Chapter Six
LILY WALKED DOWN the cobbled street of an exclusive residential area in central Rome.
Her stomach churned and she swallowed down the ever-present bile rising to her throat.
She stopped for a moment against a tree, resting under its shade.
It seemed a lifetime ago that she’d been dressed in splendour at a ball in Venice.
Now the weather was no longer cold; the temperature balmy, sun shining brightly.
A beautiful day, some might have said, but all she could think of was what she had to do.
Keep moving forwards.
Lily checked the address of the house Max had helped her locate using her extensive connections, because people like Rocco Silvestri tended not to advertise their private residences.
She’d already used up some precious funds searching for him in what she’d been informed was his usual haunt of Milan, but he wasn’t at his family’s business, Silvestri Furniture, or at the apartment he kept there.
Meaning she’d had to expend more money to travel here—the only other place Max could find that he owned in Italy.
She didn’t want to think about his other homes around the world and what it might mean if he was staying in one of those.
Maybe she should have taken her boss’s advice and made an approach through lawyers, but that seemed all too cold and calculating, especially after the night she and Rocco had shared.
Plus, the problem was she needed to see him.
Was compelled to speak to him in person.
That’s what drew her back to Italy. In truth, she’d wanted to from the moment she walked out of his hotel after pulling on her beautiful but crushed dress, laughing and trying to sound sophisticated when, after the night of pleasure she’d had, all she’d really felt was a confusing mix of elation and sadness.
She couldn’t forget their final exchange.
‘I guess I have to do the walk of shame,’ she’d said, trying to smooth down her skirt into some semblance of respectability.
That’s when he’d wrapped his arms round her and kissed her one last intoxicating time. Saying, ‘There’s no shame in anything we did, Lily.’
She had to remember that. There was no shame in any of this.
Lily pulled her water bottle from her bag and took a hefty swig, the liquid hitting her empty stomach.
Nausea threatened, back with a vengeance since she’d arrived in Italy.
Stress, probably. She fished around in her bag and grabbed a grissini, nibbling on the crunchy dry bread because her doctor had told her the best thing was to snack.
Little and often. Once her stomach had settled, she crossed the road and reached Rocco’s home.
The tall solid gates tipped with imposing spikes were locked.
That wasn’t a surprise. No-one wealthy enough to live here amongst these towering villas and modern mansions would leave their gates open.
Lily took moments trying to steady her fast-beating heart—another side effect of pregnancy that had plagued her.
How would Rocco react to seeing her and the bombshell she’d come to deliver?
She smoothed over her hair a little, hoping she looked okay.
Makeup could only do so much to cover up lack of sleep and the effects of persistent morning sickness.
She didn’t believe that she’d ever enter the ‘glowing’ phase of pregnancy and didn’t have the time to wait anyhow.
She dug deep into herself, trying to find the woman who’d looked at Rocco the night of the ball and said, ‘Perhaps instead of Medici I should call you Casanova?’ Where had she gone?
That’s the person Lily needed to be today, and that woman wouldn’t be standing hesitating outside a front gate. She’d be acting.
Lily reached out and pressed the buzzer on the intercom.
The sound harsh and discordant. A woman’s voice answered.
Lily’s stomach roiled. As far as she was aware from her internet searches, Rocco didn’t have a wife or girlfriend but who really knew?
Men could do or say anything they wanted, and often did.
Richard had taught her that lesson: pretending to be one kind of person when he was another entirely.
Well, it was now or never. She looked into the camera, pulled up the translate function on her phone, and read what she’d practised in Italian, ‘Vorrei parlare con il signor Rocco Silvestri per favore.’
The disembodied woman’s voice began speaking in Italian, which Lily didn’t understand. She rested her palm against the cool stuccoed wall.
‘Mi chiamo Lily Rutherford …’
He wouldn’t know who that was.
‘Tell him it’s Lily … I’m …farfallina.’
She waited. Nothing. Only silence from the house and a few chirps of birds in the street.
Another day, another fruitless search. She looked around for a letterbox slot, but nothing was obvious.
If she needed to, she’d thread one of the letters she’d brought just in case through the bars of the gate.
Rocco could read it at his leisure. When there was still no movement in the house, she reached into her bag to do just that.
Contemplating the long trip back to the convent where she was staying.
The cheapest accommodation she could find apart from a youth hostel—which she really wouldn’t have been able to bear, not the way she was currently feeling.
As she touched the cold hard iron, the gate buzzed and clicked. She jumped and looked over at the camera, her heart pounding. Was Rocco looking back at her? Was he happy to see her? Was he even at home? Lily pushed at the gate which yielded and she stepped through.
In some ways, it was like stepping back into her past. Her old life.
The front garden was quite small, a stone path leading up to the magnificent stucco villa that looked Art Deco in its styling.
In the lawn on either side of the path, jonquils had naturalised themselves, poking up through the grass.
Tears pricked her eyes. It was so familiar.
Like the lawns round her family home in spring.
The London Park she walked through in the mornings to get to work.
Yet nothing about her actual situation was familiar at all.
The gate snicked behind her as she made her way to the house on trembling legs, clutching her bag.
The sick feeling wound further up her throat, but she swallowed down the sensation and it subsided a little.
Well, it was now or never. She’d tried practicing for different scenarios.
That Rocco was happy to see her and took the news well.
That he was ambivalent …or worse. She walked up the three short stone steps to the portico.
In moments, she’d find out who Rocco Silvestri really was.
The gleaming door opened and Rocco stood in the doorway.
Seeing him again hit her with the force of a punch that simply knocked the breath from her lungs.
Dressed in black trousers, a black linen shirt and loafers, he was Italian style personified.
As tall, broad and imposing as she remembered.
Somehow more so because she wasn’t the Lily of that night in Venice.
In many ways she was smaller, somehow diminished.
She’d forgotten how handsome he was or the impact he had on her.
Every memory of a stolen night, when she’d lived her dreams, came rushing back.
The magic of hands and fingertips, a little rough against her skin.
The way he’d held her, like she was precious and perfect.
She’d faced the first week after returning to her home in London grieving the loss of something that never was.
Now she just wanted to drink him in. Relive the fantasy.
It was like she’d come alive again. Something about seeing him there in the flesh settled her frantic heartbeat.
It made her believe that maybe, just maybe, something in her life was going to go right.
Except …
The look on his face wasn’t exactly welcoming. His lips a tight, thin line.
‘Lily. How did you find me?’ Rocco’s voice was low and rough, the timbre of it caressing her skin. ‘Why are you here?’
The first question was the easy bit, so she’d start with that. ‘A magazine article. I saw your picture.’
Gah. Listen to herself. How must it sound from Rocco’s perspective?
A little …stalkerish. Which must be what he was thinking from the way he looked at her, because nothing about that was in any way familiar.
No slow perusal, or glint of attraction in his eyes.
His gaze narrowed. He crossed his arms, closing himself off.
In this moment she craved his arms to open, so she could throw herself into them.
Have all that strength hold her up and hold her together.
This was all so exhausting. What she wouldn’t give to simply lie down and fall asleep for ten years.
Bone-numbing tiredness like she’d never experienced constantly threatened to overwhelm her.
‘That’s no explanation,’ he said. ‘What we had was one night. No names—’
‘I gave you mine.’
He frowned. ‘Yet I didn’t give you mine. Whatever you’re hoping for, there’s nothing here for you.’
Nothing here for you. The pain knifed deep inside. Well, what did she expect? Some grand reconciliation? No, she was just dull Lily Rutherford. Why did she ever imagine that he might like to see her again? It had been a silly fantasy she’d concocted to make what she had to do here easier.
He watched her, his head cocked, gaze intense but lacking any heat.
She wanted that heat. Why did she feel so cold all of a sudden?
She needed to say something rather than standing there like a fish gaping on a hook, but the words were stuck.
She should have taken Maxine’s advice. Gone through lawyers.
This, here, tainted every beautiful memory she’d clung onto of that night they’d spent together.
Though, wasn’t it better to know now, than hold false hopes?