Chapter Seventeen
He quickened his step, keen to be with Jade when her birth mother turned up.
Last night, she’d told him on the phone about her temporary employment of her mother.
Listening to Jade’s sweet, smooth voice, speaking English with the Scottish lilt a bit like his own but slipping into Italian when quoting anything her mother had said, he’d lain on his bed, somehow managing to concentrate despite disturbing memories of Jade in that very spot, rocking on top of him, convulsing around him, her hair loose and wild, the air charged with lust as they reacquainted themselves with each other’s burning bodies. It had been like a fever.
Cradling her afterwards, her softness snuggled against his side . . . His disappointment had shocked him when she’d called a taxi to leave, refusing to let him ride with her. Her arched brown brows had lifted incredulously. ‘Then you’d have to pay to be driven back. That’s crazy.’
So, he’d walked her around the hotel to the front gate, his fingers linked through hers, to see her safely into the cab with a lame, ‘Text me when you’re safely home.
’ If he was staying, he’d buy his own car and find somewhere to keep it.
If he ever got his money back. Torn between sick with worry and incandescent with rage, he was telephoning the bank daily now, requesting updates, demanding answers.
They treated him with a maddening distance, their only reassurance that they’d give him information when they could.
‘Not really,’ he said, looking both ways before crossing near the Palace Hotel. ‘Unless you consider “investigation ongoing” an update.’
Isabella sounded calmer and sadder than when they’d last spoken, as if not reeling quite so madly from the shock of losing huge sums of money. ‘Same here. What a mess.’ And then, wistfully, ‘How’s Italy?’
‘Great.’ He looked around at the sunlight on the muted colours of the beautiful buildings with their wrought-iron balconies. ‘I’m happy to be here again. How’s Norfolk?’
‘Grey. The school summer holidays are passing fast. We have a wedding reception tomorrow so the hotel’s busy. It’s good people don’t only get married on Saturdays now. More bookings.’
He struggled to find something else to say to this woman he’d once shared his life with. ‘Let’s stay in touch. Fingers crossed we both get our money back.’
‘Yes. Bye.’ Isabella sounded exactly as she was – in a dark place of the soul, confronted by the stinky clay feet of her idol, Daddy, as well as an empty bank account.
He turned into Piazza Cavour, where tables and chairs were already being set out at cafés that would buzz with customers all day.
Helping Jade would give him something to think about other than his money worries – enormous though those worries were.
The thought that it might lead to snatched moments alone with her quickened his stride. They’d be the best moments of the day.
He arrived at the pensione and followed a couple of guests across Reception and into the breakfast room, welcomed by clean tablecloths, shining cutlery and the delicious aroma of coffee.
It was cosy to see as few as six guests at breakfast. Villa Panorama could have ten or fifteen times that.
In the kitchen, he found Jade already bustling.
The crease tucked between her eyebrows vanished when she saw him.
‘Ciao.’ In the morning light, the golden flecks in her eyes were like sparks and he found her plain black stretchy dress incredibly sexy. Resisting the urge to drag her into his arms, he contented himself with dropping a kiss on her sweet-smelling cheek. ‘OK?’
She grimaced as she slid brioche from a tray onto a pink napkin on a white plate.
‘Yes. No. Feel sick. Wish she’d never returned to Como.
She’s supposed to be here any time.’ She didn’t have to say ‘Geneva’ for him to know who she meant, because when she glanced at the kitchen clock she almost vibrated with nerves.
He could best help her in practical ways. He picked up a stack of clean plates.
Carlotta arrived, gave Jade a big, silent hug, then went to sweep floors.
If hugs were OK in the privacy of the kitchen . . . he waited until the door had swung behind Carlotta and then pulled Jade into an embrace of his own. She clung for an instant, before lifting her soft mouth to his, hot and luscious.
Pleasure rolled down his spine like treacle. ‘Missed me?’ he murmured, when he could bring himself to pull back.
‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘I need you . . .’
‘Mm?’ He lifted a suggestive eyebrow.
She grinned. ‘To refresh the buffet.’
He chuckled, glad to see a flash of humour as she freed herself and turned her attention to a blue bowl of whisked eggs.
Despite his own worries, he noted that Jade met every challenge with resolve.
She added another centimetre of steel to her spine and got on with whatever needed her attention next.
The hits she’s taken, he thought, as he carried his stack of plates into the breakfast room.
That was when he saw a woman in a loose black dress hovering anxiously beside the reception desk, as if unsure whether to ding the bell.
Her streaky grey hair was pulled back in a bun like a scouring pad, and the tendrils escaping around her hairline formed little springs.
The eyes she turned on him were smaller and darker, but her resemblance to Jade stopped him in his tracks.
Seeing she’d caught his attention, the woman gave him a tentative nod and approached the breakfast room threshold. ‘Buongiorno. Is Jade Beretta here?’
‘Solo un momento,’ he answered, and returned to the kitchen. ‘She’s arrived,’ he said briefly. ‘Shall I bring her through?’
Jade’s eyes widened as she paused in the act of popping bread into the toaster.
Her shoulders rose and fell, and then she came to join him in the open doorway to check the tables, where people munched contentedly on cornetti or sweet rolls with jam.
‘There aren’t many guests yet. Can you manage while I deal with her?
’ Her voice was steady, but he could guess what that cost her.
‘Of course. Coffee machines and toasters hold no terrors for me.’ He ran the back of his fingers up her bare arm, earning him the flicker of a smile.
‘Thanks.’ Discarding her apron, she strode out, and he followed, curious to observe her with the woman who’d given her life. He watched her greeting Geneva calmly, ushering her back into Reception. ‘Buongiorno. It might seem an odd question in the circumstances, but do you have identification?’
Geneva’s lips lifted, as if seeing the ironic humour in Jade having to ask her birth mother to prove who she was. ‘Sì. Carta d’identità.’ The standard ID card.
Jade nodded and the two women headed towards the office beside the front doors. Leo returned to the kitchen.
She returned in ten minutes, telling Geneva, ‘This is Leo. Carlotta’s also on today, and soon Yara will arrive to work on Reception.
’ Politely, she showed Geneva where to wash her hands and find a clean apron, then set her to clearing tables and loading the dishwasher.
When the reception bell dinged, Jade went to answer while Leo whizzed into the breakfast room with an order of cappuccinos.
Peak breakfast time today turned out to be 9 a.m., when the breakfasting guests numbered seventeen.
Jade, having silently watched Leo successfully scramble eggs and toast sliced bread, let him fulfil some of the orders.
Geneva continued to silently clear and stack.
Leo caught her casting furtive glances after Jade, always darting her gaze away if Jade might turn and catch her.
Yara arrived on Reception. Carlotta came into the kitchen and was introduced. She treated Geneva to a long, speculative stare, then turned to Jade with a warm smile. ‘Yara says we have two early checkouts. Shall I service those rooms?’
Jade nodded. ‘Yes, please. Take Geneva. Show her where to get a tabard.’ To Geneva, she added, ‘Carlotta will explain what to do.’
Geneva followed Carlotta from the room, like a child on her first day at school trying to get used to the unfamiliar without drawing attention to herself.
When the door closed behind them, Jade’s cool calm cracked and she sagged as if her bones had vanished. He scooped her against him for a big, comforting squeeze. ‘You’re awesome.’
‘Actually, I’m freaked.’ But she laughed, squeezed him back, then straightened up and went on with her day. Fresh respect for her swelled in his heart.
Late morning he was left alone to lay the breakfast room tables afresh, smoothing on snowy white tablecloths and adding pink top cloths and napkins.
When his phone burbled, he was surprised to see it was Isabella calling again.
He stepped into the kitchen of gleaming stainless steel, now empty, to answer. ‘Hi. I’m working—’
‘The police have Daddy.’ Isabella blurted it out, her voice as sharp as glass. ‘In London. He’s not in South Africa at all. Apparently, he was stopped driving a stolen car. The number plate pinged one of those cameras.’
His mind spun at this shocking news. ‘Do you know what’s going on? Do you think he just told you he was going back to South Africa, while he slipped off somewhere else entirely?’
She choked back a sob. ‘I don’t know. The police notified me that they’ve detained a suspect – and then Dad had the cheek to ask that I be informed he’d been arrested, as if I might bail him out or something!
I think he must just be a liar and a con man.
I feel sick.’ Isabella began snuffling and rasping as she cried.
‘Wow. That’s horrible for you.’ Leo waited for her to calm enough for speech, absently swinging the door between kitchen and breakfast room.
When he detected his mother’s voice, he pushed the door further open, frowning as he tried to make out her words as first Sheenagh spoke Italian, and then English.