Chapter 24
Toni had trained herself out of swearing years ago, but a string of profanities was looping through her mind right now as she forced herself to face her mother and son with something resembling a smile.
For better or for worse, Gabri had chosen right now to finally explain what had happened to him before he left the mainland – and his wife. The pieces fit. He cared too much, so he’d retreated to somewhere without cares. She was both frustrated and incredibly sad for him.
Damn it, her feelings were too close to the surface.
‘That’s Gabriele!’ Cillian announced, answering Daphne’s question literally, bless him.
‘Gabri—’ Daphne’s sudden pause made Toni’s stomach sink even deeper.
‘Yes, I’m sorry I didn’t introduce myself properly yesterday,’ he said, recovering more quickly than she did. ‘I’m Gabriele Orzati. This is my workshop, if you’d like to look around.’
Shit. Toni should never have lied. It was embarrassing enough that she’d made her mother think Cristina was her friend, but how could she explain this to Cillian? Cilli was a child, but he still needed an explanation for what she’d done.
‘You’re… doing the flowers for the wedding?’ Daphne asked. Toni recognised the sharp nod of her mother’s head as though she were fifteen again.
‘Yes.’
‘You’re called “Gabri” for short?’
‘That other lady was called Gabri too,’ Cillian added cheerfully and Toni waited for the ground to swallow her up. She would happily be exiled like Napoleon right now, if that meant she never had to explain this to her mother and son.
Daphne swung her gaze to Toni. ‘The facials, the wine… Raoul Bova. That’s not what you were doing this week?’ The colour in Daphne’s cheeks would have been amusing if Toni weren’t the subject of her suspicions.
‘Raoul Bova?’ Gabri repeated in bewilderment.
‘A very handsome Italian film star, apparently,’ Daphne murmured as her eyes glazed with confusion.
‘Yes, I know, but—’
‘Cristina came by the beach yesterday and Mum… recognised her,’ Toni muttered.
‘Who is Cristina?’ Daphne asked.
‘Gabri’s ex-girlfriend,’ Toni said with a groan. ‘I’m sorry I introduced her as Gabri. I thought that would be simpler, but I was wrong.’
Daphne’s anxious glance in Cillian’s direction sent alarm up Toni’s spine. She was trapped in bad choices; that one reckless moment when she’d asked Gabri to kiss her had unravelled and fallen into the cracks in the rest of her life.
Now she’d berated Gabri for having a simple conversation with her son and dug herself an enormous hole with a stupidly complex handful of lies.
But instead of protecting herself, now she was stuck in the hole with everyone staring down at her in judgement – including Gabri, Mr ‘I didn’t want to lie to a child’ Orzati, who was lying to his bloody self when he said he didn’t take responsibility for other people.
And he had a damn good reason for it, unfortunately, so she couldn’t even resent him while her heart broke for what he’d gone through.
She didn’t have the space for any of this. She had no answers to her own life – only questions and the deafening past.
She said the only thing that would make things even a little better: ‘Shall we go get ice cream?’
Cilli’s face lit up, then his features dimmed again, wrenching another part of her heart out to bleed with the rest. ‘I just got this new net. I was going to play in the rock pools.’
‘I’d hoped for a tour of this workshop,’ Daphne said, sending Gabri a challenging gaze.
‘Seriously, Mum,’ she said, grasping Daphne’s arm, ‘the wedding is in two days and he has a lot to do. I just dropped in to…’
‘Check on the deliveries,’ he answered.
Aha, so he could lie.
‘We’re… missing some of the hydrangeas for the table settings, but I can improvise.’
‘There’s always thistles,’ she commented absently, thinking ruefully that one of them should have tried harder to keep their prickles out.
‘I still need to go and get these turtle ornaments. How about you go play in the rock pool and I’ll meet you there afterwards for ice cream?
We can talk later,’ she added for Daphne’s benefit.
‘How long do you think you’ll need?’ Daphne asked. ‘I don’t think I’m going to be able to drag Cilli away and you need to get back to the hotel, don’t you?’
A headache threatened behind Toni’s forehead. ‘Yes, but what do you suggest we do?’
‘Well,’ she paused, shooting Gabri a look full of meaning Toni couldn’t interpret, ‘can’t Gabri give us a lift back? Do you have to go to the hotel later?’
‘Mum, we don’t need Gabri’s help—’
‘Maybe not, but that would make sense, wouldn’t it? He is your friend, isn’t he?’
His throat bobbed. ‘I’m happy to drive them—’
‘No!’ Toni insisted. ‘Mum, if you want information, you’ll need to ask me. Leave him alone.’
‘If I had any faith that you’d tell me, I would!’
‘Toni.’ The sound of her name in his voice still sent a shiver down her spine. ‘Can I speak to you for a second?’ He gestured in the direction of his back room.
‘We’ll just head back to the rock pool,’ Daphne declared tightly. ‘You have your talk and then give me a call, okay?’
She hated to see her mum leading a confused Cillian out of the workshop, but she breathed again as soon as they were gone.
Rubbing her hands over her eyes, she said, ‘I know, I fucked this up. We just had a fling and it was supposed to be so simple and nobody gets hurt, but now I’m treating you like crap. ’
‘Toni.’ His tone was more urgent this time and he had the nerve to slip an arm around her waist to soothe her – which worked, damn it!
‘You didn’t want any of this shit. You don’t want my life, but I’ve crashed yours. You don’t owe my mother any explanations. I’ll tell her it was all my idea and she just needs to forget about it.’
‘You don’t owe her any explanations either,’ he said, not quite stifling his exasperation at her.
That statement made her laugh. ‘I’m just supposed to brazen it out, let her think what she likes?
You know what? I think the stuff you tell yourself sometimes is a load of shit.
You didn’t run away from your responsibilities.
You ran away from all the people who cared about you.
You’re great with responsibility. Not so much boundaries, but that’s a different thing.
You just don’t like to share responsibilities.
That’s the reason parenting seemed like too big of an ask. You don’t trust anyone but yourself.’
His chest rose and fell for a silent moment while Toni inwardly winced. She shouldn’t take all of this out on him, but her valve had burst and it was all flowing out. He’d go running in the opposite direction in a moment – which was probably for the best.
But what he said took the wind out of her. ‘We’re a matched pair, then, since you hide behind yours.’ The hint of bitterness in his tone found a home somewhere deep inside her.
‘I didn’t hide last week.’
‘Neither did I.’
Last week was supposed to be out of time – out of reality. ‘Two thistles,’ she murmured, horrified to find her eyes stinging.
‘You understand why I wasn’t sure we should sleep together,’ he accused gently – another stab of frustration through her before he continued, ‘although I don’t think there was any way I could have resisted this.’
He was suddenly closer. Amidst the honey scent of the blooms on the workbench and the bitterness of eucalyptus leaves, she recognised the lemon and herb on his skin.
His next words stole her breath. ‘It might hurt when you go, but it hurts now to argue like this or stay away, when you’re still here.’
Because she was wobbly and confused and had just discovered a reckless streak she wasn’t sure she liked, she leaned in and kissed him. He caught her and matched her – kiss for kiss, breath for laboured breath.
She felt raw with all of her flaws on show, but his were equally bare. This was no intricately planned declaration of undying love as the sun set over the water, surrounded by friends and family and dreams of the future. It was messy and uncertain and very off-brand for I Do Destinations.
It felt very much like her life.
He drew back slowly, pressing a kiss to her forehead. ‘I will drive them back to Innamorata. Now I’ve got you in this situation, I don’t want to leave you alone in it, no matter how beautifully capable you are.’
‘Another responsibility you didn’t want?’
He paused, his brow pinching over his fading smile. ‘I’m sure I can bear it.’
The maestrale was back when Gabri had finished loading his trailer and he made his way down to the waterfront to find the other two generations of Toni’s family – the two he didn’t particularly want to see.
That wasn’t quite true. He was apprehensive about seeing them, certainly, but he walked in the direction of the rock pool with his feet propelled by a curiosity that felt faintly self-destructive.
Although Rosa’s mother had clashed terribly with his own – and she hadn’t been too happy with him as a person, either – his ex had insisted their differences were nothing in the face of familial bonds and he’d kept his feelings to himself.
But he’d been brutally honest with Toni and now seemed to be walking happily to his own demise at the hands of a blonde, plucky-looking Englishwoman. Perhaps it was a comfort that the situation couldn’t get any worse than it was.
Until it did get worse.
Arriving at the rock pool, he found Cillian perched on a stone, pitifully holding back sobs and clutching his knee. Kicking off his Birkenstocks, Gabri hurtled into the calf-deep water, drenching the hems of his cropped trousers, and grasped the boy’s shoulders.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘I-I fell over and hit a rock and Granny has no plasters and sh-she had to go buy some and I don’t know where she’s gone and it’s been ages and—’ The boy’s forehead landed unexpectedly square on Gabri’s chest, knocking the wind out of him – and rattling a good portion of astonishment around in there too.
The stringy little arms came up and this was not supposed to be the story for today.
He’d just been philosophising about how great it was that he didn’t have to pretend to like anyone here – Toni didn’t want him bonding anyway – and suddenly, Cillian was coming in for a hug and there was no way he could refuse a trusting, upset kid.
‘Shh,’ he said as gently as he could. ‘We’ll find her and in the meantime, I have plasters at my shop.’
A tap on his shoulder made him turn to find a woman he didn’t recognise holding the hand of a small girl. ‘Ehi, signore, you shouldn’t leave your son alone like that. He wouldn’t talk to any of us when we offered to help him.’
Gabri tried not to let the tightening in his chest show in his body language. He’s not my son, was the first culprit for the fist squeezing his heart, but the second, just as strong, was the urge to protect him.
‘He doesn’t speak Italian,’ Gabri growled.
Toni’s mother appeared at that moment, her face red with the heat and her hurried trip to… He wasn’t sure where she would have found plasters in the little hamlet of Sant’Andrea. When she caught sight of him, her colour rose to puce.
‘Granny, did you find some plasters? Gabriele says he has some at his shop.’
She lost some of her puff. ‘Oh good, because I didn’t find any.’
It was a marvel the way the boy, oblivious to the emotions swirling around him, could drain all the turmoil from the adults in his vicinity. Gabri wondered if all children could do it, or only the boy who’d never met his father.
When he let Cillian go, he noticed the smeared hand-print of blood on his shirt and everything ramped up again. He pulled away so quickly, Cillian had to fumble for the rock.
‘I’ll… get the plasters. Stay here.’
‘Why don’t we just come up to the shop,’ Toni’s mother suggested. ‘We’ll need to wash it anyway. You can help him, can’t you?’
His throat constricting, he thought back to Toni’s calm demeanour as she’d treated her own wounds a week ago. It didn’t make sense that her presence in his house – his life – seemed to give everything a different colour.
His breath choppy, he managed a nod and gave Cillian an assessing glance. ‘I’ll carry you, yes?’
The boy’s immediate nod gave him that uneasy feeling of unearned trust, and yet he had no desire to walk away from it. He wanted to take Toni’s son and make sure nothing bad ever happened to him.
Cillian was heavy in his arms, but not so much that Gabri struggled. He kept his gaze averted from the bloody knee, from Cillian’s face – from anything that would make the moment impossible to bear.
Directing them to the bathroom out back, he took a few deep breaths of the fragrant air of his workshop, coming to terms with the interlopers in his space – one of them currently bleeding.
People came with mess and bodily fluids, responsibility, arguments, cross purposes and burdens, but living without them wasn’t necessarily the answer.
When Toni’s mother emerged into the workshop a few minutes later, he didn’t know what to make of her earnest study of him.
‘How is the patient?’ he asked.
‘All patched up.’
The silence strung tight, but he didn’t know what to say to her that wasn’t, Your daughter is a very special woman.
‘I’m Daphne, by the way,’ she introduced herself curtly. ‘We never quite made it to introductions the other two times we’ve met.’
She fell silent again, as though prompting him to do his part in the conversation.
After an agonising moment where he seemed to have forgotten every single pleasantry in the English language, he eventually blurted out, ‘She didn’t mean to deceive you.
It was a mix-up and she didn’t want you to worry. ’
‘Worry? About my grown daughter spending a week on an Italian island with a handsome man? What would I have to worry about?’ A smile tickled at her lips. Then she delivered the devastating part: ‘You won’t break her heart, will you?’ He picked up the threat in her tone.
Break her heart in a week? A woman who knew how to build boundaries and would do anything for the safety of her son – and the memory of her husband?
‘No,’ he replied.
But he might break his own.