Chapter Twenty-Nine
Olivia hadn’t packed any shoes except flip-flops and trainers, but her toenails were painted fuchsia, and her heels were smooth, so she decided to go barefoot.
As she walked down the cobbled slope to the restaurant, enjoying the feel of the warm stones beneath her toes, she told herself several things.
That she was the same girl she’d always been, one to never miss a party.
That her new writer friends were all there, and why would she not want to join in with them?
And that she could handle Leo Greene – every last damned delicious molecule of him.
The restaurant was called Nico’s and was in a pretty two-storey yellow building with blue shutters and window boxes tumbling with begonias and petunias.
Out the front, it had a row of cast-iron tables and chairs under a striped awning, but these were all empty this evening, as was the ground floor of the restaurant.
As she walked through it, Olivia could see everyone on the terrace out the back: laughing faces, flippy dresses, white shirts and dark trousers.
A waiter, chomping on a bread roll behind the bar, looked up at her.
‘Buona sera,’ she said, in bad Italian. ‘I’m from Villa Margo, up the road. My friends are here. Can I?’ She gestured to the terrace.
‘Of course,’ he said in very good English. ‘It is a lively party already. You forgot your shoes?’
‘No,’ she replied with a smile.
At first, she couldn’t see the gang from Villa Margo.
The smiling faces before her were not ones she recognised.
Then she saw Clemmie, behind the central enamel wood burner and framed by a pretty pergola, roaring with laughter at something Leo was saying.
Henrietta, Sam and Martin, making up the circle, were also hanging off his every word.
‘Olivia!’ cried Leo, as she walked over. ‘You came!’
‘Yes,’ she said, positioning herself between Sam and Henrietta. Henrietta was brandishing yet another martini. ‘I saw the party from my window, and I thought I’d better see what was going on. Author curiosity wins every time, doesn’t it?’
She attempted a tight kind of laugh, the kind she would need alcohol of some sort to loosen. Leo looked devastating: a white shirt, casual blue jeans, slip-on loafers and no socks, a look she normally hated but it manifested so well on him.
‘Barefoot,’ he observed with a smile. ‘And a nice dress.’ He narrowed his eyes at her admiringly. ‘You look like a ballerina.’
‘Thank you. You look like you’re up to no good.’
‘Just chatting. Having an enjoyable time.’ His tanned face was glowing, his teeth gleaming, his eyes shining.
He should have been on the cover of a magazine, but instead he was here.
Life had been kind to Leo Greene. That silver spoon was now a whole cutlery set.
But didn’t she have the set now, too? She had once told him that she would shrink and shrink while he grew and grew, but now they stood together – in the publishing world, at least – as equals.
‘Someone’s got to keep morale up in such a dreadful place,’ joked Henrietta. She slurped martini happily through her straw.
‘Yes, it’s awful.’ Olivia played along, looking around her. Everyone looked happy, everyone had a smile on their face. It was August in Tuscany, and life was beautiful.
‘What are you drinking?’ Leo asked her. ‘Would you like some wine?’
‘Rosé, please.’
He reached out to touch the arm of a passing waiter, engaged him in friendly conversation, and the Villa Margo writers watched him hungrily.
Olivia knew they were all enchanted by Leo Greene with his big brain and his movie-star looks.
His smile, that came so readily and was so easily absorbed by all around him.
How he walked down a street like sunlight did, his presence gradually sweeping over everything and everyone in its way.
Their friendship had been ruined – mostly by her – five years ago, yet he was at ease.
He was offering her wine. He was paying her compliments. She wondered how he did that.
A glass of wine appeared for her, and Olivia sipped it gratefully. ‘Thank you.’
‘Hey, Leo,’ said Martin, reaching for his arm like Leo had the waiter. ‘I want to hear all about this movie deal you’ve got. How long you were optioned before you got it. If they’re changing it much for the screenplay . . .’
Olivia was relieved at the chance to turn away. She couldn’t spend the entire evening trying not to stare at Leo’s face and sitting with her regrets.
‘How are you finding it overall?’ she asked Sam. ‘The retreat? Has it been useful for you?’
‘It’s heaven,’ Sam replied, quickly checking the contents of her glass. ‘And I’m getting so much done. I think it’s the peace and quiet. I should get my two books finished this year after all.’
‘That’s good.’
Leo and Martin drifted away, Martin gesticulating wildly. He appeared to be leading Leo to the buffet table.
‘I guess you don’t have to be so prolific, as each one of your books is a guaranteed success,’ Sam continued. ‘You can take your time. You’re not constantly rushing things out there, hoping one of the damn things sticks.’
‘It’s about one a year, and I do work hard.’ Olivia felt the need to defend herself. She also remembered when Leo had done the same. Their awful row in the library.
‘Of course you do.’
‘I’m not lazy . . .’
‘Well, of course you’re not! You’ve had how many books out now? Four?’
‘Five, actually.’
‘The latest being The Milliner . . . ?’
‘. . . on Mild Court Road, that’s right.’
Olivia hated this, this competitiveness. They were all on the same side, weren’t they? It wasn’t as though if one book did well, then others had to fail.
‘But I bet your advances are really great, and keep you going for a long time, and then there’s all those foreign rights deals . . .’
‘Oh, look, there’s a band setting up!’
Olivia motioned to the far side of the terrace where four young men dressed in black were taking to a tiny stage: tuning up instruments, executing a tap and a shiver on the drums, revolving a double bass with a flourish.
They were a swing band with a Frank Sinatra type crooner who launched, once they were ready, into ‘Strangers in the Night’.
‘Oh, how I love Italy!’ sighed Sam.
‘How are we paying for this, by the way?’ Olivia asked. ‘Surely this party is not free?’
‘There will be a hat going around at the end,’ Sam said. ‘We all pay what we believe the party was worth. And by the look of some of the high rollers here, I’m sure the restaurant is going to more than make their money back.’
She smiled pointedly at Olivia. Olivia smiled vaguely back.
She allowed her eyes to flit to the buffet table.
Martin was no longer to be seen, and Leo was talking to a very attractive woman with one of those glamorous headscarves swept tight over her crown and flowing to a big knot over her shoulder.
‘How do you feel about Leo being here?’ Henrietta asked. ‘You literally ran away from him this morning.’
‘I did not run away!’
Henrietta scoffed. ‘You didn’t even finish your eggs Benedict and that’s not like you.’
‘I had a very tricky chapter to wrestle with.’
‘So you said. You know . . .’ Henrietta indulged in a dramatic pause. ‘I think you two have history,’ she said shrewdly.
‘Why would you say that?’
Henrietta tucked a frizzy stack of hair behind her ear. ‘Well, let’s just say the crackle between you could rival any lightning I’ve ever seen, or have written about, probably. As soon as he arrived at the gate of the villa it was like, pow!’
Olivia shook her head. ‘There’s no pow!’ she insisted.
‘There so is! What went down with the two of you on the publishing circuit?’ Henrietta tilted her head at Olivia like a bird, but before Olivia could laugh her off with a retort, Henrietta cried, ‘Look! He’s coming over!’
The woman with the headscarf was now talking to a gentleman in a blue suit, and Leo was walking their way.
‘I’m going to the bar,’ Henrietta whispered. ‘Enjoy him. He’s absolutely gorgeous!’
Leo was holding a drink of lurid green and shrugging above it apologetically.
‘I’ve been given this,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure what it is.
Some kind of cocktail.’ He grinned and Olivia’s heart peeled away from the inside of her body and became weightless, rising inside her like a Chinese lantern.
Yes, he was gorgeous. Yes, his eyes were the colour of Swiss mountainsides.
His skin velvety and delicious. His mouth amazing.
Get down, she told her heart. Get down before you hurt yourself. You’ve been here before, after all.
‘It looks . . . dangerous,’ she said, but wasn’t everything here tonight?
Wasn’t just standing this close to him really dangerous?
She’d finished her glass of rosé and she could feel the alcohol doing its work.
Lowering her resistance, making her forget everything they couldn’t be to each other.
She could feel it ebbing to her fingertips, her toes – her rudderless, foolish heart. She’d been lonely, and he was here.
‘It’s bloody strong.’ He paused above it. ‘So, how are things? Apart from the obvious,’ he added. ‘I mean, wow, Olivia, your career. It’s just gone . . .’ He scooped an open palm towards the trellis roof in a manner that indicated stratospheric.
‘Thanks. Yes, it has,’ Olivia admitted. ‘It’s just been unbelievable. And yours, Leo. The movie . . . it’s such great news.’
‘It is.’ He looked thoughtful. ‘It was one of those things that took an interminable time to get the green light – so long, you assume it’s never going to happen, and suddenly it just did!
’ He clicked his fingers and flashed her a soul-collapsing smile.
‘But things are good?’ he repeated. ‘Life is treating you kindly? I heard . . .well, I heard that things didn’t work out with you and James. ’
‘Where did you hear that?’