Best Laid Plans (11 page)

She left Frankie alone to call the surgery and make an appointment. Yes, she’d been tired and irritable since Luca had left, but this throwing up thing? Not even remotely amusing. Her mother went on full gloat-alert, especially after Frankie went with Luca to the airport. He’d wrapped his weighty arm around her shoulders, his other occupied by his holdall. She didn’t want to look at the people who were arriving from their holidays, business trips, into the waiting arms of friends and family. Not when she was saying goodbye. Frankie took his sunglasses from his holdall and made to put them on. “If I look you in the eyes, I’ll cry, and it’ll be messy.” As soon as the opaque glass covered those soul-searching irises, she shivered.

“What’s wrong?” he’d asked.

Something brushed over her spine. She couldn’t place it, but there was something familiar about him at that moment. Not familiar in that he’d spent the majority of the night before and most of the morning inside her, but that they’d done this before. A long time ago. Now was not the time to figure it out.

“Don’t worry,” she dismissed his words lightly, holding onto him until his gate was called and he had to go. With the echo of his touch all over her body, Frankie came home and had what she felt was a fully deserved cry. Not that she would give up the details of Luca’s departure, but Joanne was enjoying Frankie’s misery far too much for her to let that lie.

“That’s what he’s told you. He’s probably gone back to a wife and four kids.”

Frankie closed her eyes for a brief moment. “He’s not my dad.”

“You didn’t have a dad, you had a sperm donor.”

It ended the conversation and thankfully any more after, except for whether Frankie was going to be long in the bathroom or if she was going to eat whatever mess she had managed to cook. Frankie returned to her desk and tried to focus on her work. As much as he apparently despised it, Luca had taken to text messages, not wanting to disturb her at work. But then she spoke to him every evening, without fail. He’d call her and tell her to get on Skype so he could see her “beautiful” face. She’d ask him how things were going, and his response was always, “It sucks.”

She did her best to keep his spirits up, sending him pictures of the meals he had written recipe cards to for her to make herself, telling him about nights out with her friends and showing him websites that should encourage him on the shopping stakes. One thing she did want to see his facial reaction to was the fact that Leon had gone missing.

“That’s a shame,” Luca said, without even a flicker in his face. “I hope he’s found.”

“Really?”

He blinked at the webcam. “Francesca, I do hope he’s found. So that no one will worry about him unnecessarily.”

Did you do anything?
Frankie wanted to ask, but if she did and he said yes, she worried how it would affect them. He had his past; he’d admitted it to her, and she accepted that it was his history. Anything more than that and it was his present. Her present and that couldn’t be conducive to a good relationship. Hell, she’d be hiding details of anyone she’d dated to protect them from Luca’s wrath. For a man who had such an outer layer of calm, he was very possessive over her.

“How did you find out?” Luca asked, folding his arms in front of his laptop.

“I’ve got alerts on him. Avoids any unpleasant surprises.”

“You’re very clever,” he said, admiration in his tone. “Now, enough of him. Let me see what you’re hardly wearing.”

“Gianluca Caristo!”

“Let me see.”

“No!”

His eyes narrowed faintly. “Is there someone else in the room with you?”

“No! I’m just not in the habit of stripping off on a web cam!”

“Show me,” he insisted. “I can’t live off my memories for much longer.”

Frankie gave a huff. “All right!” She unzipped her hoodie and gave the fastest flash of flesh. “There. Happy now?” she demanded, zipping herself up to the neck and tightening the strings on the hood.

“No. Do it again. Slower.” His voice lowered, roughening with desire. “Then touch them, like you’d want me to touch them.”

Frankie’s face was on fire. “Lucky, come on. Honestly!”

“Show me what’s already mine.”

There was something in his voice that made his command utterly irresistible. She tugged at the hood and let the zip drift to her navel. Her lashes lifted to see Luca leaning back, admiration and lust written all over his face. The hoodie pooled around her waist and she smoothed her palms over her lace-encased breasts.

“You have no idea just how beautiful you are,” he sighed.

It took a moment for her eyes to close and immediately, she could feel Luca’s hands, rough and weather beaten all over her skin. Oh God, she was getting far too carried away. Red faced, she picked the hoodie back up and wrapped it around herself. The last thing she needed was for her mother to walk in unannounced and see her doing a sex show for Luca.

“Why have you stopped?” he asked.

“You said show you, I did!”

“You only showed a little.”

Frankie put a hand to her hot face. “We are not doing this on the regular.”

“Why not? Ah, I know. You’re afraid you’ll enjoy it too much and you’ll want to do it all the time.”

Tease. She wanted to do him all the time, but the little issue of distance and separate countries made it a minor problem. “No chance.”

He laughed. “We’ll see. I miss you.”

“You see me every day! Dozy tart.”

He laughed harder. “Thank you, but it’s not the same.”

Wasn’t that the truth? “I know. I’ll call you tomorrow.” It took her a beat before admitting, “I miss you too.”

It was supposed to be fine. Easy to cope with if she could talk to him. He was doing a noble thing and he wanted them to be together, that much was clear. What made her feel like a bitch still was her underlying feeling that it was all taking too long. He’d given her a set of keys to his flat and told her to make herself at home whenever she felt the need. “I like the idea of you in my bed,” he’d said. “Feel free to call me and talk me through anything that moves you.”

It was tempting to move in altogether, because there was only so many times she could be yelled at, screamed at or accused of finishing all the OXO stock cubes. And there were certainly only enough times that she could walk into her room and see Joanne there, pretending to look innocent, or come home and realise that all her mail was open, but it had been a mistake because of “the name thing.” Her mother had gone on speed. It was the only logical explanation for the step up in the crazy.

Staying at Luca’s flat wasn’t a feasible idea. Her deposit was ready and her credit, now she’d paid all her excess debts off, wasn’t bad at all so she was eligible for a mortgage again. Living with Luca, or living in his flat while he wasn’t there, was too much too fast. She was fed up of being sick and tired and missing him. And no more voluntary nudity over the Internet. Luca or no Luca, it needed to be sorted. Preferably with as few drugs as possible.

Luca pitied his friend. For the last two months, Angelo had graciously insisted that Luca stay at his home and not stay in a hotel.

“Fuck knows who can break in and get to you.”

“What if I need my bike back?”

Angelo’s eyes narrowed. “You’re staying with me. You don’t mention the bike. It’s fine. Nothing’s happened to it. In fact, it’s in better condition now then when you left it to its own devices. You didn’t give a shit about the bike the whole time you were in London. Did I ever get a call about the bike? Did you ever send me money to make sure the bike had everything it needed? No. Lousy parent.”

Luca burst out laughing. “You should see someone about that.”

“Meh, far too late.”

Angelo had been invaluable getting references, checks and builders to restructure the property his parents lived in to make it easier for Alfieri Caristo to move around the home. Alfieri was having problems with his speech, so even if his father could vocalise gratitude, Luca wouldn’t know about it. There were three electricians who linked a system of call buttons in each room to alert anyone else if Alfieri was suffering another stroke, needed assistance or fancied a coffee. What was taking longest was finding a care nurse who was not only sufficiently qualified but who would live in with Luca’s parents. Luca and Angelo were working on finding someone outside the city of Naples and further afield. Now on top of all of Luca’s woes, Angelo had to hear him worry aloud about Francesca.

“She hasn’t spoken to me for a week,” Luca said quietly, closing the laptop as Francesca’s Skype icon remained disturbingly unavailable.

“Then you’ve fucked up something,” Angelo answered, taking a beer from his fridge. “Whatever you’ve done, admit it’s your fault and enjoy the peace and quiet.”

Luca shook his head. “It’s not that simple.”

Angelo sighed. “Jesus. All right, most logical thing it could possibly be?”

“That’s she’s pregnant.”

Angelo spat out the beer, spraying it in a mist over the counter. “What?”

Luca breathed out, his gut churning with the idea that she could think he’d abandon her. “We had a minor accident. And I know she hasn’t been feeling well. The most logical problem would be that she’s pregnant, and she doesn’t want to worry me or she hates me for putting her in that position in the first place.”

Angelo looked slightly green. “Good luck.”

“What help is that?” Luca demanded.

“All right, you have to understand that you have bored me to tears over this woman. Yes, she is very sweet and funny and pretty—I swear on my balls I will not look her directly in the eye when I meet her,” Angelo added, catching the expression of
you’re dead
at his declaration of Francesca’s prettiness. “Can you do something so my ears get a rest?”

“She won’t answer my calls.” He looked down at his phone, the screensaver a picture of Francesca smiling Mona Lisa-like at the camera. She wore one of his less colourful shirts as Luca pressed his mouth to her neck. They’d taken it the night before he’d left and every time he looked at that photo, he remembered he had something incredible to go back to, something so much better than the peaks of resentment and more resentment he received from his family.

“Then leave her alone to call you when she’s ready.” Angelo rubbed his face. “I have to go out. You should go out as well. All you’ve done is manage that cunt of a father of yours and look fucking miserable. I can’t take it anymore. She’ll call you. As it’s your fault, she’ll make that all clear to you. In the meantime, let’s fucking go.”

Luca knew he’d get no peace from Angelo until he did what he was told. But while he was out, nothing would stop him from looking at how soon he could get back to London and find out what was wrong with his sweetheart.