LITMIR.BIZ

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small moment of it in the chaos of a turbulent day.

      Her hand took his and he closed his fingers around hers, causing her to look down at their hands rather than up at his face.

      ‘Condoglianze,’ she said.

      ‘Grazie,’ he responded, but he did not let her hand go.

      She leant forward and kissed his cheek and it was as cool as marble against hers. She kissed the other and then looked at his beautiful mouth, now so pale.

      ‘He thought a lot of you,’ Nico told her.

       I did it all for you, Nico. I know what Geo did, and I did not respect him for that. But he is…was…your father. Though it was hard at times, I always tried to respect that. I took care of Geo as I would have had you been my husband.

      She did not say that, of course. ‘I thought a lot of him too,’ was her gentle response.

      ‘Thanks for all your help with the arrangements.’

      ‘Of course,’ Aurora said.

      It was, for Aurora, as simple as that. Of course she would be there for him.

      Marianna, who had thought she knew everything there was to know about Nico’s life, did not quite know how things were done down here.

      Aurora had sat in the house during the vigil, as the villagers came, stayed and went.

      That was not the role of a PA.

      And Aurora had sat with Nico when he had asked the priest not to speak too much of a Geo having had a loving marriage to Maria, or to go on about his loving son.

      ‘You did love him, though, Nico,’ she had said.

      And that was not the role of a PA.

      But she did not know her own role with Nico. She did not know what part she played in his life. She had been Geo’s carer, and at times she had been Nico’s lover, but what was she now? His employee?

      Still, Aurora had worked hard for this funeral. And she took care of things as a wife would when the mourners moved back to Geo’s house. She oversaw the proceedings like a hawk.

      The coffee needed to be served more seamlessly, she told Chi-Chi, who was trying to chat up a guy. And the people over there had not been offered food for a while.

      Aurora dealt with it all. She was constantly watching, swooping when needed, and then returning to be beside her master.

      She looked across the room and could see that Nico was struggling to speak with Pino and his wife Rosa.

      ‘Stay tonight,’ Pino said. ‘Come and eat with us.’

      ‘Yes, Nico,’ Rosa said. ‘Don’t go back to Rome tonight.’

      Aurora, who had been speaking to her father, saw the strain drawing Nico’s features taut. She caught his eye and moved to his side.

      ‘We were just saying to Nico he can stay with us tonight,’ Rosa explained as Aurora joined the conversation.

      ‘My father has offered the same,’ Aurora said. ‘But Nico has to get back to Rome.’

      ‘When will you be in Silibri again?’ Pino asked him.

      ‘We’ll see.’

      Aurora felt the cannelloni she had just eaten curdle in her stomach at Nico’s vague reply. Nico truly answered to no one.

      And then, one by one and two by two, the mourners were gone.

      There is no sadder place than a house after a funeral when everyone has gone home, she thought.

      Just Nico and Aurora remained. They were alone again. But she was suddenly scared that it was for the very last time. That the next time she saw him it would only be about work.

      The cups and glasses and plates were all washed and put away. None of the endless food that had been made and brought was left in the kitchen—Nico had asked his guests to take the leftovers with them.

      ‘You could stay at the hotel if you don’t want to stay here,’ Aurora suggested as she plumped the cushions in Geo’s empty chair and missed the grumpy old man. ‘I know it’s not open yet, but there are suites…’

      ‘I would rather go home.’

      And that made her breath hitch—because here was home. Could he not see that?

      ‘When do you think you will be back?’ Aurora could not stop herself from asking, hoping that although he had been vague with Pino he might not be with her.

      ‘I don’t know,’ Nico said.

      He had an army of people who would take care of the small paperwork trail Geo had left. And the house…? He would send someone to shut it up properly, and work out what to do with it later.

      Right now he wanted to get back to the cool order of his life in Rome.

      He turned his mind to answer her question. ‘I’ll be back for the hotel opening.’

      ‘But that is four months away,’ Aurora pointed out, and dread clenched like a fist as she realised Nico was really putting Silibri—and her—behind him.

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Will you sell the house?’

      ‘Probably.’ Just stop with the questions, he wanted to tell her, for his head was pounding. ‘Yes.’

      ‘But wouldn’t it be nice to have a home here? Like you do in Rome?’

      ‘This was never my home, Aurora.’

      ‘I don’t mean the house. I mean Silibri…’

      ‘I do too,’ Nico said.

      He did not have family here. There was no guilt or duty to bring him back to the village. Just work.

      And he would soon pass that on. He would get the hotel up and running and then sell it, he decided. Finally he would be done with Silibri.

      He would not keep her hanging.

      ‘Aurora, the hotel will be up and running in no time. I will pass on the management of it and then…’

      He shared his business decisions with no one, and yet Aurora did not fit into the category of ‘no one’, so he told her what his grieving mind had decided.

      ‘And then I shall sell it.’

      It was too painful for him to be here now. He had done his best for the village, and now his father was gone.

      ‘There is no reason for me to return to Silibri,’ Nico said. ‘I have not one decent memory of this place.’

      Aurora gasped.

       Not one? What about that time on the sofa, Nico? Does the night you took my virginity not even rate?

      Hawks had talons, and Aurora felt hers then.

      She wanted to slap his face, to deliver to him some of the pain he had flung at her. But she was not a violent person. She had never understood how Geo could lay a hand on someone he loved, and she would not lower herself to do it now.

      ‘Not one decent memory?’ Aurora checked.

      Nico closed his eyes and wished that she had slapped him, for it would have been so much easier to end this on a row. To throw up his arms and feel justified in walking away.

      But instead her velvet brown eyes tried to meet his. ‘How many more ways can you hurt me, Nico?’

      ‘Aurora…’ He already regretted those words. He could both see and hear the hurt they had caused, for her voice was raw and her face was bleached white. ‘I should not have said—’

      ‘No,’ she interjected. ‘Don’t bother apologising,

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