PROLOGUE

      ‘THANKS, BUT I’M really hoping to be spending Christmas with my family.’ Realising that she might have come across as ungrateful, Antonietta immediately apologised. ‘It’s very kind of you to invite me, but...’

      ‘I get it.’ Aurora shrugged as she carried on helping Antonietta to unpack. ‘You didn’t come to Silibri to spend Christmas Day with the Messinas.’

      ‘Ah, but you’re a Caruso now!’ Antonietta smiled.

      The cemetery in the village of Silibri, where Antonietta had loved to wander, held many names, but there were a few constants, and Caruso, Messina and Ricci were the prominent ones.

      Especially Ricci.

      The Ricci family extended across the south-west region of Sicily and beyond, but Silibri was its epicentre. Antonietta’s father, who was the chief fire officer and a prominent landowner, was well connected and held in high regard.

      ‘Do you know...?’ Antonietta paused in hanging up the few clothes she owned. ‘If I had married Sylvester then I wouldn’t even have had to change my surname. I would still be Antonietta Ricci.’

      ‘Yes, and you would be married to your second cousin and living in a property on the grounds of your father’s home, with Sylvester working for him.’

      ‘True...’ Antonietta started to say, but then faltered.

      She had run away on her wedding day, five years ago, in rather spectacular style—climbing out of the bedroom window as her father waited outside to take her to the packed church. Sylvester was popular in the village, and a member of her extended family, so the fallout had been dire—her family had rejected her completely. Letters and emails had gone unanswered and her mother hung up on her whenever she called to try and make her case.

      She had spent four years living and working in France, but though she had persisted with the language, and made friends there, it had never felt like home. So she had come back to Silibri, for Aurora and Nico’s wedding, but there had been no welcome committee to greet her. Instead she had been shunned by both her immediate and extended family.

      Rejecting Sylvester, and so publicly, had been taken as a rejection of them and their closed family values and traditions.

      Since Nico and Aurora’s wedding she had been working at Nico’s grand hotel in Rome, as a chambermaid. But Rome was not home either, and she had often confided to her friend how she missed Silibri.

      Antonietta had wanted one final chance to make amends, and Aurora had offered a solution—she could work as a chambermaid in Nico’s new hotel in Silibri while training part-time as a massage therapist. The old monastery there had been painstakingly rebuilt, and refurbished to Nico’s exacting standards, and it was more a luxurious retreat than a hotel. To train there would be a career boost indeed.

      It was an opportunity that Antonietta didn’t want to miss—but, given the level of animosity towards her, it was clear she would struggle to live in the village. Aurora had had a solution to that too—there was a small stone cottage, set on the cliff-edge, and Aurora had said she was more than welcome to use it.

      ‘The internet connection is terrible there and it’s too close to the helipad and hangar for the guests,’ Aurora had explained, ‘so it’s just sitting empty.’

      ‘Hopefully I shan’t need it for too long,’ Antonietta had replied. ‘Once my family know that I’m back and working...’

      She had seen the doubtful look flicker in her dear friend’s eyes. The same doubtful look that flickered now, as Antonietta insisted she would be back with her family for the festivities.

      ‘Antonietta...?’

      She heard the question in her friend’s voice and braced herself. Aurora was as outspoken as Antonietta was quiet, but till now her friend had refrained from stating the obvious.

      ‘It’s been five years since your family have spoken to you...’

      ‘I know that,’ Antonietta said. ‘But it’s not as if I’ve actually given them much opportunity to do so.’

      ‘You came back for my wedding,’ Aurora pointed out. ‘And you were ignored by them.’

      ‘I think they were just shocked to see me. But once they know I’m properly here, that I’m back for good...’

      Aurora sat down on the bed but Antonietta remained standing, not wanting to have the conversation that was to come.

      ‘It’s been years,’ Aurora said again. ‘You were only twenty-one when it happened, and now you are close to turning twenty-six! Isn’t it time to stop beating yourself up?’

      ‘But I’m not,’ Antonietta said. ‘It’s been an amazing five years. I’ve travelled and I’ve learnt a new language. It’s not as if I’m walking around in sackcloth and ashes—most of the time life is wonderful. It’s just at...’

       Just at other times.

      Times that should surely be spent with family.

      ‘Christmas is especially hard,’ Antonietta admitted. ‘It is then that I miss them the most. And I find it hard to believe that they don’t think of me and miss me also. Especially my mother. I want to give them one final chance...’

      ‘Fair enough—but what about fun?’ Aurora persisted. ‘I get that it hasn’t been all doom and gloom, but you haven’t spoken of any friends. I never hear you saying you’re going on a date...’

      ‘You never dated anyone until Nico,’ Antonietta said rather defensively.

      ‘Only because I have loved Nico my entire life,’ Aurora said. ‘No one compared. But at least I tried once...’

      They both laughed as they recalled Aurora’s attempt to get over Nico by getting off with a fireman, but then Antonietta’s laughter died away. There was a very good reason she hadn’t dated. One that she hadn’t even shared with her closest friend. It wasn’t just the fact that Sylvester was her second cousin that had caused Antonietta to flee on her wedding day. It had been her dread of their wedding night.

      Sylvester’s kisses had repulsed Antonietta, and the rough, urgent roaming of his hands had terrified her. And her reluctance to partake had infuriated him.

      It had all come to a head for Antonietta in the weeks before the planned wedding, when she had come to dread time spent alone with her fiancé. On more than a couple of occasions he had almost overpowered her, and Antonietta had been forced to plead with Sylvester and say that she was saving herself for her wedding night.

      ‘Frigida,’ he had called her angrily.

      And very possibly she was, Antonietta had concluded, because to this day the thought of being intimate with a man left her cold.

      At the time she had tried voicing her fears about it to her mamma, but her advice had been less than reassuring. Her mamma had told her that once she was married it was her wifely duty to perform ‘once a week to keep him happy’.

      As the wedding night had loomed closer, so had Antonietta’s sense of dread. And that feeling of dread, whenever she thought of kissing a man, let alone being intimate with a man, had stayed with her.

      She wished she could speak about it