CHAPTER TWO

      DAMN YOU, NICO!

      How much clearer could he have made it that he did not want her near him? He could not have been more horrible had he tried.

      As Nico stalked off Aurora wanted to be done with her feelings for him. To shed them. To discard them. To stamp her foot on them and kick them to the kerb. She was tired of them and bone-weary from this unrequited love.

      ‘Aurora.’ Marianna had found her. ‘We need to talk. Or rather, you need to listen.’

      ‘I already know what you’re going to say.’

      But she was told anyway.

      A little more decorum and a lot less sass, or she would be shadowing the bottle-washer for the rest of the week.

      And while Aurora understood what was being said, she just did not know how to squeeze herself into the box demanded of her. Or how not to be herself when she was near Nico.

      ‘Hello, husband,’ she had used to greet him teasingly when, as a young girl, she had opened the door to him.

      He would shake his head and roll his eyes at the precocious child who constantly fought for his smile and attention. ‘Your father says he wants some firewood chopped,’ Nico would respond.

      Yet, as much as he’d dismiss her, she would still sit and watch him chop firewood, and her heart would bleed when he took off his top and she saw a new bruise or a gash on his back.

      How could Geo do that to him?

      How could anyone hate Nico so?

      Then he would look over, and sometimes he would smile rather than scowl at his devoted audience. And her day would be made.

      Nico hadn’t broken her heart when he had first left Silibri—after all, she had only been ten then—though for a while she had cried herself to sleep at night.

      No, the heartbreak had occurred on one of his rare trips home, when Aurora had been sixteen.

      Her heart had sung, just at knowing he was home, and then one afternoon he had spoken at length with her father behind closed doors. She had assumed they were drinking the grappa her father had saved for this very day.

      And then Nico had come out and asked if she’d like to take a walk. She had quickly washed her face and hands and scrubbed her nails, so her hands would look pretty for the ring. And she had brushed her teeth for she had wanted to taste fresh for her first kiss.

      They had walked down the hill and around the old monastery, but instead of heading to the ancient temple ruins, Aurora’s favourite place, Nico had suggested they take the steps down the cliff to the beach.

      ‘Our fathers are very old fashioned…’ Nico had said as they walked on the deserted sands.

      ‘Yes!’ Aurora had beamed, for she had known he had just been speaking with hers.

      ‘They try to make decisions for us.’

      She’d felt the first prickle of warning that this conversation might not be going as she had long hoped. ‘They do,’ she had rather carefully agreed.

      ‘Aurora, I stopped allowing my father to dictate to me a long time ago.’

      ‘I know he is difficult. I know you hate him. But—’

      ‘Aurora,’ he broke in. ‘I can’t see myself ever marrying. I don’t want to have a family. I want freedom…’

      It had been the worst moment of her life.

      ‘Aurora!’

      Marianna’s voice broke in on her painful reminiscence.

      ‘Are you even listening to what I’m saying?’

      ‘Of course,’ Aurora said. She hadn’t been listening, but she could guess very well what Marianna had said. ‘Don’t worry, I…’ She gave a slow nod, took a deep breath and made a vow—not just to Marianna but also to herself. ‘I will not embarrass myself again.’

      Aurora was done with Nico Caruso.

      For eight years she had loved him in secret.

      A whole third of her life!

      Well, no more.

      It was time to snuff out the torch she carried.

      She would be calm and distant and professional if she ever saw him again.

      ‘I didn’t mean you to take it like that…’ Marianna gave her first kind smile. ‘Nico is a wonderful boss, but he’s no one’s friend. Just remember that when you’re working together.’

      ‘I will.’

      ‘Come on—the driver is waiting.’

      ‘The driver?’

      ‘So I can go and pack for Signor Caruso’s trip. Oh, and I must organise his driver for the morning, now he’s no longer staying at the hotel…’

      Aurora just wanted the day to be over. She wanted to go back to her hotel room, throw herself on the bed and cry…and then emerge better and stronger and step into the future without him.

      Instead, she had to step into his home.

      It was beautiful, of course.

      Nico lived in the Parioli district, and his residence was just a short drive from the hotel. It was elegant and tasteful and her heels rang out on the marble floors.

      There was a huge gleaming kitchen, where Marianna deposited the limoncello and passata in rather empty cupboards. Then they went back to the main corridor, with its cathedral-high ceilings and a grand staircase which she climbed reluctantly—for surely Nico’s bedroom was not