LITMIR.BIZ

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knew too a little of Santini’s dark past and so he swallowed nervously as he weighed his options. Yes, Santini might appear to be being reasonable but he had meted out many a silent punishment in the past and so Alfeo came to a rapid decision.

      ‘You’re fired,’ Alfeo said to Bella.

      ‘Alfeo...’ Bella’s tears were flowing now. ‘Alfeo, please...’

      ‘Go and wait in my office and I will give you your papers.’

      ‘Alfeo...’ Bella begged. ‘I’ve worked here for five years and with one mistake you would—’

      ‘Out!’ Alfeo snapped, and with a sob she fled.

      She offered no final plea to him, Matteo noted.

      No parting shot either.

      She simply turned and fled.

      He should feel relief that she was gone.

      He should snap to attention and resume the perfect life he had created but instead he just stared at the door she had run out of as the duty manger attempted to right her wrongs. ‘Now, I will attend to the mess she has made myself but first, please, take a seat and I will have breakfast brought to you here in the lounge. I cannot apologise enough—’

      ‘There was no need to fire her,’ Matteo said, and then he looked at Shandy, who was smirking as she sat down. ‘You just cost someone their job. Does that not bother you?’

      ‘What bothers me,’ Shandy retorted, ‘is that I have to get my hair done now when I was hoping to go shopping this morning. I do love the shops here...’ she examined her nails, no doubt, Matteo thought, toying between coral or nude. He recalled Bella’s bitten ones, as, despite his best attempts, the past finally, fully invaded, he could not live the lie a moment longer.

      Breakfast was promptly delivered but Matteo waved away the new maid that had been sent and he also asked Alfeo to leave but said he would like to speak with him later, before he dealt with Bella.

      He poured the coffee with a completely steady hand and as he did so Matteo dismissed his latest lover from his life.

      Shandy didn’t go quietly, but he was more than used to that.

      She pleaded, she sobbed and the room was slightly trashed again, but finally Shandy was in his company jet and on the way back to London as Matteo sat in a hotel that Bella had given five years of her working life to.

      Five years.

      Matteo had assumed that her arrival here had been recent, a year or two perhaps.

      Five years, though, must mean that she had left Bordo Del Cielo around the same time that he had.

      It made no sense.

      Matteo called for the duty manager to come up to discuss the morning’s events.

      ‘It really is most irregular,’ Alfeo said, once Matteo had invited him to take a seat. ‘We only have our best staff working on the top floors.’

      ‘And Bella is one of your best?’ Matteo checked.

      ‘She’s one of our more experienced staff,’ Alfeo flushed.

      ‘You’ve had problems with her before?’ Matteo pushed. He had worked in hotels for a long time and knew when the duty manager was being evasive.

      ‘Not problems as such...’ Alfeo ran a worried hand through his hair and Matteo wondered if the manager’s sudden discomfort possibly had something to do with his maid’s extra-curricular activities. ‘Despite our best preparations for your visit, it would seem there was a mix-up with the staff rosters. Bella doesn’t usually work the top floors.’

      Matteo was quite sure there had been no mix-up, he was quite sure that Bella had been busy meddling.

      ‘I don’t want her fired,’ he said. ‘You are to give her a warning but tell her that she has a second chance...’ Matteo hesitated. ‘After I check out, though. I leave here on Sunday for Dubai. Once I’ve gone, she can resume work.’

      ‘Of course,’ Alfeo said. ‘You can tell your fiancé that she has nothing to worry about, she shan’t be seeing Bella again—’

      ‘That’s all,’ Matteo said, choosing not to correct Alfeo.

      Shandy wasn’t the problem.

      With Bella in the same building, it was Matteo’s willpower that might not hold out.

      But it would not prove so easy to avoid her, Matteo found out just as the manager left and he took a call from Luka.

      ‘It would seem you were right with what you said last night,’ Luka sighed. ‘Sophie has told her father that we will marry in Bordo Del Cielo this weekend...’

      ‘And you said yes?’

      ‘I told her that she had better hope that her father dies before the service on Sunday. I will go through the motions and make the right noises but it is all just a charade. No way will I go through with a marriage just to appease her father.’

      ‘Finally you are speaking sense.’

      ‘Will you be there?’ Luka asked, and Matteo was about to say that he would but then Luka spoke on. ‘One problem, though—Sophie is going to ask Bella Gatti to be bridesmaid.’

      Matteo remembered getting to the airport, Luka waiting. He remembered his tension as he’d looked out for Bella and her mother, ready to explain them if they showed.

      They hadn’t.

      And so he hadn’t told Luka that he had planned to take Bella with him.

      But Luka had heard from a couple of people about that last wild night in Bordo Del Cielo.

      ‘I just wanted to warn you in case it makes things awkward for you and Shandy. Will you be there?’ Luka asked again.

      ‘I shall be,’ Matteo said. ‘I’m not sure about Shandy, though.’ For reasons of his own he did not, even to his friend, reveal that he and Shandy were over.

      ‘We’re flying out early Saturday,’ Luka said.

      ‘I’ll make my own way,’ Matteo said. ‘I have an appointment that morning, but I can only stay till the Sunday evening, though. I have to get to Dubai.’

      ‘Can you reschedule that? Given that I’m not going to go through with the wedding it’s going to be a helluva mess. It would be good if you could—’

      ‘Sorry. I can’t.’

      Matteo hung up the phone.

      Of course he could have rescheduled but it was safer not to.

      He had kept her away for the next few days.

      It would be impossible after that.

      Oh, before the wedding there would be plenty to keep them busy, but by the Sunday night...

      Even if it meant letting down his best friend, Matteo would not be staying for Luka’s wedding night.

      He wanted one more time with Bella.

      But that would be foolish at best.

       CHAPTER THREE

      BELLA SAT IN Alfeo’s office, chewing her nails.

      She could not afford even a single day without work. Most of her savings had been depleted helping Sophie to face Luka.

      The rest she kept for herself—Bella did not consider it her money to spend. It was to go towards giving her mother a headstone for her grave, for she had heard that Malvolio had made sure Maria had received a pauper’s funeral.

      But it wasn’t just that she might be about to lose her job that had Bella anxious and close to tears.

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