.
A huge bar had been set up in the state room for the wake. Matteo had booked himself into a hotel in Pisa for the next couple of days but figured one small glass of bourbon wouldn’t put him over the limit. His hotel room had a fully stocked mini-bar for him to drink dry when he got there. He would stay as long as was decent then leave.
He’d taken only a sip of his drink when Francesca appeared at his side.
He embraced her tightly. ‘How are you holding up?’ He’d been thirteen when his uncle Fabio and his wife Vanessa had taken him into their home. Francesca had been a baby. He’d been there when she’d taken her first steps, been in the audience for her first school music recital—she’d murdered the trumpet—and had beamed with the pride of a big brother only a few months ago at her graduation.
She shrugged and rubbed his arm. ‘I need you to come with me. There’s something we need to discuss.’
Following her up a cold corridor—the ancient castello needed a fortune’s worth of modernisation—they entered Fabio Pellegrini’s old office, which, from the musty smell, hadn’t been used since the motor neurone disease that eventually killed him had really taken its hold on him.
A moment later Daniele appeared at the door with Natasha right behind him.
Startled blue eyes found his and quickly looked away as Francesca closed the door and indicated they should all sit round the oval table.
Matteo inhaled deeply and swore to himself.
This was the last thing he needed, to be stuck in close confines with her, the woman who had played him like a violin, letting him believe she had genuine feelings for him and could see a future for them, when all along she’d been playing his cousin too.
It seemed she had been with him every minute of that day, always in the periphery of his vision even when he’d blinked her away. Now she sat opposite him, close enough that if he were to reach over the table he would be able to stroke her deceitful face.
She shouldn’t be wearing black. She should be wearing scarlet.
He despised that she was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen and that the years had only added to it.
He studied the vivid blue eyes that looked everywhere but at him. He studied the classically oval face with its creamy complexion, usually golden but today ashen, searching for flaws. Her nose was slightly too long, her lips too wide, but instead of being imperfections they added character to the face he’d once dreamed of waking up to.
And now?
Now he despised the very air she breathed.