Chapter Eleven
When Leo woke the next morning he felt both amazingly relaxed and hungover.
But not from drink. A sex hangover. Images filled his head.
After he and Angelica had initially fallen asleep, they’d woken again a while later, filled with mutual hunger.
A hunger that had bordered on desperation sometimes.
They’d finally fallen asleep again around dawn. And now… Leo cracked open his eyes. The sun was high outside. And the bed was empty beside him. He put out an arm. It was cold.
He came up on one elbow, feeling as if he’d missed his footing even though he was lying down. He threw back the covers and got up, heading straight for the shower. Afterwards he pulled on the first things to hand, jeans and a loose shirt, a niggling sense of unease trickling down his spine.
He went out into the main part of the apartment and for a second didn’t notice anything but then he saw her. She was standing at the open windows, looking out onto the canal.
She was dressed in the jeans she’d worn the previous day, sneakers and a sweatshirt. Hair pulled back in a ponytail. She looked ridiculously young. Then he noticed the suitcase beside her and her handbag, across her body.
The unease intensified. Maybe she’d got booked for a job. ‘Angel?’
She turned around and Leo noticed that she was pale and her face was set. She also had shadows under her eyes but then that wasn’t a surprise. They hadn’t had much sleep.
Trying not to let the unease show in his voice, he said, ‘Are you going somewhere?’
She nodded. ‘I’m afraid I’ve been lying to you, Leo, and myself a little bit too.’
He frowned. ‘What do you mean?’ Suddenly he felt cold, thinking that perhaps all this time, when he’d believed in her story, maybe he’d missed an even bigger agenda…
Oblivious to his cynical mind whirring into action again, she said, ‘The truth is that I still love you, Leo. I never stopped. I convinced myself I had, or that it hadn’t been love, but it was a lie.’
She shrugged minutely and tried to force a smile but Leo could see the emotion in her eyes and, like a coward, he would have preferred in that moment that perhaps she had been lulling him into a false sense of security for some nefarious end.
This was far more threatening. He could feel himself closing off, shutting down.
She said, ‘Believe me, I get the irony of being back in more or less exactly the same spot having the same conversation, three years later.’ She let out a short harsh laugh that didn’t sound like her at all. ‘You’d think I’d have learnt by now.’
‘I didn’t give you much choice,’ Leo had to concede. ‘I dragged you back into my life.’
He said now, ‘Angel… I’m sorry I can’t say what you want to hear. It’s not something I’ve ever wanted in my life…a lifetime commitment, family.’ So why did the words feel like ash on his tongue?
He noticed her throat working as she swallowed. ‘I think the worst of it is that I understand, because I lost someone too. And I grew up surrounded by the threat of violence all the time.’
‘But…this is the thing…none of us are guaranteed a life without pain, or loss. Some experience more than most, granted…but do you not see that by choosing to close yourself off to the risk of losing anyone ever again, you’re doing a disservice to the memory of your parents? And your brothers?’
A red mist of pain came over Leo’s vision. ‘It’s precisely why I can’t have what they never experienced.’
‘Just because you survived, it doesn’t mean that you have to forgo love and happiness in your own life.
I know you don’t love me, but some day you might meet someone and you deserve to be happy, Leo, you’re a good man and you’ve created something worth sharing.
It can be very lonely closing yourself off.
I did it for three years to survive that marriage and it almost killed me. ’
Leo couldn’t think straight. He felt a multitude of things all at once. Panic. ‘What will you do? Where will you go?’
Angelica looked resigned. Sad. He had done that to her. He’d also made her laugh and sigh and moan and—
‘I’ll go to Madrid. I think I’ll buy a place there, to be near Mama and Paolo. Then I’ll continue working while getting the charity up and running, and then, hopefully some day soon, retire from modelling and work full time on that.’
‘And what about the rest of your life?’ Leo wondered why he was asking her this. He had no right. He should let her go.
She hitched up her chin. ‘I want love, Leo. And I want a family. I want to bring up kids in an environment where they won’t feel threatened. Of course there’s no guarantee of peace and safety anywhere but some places are better than others. I want to be happy. Fulfilled.’
Those sentiments hit Leo hard. He thought of how it had affected him to see happy families—abject fear. ‘You will be. You’ll be an amazing mother and wife. And philanthropist. You’ll change lives. You deserve to be happy, Angel.’ Again, the words were like ash, souring his tongue.
‘Thank you. I have something for you.’
She came towards him and held out a chain. It took him a second to register what was on it. A Murano glass heart, green, gold and orange, and her engagement ring and wedding ring.
He held out his palm and she dropped them into it. His head was full of the memory of her spotting that little glass heart in the window of a shop three years ago and how he’d immediately wanted to give it to her, so he’d gone in and bought it.
‘I can’t believe you still have it.’
‘I kept it. But it’s yours. And the rings are yours too. I donated the one Aldo gave me to charity, maybe you can do the same with these.’
Angelica had gone over to pick up her case and was walking to the door of the apartment before Leo came out of the past. He turned around. He felt as if he were under water, or watching her through glass. He wasn’t even sure if she’d hear him if he called her name.
She stopped at the door and then, as if deciding not to say anything, she opened it and then she was gone. She didn’t even look back.
Much like the day when she’d walked out that first time, he had an instinct to run after her. But how could he when he couldn’t give her what she wanted?
Leo stood there for a long moment, with the necklace and rings in his hand. He looked at them stupidly. The heart seemed to glow, as if to mock him. You have no heart. No. It stopped beating the day his family lost their lives.
But he could feel it now, thumping heavily.
As heavy as the stone in his gut. And the boulder in his chest. He felt very tired all of a sudden, as if he’d been trying to roll a ball up a hill for ever and it had just rolled down again, flattening him in the process.
What was the name of that Greek king? Sisyphus?
Without really thinking, Leo went over to where Angelica had been standing at the window and looked out, and down. There was a water-taxi, and the driver was helping her in. She was wearing sunglasses and facing forward but he knew she was crying.
He’d made her cry. More than once. He’d also unwittingly fed her to Aldo, who had been so jealous of anything Leo loved that he’d wanted her for himself.
Leo’s hand closed over the necklace and rings as that word resounded in his head. Love. Loved. Love.
Things were falling into place now, like pieces of a jigsaw. How out of it he’d been after Angelica had left—after you rejected her. How easy it had been for Aldo to take advantage of Leo’s distraction.
Because Aldo had seen what not even Leo had seen. That he’d fallen in love with Angelica.
Of course he had. She’d turned his life upside down and inside out and he hadn’t been able to handle it. So he’d rejected her rather than face the fact that he was a coward and too scared to seize love when it was gifted to him.
He looked down again to see the water-taxi pulling away from the landing pier, joining the traffic of the other water-taxis, boats and gondolas on the busy canal.
And suddenly, Leo knew that Angelica was right. About everything. What had she said? I know you don’t love me. He’d fallen in love with her the moment he’d laid eyes on her.
He stuffed the necklace and rings in his pocket and ran.
Angelica couldn’t even hide her sobs. She wondered how many women this water-taxi had ferried up the canal, sobbing noisily in the back, tears streaming under their black shades. The driver was ignoring her anyway, so presumably it wasn’t that uncommon.
She was standing in the back of the boat, hanging onto the railing, calling herself all kinds of a fool for letting herself be hurt by the same man twice.
It took Angelica a minute to hear it over her crying and the engine and the general noises on the canal but then she heard, ‘Angel! Stop!’
She looked around and had to lift her shades up to see better. In another water-taxi, closing in on them fast, was Leo, jumping up and down and gesticulating. He looked crazed. Angelica’s mouth fell open.
The boat came alongside hers and Leo was shouting instructions to the driver to get closer. He stood up on the edge of the boat and Angelica squealed, ‘What are you doing? You’ll fall in!’
Leo braced himself and then leapt the short distance between the bobbing boats, landing in the back and almost toppling over. Angelica reached for him, catching him. She looked down. ‘Your feet are bare!’
He’d run out straight after her? A tiny seed of hope bloomed in her chest. Leo caught her arms and glanced away for a moment to say something to the driver. Angelica didn’t even register what, she couldn’t look away from him.
He looked at her. She shook her head. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Am I too late?’
‘For what?’
‘To come with you.’
‘Where?’
‘Wherever you go, for ever.’
Angelica put a hand to her mouth to swallow a little sob. The tears kept coming. She shook her head. ‘No, you’re not too late. But…what are you saying, Leo?’
He smiled and wiped at her tears with his thumbs. ‘I never want to be the cause of your tears again. What I’m saying, amore mio, is that I love you. I’ve always loved you but I was too scared to admit it, and we paid an awful price for my cowardice.’
Angelica turned her face into Leo’s hand, kissing his palm. She looked up at him. ‘It wasn’t cowardice, it was self-protection.’
‘You’re right, by choosing to cut myself off from you, from love, I’m insulting the memory of my family. They deserve better, I deserve better, and you definitely deserve better. But…do you really want me? After all I’ve put you through?’
‘You have to ask me that? I love you, Leo. I never stopped. I want to have a family with you and grow old with you and see our grandchildren turn into adults.’
Leo’s eyes shone suspiciously. ‘I’ll do my best. It might take me a while to get used to the notion. I used to have panic attacks when I saw happy families.’
Angelica interlaced her fingers with his. ‘We’ll go as slowly as it takes, my love, and before you even realise what’s happening, we’ll be a family.’
Leo kissed her as they swayed with the motion of the boat. Unbeknownst to them they had become surrounded by sightseers and paparazzi who regularly trawled the canal looking for celebrities.
The pictures of Leo and Angelica kissing passionately went viral.
As did the pictures of him placing a Murano heart around her neck, and rings on her finger.
Speculation was rife as to what had happened but there was no doubt, as the boat turned and went back to the palazzo, that they were very much in love and happy.
In fact, their obvious passion and love inspired a well-known designer to offer them an extortionate amount of money to appear in an ad campaign together, which Leo only agreed to once all the proceeds went to Angelica’s new charity.