A Moment on the Lips(24)

But when she looked closely at the figures, it seemed to be just as Mancuso said: sales were simply dropping, year on year. Maybe her instinctive dislike of him had been wrong. Maybe he had nothing to hide after all, and he was just fed up because Nonno had handed the reins over to her instead of letting him continue to run the business.

Though surely he realised that, if Nonno had sold the business, Dante Romano would’ve brought his own management team in—maybe even taken over the reins himself, at first? So this was pretty much the same thing.

Well, she’d make her peace with him later in the week. Right now, she had more important questions to ask.

She arrived at her grandparents’ house that evening with flowers for her grandmother and some of the little marzipan fruits she knew her grandfather adored. After dinner, she insisted on helping her grandmother in the kitchen.

‘Nonna, why didn’t you tell me about Nonno’s heart problems?’ she asked softly.

Elena Tonielli looked flustered. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, tesoro.’

‘Emilio Mancuso told me today. The ones Nonno had five years ago.’ She couldn’t help the hurt spilling out. ‘The ones you didn’t tell me a thing about.’

‘You were in London, cara. You were happy. We weren’t going to drag you back here.’

She bit her lip. Had her grandparents really thought that she’d need to be dragged home? ‘Nonna, you surely can’t think that you and Nonno would ever take second place in my life? If I’d known he was ill, I would’ve got on the first plane from London.’

‘And disrupted your life. I know. But you were doing so well in London and we didn’t want to worry you. Nonno’s fine.’

So had Mancuso been lying to her? ‘So are you saying Nonno didn’t have heart problems?’

‘He had chest pains, yes, but it was more of a scare than anything else.’

But it had happened five years ago, and she hadn’t had a clue about it. ‘Were you ever going to tell me?’ she asked. Her grandmother’s awkward expression told her the answer, and she closed her eyes. ‘I wish I’d never left Naples. If I hadn’t gone abroad, hadn’t been so selfish and stayed away … I should’ve come back and taken over from Nonno years ago. Like Papa would’ve done.’ They both heard the words she left unspoken: had he lived.

‘We only wanted to see you happy, tesoro,’ Elena said softly. ‘It was right you should spread your wings and see a bit of the world. And you needed to meet the English side of your family. We’d been selfish in keeping you to ourselves. We should’ve sent you over before.’

Carenza swallowed hard. ‘You weren’t selfish. You took me in, you gave me a home, gave me everything I wanted.’ They’d been in their fifties when her parents had died, and dealing with a young child on top of their own grief must’ve been such a strain on them.

‘We took you in because we loved you. And having you meant—well, it meant we still had some of Pietro. We could see him in you as you grew up.’

‘So Nonno’s been ill for the last five years?’

‘He was in hospital for less than a day,’ Elena reassured her. ‘They said it was angina and told him to take it easier, that’s all, and to use a spray under his tongue if he ever gets any more pains in his chest.’

‘Nonno, take it easy?’ she scoffed.

‘I didn’t give him a choice,’ Elena said dryly. ‘I told him I’d already lost my son and I wasn’t prepared to lose my husband. So he agreed to slow it down, delegate the business to Emilio until …’

‘Until what?’ Until she was ready to come home and take over?

Elena flapped her hand dismissively. ‘Never mind. He’s fine. Now, stop fussing or your grandfather will want to know what we’re talking about.’

‘And we don’t want to worry him and give him chest pains.’

‘Exactly.’ Elena smiled. ‘Emilio’s been so good to us. He’s done so much, never asked us for a thing.’

And now Carenza had waltzed in from London and been given the business that he’d spent the last five years looking after. No wonder he was hostile towards her: she was taking everything away from him and not giving him any credit for the work he’d put in. She made a mental note to make more of an effort with him.

‘Now, let’s go and join Nonno. And not too much business talk, please.’