LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER NINE

      ‘I SAW LUKA.’

      Sophie had always known that she might hear those words one day but when Bella actually voiced them, for a long moment Sophie did not know how to react.

      So much so that she said nothing and just lifted her side of the mattress and carried on making the huge king-size bed.

      Sophie had known that Bella wanted to speak with her. As well as sharing a very small flat in Rome, they worked as maids in Hotel Fiscella—a luxurious hotel in the very heart of Rome.

      The manager, Marco, had, at first, refused to put them together, knowing that they came from the same Sicilian town. However, when a gap in the roster had given him no choice, Sophie and Bella had set out to prove him wrong. They worked very well together, although they chatted a lot!

      Now, though, Sophie was silent.

      ‘I just saw him in the elevator when I went to collect the guest list for our floor.’

      ‘He’s not on our list? Sophie checked in horror, but thankfully Bella shook her head.

      ‘Looking at the way he was dressed and held himself, he would be on one of the top floors,’ Bella said, and that told Sophie he was doing well.

      The hotel was indeed luxurious but the top floors were reserved for the rich and famous.

      It had been five years since Sophie had last seen him.

      Five years since that walk on the beach.

      She knew that Malvolio had died a few months ago. Her father had been diagnosed as terminally ill on the very same day that she had heard the news. After that she had read that Luka had bought an apartment in Rome and now lived between here and London.

      Sometimes Sophie was nervous that she might see him in the street, that she would face him in her maid’s uniform when she had sworn she could do better without him. That she might face him in the street was bad enough, but knowing that he was at the hotel was far too close for comfort.

      ‘Why would he stay here when he has an apartment?’

      ‘I don’t know,’ Bella said. ‘But it was definitely him.’

      When they had read that Luka Cavaliere had purchased a residence Sophie and Bella had even gone to the library to use the computers and had done a virtual tour of the apartment. It had been a foolish thing to do because Sophie found she could picture herself there and all too often did.

      ‘Did he recognise you?’ Sophie asked, but Bella just laughed.

      ‘As if he would even glance at a maid! Though I stood behind the bellboy’s trolley just in case he looked over.’ she admitted. ‘But he didn’t.’

      ‘I don’t want him to see me like this,’ Sophie said in sudden panic. ‘I don’t want him to see that I am still a chambermaid. What if I have to deliver a meal to his room?’

      ‘Don’t feel ashamed.’

      ‘I’m not,’ Sophie said. ‘I just don’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing how little I have moved on.’

      ‘You won’t see him. I heard him say he was going back to London this afternoon.’

      ‘Good.’

      ‘What else do you want to know?’ Bella asked.

      ‘Nothing.’ Sophie shook her head. ‘I don’t even want to think of that man.’

      It was all that she did, though.

      Every night when she fell, exhausted, into bed he was there, waiting for her in her dreams. Every morning she awoke cross with her subconscious and how readily it forgave Luka, for her dreams varied from sweet memories of a sun-drenched childhood to a torrid recall of their one passionate afternoon.

      They finished making up the bed in silence and Bella went in to do the bathroom while Sophie dusted the flat surfaces of the hotel suite.

      Sophie didn’t want to ask questions; she wanted to shrug her shoulders and carry on with her day as if a bomb hadn’t just dropped in her world, but, of course, that wasn’t possible.

      She walked into the bathroom and Bella smiled in the mirror that she was polishing when she saw her friend hovering in the doorway.

      ‘Who was he saying it to?’ Sophie asked. ‘Who was he speaking with?’

      ‘A woman.’ Bella’s voice was gentle yet the words hurt so much.

      ‘Was she beautiful?’ Sophie asked, and Bella screwed up her nose. ‘I didn’t really notice.’

      ‘I want the truth, Bella,’ she said.

      Her friend nodded. ‘Yes, she was beautiful.’

      ‘Did she have a name?’

      ‘He called her Claudia.’

      ‘And how did he look?’ Sophie asked.

      ‘He looked well.’

      ‘Very well?’

      ‘Well, the last time I saw him he was just out of prison so, of course, he looked better than that.’

      Sophie knew her friend was trying to downplay things for her.

      ‘His hair is longer now but still very neat. He still has that scar over his eye.’

      ‘Did he look happy?’ Tears were in Sophie’s eyes as she asked the question, though she never let them fall. It was ridiculous that the man she hated, the man that had caused her family so much pain could still move her so much. That jealousy could rise in her just knowing Luka was carrying on as he always had—dating and living his life—while she Bella worked as maids in a hotel and could barely make ends meet.

      ‘Luka never really looked happy,’ Bella said. ‘That, at least, is the same.’

      Sophie was quiet.

      Bella was right—to others he never looked happy. He was sullen and dark but with her he had laughed and smiled.

      She had been privy to such a different side of him.

      Knowing that Luka had been here in the hotel had Sophie on edge all day, and it was a relief to get away from work.

      All she wanted to do was go home and sleep but instead she changed out of her maid’s uniform and into a skirt and a T-shirt and then took the bus. She had to stand nearly all the way to the prison infirmary her father had been moved to.

      Once

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