A Legacy of Secrets(38)

‘I’m your lover!’ He almost shouted it. ‘Get it into your head.’

‘For how long though...’ She hated the neediness, but it was the truth, because he was telling her to open up to him, to give him more than sex, and she was terrified to.

‘Who knows?’ He was completely honest. ‘But if we can’t talk, then not for much longer.’

‘You don’t talk about the stuff that troubles you.’

‘I’ve tried more than you,’ Santo said.

‘Santo, I don’t tell anyone...’ She was close to panic now. ‘I don’t share myself with anyone and I’m not going to start pouring my heart out to you.’

‘You will.’ The view was more stunning than the ocean behind him—his eyes so intense, the passion blazing—and she was there in his spotlight now. He would strip her bare and she was petrified, not just of it ending, but of the togetherness too. She could simply not envisage sharing herself so completely with another, of trusting another. ‘Tell and kiss.’ She could feel the warmth of his skin so close and she teased his translation, just as he did to her.

‘It’s kiss and tell.’

‘No.’ His eyes were open. Santo had made up his mind and he moved back and started the engine. ‘It’s tell and kiss.’ And as he drove off, as always he made her smile. He took her hand and placed it in his lap. ‘Though, of course, I don’t mind a woman who can multi-task.’

‘Ha, ha...’ She took back her hand.

They had been out for a couple of hours and he knew no more than he had when she had opened her hotel door.

‘What was it like?’ He turned to her question. ‘I mean, back there, in the café. People were nervous just to see you....’

‘That is because I would rarely go there, but here...’ He nodded ahead. ‘They are more used to us. This is where my nonna lives.’

‘But what was it like?’

It was Santo who couldn’t answer. He could see his grandparents’ house, huge and imposing and the keeper of so many secrets.

‘Have you seen today’s papers?’ He didn’t wait for her response, he knew that she had. ‘There is far more to come. Always it is about power—that is how it is, that is how you are taught—but sometimes you just want to walk in a café and have coffee.’ Ella nodded. ‘That is why I like being on set—I am just Santo there. Of course, there are a few awkward looks today, given what has been said in the newspapers about my mother. I just have to wear it. Battaglia is determined to crush us and will stop at nothing—so now he makes sure that every piece of filth he can find ends up in the papers.’ He looked at Ella. ‘There is a lot of filth.’

There was, Santo knew that, but there was a lot of good too, and somehow he wanted to show her that. But there was something he, too, had been putting off for a while, something that might be easier with Ella by his side.

‘Now,’ Santo said, ‘I take you where I have taken no woman before.’ He glanced over to see her wide-eyed reaction. ‘My nonna’s.’

‘Do you think that’s a good idea?’

‘Probably not.’ Santo shrugged. ‘She will have us married off in her mind the moment we walk in there, but I really ought to visit her. She will be very upset with all that is going on in the family and she is worried about Alessandro too, as well as mourning her husband. She never really got over losing her sons....’ He was pensive for a moment. ‘You know, for all that the cousins do not get on, for all the arguments, the one thing that unites us is our love for her—she is a good woman.’ Perhaps Ella’s silence spoke volumes, for Santo turned his head in instant defence. ‘She is.’

‘Of course,’ came Ella guarded response. Salvatore Corretti’s reputation was legendary, and if Ella knew a little of what had gone on to get there, then absolutely his wife must have known a whole lot more.

‘Her family hated that she married him,’ Santo explained a little, ‘but she loved him, and turned a blind eye to all that he got up to.’

Ella bit down on her lip in an effort not to voice her thoughts.

‘Sometimes it is easier to, perhaps...’ Santo said.

‘Or simply more convenient.’ Ella could not stay silent on this. ‘I’m sorry, Santo. I’m trying not to judge your nonna—I haven’t met her after all—but I don’t buy that turn a blind eye excuse.’