A Legacy of Secrets(52)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN



SHE WOKE UP missing him though.

The final day of filming and Ella looked out from her hotel window. A stunning moon glittered off the water. She looked at the ship Santo had been so pedantic about and he hadn’t even hung around to see it.

No, this was how it felt to have a heart broken by Santo. She was starting to feel it now, not just the hurt but the little flare of anger towards herself for her handling of things. But she plunged her heart back into deep storage and dressed in her favourite denim skirt and halter top and then deliberately, as if serving herself a warning, applied some mascara and not the waterproof kind either.

She could cry it all off tonight when it was over, could take a bottle of his blasted champagne that she’d ordered up to her room and drink it warm if she so chose.

She so didn’t want ice.

It was the promise of that that got her through, because watching the final scene, with the ship behind them, watching the returning husband’s hands roam Taylor’s body and remembering Santo’s hands doing the same to hers, had her biting on her lip, willing the scene to be over, for this day to be over so she could say she had made it through filming.

Oh, there would be some studio stuff, but the bulk of it was done, or it would be a few seconds from now.

She watched husband and wife kiss, and as his hands explored her body, the infidelity was revealed. The whole set was in tears, even Ella. The ocean was just glimmering the ship, the extras all in harmony, and as the camera zoomed further in, Ella looked through her viewfinder. It could not be more perfect until she felt someone standing beside her, knew without turning her head that Santo had returned. And it could not be less perfect now because Santo was by her side and so badly she wanted him, despite everything, still she did and Ella was determined not to look around.

‘Call cut.’

‘Not yet.’

‘Please,’ Santo said, ‘then I can take you back to the trailer.’

He had to be joking.

‘I need to speak with you.’

‘I’m kind of busy right now....’

But she called cut, because it was over, and there were cheers and applause from the crew as they wrapped up. Ella wiped her eyes with a tissue, saw the black streaks and let out a wry laugh. For all her effort not to cry over him, now she had to face him looking like a panda.

‘Those tears aren’t for you.’

‘I know,’ Santo said. ‘I was watching you.’

She wished he wouldn’t. Ella tried to keep her mind on work—she couldn’t bring herself to look at him. ‘It’s all gone well. I need to go and congratulate—’

‘Not right now. I need you to come with me.’

She turned and looked and it was like the first morning she had slept with him. His left eye was black, and there was a small cut above his lip, but this time she absolutely did not want to know the details. She wanted as far out of Santo’s personal life as possible.

‘There is something I need to tell you,’ Santo said, ‘something you may feel...’ His usually excellent English faltered. ‘You may feel that I have overstepped the mark.’

Ella closed her eyes. Really, she had thought it something she could never forgive, and yet, in some masochistic streak, she had ensured Santo had his perfect choice of woman working for him, while she had sulked and hidden. Now she had to pay the price for dangling temptation in front of so readily tempted eyes. She had made a stupid move in a very grown-up game with a very liberal man, and now she couldn’t really stand here and protest that he had taken the bait.

No, this wasn’t a conversation they could have here. They were being handed glasses of champagne and the party was starting. Ella followed him to his trailer, dreading this conversation, but preparing herself to face it.

‘I never really intended for it to happen,’ Santo said. ‘It was an impulse thing....’

And she tried to play the grown-up game, to shrug it off, to say she understood, except tears were welling in Ella’s eyes and there was a burn in her gut. No, she couldn’t do it.

‘If a man deceives me once, shame on him. If he deceives me twice, shame on me.’

She said the old Italian proverb that Santo must know off by heart, for it had been surely cussed to him many times. On this occasion he did not correct her Italian, and Ella spoke on. ‘You know, everything I love about you is the part I hate too.’