Page 20 of Marriage Made In Hate

‘S O , HERE IT IS . The palazzo ’s very own Roman ruin, as promised!’

Luca paused at the far end of the path that had brought them here.

‘What you see is likely to be second century AD, but built over earlier foundations. There’s nothing particularly remarkable about it from an archaeological perspective, but it’s picturesque.

I enjoyed clambering around here when I was a kid, and the bubbling spring was always fun, though I’m not sure it’s ever healed anyone!

It’s mineral water—but not sulphurous, thankfully.

Nor is it geothermically hot either, which again is probably just as well.

There’s enough restless geology in Italy for us to prefer it not too close! ’

‘Do you get earthquakes in this vicinity?’ Bianca asked.

‘Blessedly not—sometimes tremors, but we’ve largely been spared. It’s in the mountains that they usually hit.’

‘The African plate moving north and squeezing the Med. Sad to think the Med will disappear in a few million years…’

Luca looked at her. It was still disconcerting, what Bianca had told him on the way here—that she now had a graduate-level science-based job.

The Bianca he’d known wouldn’t have had a clue about plate tectonics, any more than eighteenth-century garden landscaping.

Those kinds of subjects had never cropped up in their time together in London.

Not that he’d minded or cared—nor thought less of her for not knowing things he took for granted.

Why should she? It wasn’t part of her world.

Nor had it meant she was stupid, either.

She’d had a sharp mind, was capable of holding her own in any conversation, and she’d asked questions—from asking who Titian was to what kind of work he did in international investment banking, where he’d been in the world on business and what those places were like.

He’d enjoyed telling her, he remembered. And enjoyed, too, her regaling him with what she knew about—celebrities, films, shows in London. Her opinions had been forthright and often pungent, always entertaining.

She could make me laugh. We had a good time together.

Then he’d ended it.

Because it needed to end. It had run its course and I was leaving London. Whatever she might have wanted, I didn’t.

His eyes followed her as she picked her way carefully into the ruined temple. Thoughts circled. He’d told her at lunch he hadn’t intended to hurt her—but what had he known, six years ago, of emotional pain? He’d learnt since then…

His expression changed. He’d come here, to the ruined temple, that bleak time three years ago, trying to come to terms with his parents’ tragic deaths. Sitting down on one of those broken walls, staring into space, feeling the pain, the cruel rawness of loss. Loss that was for ever.

That pain was there still, though muted by the passage of time—pain he knew he would feel again at Matteo’s passing when it came.

Loss was always hard.

His brow furrowed, eyes still on Bianca. She’d had to lose a man she hadn’t wanted to lose. And whether or not it had or hadn’t been his fault that he hadn’t wanted to continue their relationship, and even though he hadn’t intended to hurt her by severing it, hurt her he had.

He might have claimed that he’d thought it better she should hate him than miss him, but that wouldn’t have made her hurt any less. He could see that now—now that he, too, knew what loss was…

I could have been less brutal…not spelling out how impossible it was, given our differences, that there could be anything more between us. I could have let her down more gently.

He felt regret pluck at him, and knew that the man he was now, six years older, scarred by his own emotional pain, would not have been so callous, so unfeeling. But back then he’d wanted only to find a way to get away from her, whatever he had to say to do so.

His thoughts moved on. Because of Matteo, Bianca was back in his life. He deplored it, wished it not so—wished he could deny what he could not.

His eyes lingered on her. She’d paused by the little spring that poured its water into a stone basin before running off in a channel out of the temple.

She was wearing the same elegant pale yellow shift dress that she’d worn the day before in Pavenza, with the same low-heeled shoes, and her hair was in the same neat pleat, make-up still minimal.

The cool image suited her…enhanced her beauty.

A beauty whose effect on him he could not deny.

Oh, he knew that he’d gone into that clinch with Bianca on that first shocking night when she’d walked back into his life simply as a reaction to her scornful repulsing of him, nothing more than that. But since then—

Since then he’d been discovering more and yet more about her.

How she’d remade herself by her own hardworking efforts—how his godfather had discovered her to be his unknown niece—how obviously devoted to Matteo she was.

But he was being reminded of all that she had always been, too.

The Bianca he had known so well—plain-speaking, honest, never putting anything on, just being herself.

He was reminded of everything that had gone beyond her eye-catching looks to draw him to her.

And for a moment past and present seemed to merge… old Bianca with new Bianca.

But she’s the same person—the core of her always has been.

There was a maturity about her now that went with the new image, the achievements her own efforts had brought her, but that only drew him to her more.

Unease flickered within him. Uncertainty…

They were being thrown together only because they both wanted to protect Matteo. There could not be any other reason. Should not be.

And yet…

She was turning around, standing in the centre of the ruins, looking towards the palazzo , now bathed in sunlight, and then back to the ancient ruins and their immediate surroundings.

It was very peaceful. The grass growing around and between the stones was dry and tall, winnowed by the light breeze lifting the air.

A little lizard was basking on one of the sun-warmed blocks.

The muted chirruping chorus of the cicadas mingled with the low gurgle of the spring splashing into the stone basin, and there was the buzz of bees, busy gathering nectar from wild flowers nearby, and the call of birds from the woods behind the ruins.

Her gaze came back to him. For a moment their eyes met and held. They were wrapped by the peace all around them. Uniting them…

‘It’s a beautiful place to call home,’ she said quietly, her gaze sweeping around once more in slow appreciation. ‘You were very fortunate to grow up here.’

Was there a trace of envy in her voice? It would not be unreasonable if so, Luca allowed. Anywhere more different from the crowded, noisy, unlovely city council estate she’d told him she’d grown up on would be hard to imagine.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I was.’

There was a wealth of feeling in his statement.

She turned her face to look at him, and their eyes held each other’s again. For a moment he saw those two images of Bianca blurred together, past and present. He felt emotion pluck at him—but he did not know what, or why.

Then she was speaking again.

‘I can see now why it was so impossible for me to want what I wanted six years ago.’

Her gaze swept around again, then back across the wide, landscaped gardens to the palazzo that had been his home all his life. Elegant, gracious—privileged.

She was stepping beyond the boundary of the temple now, back on to the path. ‘Hadn’t we better start heading back?’ she said. Her tone of voice had changed. ‘I wouldn’t want Matteo to get fretful.’

Luca nodded. ‘Yes, you’re right,’ he answered her, following her lead back into the present—not the past that had ended so badly. ‘But there’s time to refresh ourselves before I drive back. I’ll give Giuseppe a call and tell him when to expect us, so he can let your uncle know.’

He led the way along the path across the gardens, past the south-facing facade of the palazzo. Bianca’s words echoed in his head. Could he ever have seen the Bianca of six years ago here? It was a question he did not want to ask—or answer.

But there was one he could answer—and answer immediately. It was easy to see the Bianca of now here. His eyes flickered to her. Elegant, poised, soignée—perfectly at home in a palazzo.

Emotion moved within him, but still he did not know what. Knew only that something, somehow, was changing inside him. Something in this day—showing Bianca his home, letting her into his life—was causing him to change.

And, although he could not give reasons for it, he was not repulsing that change.

Not repulsing it at all.

* * *

Bianca took a sip of her citrus spritzer, welcoming its chilled, tangy fizz. They were sitting outside on the wide terrace, shaded by a sail parasol, and Luca was on the phone to Giuseppe, as he’d promised.

Her mood was strange. Almost melancholy.

She hadn’t wanted to come here…to see Luca’s ancestral home.

But now she had seen it she was glad she had.

Her words to him at the temple had been sincere.

Having seen how he lived—what he called home—had showed her just how hopelessly unrealistic she’d been all those years ago.

And although the realisation hurt—how could it not?

—it seemed, it was also draining from her some of the six long years of anger at his dismissal.

The anger that had possessed her ever since.

A wound was finally cleansing itself. Was that what was happening?

If it is, then I must be glad of it—welcome it.

‘Let it go, Bianca,’ Luca had told her.

Was that, finally, what she was doing? Was she able to do it?

But seeing Luca here, in his ancestral home, as beautiful as it was, was engendering other emotions within her. She could feel them plucking at her.

How wonderful it must be to have a place like this to call one’s home.