Chapter 22
A knuckle rap on his office door jerked Rocco out of his reverie, and he dragged his eyes away from the sea glass picture of the loch on the wall opposite his desk.
The sun was streaming in through the window, illuminating the artwork perfectly, and he’d found himself gazing at it.
He’d been doing that a lot since his return from Skye.
He’d been back less than three weeks; it felt like a lifetime.
It had been the longest nineteen days of his life.
‘Wakey, wakey,’ Claire chirped. She was standing in the open doorway, one hip cocked, her head tilted to the side, a smile playing about her mouth.
‘Sorry, I was miles away.’ His gaze flickered to the picture, then away again. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘The Robinson report: have you finished it?’
Guiltily, he replied, ‘Almost done.’
‘I need it today.’
‘I’m aware of that. You’ll have it by three p.m.’
She pursed her red-painted lips. ‘I suppose that’ll have to do, but if you can get it to me sooner, I’d appreciate it. I’m out of the office tomorrow and the day after, so I need to look at it today.’
‘I said you’ll have it, and you will.’
She did the head-tilt thing again. ‘Are you OK, Rocco? You seem a bit distracted.’
‘Distracted’ could hardly describe the abject misery he felt. He wished he’d never set eyes on that damned castle. He should have listened to Beverly and instructed Jermyns and his solicitor to deal with it. But oh no, he’d just had to see it for himself, hadn’t he?
And had turned his life upside down as a result.
He’d been perfectly happy, right up to the point he’d locked eyes with Giselle in the graveyard. Now he wasn’t sure whether he’d ever be happy again.
‘How’s probate coming along?’ he asked.
‘It’s getting there, but these things take time. There’s a lot to sort out.’
That was a pity. He could do with severing his ties to the castle as quickly as possible because the temptation to go back was intense.
But what would that achieve? He’d only be torturing himself.
Giselle hadn’t exactly been distraught when he’d left, and he wasn’t interested in merely carrying on where they’d left off.
He wanted more than friends-with-benefits or a casual fling.
Besides, leaving her again would be intolerable.
‘How about we have dinner this evening and I can bring you up to date?’ Claire offered.
Huh? He’d been lost in thought again, and it took him a second to remember what they’d been talking about. ‘Um, no thanks. I’ve got plans. Pop it in an email.’
Claire pressed her lips together and her face tightened. ‘As you wish,’ she snapped and stalked off on her high heels, her hips swaying in her slimline skirt.
Giselle continued to play on his mind as he completed the report, stopping frequently to lose himself in this memory or that.
If he closed his eyes, he could see her, feel her, taste her.
And if he tried hard enough, he could imagine being on Coral Beach, or Lealt Falls, or any of the other places that were indelibly imprinted on his memory.
After uploading the report to the firm’s shared drive and notifying Claire that it was available, Rocco slumped back in his leather chair, the spring-loaded back bouncing.
It was a far cry from the elegant Queen Anne chair in the parlour.
And his modern glass and chrome desk couldn’t compare to the solidity of the polished wooden one Mhairi had favoured.
He hadn’t been able to tell whether either of those pieces of furniture were antiques, or whether anything else in the castle was, but no doubt the expert that Claire would employ would shine some light on the value of its contents.
He missed the sense of history those old things had given him, and as he gazed around his office with its sleek, ergonomic fixtures and fittings, he realised the only thing of beauty in it was Giselle’s picture.
It was also the only thing that had any real worth to him, despite its inexpensive price tag.
Rocco decided to call it a day. He’d go to the gym and work off some of his restlessness, then he’d have a sauna.
The steam usually relaxed him, and he could do with all the relaxation he could get right now.
His shoulders and neck ached with tension, and staring at a computer screen for hours on end wasn’t helping.
The gym was a private one, and it wasn’t cheap. He’d been remiss lately, not having bothered to go since his return from Skye, so maybe that was the problem. He’d become used to a certain amount of exercise, but since he’d been back, all he’d done was mope around, feeling sorry for himself.
He needed to get into a routine again, and although bunking off in the middle of the afternoon to pound some rubber and lift a few weights wasn’t part of his usual routine, it might help get him back on track.
Twenty kilometres on the treadmill might also tire him out enough to help him sleep because he was sick of lying awake night after night wishing he was back on Skye. Wishing he was in Giselle’s bed.
At the gym, Rocco slung his kit bag in a locker, making sure his mobile was in his pocket.
Stuffing earbuds in, he found an upbeat playlist and made his way to the bank of running machines.
The place was quiet: no yummy mummies, no corporate types (apart from himself), and only a handful of fit retirees, some of whom had retired well before the official age, by the look of them.
That was what he hopefully planned on doing: work hard for thirty years, then pass the business on to the next generation and kick back and relax.
That’s what his father had hoped to do, but he hadn’t got the chance.
However, with no offspring on the horizon, it would be a while before Rocco could hand over the business to a son or daughter of his own. The way things were going, he’d have to spearhead it until they nailed down his coffin.
Rocco chose a machine, set it to a steady pace to warm up and began to run. And as he ran, he thought.
Mhairi hadn’t stepped down, had she? She’d kept going to the very end. From what Cal and Giselle had told him, she hadn’t wanted to hand the reins over to anyone. But then again, who would she have handed them to? She’d had no one, which was why he’d inherited it.
Ramping up both the speed and the incline until he was breathing hard, he wondered whether she’d realised he would sell her beloved castle, or had she been hoping he’d keep it as a going concern?
He’d never know.
Or would he?
Two weeks ago, fourteen boxes had been delivered by courier and were now sitting in the small fourth bedroom of his four-storey town house, ready to be shoved into the attic when he could be bothered to get around to it.
It didn’t matter if they stayed in the bedroom for a while, since there was no one to object.
The house was far too big for one person, but he’d bought it as an investment, and also because he’d hoped to have a family one day.
But even though it was a fraction of the size of the castle, he’d felt more at home in Duncoorie than he’d ever done here.
Which might be why he spent so long at the office.
Suddenly, he couldn’t wait to go home and begin sorting through those boxes. It was the closest he was going to get to Skye, Coorie Castle and, in an oblique way, to Giselle.
Over the years, Giselle had become rather good at calligraphy. She didn’t always write on the pictures she created, but sometimes words were needed, and this picture needed the word ‘cheers’.
She was making a row of hand-drawn glasses in various shapes and sizes, and in the receptacle part of each glass lay a piece of sea glass depicting a cocktail.
She’d even drawn a little swizzle stick coming out of every glass and was intending to put a tiny fragment at the end of each of them for decoration.
For the contents, she was using a selection of blue, green and amber sea glass.
And the inscription above said ‘Cheers’ in flowing, elegant cursive.
She was in the middle of choosing the final piece of sea glass and debating whether to push the boat out and use one of the rarer colours, when the studio door opened.
Expecting it to be one of the many visitors onsite this afternoon, she didn’t look up.
People often popped in briefly to watch an artist at work, and popped out again after a minute, therefore she’d finish picking the right piece, then she’d smile and say hello.
When a voice said, ‘I was expecting some kind of welcome, since I’ve come all this way,’ Giselle jumped, and dropped the sea glass she was holding.
It fell to the floor, but she ignored it.
‘Izzy? Oh my God! What are you doing here?’ she squealed, leaping from her stool and knocking it over in her excitement. She launched herself towards her twin in disbelief.
The pair hugged, Giselle squeezing her sister so hard Izzy had to beg her to stop. When Giselle finally released her and stepped back, her cheeks were damp. ‘I’ve missed you so much!’ she cried.
‘And I’ve missed you.’ Izzy studied her critically. ‘Are you OK?’
‘I’m fine, honestly,’ Giselle assured her.
Izzy gave her The Look. The one that said you can’t fool me. ‘You’re not, I can tell. You look awful, Zelle.’
‘Gee, thanks. You sure know how to make a girl feel better,’ Giselle replied dryly. But Izzy was right; whenever she looked in the mirror she flinched at the drawn, pinched face staring back at her. It didn’t help that Izzy looked the picture of health and vitality.
‘You should have told me you were coming. I might have been away, on holiday or something.’
‘I didn’t know I was going to be here until yesterday. Anyway, I wanted to surprise you. The look on your face was priceless. Plus, you and I both know you never go anywhere.’
‘I do, too!’
‘When was the last time you left Skye?’
‘Christmas, to Mum and Dad’s, I think…?’
‘I rest my case. I’ll be calling in to see them on the way back if you want to come with me,’ Izzy said. ‘But I wanted to see you first. I was worried about you.’
Giselle had told her about Rocco, but she’d done her best not to let her pain show when she’d spoken to her sister, trying to sound upbeat and unconcerned; clearly, she hadn’t succeeded.
‘Let me close up the studio,’ Giselle said, after giving her another hug, and very shortly they were on the way to the bothy, with a quick stop off at the shop for some supplies because Giselle didn’t have much in.
With her appetite having deserted her, she’d been relying on the occasional meal in the cafe to keep her going, so the cupboards were looking rather bare.
Izzy insisted on trawling through the limited selection of fresh fruit and vegetables, saying that she wanted to cook something from scratch.
And she also bought smoked salmon, shortbread, a bottle of wine and the sweet and creamy tablet that was similar to fudge and which she claimed she’d been craving for ages.
‘You can’t beat a piece of tablet,’ she stated, unpacking the groceries in Giselle’s tiny but perfectly serviceable kitchen, and popping some in her mouth. ‘Mmm.’ She closed her eyes in bliss.
‘You should have said,’ Giselle told her. ‘I could have sent some in the post. Surely it doesn’t beat cantucci or panettone?’
‘It reminds me of home,’ Izzy replied simply. She ran a critical eye over Giselle, who squirmed uncomfortably. ‘You could do with getting some tablet inside you. It’ll put a bit of colour in your cheeks.’ Her voice softened. ‘Would you like to talk about it?’
Wordlessly, Giselle nodded, not wanting to speak for a moment in case she broke down. She’d cried so much lately she was surprised she had any tears left in her, but they leaked out of her eyes every time she thought of him, which was more times a day than she could count.
And as Izzy washed and chopped a load of tomatoes, Giselle began, ‘I met Rocco in Venice.’
‘Venice? That was years ago, or have you been back there since and not told me?’
‘I only went the once.’
‘And you met him there? You stayed overnight, if I remem—’ Izzy gasped. ‘You didn’t?’
‘I did.’
‘I thought there was something different about you, but when you showed me the sea glass you’d found and said you knew what you wanted to do with your life, I assumed that’s what had made you all sparkly eyed.’
‘It was Rocco who found the red heart.’
Izzy’s eyes widened. ‘Were you in love with him?’
‘No, but that time in Venice was special. Romantic. Prophetic, almost. I never told you about Rocco because…’ She floundered, unable to verbalise exactly why she hadn’t confided in her sister.
‘It’s OK. I understand; I haven’t told you everything, either. A girl’s got to have some secrets.’
‘Like what?’ Giselle was intrigued.
‘You first; I want to hear the rest of this story.’
Giselle continued, ‘No one was more surprised than me when I discovered it was Rocco who’d inherited Coorie Castle.
I never expected to see him again, but there he was, telling me he was going to sell up.
’ She fell silent for several seconds. Then she said, ‘I hated him at first. Well, not hated exactly, but I had trouble reconciling the man I’d met in Venice with the man who didn’t give a rat’s arse about the castle or the craft centre.
Then I spoke to you, and you made me realise I would do the same thing if I’d inherited a property in London.
He didn’t seem so bad after that, especially when he asked me to show him around Skye.
And that’s when I realised I really liked him.
Unfortunately, I hadn’t stopped fancying him, and as you know we ended up sleeping together. ’
Izzy had ceased chopping, engrossed in the story, her face full of sympathy. ‘And you fell in love,’ she said quietly.
‘And I fell in love,’ Giselle confirmed.
‘Does Rocco know how you feel?’
‘God, no!’
‘How does he feel about you, do you think?’
She shrugged and pulled a face. ‘That it was fun while it lasted.’
‘What happens now?’
‘The castle will be sold, and I’ll never set eyes on him again.’
‘Do you still think the craft centre will close?’
‘Probably.’
‘What will you do if it does?’
‘I don’t know. Get a job or three, I suppose.’ She’d done it in the past, before the craft centre had become established, and before selling her art in the gift shop had provided her with enough income to live on. Therefore, she could do it again.
Her best bet at finding employment would be in Portree, but it was going to be a bugger getting there and back on the bus.
‘Do you regret it?’ Izzy asked.
She regretted not taking Rocco up on his offer to get her push bike fixed. But as for the man himself… ‘No, I don’t. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.’