One Night in Italy (44 page)

There. I’ve said it. Maybe you’d guessed it from the start, but believe me, I hadn’t. Over the last four weeks, as we’ve dined out together around the city, we have talked and laughed and had so much fun, I couldn’t believe I was getting paid to do it. Reader – I’m nuts about him. The only trouble is, I’ve no idea if he feels the same way.

Anyway. Back to the restaurant. The food was fantastic – I couldn’t fault a thing. The staff were friendly and helpful, the ambience was warm and buzzy, and in short, this is a great place to come either for a romantic meal for two, or with a group of friends. Thank you, Maxwell’s, for an excellent night out – and for helping me realize what was under my nose all along.

When Anna’s alarm sounded the next morning she felt fuzzy and disoriented for a moment, until the fragments of the day before rattled into her head with dizzying speed. Her dad’s letter. The flight to Rome. Dinner with Joe. Her restaurant review . . .

Shit. Suddenly she was wide awake, throwing off the baggy T-shirt she’d slept in and leaping into the drizzly shower.
Her restaurant review.
She had to get out of here and off to her course before Joe had a chance to see it.

Five minutes later, she was dragging a comb through her wet hair and throwing on her clothes, then she grabbed her handbag and headed downstairs. The cookery course began with a trip around a food market, Trionfale, to buy ingredients with Stefano, their chef, before returning to Stefano’s kitchen near the gardens of the Vatican City to cook a feast together. She’d ordered a taxi to take her to the market but had fifteen minutes to grab some breakfast before then. Luckily for her, Joe had a more leisurely start as the match didn’t start until two-thirty that afternoon. He’d still be in bed, blissfully unaware of what she’d done.

The hotel restaurant was small and rather dingy but smelled reassuringly of coffee and toast. After loading up her tray with breakfast, she sat at an empty table and took her first sip of coffee. Yum. Even hotel coffee from a machine tasted better in Italy.

She unfolded the print-out of her itinerary and read it for the hundredth time. It was going to be a great day, cooking with a real Italian chef, learning from a master. Hopefully it would be so interesting and enjoyable she wouldn’t have time to think about Joe the whole day. As for tonight . . . Well, tonight she’d find out if Joe was still talking to her. She’d have to worry about that later.

‘Mind if I join you?’

She almost jumped out of her skin at the voice, then Joe sat down opposite her, his hair still wet from the shower.

‘Oh,’ she gulped. ‘I wasn’t expecting to see you this morning.’

‘I saw the review,’ he said without preamble. ‘Looked it up online last night. Talk about leaving a guy wondering.’

‘Oh God.’ She buried her face in her hands. This was exactly what she’d hoped to avoid. Her and her big gob! ‘I’m sorry, Joe. I don’t know what came over me. You must think I’m such a—’

‘Did you mean it? Or did Imogen put you up to it?’

Her eyes were still covered; she couldn’t bring herself to look at him. But he’d handed her an escape route if she wanted it. She could say yes, Imogen put me up to it, she told me what to write . . .

She swallowed. No. That would be a lie. Slowly she peeled her hands away and looked at him. Then she took a deep breath and told him the truth. ‘I meant it,’ she said, her voice shaking. ‘And I know you’ve only just split up with Julia and you’re probably not interested and—’

‘Thank God for that,’ he said and took hold of her hands across the table. ‘Because I feel the same way about you.’

Her breath caught in her throat. ‘You . . . You do?’

‘Isn’t it obvious? Of course I do. Have done for ages. I think you’re gorgeous and funny and clever . . .’

She laughed in delight. The world was spinning. ‘Really?’

‘Definitely. Why do you think me and Julia split up? I knew that I didn’t feel the same way about her.’

They beamed at each other for a giddy, breathless moment. Her heart boomed. ‘Does that mean . . . we can kiss each other?’ she asked recklessly.

‘When in Rome . . .’ he said. ‘You bet.’

Chapter Thirty-Four

Qual è il tuo numero di telefono?
– What is your telephone number?

George seemed to have vanished from Sheffield, much to Catherine’s dismay. He hadn’t appeared at the Italian class on the Tuesday after their non-date. He hadn’t made it to Sophie’s play two days later, even though Anna had bought him a ticket. And then when Catherine went along to the Fox Hill estate on Sunday to help with the new community garden, he wasn’t there either. ‘George?’ Cal repeated when she asked about him. ‘Haven’t seen him all week. Must have a lot of work on or something.’

Now it was Tuesday evening again and time for Italian. She found she was holding her breath as she walked into the classroom – only to exhale in disappointment when he wasn’t there. She wished now that she’d phoned him rather than texted the week before. You could misread a text so easily, couldn’t you? If she’d just spoken to him, he would have heard the regret in her voice. Oh, why did it all have to be so difficult?

Phoebe, Nita, Sophie and Roy were clustered around Anna, she noticed in the next moment, and Catherine remembered that her friend had just come back from Rome. Oh, and of course – she’d written that amazing review in the
Herald
, where she’d poured her heart out about Joe! ‘Anna!’ she exclaimed, hurrying over to join them. ‘How was Rome? Did you have a good time?’

Anna looked radiant, there was no other word to describe it. ‘The best,’ she replied, her face shining with happiness. ‘I’ve got so much to tell you all, please say we can go to the pub after this lesson?’

‘Definitely,’ Catherine and Sophie chorused.

‘We’ll
all
go,’ Nita said, glancing pointedly at Freddie, who’d just arrived in the classroom. ‘I can’t wait to hear all about it.’

Later, at their usual tables in The Bitter End, everyone – even Freddie – listened, rapt, as Anna described her Italian weekend to them: the fantastic-sounding cookery course on Saturday and the few hours’ sight-seeing she and Joe had squeezed in before their plane home on Sunday. ‘
And
I managed to speak loads of Italian too,’ she said proudly.

‘And what about you and Handsome Colleague?’ Catherine asked. ‘Come on, don’t keep us in suspense!’

‘God, yes,’ Sophie said, agog. ‘I read your review on Saturday – whoa. It totally gave me goosebumps.’

‘Me too!’ Phoebe cried, clutching her chest dramatically. ‘So romantic. What did he
say
?’

Anna beamed. ‘He said he feels the same way. And so he’s Handsome Boyfriend now, not just Colleague.’

‘Whoop!’ squealed Nita. ‘God, it’s all happening for us ladies, isn’t it? First Sophie and
her
hunky man. Now you, Anna. Who’s going to be next?’ She batted her eyelashes. ‘Surely
moi
?’

‘Well, I don’t think it’ll be me,’ Catherine said with a little laugh.

‘No?’ Anna looked at her quizzically. ‘I thought maybe . . .’

‘No,’ Catherine said, her heart thumping. She saw Anna and Sophie exchange looks and prayed fervently that they weren’t about to mention George’s name. Not out loud, to the rest of the class. The last thing she wanted was for anyone to get the wrong idea or start gossiping about her.
Oh dear. Did she have a bit of a thing for him, then?

‘I had a text from George earlier, saying he wouldn’t be here tonight,’ Sophie said quietly, as Phoebe started telling the others a funny story about one of her customers. ‘Apparently his wife’s been involved in an accident and is in hospital. He’s gone down to see her.’

‘I didn’t know he was married,’ Anna said.

‘He’s not any more,’ Catherine said, but she felt as if her heart was being clenched in an iron grip. George dropping everything and rushing down south to be at the bedside of his ex . . . What did that mean? ‘Did he say anything else?’

‘No, just that. Sounds pretty serious.’ Sophie paused, eyeing her over her wine glass. ‘Are you okay, Cath? Did something happen between you two?’

‘Not really. He asked me out for a drink the other week—’

‘I knew it!’ cried Anna.

‘But I said no. Or rather, I said yes, but then had to cancel. My daughter was . . . Well, she needed me.’ She bit her lip. ‘I haven’t heard anything from him since then and thought maybe he was being off with me. Sounds like he’s got other things to worry about right now, though.’

‘I reckon. Well, hopefully . . .’ But Sophie didn’t get very far with her sentence because Anna was suddenly nudging them both and indicating that something far more interesting was occurring on the other side of the table.

‘My phone number?’ Nita was saying.

Freddie coloured slightly as he realized that everyone else appeared to be listening in, but ploughed on. ‘I was thinking maybe we could go out one night,’ he asked her. ‘Practise our Italian in an Italian restaurant somewhere?’

There was a flash of triumph on Nita’s face but it vanished almost immediately. ‘Hold on a minute,’ she replied. ‘I’m not sure I want to be just another notch on your bedpost.’

‘My bedpost? What?’ he asked, puzzled.

‘I’ve heard about all your conquests, Freddie. I’m not stupid, you know!’ Nita said witheringly.

‘Conquests?’ Freddie echoed. ‘What do you mean?’

Sophie gave a little cough. ‘Well, I mentioned to Nita that I saw you with a dark-haired girl in the Gladstone just before Christmas,’ she confessed.

‘And I saw you hugging a gorgeous older woman in town one day,’ Catherine said, feeling like the biggest gossip ever.

‘And I saw you with a bloke in the Porter Brook last month,’ Anna added. ‘Sorry, mate.’

Freddie’s jaw dropped lower and lower with every revelation. ‘Hold on,’ he said. ‘The dark-haired girl in the Gladstone – that must have been Maria. My ex-girlfriend,’ he added to Nita. ‘Her family are Italian, and that’s why I started the course, because we were meant to be going to a big wedding in Tuscany in June and I wanted to learn a few phrases.’

‘Aww, that’s nice, Freddie,’ Phoebe said sympathetically, earning herself a glare from her sister.

‘Only we split up two weeks later,’ Freddie admitted. ‘So I’m not with her any more.’

‘What about this older woman then?’ Nita asked, lips pursed. ‘And this bloke Anna saw you with?’ She wasn’t letting him off the hook that easily.

Freddie looked flummoxed. ‘Well, I’m not gay,’ he said, ‘so the bloke must have been a mate of mine.’ His forehead creased as he thought. ‘The Porter Brook, did you say? A couple of weeks ago? It might have been my mate Lee. He’d just lost his job and was in bits. We had a bit of a manly hug, but that was it. I didn’t start snogging him or owt.’

‘Sorry,’ said Anna, shame-facedly. ‘I totally jumped to the wrong conclusion.’

‘As for the older woman . . .’ Freddie looked blank. Then his face cleared. ‘Ahh. Was she wearing a long blue coat, by any chance? Silvery blonde hair, maybe swept up in one of those bun things?’

‘A chignon,’ Phoebe said helpfully. ‘Very elegant.’

‘Yes, I think so,’ Catherine said.

Freddie nodded. ‘That’s my mum,’ he said. ‘And I definitely didn’t snog
her
either.’

Catherine blushed. ‘Oh sorry, Freddie,’ she said apologetically, ‘you must think we’re a right nosey lot.’

‘It’s only because you’re so gorgeous,’ Anna told him. ‘We couldn’t help noticing you, that’s all.’

‘Well, I’m not going out with Maria any more, or my mate Lee, or my mum,’ Freddie said, his cheeks turning pink. ‘So, Nita, let me try again. Would you like to come out for dinner with me one night?’

‘For the love of God, say yes,’ Roy begged. ‘The poor lad. Put him out of his misery, Nita!’

Nita beamed. ‘Yes,’ she said with a grin. ‘I’d bloody love to!’ She smirked at her sister. ‘I
told
you!’ she said before leaning over the table and giving Freddie a great big kiss.

Phoebe cheered, and Sophie, Anna and Catherine all clapped. Roy banged Freddie on the back. ‘No wonder you’ve never come out to the pub with us before,’ he said with a laugh. ‘Bloody lions’ den, this, isn’t it? Let me buy you a drink, son. Let me buy you
all
a drink. Geraldine’s going to love this!’

Text to: George

From: Catherine

So sorry to hear about your wife. Is she ok? Are you? Ring me if you need to chat. C

Text to: Catherine

From: George

Thanks. She came off her bike, hit by a car. Bad head injury, internal bleeding, broken bones. Has been in intensive care all week.