The Sicilian's Proposition (11 page)

Lorraine returned after a few minutes with a mug of coffee and a small cake. “I made these strawberry tartlets for the dinner party. Would you like one?”

Joanne nodded her thanks, although a sharp pang of guilt hit her full force. Byrne had brought this on himself. “Thanks.” She took the plate and mug and smiled.

Lorraine wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. “Do you know what? I could do with a break myself. I think I’ll pour myself a cup of coffee and sit with you.”

She returned moments later. The pair chatted amicably for a few minutes. Then Joanne heard the front door open and Byrne’s footsteps walking down the hall. “I managed to get the chardonnay but couldn’t get the claret you wanted, so I got a couple of bottles of merlot instead—”

His eyes widened so she could see the whites of them as he entered the room, his mouth opening and closing again.

“Hello, Jackson,” Joanne greeted him.

Byrne put down his carrier bags and loosened the collar of his shirt. “Joanne.”

She smiled at him.
You slimy slug.

“Thanks, darling,” Lorraine stood and kissed her husband’s cheek. “How would you like a coffee?”

He nodded, wordless for once, and his wife left the room.

Like a shot, he sat next to Joanne. “Now you’d better get out of here quick, Joanne, before I—”

Joanne sat rooted to the spot; he wasn’t going to intimidate her. “Before you what, Jackson?”

He sneered. “Before I do something you might regret.”

“How about I do something you’ll regret, like telling Lorraine about that flight attendant? I know for a fact you met up with her in Sicily. You creep, writing that article and making out it was my story. I’m going to tell Lorraine all about your dalliances, not just in Sicily but at the office party too.”

“You wouldn’t have the bloody nerve.” He grabbed her arm, his grip hard enough to hurt.

“Oh just try me, why don’t you?”

His eyes widened for a moment, and then he appeared deep in thought. “Okay. How about I pay you to shut up?”

“I want something, but not money,” she whispered. “I want those photographs you took in Sicily, both sets. The official ones of Mr. Alphonso and the sneaky ones of me and him.”

He nodded. “Very well, but I don’t have them right now. They’re locked away in my garage at the end of the road.”

“Well you’d better get them then.”

“But I can’t do that. Lorraine will wonder where I’m going again, and the guests will be here soon.”

“You tell Lorraine when she comes back with your coffee you’re giving me a lift home; during that time, you get all of those photographs for me,
capice
?”

He nodded.

“Hold the coffee a moment!” he shouted to his wife, “I’m just going to run Joanne back home.”

“What am I going to do with this?” Lorraine asked as she walked toward him with his coffee mug.

“Have another on me,” Byrne said as he escorted Joanne off the premises.

“Thanks very much for the coffee and cake. It was delicious!” Joanne shouted from the hallway.

Lorraine stood there with a bemused expression on her face as if a tornado had just entered and left her living room.

Once outside on the drive, Joanne turned to Byrne and sent him a stinging blow across his face. “That’s for setting me up with that article!” She gritted her teeth.

His head snapped back, and he put his hand to his cheek and rubbed it but didn’t say another word. She followed him to his car for the short drive to his garage. He didn’t know it yet, but he was driving her home too; he owed her that much at least. It was one way to right the wrong he had done to her. That attendant in Sicily had proven to be her trump card.

The journey back to Wales on the train had been arduous, and she was glad to get off in Cardiff and take the bus back home. She hadn’t even told her mother she’d be arriving; she didn’t know what to say, because today was the anniversary of her father’s death. It had been sixteen long years.

She stopped at The Flower Basket florist shop and bought her mother’s favorite flowers: yellow roses. Her father had always brought her those. She asked for them mixed with white roses as they were her own favorite. Maybe they could take some roses from the bouquet and lay them on his grave and keep the rest at home. It would make things more personal. She knew the young assistant who served her. Had she read that article? It made her cringe to think people might perceive her as a gold digger when nothing could be farther from the truth. The young Goth-looking girl seemed oblivious to her plight. If she knew anything, she wasn’t showing it. She would never have sold her story to a magazine and betrayed Dante. Although he was a millionaire, she earned a good salary at the magazine. She’d worked hard to get there, sweeping aside relationships, even the thought of starting a family, to get where she was today. At great cost, so no way would she jeopardize her good name and reputation.

She arrived with some trepidation at the small terrace house that was so familiar to her, with the small flight of steps to the front door, hedgerow garden, brick chimney, and slate roof. She paused to look around. It hadn’t changed much in the village since she was a little girl. She remembered coming home from school to a coal fire, home cooked Welsh cakes, and a glass of milk. Her mother was a great cook, making many specialties like
cawl
and Welsh rarebit
.

Letting out a breath, she turned the knob on the front door. The door was often left unlatched during the day; it was that sort of community, where everyone knew everyone else and trusted their neighbor. Unlike London where she knew next to no one and hadn’t even spoken to her neighbors in the apartment next door.

“Mam!” she called down the narrow passageway.

She heard the sound of a chair scraping across the floor, and then her mother stood before her, holding out her arms, her eyes brimming with unshed tears.

“Oh
cariad
, I’m so pleased you’ve shown up today of all days. I’ve been worried about you. I thought you might have forgotten.”

“Mam,” she said with tears in her eyes. “How could I possibly forget?”

Ten minutes later, they were seated with a cup of tea in the best china cups and a slice of her mother’s homemade
teisen lap.
Home cooked food was so comforting; it made her think of the great tastes of Sicily and Dante.
Dante.
Even thinking about him induced a knot of pain in her stomach that just wouldn’t go away. When she’d taken those photographs into Polly yesterday, who was over the moon with her retrieval of them, she asked if any contact had been made with him, but Polly had shook her head. Maybe he was ignoring her editor’s calls as he figured the magazine was unscrupulous.

Her mother hadn’t said anything about the article, so she mentioned it to her. If she was shocked, she didn’t show it and said it would be a “nine day wonder”, whatever that meant. Her mother was always quoting little sayings that made her smile.

“Mam,” she broached. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you about Dad’s death…”

“Go on.” Her mother put down her mug of tea and stared intently into her daughter’s eyes. Although her hair was salt and peppered, at one time she’d turned many heads. Her eyes had a vibrant quality to them; they were still young and clear looking.

“I don’t know if you realize this, but I always blamed myself for Daddy’s death.”

Her mother sat open-mouthed. “But why, Joanne? Why blame yourself when it was an accident?”

Tears sprung to her eyes. “I suppose it was because if I hadn’t almost drowned that day, he would never have had to rescue me.”

Her mother patted her hand. “I wish I’d known you felt that way. Let me tell you, your father could be a headstrong man, a bit like yourself in some ways. I warned him not to go in the sea as neither of us could swim, and told him to get help, but he wouldn’t listen. It was his choice. So none of it was ever your fault. It was his instinct to save you.”

That’s what Dante had said to her.

“I suppose you’re right. Someone else told me the same thing the other day.”

She ended up telling her mother all about the trip to Sicily and Dante. Her advice was to give him time to realize she wasn’t the person he thought she was.

Their visit to the graveside was both poignant and touching. It was the first time she stood there without feeling she had somehow put him in the ground. Her mother went to fetch water from the tap in an old plastic bottle to fill the vase on top of the grave, while she stared at the headstone and took in the words:
Dewi Smith, Tragically taken away on September 21st, 1998. Father, Husband, Son. Rest in Peace
. Her eyes began to water and she wiped a tear away, but this time her tears were healing ones. Her mother arrived at her side and squeezed her hand gently. Then they kneeled and arranged the yellow and white roses together on his grave.

When they’d finished, her mother turned to her and said softly, “Life is too short for regrets, Joanne. If you have unfinished business with Dante, you need to go to see him.”

She nodded and they walked in silence down the hillside back home.

***

Swallowing her pride that night, in her old bed, she tried ringing Dante’s number. It went straight through to his voice mail. She trembled at the timbre of his voice. It was reminiscent of when he said
amore mio
to her. She blinked back tears. Would he ever say that to her again?

She put down her phone, and for the first time since coming home to the U.K., she slept well.

The following morning she awoke to the smell of bacon cooking; her mother had made her a freshly cooked breakfast with bacon, sausage, and eggs from the local farm shop. She felt ravenous and ate with gusto.

Her mother looked at her and said, “We’ll go shopping in town later—”

Joanne’s phone rang. She answered to discover it was her editor.

“Joanne…”

What was wrong?

“Yes?”

“It’s Dante. I rang his brother’s hotel again, and I’m afraid it’s bad news.”

She almost dropped the phone from her grasp. “No?”

“He had an accident on his boat. It doesn’t look good; he fell and slipped and hit his head. He was lying on the boat undiscovered for several hours by the look of it, exposed to the elements. He was picked up by some local fishermen. He’s in the hospital.”

“Is he all right?”

There was a long pause. “No. It doesn’t sound like it. He’s unconscious.”

Joanne looked at her mother and explained in brief. “You must go to him, Joanne,” she advised.

“I need more time from work. I’m going back to Sicily,” she informed Polly.

“But that’s not possible. You need to work on that feature article for me about Sabrina Chance.” Sabrina was a Hollywood starlet made good, who’d risen to fame as a movie star and donated a lot of her time and money to the street children of Brazil.

“I know, but I can always interview her over the phone or on webcam, can’t I? I can write it up and e-mail it back to you. Please?” She was appealing now to Polly’s better nature.

“I don’t know. I shouldn’t allow this really, although under the circumstances, I suppose it could be a form of compassionate leave. Okay, then, but I don’t want you gone more than a few days, promise?”

“I promise. I’ll be back before you know I’ve gone.”

She thanked her editor, clicked off her phone, and putting her head in her hands, wept. Her mother draped an arm around her shoulder, and then held her tight.

***

When she arrived in Sicily the following evening, Giovanni was there to meet her at the airport.

“Are you sure you don’t want to rest before I take you to the hospital?” he asked, his eyes full of concern.

She shook her head. “No, I have to see him. I blame myself for this, Giovanni. We did not part on good terms.”

“I guessed as much when I heard you’d left so hurriedly. But I’m not here to judge you, Joanne. All that matters is that you came.”

She looked at him and smiled. “Thank you.” He took her case and loaded it into the trunk of his car.

They drove through familiar streets with white-washed walls as she had done with Dante. Was it only a few days ago? Seemed like months.

“So what exactly have the doctors said?” she asked.

Giovanni loosened his grip on the wheel, looked at her, and then pulled his attention back to the road. “They said if he hadn’t been found, he might have died of exposure. He is in…how do you say…in a coma that has been brought on?”

“Oh, you mean a medically induced coma?”

“
Si
. That is what I mean. His brain is inflamed. So when you go to visit him, he will not know you are there. He does not know any of us have been to see him yet.”

But I will know I was there.

Maybe things were far worse than she feared. This was all her fault. If anything should ever happen to Dante… Why hadn’t she defied him and stayed on the island to work things out?

“There’s something else, though, isn’t there?” she asked. Looking at Giovanni’s face, there was the feeling he hadn’t told her the whole story.

“
Si
. Just before he went on the boat, we had a fight.” His knuckles were white around the wheel, his mouth set in a fine line.

She straightened. “A fight? I don’t understand. What was it about?”

“You, if I am being honest. I was trying to convince him you would never have betrayed him, and I got so angry, I punched him on the jaw and he stumbled backward. I’m not sure if he hit his head then before getting on the boat.”

“I see. You should try not to dwell on that, Giovanni. After all, you told me he was bleeding when he fell on the boat. I think it’s unlikely.”

“Well if anything happens to him, I will always blame myself.”

She bit her lip. Were things that bad?

By the time they arrived at the hospital, tiredness and hunger had all but wiped her out, but the need to see Dante spurred her on. The hospital looked clean and efficient, and she guessed with his money, he would have the best of care. All around her, people jabbered in Italian. She was a square peg in a round hole.

Giovanni led her to a private cubicle where Vito sat at his son’s bed, holding his hand and weeping. He acknowledged her and then looked back at his son.

“He’s been here for the past couple of days, refuses to leave his side…” Giovanni whispered.

It had hit the old man hard, since last year he’d lost his wife. She gently patted his shoulder. “You go and get yourself a cup of coffee, Vito,” she said. “I will sit here for a while. Dante won’t be alone.”

The elderly man nodded gratefully and rose to leave the room.

For the first time, she really looked at Dante. He looked so peaceful, but he was attached to various tubing and intravenous infusions. There was a chart on the end of his bed and some sort of kidney-shaped dish with small sponges on sticks and some liquid. It was probably to clean his mouth. How helpless he looked. His chest rose and fell as she took his hand. She turned to look at Giovanni, whose face looked wracked with guilt. She smiled. Perhaps he could take comfort from her smile that all would be well, though in her heart she didn’t know if that would be the case. But there was always hope.

Giovanni nodded and then departed to go with his father for a coffee.

“Oh, what have I done to you, Dante?” What had happened to him? It made her want to weep. Now he was so dependent on others. That strong, intelligent, powerful man had to have someone attend to his every need.

She ran her hand over his, her hand almost fitting into his palm. It was strong and calloused, from the boat and vineyard she guessed. She watched as machines bleeped and monitors showed things she couldn’t understand. She spoke to a nurse in the corridor for a brief moment, who informed her he was in an induced coma to rest his brain and allow the swelling to subside. That reassured her slightly, but the nurse informed her there was a chance he might suffer amnesia if he regained consciousness, and there was no way of knowing if that would be a temporary or permanent thing.

She was just about to return to his side when a tall, elegant woman swept past her in the corridor and into the room. The woman looked familiar.
Carla!
Dressed in black from top to toe. Maybe it was as a mark of respect for Ponti’s death. She walked toward Dante’s bed.

Sitting in the seat Joanne had only moments before occupied, she spoke softly to him in Italian, holding his hand, stroking his face, and shedding tears. Joanne stood frozen at the doorway wondering what to do.

She walked into the room and said, “Carla.”

The woman turned, shaking back her raven locks and glaring at Joanne as if to say, who are you? Her eyes darkened.