Chapter Six #3
The moment Amelia saw Massimiliano’s grandfather, she was struck by the similarities.
Far from appearing like someone who was facing cancer, he looked to be the picture of health and vitality.
Knowing Massimiliano’s age, she figured his grandfather had to be in his seventies, at least, yet he was clearly in great shape.
He wore a light grey suit and polished brown shoes, and his hair, once the colour of Massimiliano’s, she guessed, was now a slate grey.
‘Massi,’ he said, shaking Massimiliano’s hand before pulling him into an embrace, slapping his back.
‘Nonno.’ Massimiliano surprised her by using the affectionate title for Grandpa. He pulled away from the older man and gestured to Amelia. ‘This is Amelia Rossi.’
Antonio stepped forward, intelligent dark eyes locking to her thoughtfully. ‘So it is,’ he agreed, nodding slowly, his face lined in a way she hadn’t seen at first. Unlike his grandson, Antonio’s smile came easily. ‘I knew your mother, once upon a time. And your grandparents.’
‘Massimiliano’s mentioned that.’
‘Of course he has.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m a little thrown. You are so much more like her than I expected.’
Amelia winced, and she knew Massimiliano noticed the response, because his hand, in her back, began to brush over her spine, as if to bring her back to the moment, or perhaps even to offer comfort.
‘So I’ve been told,’ she managed to respond, her voice carefully blanked of emotion.
Inside, though, she ran from the words, from what people might have thought of as a compliment.
‘You do not agree?’
‘I haven’t seen my mother in a long time.’
Antonio’s eyes flicked to Massimiliano’s, his expression showing confusion, and then embarrassment. As though he’d said something wrong.
‘You weren’t to know,’ she murmured, reaching out to put a hand on his. ‘My mother…left, my father and me, when I was just a girl. I haven’t seen her since.’
Antonio’s surprise was evident. She wondered why Massimiliano hadn’t told his grandfather. Then again, this had all happened so quickly. And there had been no guarantee Amelia would accept his proposal, which made the whole background story unnecessary.
‘Let’s sit,’ Massimiliano suggested, gesturing to the table Antonio had recently occupied.
Antonio sat opposite Amelia, and Massimiliano beside her.
As with the night before, he eased his arm along the back of her chair, his fingers carelessly brushing her shoulder.
Only these chairs were somehow closer, and his whole body seemed to enfold hers with warmth.
‘I apologise, carina. I was surprised. Your mother—as I knew her—it seems so out of character.’
Amelia’s smile was brittle. ‘I suppose people change, don’t they?’
He shook his head, clearly wanting to say more, but deciding not to.
And yet, an instinct to share was burgeoning inside Amelia, surprising her, because she kept so much of this to herself.
‘My parents weren’t happy,’ she said, after a beat.
‘I think at first, the romance of their elopement, being young and in love, it all seemed very exciting. But the adjustment was huge. My father was far from wealthy. He’d been in the foster system and had nothing behind him.
Apart from his music, he had no real skills, no career.
’ She lifted her shoulders. ‘I’d say the romance wore off pretty quickly, but by then, she was pregnant with me. ’
Sympathy softened Antonio’s eyes. She didn’t look at Massimiliano. She couldn’t say why, but she had a feeling that if his face was similarly creased with pity, she might start to cry.
‘I wonder why she didn’t come home, to Italy,’ Antonio said.
She was saved the need of offering an immediate response by the appearance of a waiter, who began to speak in rapid-fire Italian.
More muscle memory. More reflexive pain.
Those words were buried deep, deep inside her, the most obvious connection to her mother. She’d stifled them for so long, and now, they surrounded her. They were being rammed in her face, thrown at her like some kind of assault. She sat up straight, panic knifing her sides.
A part of her that she’d run from for so long, hidden away, and here it was, laid before her, so that as they spoke she saw and heard her mother.
Her heart felt scraped raw. She dug her fingernails into her palm, trying not to think about the normal expectation of a wedding day, about the fact her mother should have been there.
Both of her parents, in fact. Trying not to think about how alone she was in the world, her only family the couple she’d met last night, for the first time.
Antonio laughed at something the waiter had said and her gaze narrowed thoughtfully.
She was going to be living in Italy for the next two years.
Had she really thought she could avoid the language?
Wouldn’t it be better to face this emotional speed bump head-on and learn to speak it?
Perhaps it would even be an exorcism of sorts, like a reclaiming of something she’d associated with her mother for so long that didn’t actually belong exclusively to her.
In speaking Italian herself, could she erase all those memories of Aria, reading to her, singing to her, in her native tongue?
Massimiliano’s fingers roamed her shoulder, and then moved to her hair, curling around the ends, brushing over it. His touch had the effect of driving her troubled thoughts from her mind, leaving only pleasurable trembles in its wake.
He leaned close, his voice delivered right to her ear, so his warm breath breezed across her cheek. ‘Would you like me to order for you, cara?’
She glanced up at him, and there it was again. Proximity. Closeness. Lava.
Her eyes blinked but neither looked away. His hand shifted from her hair to her cheek, brushing it gently, his eyes following the gesture before falling to her lips, so she sucked in a sharp breath.
He turned away though, and began to speak in Italian, presumably ordering for himself and her, before nodding at Antonio. ‘Nonno?’ As the old man began to speak with the waiter, Massimiliano addressed her in hushed tones, his voice deep and husky, his accent like warm butter on her frazzled nerves.
‘I’m sorry about your mother.’
She closed her eyes, breathing in, his sympathy having exactly the effect she’d expected it might.
‘Thank you.’
‘It is not to thank me for. I just wanted you to know that I understand, that you deserved better.’
It was exactly the right thing to say. Surprise had her eyes widening. ‘As did you,’ she murmured.
He dipped his head once, as if to agree with that.
‘And yet,’ he murmured, lips close to her ear, so that she alone could hear his words, ‘I learned so much from my father’s actions.
About wealth, greed, corruption and, most importantly, human nature.
Had he not done what he did, I might have spent my entire life presuming that people were truly, in their hearts, as they appeared. ’
‘And instead?’
He pulled back a little, so their eyes met. ‘I trust no one.’
A shiver ran the length of her spine, but it was snuffed out by the heat he was generating, by essentially wrapping his far larger body around hers.
‘I get that,’ she said. Inside, she was nodding, but she made a conscious choice not to shift her head, because it might break the spell of being near to each other.
Even as, in the back of her mind, she forced herself to remember that this was all for show.
It didn’t negate the fact it felt incredible.
‘Somehow, I don’t think you do,’ he drawled, eyes hooked to hers in a way she found impossible to look away from.
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Because you are soft where I am hard.’
She frowned. His English was excellent, but she didn’t fully understand. ‘What does that mean?’
‘That you cannot, I think, help giving people chances. Letting them in.’
‘You’re wrong.’
His lips lifted in a cynical half-smile. ‘Am I?’
‘I have literally no friends and no family,’ she muttered. ‘I am completely alone in the world.’
He leaned closer, so now his lips brushed against her ear. ‘Except for me.’
She shivered then, from warmth and longing. ‘For two years,’ she said. ‘And only in name.’
His face hovered where it was, so close her insides twisted with awareness, and then he pulled back a little, so they could once more look into each other’s eyes. Her heart turned over, as silently she implored him to say something that might dispute that.
He didn’t.
A moment later, the waiter left, and Massimiliano expanded the conversation to include his grandfather. Amelia pretended she didn’t mind.