Modern Romance August Books 5-8 - Julia James Mills & Boon Series Collections

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living there.’

      She soon found her home and it looked as if it was vacant. The flowerbeds that her mother had so carefully attended to were full of weeds and the windows were dusty and she had to wipe them to peer in.

      Bella frowned because, though the furnishings seemed covered in sheets, it looked as if little had been moved or changed. It made no sense because Bella knew that property prices had soared since Malvolio’s death. Bordo Del Cielo was a tourist destination yet her old home seemed untouched.

      She had left the place in haste. She hadn’t even spent a full night there since her mother’s collapse and she knew what she wanted to do.

      She headed back to Paulo’s and there was a note from Sophie saying she had gone to the cemetery and Bella had the house to herself for a little while. She took the tissue paper out of the dress and used Rosa’s ancient sewing machine to sew two last blind seams and then, hearing them come back, Bella bundled the dress into a bag.

      ‘Are you going for another walk?’ Sophie smiled when she again headed out.

      ‘Who knows who I might bang into.’ Bella smiled because she was a tease, even with her friends.

      She always did her best to keep things light, even if her heart was heavy.

      Yet it wasn’t heavy today.

      It was starting to heal.

      Bella managed the kitchen window easily and was soon climbing in and she was home.

      Finally home.

      She remembered the terror of leaving, and that terror left her a little today.

      She took off all the dust sheets and washed the windows so that sun streamed in, and she scrubbed down the floors because her mother had always been proud.

      She went into her wardrobe and took out a dress of ginger and set to work with scissors and thread and then washed and hung it.

      Then Bella washed Sophie’s gown with much loving care and, having rolled it in a towel and gently squeezed out the excess water, she hung it outside to dry in the Sicilian sun as she tended the little garden.

      Bella pulled out weeds and exposed flowers that her mother had always loved.

      She picked a bunch. Some had been planted, others were wild, and Maria would have adored each and every one.

      She walked up the hill and into the churchyard.

      Five years late for her own mother’s funeral, Bella knelt at her grave and what she saw brought happy tears to her eyes.

      Yes, she had been given a pauper’s grave but there was a wooden cross and her name had been written on it and there were flowers, some new, some fading.

      Yes, she had been loved by many.

      No, she had not been forgotten.

       CHAPTER TWELVE

      THE WEDDING DAY dawned and Matteo walked with Luka along the shore.

      They were still in the suits they had worn last night.

      They had drunk far too much, reminisced too much, and now as they walked to clear their heads, a vision clouded Matteo’s.

      There was Bella. She was in a loose dress, her hair was down and blowing in the wind, and she was a dangerous sight for sore eyes.

      ‘Bella.’ Luka nodded to her.

      ‘If you are going to marry my friend I hope you meet with a razor, and if you’re to be the best man,’ she added to Matteo, ‘then I suggest the same.’

      ‘How is Sophie this morning?’ Luka asked, as Matteo stood silent beside him.

      ‘She’s fine,’ Bella said. ‘And she’ll be fine, whatever happens today. I doubt you can say the same.’

      ‘Meaning?’

      ‘I love my friend,’ Bella said. ‘I can’t imagine my world without her. You can tell me what that world is like tomorrow perhaps...’

      She went to walk off.

      ‘Is Sophie at home?’ Luka asked.

      ‘She’s at the cove,’ Bella said, not turning her head. She was furious with Luka and what he was about to do.

      She didn’t turn around, even when she heard footsteps coming up behind her and her name being called, but Matteo caught her wrist and he swung her around to face him.

      And it wasn’t disgust she had seen in his eyes that day by the Trevi Fountain, Bella realised, it had been anger, and he was unleashing some of it now.

      ‘I gave you an out!’ he shouted. ‘I understand that your mother was ill but I left you enough money to leave later...’

      Bella let out a hollow laugh, shrugged off his hand and kept on walking.

      ‘Gina took her share, Malvolio his, and what was left...’ She shrugged. ‘Three months of meals at the hospital, toiletries, and I bought my mother a scarf and some bed slippers and things. Do you want me to make a list?’ She turned and looked at Matteo.

      ‘You only needed to call, Bella.’

      ‘You didn’t give me your number.’

      ‘You could have called Luka.’

      ‘Have you forgotten just how poor Malvolio kept us?’ Bella raged. ‘I could have looked up his name on my laptop maybe, or used up the credit on my cellphone, trying to find him. Oh, but that’s right, I don’t have either. I had call boxes and coins, and when I got home my phone had been cut off. But I did call you, Matteo. My mother died the day after Paulo was sentenced...’ She watched as his face paled a little and he started to piece together the dates. ‘I got your number and I ran through a forest to escape and I did call you, but you were otherwise engaged.’ She looked him square in the eye and, no, she did not need dark glasses to hide behind any more. ‘Did you love her?’

      ‘Who?’

      ‘The woman you were busy with through that night...’

      He had been trying to bleach out the thought of Bella and Dino. ‘Bella,’ Matteo admitted, ‘I can’t even remember who she was...’

      ‘Exactly,’ she said. ‘I know this much about her, though, and all the other women since. They loved your money. So tell me, who’s the real whore?’

      Matteo didn’t answer.

      ‘Did you ever think to call me?’ she asked.

      ‘I called over and over,’ Matteo said, ‘and when you didn’t answer, I called Dino...’

      They both knew what he had said.

      Matteo cleared his throat. ‘Luka has gone to talk to Sophie,’ he said, about to suggest that they do the same, but Bella was too angry to let him finish.

      ‘I don’t need your running commentary, Matteo,’ she said. ‘I’ll hear what’s happening from my friend. How is the hotel?’ She glanced up at it and from here she could see the room they had shared that night and bitterness rose in her chest. ‘It’s just as well Shandy isn’t here, it would be a let-down after Fiscella.’

      ‘Not to me,’ he said, for he had one very pleasant memory of that place.

      She looked back at him.

      ‘I’m in the same room,’ he said. ‘It hasn’t changed a bit.’

      ‘Oh, so what time do you want me there?’

      ‘Bella!’ he shouted at her. ‘I didn’t say it for that. I meant that I’m in the same room...’ And he screwed his eyes closed because how did you flirt with a whore? How did you tell her that the memories were killing

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