‘I’ve never been,’ he admitted.
‘We could go there,’ Bella pushed, trying to pretend that all they had found last night existed, that it didn’t end here and now. ‘We could take a picnic, just spend the day exploring...’
‘A picnic?’ His voice was scathing. It was not the sort of thing he would do or had ever done.
‘Some wine,’ Bella said. ‘We could pretend...’
He glanced over but she was staring out at the scenery and his head tightened because he was picturing himself in a place he had never been—exploring with Bella, spending a day doing nothing but being with her.
‘Is there any better view?’ she asked, but he didn’t answer as he headed to the shower.
It wasn’t a view to die for, Matteo thought.
Or kill for.
He showered, his intention to dress and go. He didn’t know how to leave her, yet there was no way that he could stay.
Matteo wanted to make something of himself. He was sick of the crime and depravity and knew that as of today his role became more serious. He wanted a future, a perfect one, a clean one, to remove himself completely from his past.
Instead of dressing, though, he wrapped a towel around his hips and went into the bedroom, where Bella was still gazing out at the view.
Her hair, which was usually straight, was knotted and wavy, there a touch of mascara that he must have missed smudged beneath her eyes and her smile was waiting for him.
If ever there was a moment he might regret, this wasn’t one of them. It was one Matteo might later question—because instead of dressing and leaving he dropped the towel and got into the bed and took her in his arms and she rested her head on his chest.
It would be his last day here for ever, perhaps—if he returned there would be a bullet waiting with his name on it.
He lay there thinking for a long time and so too did Bella.
All she had wanted was one perfect night and now that she had known one, it made her future somehow worse. She knew she was breaking the deal she had pushed for—one night of making love.
He had given her more than she had asked for and she knew she had to play fair and accept things when he walked away.
Her hand was idly exploring him, stroking his flat stomach and moving the snake of hair in the wrong direction, and the sensation for Matteo must be just right because she could see him hardening and her mouth started to kiss his chest as her hand moved down.
‘Bella,’ he said finally, ‘I have to go soon but first we need to speak.’
‘I know that you have to go,’ she said. ‘But before you do...’
It was her acceptance of him, her lack of demands, that she would kiss him so readily even as he prepared to walk away, that sealed things for Matteo.
He didn’t care if it was illogical to feel like this after only one night. All he knew was that he could no more leave her behind than Bella could leave her mother.
Her mouth moved further down and met with his growing erection.
‘Bella,’ Matteo said, ‘you’re coming with me.’
She laughed, her mind not really on the conversation. Certainly she had not known that Matteo had plans to leave and so she corrected the brief miscommunication as she continued her brave kiss, felt his hand move to her head and whispered words that had made him moan.
‘No, you’re the one who will be coming.’
He tasted soapy and clean and he remained patient. Bella looked up once to find him watching as she took him deeper into her mouth.
Tentatively her tongue explored him, scared of her teeth, that she was doing it wrong, but his fingers tightened in her hair.
‘That’s it...’ he said, when she did not dare go deeper, so she stroked his base with her hand as her tongue continued its exploration.
She remembered how last night he had simply devoured her and growing bolder she started to do the same.
She knelt up and he played with one small breast, delivering gentle twists and pinches as her mouth did the same. The hand on her head exerted just a touch more pressure and yet she resisted and he gave up trying to guide things, to rush things, he just accepted the rare pleasure of an unskilled yet willing mouth.
When he started to come it took him by surprise, and the thrusts and moans from him served as only the briefest of warning. Bella held him alive in her hand, tasting and licking, and that it wasn’t enough pressure for him only made his orgasm all the more intense.
‘Bella,’ he said as she came back to lie by his side, and he was so glad that she did because he could see the confusion in her eyes as he said, ‘I’m leaving this morning and you’re coming with me.’
‘I—’
He didn’t wait for her to say that she couldn’t; he ended that conflict then and there.
‘Your mother too. We’re getting out of Bordo Del Cielo.’
CHAPTER TEN
BELLA SAT UNSEEING as the morphine infusion dripped into her mother’s thin arm.
Her mind was back on that morning—and all the hope that had carried her home.
That Matteo had said that Maria could come with them had meant everything to her. Not just that it gave her a means to leave but that he had accepted the whole of her heart—the love she had for her mother was a part of Bella.
And, too, he had accepted her mother as a person when all too often Maria’s wants and needs and rights to exist safely had been cast aside.
Bella’s shoulders and back ached from sitting in a chair all night and long into today but after three months of fighting to live, her mother had finally given in and was fast fading.
A nurse came in and Bella looked up and gave her a tired smile.
‘There’s a phone call for you, Bella,’ she said. ‘You can take it in the office...’ She gestured to her sleeping mother and Bella was grateful for the nurse’s insight because she didn’t want to discuss just how ill her mother was beside her bed. ‘I’ll be in to change your mother’s IV soon.’
Bella nodded and stood up. She knew that the next twelve-hour infusion would probably be the last one her mother had. She didn’t like to leave her even for a moment but she knew it would probably be Sophie calling—yesterday Paulo had been sentenced.
When she had first arrived in Rome, Sophie had called her friend and Sylvia had been at Bella’s home, cleaning up the mess from Maria’s fall, and had answered the phone and told Sophie the sad news.
Now Sophie rang when she could, usually from a pay phone, and so of course she wasn’t able to speak for long.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Bella said. ‘I saw it on the news.’
‘They gave him forty three years minimum,’ Sophie said, her voice thick with tears. ‘He’ll never get out.’
‘I know. How is he taking it?’
‘He keeps crying, he is very weak and confused, and so worried about me too. I’ve told him that Luka is here in Rome with me and that he is taking care of me well.’
‘Good,’ Bella said. ‘At least that gives him one less thing to worry about.’
‘I have found work,’ Sophie said. ‘It is at Hotel Fiscella. You have never seen such luxury, Bella...’ And then when Bella said nothing Sophie asked the difficult question. ‘How is she?’
Bella couldn’t speak.
She looked out at the ward and the nurse was going in to change her mother’s IV.
‘Bella?’ her friend pushed gently. ‘Tell me.’
‘I think she is very near the end.’
Sophie was silent for a long moment too and then she said what she had to to her friend. ‘Then you need to make plans.’
‘I know,’ Bella said. ‘After the funeral...’
‘Bella, you can’t go back there. If you do, he won’t let you leave.’
She knew Sophie was right.
Very deliberately Bella had not gone home, telling Malvolio, when he’d dropped in, that her mother drew comfort from her being near.
True.
His patience had just about run out.
‘I have to go,’ Sophie said. ‘I’m using the work phone and I’ll get into trouble if I’m caught.’
They said their goodbyes but as Bella stepped into her mother’s room she saw that Malvolio had just arrived. He came in every now and then, more, Bella thought, to check on her than Maria.
‘The nurse said that you were on the phone.’
‘It was a friend...’ Bella shrugged ‘...wanting to see how my mother was.’
‘It must be a day for catching up. Matteo called Dino earlier today...’
‘That brute,’ Bella said, grateful, ever grateful for the bruise Matteo had made on her cheek that night.
Malvolio had been livid that his son and second man had gone and he had grilled Bella over and over about anything Matteo, Luka or Sophie might have told her.
Sophie he cared nothing about, but the leaving of the other two he had taken very personally indeed.
‘Matteo asked after you,’ Malvolio said, and Bella shrugged, even though her heart was pounding. She knew that it was important that she did not leap, as she wanted to, at his name. ‘Dino didn’t tell him about your mother, he didn’t know if you might want to keep that private, so instead Dino said that you were enjoying working at the bar...’ Malvolio was still determined to find Matteo’s Achilles’ heel and it took everything Bella had not to react as he spoke on.
‘Dino also said how much he was enjoying you.’