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Grace died.’ And she smiled over to Santo, and Ella watched as there was just a brief pause before Santo duly smiled back, not that Teresa noticed. She turned her attention to Ella.

      ‘Will you tell your mother that you ate with me?’ Her eyes twinkled.

      ‘I can’t wait to tell her.’ Ella laughed, because she’d been sitting there thinking just that. For the first time in a very long time, she actually missed her mother, wished that today was something they could have properly shared.

      ‘She will be shocked, and she will warn you about me, but also she will love to know!’ Teresa promised, and it was as if she had met her mother—she just knew what she was like. ‘She will want every single detail,’ Teresa said as the maid brought in a huge tray of sweet canelloni, ‘but even as you give her the details she will tell you that you should not have come!’

      ‘Then she’ll ask me to tell her about your furniture.’

      He watched as the two women sat laughing, and thank God he’d brought Ella with him, because Santo wasn’t sure he could have got through this visit alone, and certainly not as well. Memories were churning. The happy birthdays his nonna all too frequently regaled were not quite as perfect, if Santo remembered correctly.

      And he was quite sure he did.

      Surprisingly it was Santo who declined coffee. He just wanted out.

      Even as they left, Teresa was plying her with bottles of olive oil and limoncello and, even as they climbed in the car, offering them to come back in for coffee.

      ‘We really have to go,’ Santo said. ‘We need to get back to the Olympic Village.’

      Thankfully his little dig went straight over Teresa’s head.

      ‘That wasn’t funny,’ Ella said, her cheeks scalding as he started up the car.

      ‘I thought it was.’ Santo smirked. ‘You know, I think sex actually enhances performance.’

      ‘I’ll draft a letter to the IOC for you,’ Ella said tartly. ‘I’m sure they’ll welcome your thoughts.’

      ‘Do you?’ She turned and saw that his expression was serious. ‘Can you talk to me? Can you tell me why you were so upset when I came to your room this afternoon?’

      And he’d shared so much with her today that maybe she could. There was this argument raging but it was dimming. Quite simply, with Santo she wanted to share—she just didn’t know how. ‘It’s my mum’s birthday today,’ Ella admitted. ‘I’d just called her when you came to my room.’ Santo said nothing. ‘I find it really hard to talk to her.’

      ‘You don’t get on?’

      ‘I don’t agree with some of her choices,’ Ella said and then amended, ‘I don’t agree with a lot of her choices.’

      She said nothing more for a while, and neither did Santo. He was waiting for her to talk to him and she tried to a couple of times, opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again. It was twenty-seven years of silence that she was fighting to break and it was especially difficult to break that silence to a man.

      Except Santo was like no man she had ever met and maybe she was starting to actually trust him, maybe it was time that she opened up. As they drove in to the hotel and the valet approached, just as he went to open her door, Ella spoke.

      ‘My father is an alcoholic.’

      As she went to climb out of the car he caught her wrist and gently pulled her back. ‘For that you get a kiss.’

      He ignored the open doors, the people standing in the foyer, the valet waiting to take his keys. Instead, as promised, he gave her a kiss for telling, and she was crying as he did so, because she’d never actually said those words before. Then his tongue was on her cheeks, taking her tears. It was a very private, very thorough kiss, in a very public place, but right now, neither cared a fraction.

      ‘Let’s get inside,’ Santo said.

      Once they were out, he took her hand and they walked towards the hotel. Clearly he had to let it go, ought to let go, for they were about to step into the revolving door, but it was as if they were glued together, as if neither could bear to be apart, not even for a second, and they walked into the door together.

      ‘He beats her.’ She just said it out loud in a tiny space and, oblivious of onlookers, not caring that no one could now get in or out of the hotel, as promised, he rewarded her with his mouth, just pulled her right into him. They were the only two people left in the world. He could have taken her there had he wanted to. There was just this slow unfurling of her heart as he held and kissed her, and in that moment, Ella truly thought she could tell him anything. For the first time in her life, she trusted another with her heart.

      ‘Now,’ Santo said, ‘I take you to bed and then after—’ because there would be after ‘—if you want to, we can talk some more.’

      Ella, weak from admission, was grateful for the chance of a reprieve from her confessions. As he pushed the glass door, as they walked through the entrance, all she wanted was his bed, his warmth, the shield of him that for far too long she had denied.

      ‘Santo Corretti…’

      It felt as if she were being rapidly brought out of an anaesthetic, the antidote to surrender shooting through her veins, as a stunning woman walked towards them and the safe, warm feeling she had, so briefly, sampled was suddenly threatened. The bubble of bliss burst, and his arm, around her, squeezed suddenly tense shoulders.

      ‘I am Marianna…’ She smiled warmly to Santo, but it turned black when she greeted Ella. ‘Your replacement.’

      ‘Now is not a good time.’ Santo was extremely curt. ‘I do not do impromptu interviews. You can arrange a time with Ella for tomorrow.’

      ‘No…’ Ella just wanted it over and done with. She could hardly blame Marianna for jumping on a plane to convince the boss personally—hadn’t Ella done exactly the same? ‘You two go ahead, I need to…’ She didn’t even try to come up with an excuse. ‘Tomorrow you are busy with filming. It might be better if we can sort this all out tonight.’

      Ella ignored Santo as he tried to call her back. Instead she pulled back the gate to the lift and headed to her room, horribly unsettled at the turn of events, but possibly glad for them.

      She had been so close to telling everything, to opening up and pouring out her heart.

      But for what?

      She was leaving, moving to Rome in a few short weeks—what hope was there for them anyway? Santo couldn’t even manage longevity in a normal relationship, a long-distance one was surely an impossible ask.

      Ella needed to think. She had sworn to never cry over him, to not give this playboy her heart, and she had just come dangerously close to doing so. She opened the door to her room and there was a huge bunch of flowers waiting there. They brought a very watery smile to her lips. Santo had been on and off the phone for a lot of the afternoon, and though she was touched at his thoughtfulness, as she opened the attached card, Ella braced herself for more of his endearments, reminded herself that Santo was a stunning flirter, yet she found herself frowning as she read the card.

      You will be amazing.

      See why I had to sleep with you before I told you?

      Santo xxx

      P.S. You’re fired.

      She didn’t understand his cryptic message, but knew this evening she had been played, that, all day, sex had been on his agenda, that it had been an absolute certainty for Santo that the day would end in his bed.

      And, had it not been for Marianna, it would have.

      She poured herself some limoncello from the bottle Teresa had given her, tried to tell herself that she must calm down, tried to work out what his message meant. Not liking where her thoughts were leading, that once in bed he’d take away the

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