Chapter 49
THE ROYCE HOTEL, MANHATTAN
There was now a perfume with Gabriella’s signature on.
A beautifully wrapped sample was sitting on the kitchen counter – Cheyenne’s latest surprise – merchandise that she would be selling along with the book at the department store tomorrow evening.
It smelled like a combination of cookies and grass in her opinion and she wasn’t sure who the target market was – someone from The Great British Bake Off tent?
With Phoebe and Mr Darcy ensconced in Phoebe’s bedroom of the suite, allegedly studying, Gabriella eyed up her drink choices. Coffee or Jack Daniels?
Before she could make a decision there was a knock on the door. Cheyenne?
‘What’s next?’ Gabriella asked, fingers on the door handle. ‘A Zero Fucks Given special blend matcha?’ She pulled the door open but, instead of Cheyenne, there was Luca.
He held up a brown bag. ‘No matcha. Just Loulou burgers and a choice of styles for you to wear to the department store.’
It was then she noticed the garment carrier over his other arm. ‘I thought we were meeting in the morning.’
‘Yeah,’ he said, nodding. ‘You’re right. I should take the burgers away and we will do this in the morning.’ He turned to go.
‘Stop,’ she said. ‘Idiot.’
He smiled. ‘Does that mean I can come in?’
‘It means the burgers can come in.’ She grabbed the bag from him. ‘I haven’t decided about you yet.’
‘OK,’ he said.
She took the burger bag into the kitchen area of the suite and then she realised he hadn’t followed her. And when she looked back to the door Luca was still standing in the entrance way.
‘What are you doing? Do you need an invitation like Robert Pattinson in Twilight?’
‘Please, nothing else connected with blood.’
‘Get in here,’ Gabriella ordered, putting the burgers onto plates.
‘Plates,’ he remarked, hanging the garment bag from the curtain pole above the patio doors. ‘I had you down as an eating out of a bag kind of girl.’
Gabriella looked at the porcelain on the counter and then loaded the burgers back into the bag and put the plates into the cupboard again.
‘You know I am.’ She brought the bag over to the coffee table.
‘I was also an eating pizza with my fingers kind of girl long before my mother forced me to use a knife and fork.’
‘Damn,’ he answered. ‘You are almost Italian.’
‘What?’
‘We always eat pizza with a knife and fork, unless it is a slice like the street food kind.’
‘So, were you born in Italy?’ Gabriella asked, handing him one of the burgers as she sat on the sofa alongside him.
He shook his head. ‘No. My great-grandfather, he was born in Naples and he came to New York when he was fifteen. There is a story about his hitchhiking all the way but it changes so much now when it is told I am beginning to think that none of it is true.’
‘Have you been to Italy?’
‘Only once. To Rome. A client had a performance and Sybille was unable to travel so I got to go.’ He took a breath.
‘I was there for thirty-six hours and most of that was in a stadium for the show. But before I had to leave for the airport I got to walk around the centre and it wasn’t like being in another country, it was like being in another world.
’ He paused before continuing. ‘In those few hours I understood a little more of how an Italian is in their own habitat.’
‘You don’t feel Italian here?’
‘That is a good question,’ he stated. ‘Being honest, I don’t know what I feel connected to here.’
‘You don’t like New York?’
‘I don’t know if I know New York completely. Some of it I love – my work, the many opportunities in all areas of life, but also I know that what I have grown up with is not 100 per cent what I want for my future.’
She quietened then. She didn’t feel she could probe when she felt so similarly about London. It wasn’t that she didn’t love her city, she just wasn’t entirely sure it was as part of her as it used to be. She bit into her burger and watched him do the same.
‘So, I need to tell you something, Gabriella,’ Luca said, after he had finished his bite and put his burger on top of the bag.
‘It sounds serious. Do I need to pour Jack Daniels?’ She was already half up from her seat, burger also put on the table.
‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘But, please, sit down for a second.’
She dropped back into the seat and waited for whatever was coming next. Why did she feel so nervous?
‘OK,’ he said. ‘So, I want to be honest with you.’
‘You haven’t been honest with me so far?’ Gabriella asked.
‘I have never lied to you,’ he said. ‘But I have always been only dealing with the surface. And I know you understand that.’
She couldn’t deny it. All those feelings wrapped up and hidden, her professional persona a well-rehearsed act. ‘And now?’
‘Now,’ Luca started. ‘I need to be honest because this morning I told Sybille that I no longer wanted to dress you for the rest of your time here.’
That hadn’t been what she was expecting and her heart dropped far more than it had any right to do.
But this was business, having been clouded temporarily by pre-Christmas, cold, cosy New York insanity, moonlight kissing and a night of insanely hot sex.
It was time to move on. She opened her mouth to deliver something that would reestablish the boundaries they had both crossed but he beat her to it…
‘And that’s when I knew I was out of my fucking mind.’ He shook his head. ‘I was going to palm you off to Sybille, walk away, try to forget how I feel, because I was too scared for you to find out who I really am.’
She didn’t say anything, she just looked into his eyes, reading the mix of anguish and confusion there.
‘But I had a conversation with Sybille and it helped to remind me why I had made sacrifices to begin with. And it was not so I could live a life of fear.’
‘Luca,’ Gabriella said. ‘I don’t want you to tell me anything that makes you feel like you’re compromising something.’
‘Why not?’ he asked. ‘Because isn’t that how we need to be when something matters to us? When someone matters?’
‘I don’t know,’ she answered, swallowing. ‘Because I’ve never been in that situation before.’
He took one of her hands then and his touch was the sweetest combination of tender, sensual and supportive.
‘Neither have I.’ He held her hand in his, his thumb stroking over her palm.
‘Not like this.’ He took a breath. ‘But I do know if I don’t share this truth with you, no matter how you feel about it, the life I want will never be mine. ’
‘Tell me,’ Gabriella said. ‘If that’s how you feel, just tell me.’
He nodded, squeezing her hand. ‘OK.’
She was holding her breath as she watched his expression, saw the nervousness written there as her own theories already started to form.
‘My real name, it isn’t Luca Manning. It’s Luca Marcello,’ he stated. ‘And my father, he’s in prison. For extortion, for money laundering… fraud, counterfeiting and bribery.’ He took a breath. ‘And he should also be in there for assault, armed robbery and…’ She watched him take a breath. ‘Murder.’
Gabriella was nodding. Why was she nodding? This was not the kind of information where a nod was any kind of right reaction at all. Her mind was racing and she couldn’t appropriately assess anything. She didn’t even know whether Luca was still holding her hand or whether she was holding his.
‘I don’t know 100 per cent that the things that have been happening – with your dress that night, with Errol, and what happened at the market – I don’t know if they are solely down to my father but I know my connection to him most likely is at the root of it and I can’t hide that from you or anyone else I’m close to anymore. ’
She kept nodding. What the fuck was wrong with her?
‘Are you OK?’ he asked. ‘Because I know that’s a lot and I kinda threw it out there.’
‘No, I mean, yes, I mean, it’s a lot and I don’t know what I expected you to tell me but—’
‘I’m not like him, Gabriella. At all. And that’s why I changed my name and why I have nothing to do with him.
Because I know he committed those crimes with no remorse and I know he committed more, much more than anyone knows about and that’s more than enough to carry around with me each and every day. ’
She nodded again. This was a lot. All her thoughts were travelling at once to Phoebe, her first priority.
How did this fit with Phoebe and Gabriella’s role as her guardian?
How was it supposed to fit even in his role as her stylist?
There was the possibility of danger, for her and for Phoebe.
It would be easy to say it didn’t matter. But didn’t it?
‘Say something,’ Luca pleaded, her hand still in his. ‘Even if it’s to tell me you don’t want to see me again.’
‘I’m not going to say that,’ she breathed.
‘But you’re thinking it.’
She wasn’t. Was she? Phoebe. What Phoebe had been through. How she needed stability in an important year at school. How Gabriella had to be the rock of a mother figure that she herself had never had growing up. How this couldn’t last, couldn’t possibly be…
‘It’s OK,’ Luca whispered. He squeezed her hand and then got to his feet.
‘What are you doing?’ Gabriella asked, feeling the absence of his touch already.
‘I’m going to go now,’ he said in as businesslike a manner as he had ever spoken to her in.
‘You don’t have to do that,’ Gabriella said. She got up too.
‘I know,’ he said. ‘But I should.’
‘Luca—’
‘Please, Gabriella. Really, you do not have to say anything.’ He smiled. ‘It was enough for me to open up to you. And it’s a lot for anyone to process.’
‘Don’t go like this.’ She should say more. She should say about Phoebe. She should start to be honest with her thoughts and her feelings but the words just weren’t coming.
‘There are two outfits in the bag,’ he said, indicating where it was hanging from the curtain pole. ‘I like the burgundy, but it is up to you to decide.’
‘You won’t be there? At the department store?’ He had always been there since she had started this tour. Dressing her, yes, but also talking to her, giving her confidence, supporting her.
‘No,’ he replied. ‘There’s somewhere else I have to be.’
‘Passing me off to Sybille after all?’
He shook his head. ‘Not at all.’ He paused and then: ‘Unless you want me to?’
She swallowed. She should say something affirming. She should ask questions about what he had told her, deal with facts not the concerns her mind was readily suggesting. Say something.
‘Hey,’ he said, reaching out and cupping her jaw with his hand. ‘Finish the burger. Get some sleep. Be ready to sell books.’
She put her hand over his. ‘Luca.’
‘Yes?’
‘Thank you.’
He nodded and she had never felt more inadequate as a human. With nothing left to be said, he let her go and headed for the door. ‘Goodnight, Gabriella.’
‘Goodnight,’ she replied.
He took one last look at her and then he left. It was perhaps a minute before Gabriella heard Lulu’s voice.
‘Thank you’? Ella-Bella! He pours out his family lore and you say ‘thank you’? What were you thinking? Were you even thinking at all?
Right now, there was no answer to give.