Chapter Six
The terrace of the Hotel Palazzo Continentale was an oasis of calm, surrounded by shrubs with a dusting of pretty little flowers, whites and yellows and pinks, and a view of Florence’s ubiquitous terracotta rooftops.
If I went right into the far corner, I could just make out the sun rising over the River Arno, which was much calmer than I’d imagined and nothing like the busy, undulating Thames.
I put my video camera on the ledge and sat on one of the high stools facing the river, picking up a menu.
All these breads and pastries – I was in hotel breakfast heaven!
I ought to eat with Nick et al., even if I was starving already.
I tuned in to the sounds of Florence waking up: the joyous bells from a nearby church, the clinking of bone china being set up in the hotel restaurant, the revving of a moped engine somewhere down on the square – somebody delivering fresh ingredients to one of the restaurants, maybe.
My mind immediately turned to pasta, possibly my favourite food in the world, which seemed to be strangely absent from the ostentatious menu at the hotel restaurant.
Sometimes I just needed a big bowl of spaghetti with butter and a ton of cheese and I couldn’t see what was wrong with that, despite what I could imagine Rosamund and Sophia would say.
I was determined that at some point on this trip, I was going to sneak out alone and indulge my pasta habit without fear of it being frowned upon.
I could always use art as an excuse to get away, since no one in my party seemed to have any interest in seeing any, having supposedly seen every piece of art Florence had to offer ‘hundreds of times’.
I didn’t think I’d ever get tired of it, whether I’d been here one time or twenty.
The highlight of their week appeared to be the trip out into the Chianti region to visit a vineyard, which we’d all been booked onto for the following day, whether we liked it or not.
I immediately pulled out my phone and googled Italian wines – following last night’s epic fail with the wine list, I ought to memorise a couple of key facts in case somebody asked me a question.
I was busy wondering how to pronounce Franciacorta, which apparently was a sparkling wine from Lombardy, when someone opened the door leading from the restaurant to the terrace.
Without thinking, I turned to look, which was stupid really because I should have known it would be Aidan. That was the kind of luck I had.
He stopped dead when he saw me, both of us startled into silence.
My heart jolted so hard that I thought I might actually be about to throw up.
I focused on my breathing: in and out. In and out.
But it all came flooding back, how he used to tell me I was beautiful and funny.
How we used to lie, tangled up in each other, talking for hours – I’d never felt alone when I was in bed with him because if I was awake, invariably he was, too.
He’d said he’d never felt this sort of instant connection before; that he’d known I was something special the second he saw me on the banks of Loch Lomond with a weird, frumpy anorak on and windswept hair and nightmare Tim barking orders so loudly at me that the whole beach could hear.
‘Don’t bother trying to talk to me,’ I said, my voice catching annoyingly in my throat.
‘Don’t worry, I wasn’t planning to,’ he replied, his tone ice-cold, not at all how I’d remembered.
He turned, flung open the door and headed back into the hotel.
I watched, my mouth hanging open. He was the one who’d broken my heart, and here he was acting like the wounded party.
There was no excuse for what he’d done, or at least not one that I could think of.
And maybe it had all happened for a reason, because if Aidan hadn’t done what he did, I’d never have gone on a date with Nick.
It had turned out for the best in the end, I told myself.
Except that as I looked at the drinks menu, the words were all spinning in front of my eyes and my heart was still racing.
I didn’t want him to have this effect on me anymore. I wouldn’t let him.
I stepped out onto the street, pulling my cardigan tightly around myself.
The sky above me was a pure, bright blue, and I was sure it was going to warm up, but at the moment the air was chillier than it had looked from the window of our hotel room.
A room that I wish I’d stayed in. What had I thought I was doing, going up on to the terrace alone?
If I’d just stayed where I was, in bed with Nick, I wouldn’t have had to speak to Aidan and everything would have felt much less unsettling than it did now.
A café with racing green umbrellas was setting up its tables outside on the street.
It looked like a deli as well as a café, with olde-worlde bay windows filled with enticingly displayed truffle oil, truffle chocolate, truffle paste and other truffle-based foodstuffs.
Who knew you could do so much with a truffle? !
‘You like to sit?’ said a passing waiter, who was whisking two cups of espresso over to a couple already seated.
‘Sure. Yes, please,’ I replied.
He dropped off the coffees and circled back to show me to a table.
I took a seat facing down the road, towards the Arno, and the round castle-like building at the bottom of the street.
I ordered a coffee with milk. I’d lost my appetite since seeing Aidan and didn’t know how I was going to get through breakfast with everyone.
Then I sat back in my chair, enjoying the way that the air felt fresh and clean and nothing like it did in London, checking my phone.
Lou had already messaged, surprisingly. She was off to Palma today, shooting footage for the Majorca special; she must have an early flight.
How’s it going with the in-laws-to-be?
I went to text her back, then decided to call instead. I had the urge to hear a friendly voice. Lou never sugar-coated stuff and I had to tell somebody about Aidan.
Lou picked up on the second ring. ‘Blimey, you’re up already!’ she said. ‘I thought you’d be languishing in bed with Nick, sharing rustic bread and mozzarella cheese and getting crumbs all over the sheets.’
‘Ha! This place is too beautiful to be lying around in a hotel room,’ I said.
‘How’s Nick’s family? Tell me all. Are they as charming as he is? Do they love you already?’
My stomach dropped.
‘They’re … not quite how I’d imagined,’ I said, struggling to put it into words. ‘They’re very wealthy, which is fine, obviously.’
‘But …?’
‘But Nick calls his mum “Mummy”.’
‘He doesn’t!’
‘And his ex-wife is here. Daisy’s mum.’
Lou made a screeching sound. ‘What the hell?’
‘She’s still very close with Rosamund – Nick’s mum – apparently.’
‘But this was about you bonding with them. How are you supposed to do that with her hanging around? Talk about awkward.’
The waiter brought my coffee which smelled divine. I picked up the cup and blew on the surface, taking a tiny sip.
‘His dad reckons I look like Meghan Markle,’ I said.
‘Oh for God’s sake.’
‘Am I setting the tone for you?’
‘Very much so,’ said Lou.
I could imagine her rolling her eyes.
‘And that’s not the worst of it,’ I added.
‘There’s more?’
I hesitated. While Lou had supported me every step of the way, I could sense that she’d found the whole thing with Aidan a bit much.
Ever cautious, she couldn’t understand how we’d got so close so quickly, and why I was so cut up about it afterwards.
I could tell she’d got fed up with me being utterly miserable every time we went out and eventually she’d told me – gently – that I needed to snap myself out of it and ‘get back on the horse’.
It had been her who’d encouraged me to hit up Tinder and say yes to a date with Nick, even though I really wasn’t ready and was secretly holding on to the hope that there’d been some terrible mistake and Aidan was going to come swooping back into my life any moment and tell me that he couldn’t live without me. This I didn’t share with anyone.
‘Come on then, what else has happened?’ asked Lou. ‘Nothing interesting ever happens to me anymore and therefore I am living my life vicariously through you.’
‘A quiet life sounds very appealing right about now,’ I said.
‘How come?’
‘Aidan is here. Staying at the same hotel.’
A beat. Lots of beats.
‘Lou? Are you still there?’ I asked, thinking that maybe we’d been cut off.
‘Sorry, yes. I was speechless for a second there. What the fuck?’
‘I saw him in the restaurant last night and then again on the roof terrace this morning. Briefly, because he took one look at me and bolted.’
‘Oh my God,’ said Lou. ‘What was it like to see him? Did you feel anything?’
‘Fury?’
‘Does he look the same?’
I couldn’t lie to Lou. ‘He still looks good, yeah.’
Lou sighed. ‘He messed up, though, didn’t he? And it doesn’t really matter what his reason was, does it, because short of being dead, which he clearly isn’t, there’s really no way he can explain his way out of what he did?’
‘I know. I definitely know that.’
But there was part of me that wanted to hear his explanation, anyway.
‘Look, I’ve got a taxi coming in a minute,’ said Lou. ‘I’d better go and finish packing. When are you back?’
‘Saturday, but then I’m going straight up to Leicester to see my dad. It’s his birthday, so I thought I’d make an effort.’
‘Let’s hope he doesn’t double-book himself this time,’ said Lou, who knew exactly how flaky my dad could be. ‘Oh, and Maddie? Don’t let Nick’s family get to you. They should be trying to impress you as well, not just the other way round.’
‘Not sure they see it that way,’ I replied, laughing lightly.
It felt as though I’d been fine-tuned to assess what people thought of me, what their first impressions were.
Whether they were judging me. Whether they were making assumptions about my background or my schooling or my family.
I think I did this to protect myself and I would usually retreat immediately if things didn’t feel right, but, of course, Nick’s family were going to be stuck with me and vice versa, so I couldn’t.
‘You’re good enough for them, Maddie. More than good enough. In fact, they’re probably secretly intimidated by what a smart, confident, beautiful woman you are,’ said Lou.
I wanted to believe that, really I did, but when I pictured Rosamund’s face in my mind’s eye, I found it impossible to imagine that she was intimidated by anything at all.