The Italian's Perfect Lover (21 page)

He saw the pain re-enter her eyes but it was
too late to go back.

She came and knelt beside him, her hands
hovering over its bumpy surface, but not touching it. She pulled
away her hand before it came into contact with it.

“I can’t.”

“You must. It’s to be the centre-piece of the
development.”

“Use one of the others. I’m sure it can’t
matter much to you which collection of old rocks slung together is
your centre-piece. Certainly won’t matter to any of your wealthy
clients. They’ll be too busy indulging in eating and drinking and
fornicating to notice anything very much.”

“It’s the Aphrodite Mosaic I want. It’s the
most perfect.”

“Of course.”

“There’s little more to do. I’m surprised
that you haven’t finished it.”

He could see that she was close to tears and
that she was determined not to break down again in front of him.
She turned away briefly, looking around the site as if saying
goodbye.

“I can’t.”

“I want it completed before you go. If you
have some specific, logistical problem, tell me and I will sort
it.”

“No. I mean that I, I haven’t been
able
to.”

He came and put his arms firmly around her.
“Emily. I don’t know what’s going on but tell me what I can do to
help.”

She jumped up as if she’d been shot through
with an electric charge.

“Nothing.” She looked away and then turned to
him once more. “Yes, there is something. I left some reference
material at the house. Get it for me and then I should be able to
finish it.”

“Sure.” He stood up and made as if to hold
her again but she stepped away.

“Just get it.”

“Sure. Wait here. I’ll be an hour. No longer.
Wait. And we’ll do it together.”

He backed away, filled by an uneasy, nameless
feeling but knowing she spoke the truth. He remembered checking on
the folder after she’d left, thinking she probably needed it but
holding on to it as if it were a lifeline. Waiting for her to come
back to get it. But she never had. So it was important after
all.

“Wait,” he repeated. And then he turned and
ran through the darkening estate.

She stayed for ten minutes, feeling the
silence of the past engulf and strengthen her. She pulled her old
shirt more tightly round, cringing at the thought of how near
Alessandro had come at detecting her pregnancy, now too advanced to
go undetected except by wearing her baggiest of clothes.

Did he know?

No. He would have run a mile if he’d
noticed.

And he wouldn’t get another chance to find
out because she’d be gone before he returned.

She tried one last time. She picked up a
piece of wheaten-gold tessera and placed it where she knew it went.
Her hand hovered and then dropped. First one tear fell and then
another. Shaking with sobs she fell against the thick wall and slid
down onto the cold floor and turned away from the blood-stained
sky.

She’d be gone before he returned because
there was no way she could explain to him that it would break her
heart to fit the last pieces, only to find it wasn’t perfect; that
all that work, all that time, all that thought and feeling, had
created something that was still scarred, still flawed.

It was quiet when he returned to the estate.
No-one around. No sound. No Emily.

She was gone just like he knew, deep in his
heart, that she would be.

He walked through to the mosaic.

Unfinished.

She’d broken her word. She’d left before
she’d finished it.

Not only that, but he could see that pieces
had been removed that had been already placed into position by
Emily. For it had only ever been Emily who had been allowed to
touch the mosaic.

It was as if she couldn’t bear to see it
complete. As if completion wouldn’t be enough. But what was it she
wanted? Perfection?

He winced with the pain of realization. Of
course it was. And she would never be enough in her eyes. He’d made
it clear to her that she wasn’t enough in his.

He closed his eyes and, for the first time,
felt himself breaking with the echo of her pain, splintering with
her emotion. He felt as if the barriers around his heart were
disappearing and his heart was contracting and expanding, surging
into a life of intensity and pain. He leant his head against the
cold, rough wall, and felt himself flooded with his love for Emily.
It had always been there but he’d been too scared of the pain
before; too scared that he wasn’t enough to handle it, that he’d
break anything that he held dear.

But what had this made him do? What had he
done to her? He’d broken her down as effectively with his rejection
as he would have done with his love.

He thumped the mosaic and turned away,
flicking the light on his cellphone to check the time. There could
be only one place where she was going at this time of night. And he
had a few friends who could help him out there.

The airport was quiet. The mid-week flight to
London was the last of the night and wasn’t in high demand.

Emily hugged her travel-stained holdall
closer to her stomach and stared across the half-empty terminal,
its bright electric lights, garish and draining. She always
travelled light, even if that meant leaving things behind. And
she’d left a lot behind on this dig.

But she was taking something much more
precious away with her. Her fingers spread out around her rounded
stomach.

It was cold in the air-conditioned departure
lounge; the air conditioning still pumping out cooling air in the
late evening.

Suddenly the doors behind the departure gate
swung open but Emily stayed where she was. Let the others board
first. She closed her eyes, trying to hold back the nausea that
still lingered with her pregnancy and that was exacerbated by lack
of food and a deep feeling that she was leaving too much behind
this time.

“Signorina Carlyle?”

She nodded.

“Please come this way.”

She raised her eyebrows. She had no aversion
to boarding first. She followed him to the departure gate. “What’s
this about?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “I’ve been told to
show you to a different lounge.”

She narrowed her eyes. But before she could
remonstrate he’d opened a door that led into the first-class
lounge—now completely deserted apart from a lone figure, standing
waiting for her.

Automatically she pulled her jacket tighter
around her.

“Alessandro! My flight leaves in half an
hour. You’d better be quick.”

He turned to meet her, his eyes coolly
assessing her face. “I’ll take as long as I like. You won’t be on
that plane.”

“I will.”

“No. I’ve cancelled your seat.”

The cry emerged from nowhere as she flung
down her bag in a rage.

“What the hell do you want from me? Stop!
Just stop it.”

“I want you to do as you promised. Finish the
contract.”

“I can’t.”

“You can and you will.”

“Alessandro.” Her hands unconsciously
caressed her stomach, her words emerging in a whisper: strained and
tense. “Have you no mercy, no kindness in you?”

“You will have the appropriate resources this
time. Come, the car’s waiting.”

She didn’t have the energy to argue—both
mentally and physically she was drained. She felt the firm grip of
his arm and hand around her shoulders as if he didn’t trust to let
her go, as he steered her outside and down the steps to the waiting
car.

It was past two in the morning by the time
they reached the estate. She stumbled out of the car, too tired to
think. But instead of going into the house, he took her arm and led
her across the garden to the dig.

“Are you mad? I can’t do it now.”

“You must. There’s no time left.”

There was no-one there; only one lonely
floodlight illuminated that part of the mosaic that was
incomplete.

“Come.” He picked up a piece of waiting
tessera—they were all lined up,
not
how she’d left them—and
gave it to her. The mortar was wet and waiting. “Put it in.”

“Why? What’s the point?”

“We both need to complete this thing.” He
took her shaking hand, covered it with his own and guided her hand
until it was close to the mosaic. “Where does it go?”

“Here,” her voice was unsteady.

“Then put it there.”

They pushed it into place together.

He picked up another and, again, guided her
hand down to the mosaic, before halting, waiting for her to place
it where it should go. She wanted to resist his pressure but the
larger part of her wanted to use her knowledge and submit to the
instinctive need to complete the mosaic. And that same part allowed
herself to lean against him, to take the strength he was offering
her.

He picked up another. And another. With each
piece the urge to resist lessened. And slowly the last few pieces
came together.

She sucked in the night air sharply as the
last piece was fitted. She wiped the tears from her eyes with the
heel of her hands so she could see it clearly.

“You’ve got what you wanted. Look at it.”
Again her deep intake of the fragrant night air turned into a light
sob as she tried to hold back the pain. “It’s all wrong.”

“You guided the pieces into place. You knew
where they all went. It’s not wrong at all.”

“Just look at it.” Her voice was quiet,
jagged with emotion. “It’s damaged. Can’t you see? It’s damaged and
it always will be. It will never be perfect.”

He turned her around to face him then. It was
as if she’d said something that he’d been waiting to hear.

“Cara, you need to see.” One by one he turned
on all the floodlights until the whole room was bright as daylight
with the mosaic in the centre. “It’s whole. That’s all we can do.
Nothing is flawless but that doesn’t mean it’s any less beautiful.
Open your eyes, mio tesoro, don’t you see?”

She rubbed the tears out of her eyes, trying
to see through the mist of a deep insecurity she hadn’t even known
she possessed. At first all she could see were the lines, the dark
dividers that savagely interrupted the whole and distressed its
beauty. She shook her head.

“No. Look at the whole thing.” He pulled her
away until she could see the mosaic as it was intended, lending the
room a grace, an elegance and a beauty that had drawn her to it in
the first place. “The scars will always be there. But scarring
makes us stronger, remember. Not weaker. And there’s perfection in
strength. There’s a future in that strength.”

She shook her head, not in disbelief, but in
awe as she truly saw the mosaic for the first time. But Alessandro
must have misunderstood.

“Please, Emily,” his voice cracked,
“understand.”

“I do. I think I do. It’s just that I so
wanted it to look new, untouched, flawless. And it’s not. But I
can’t change it, can I? And, perhaps, I shouldn’t, even if I
could.”

“It is as it is: beautiful in its own right.
Like you.”

He sank his face into her hair, his forehead
resting on the top of her head and she could feel the struggle he,
too, was going through.

“I’m so sorry, Alessandro, you tried to tell
me that it’s my own stupid self-image that stopped me from
believing in myself.”

He half-laughed and she felt him shake his
head against hers. ‘I would not have dared to call you
‘stupid’.”

“Perhaps you should have done because I have
been.” She clasped his face between her hands and pushed him away
from her so she could see him. “I’m letting it go, all of it, the
scars, the fear. I don’t want it any more. I’m so tired of it. It
was hidden away so deep inside that I hadn’t even realized what I
was feeling, what I was doing.” She looked at the mosaic, complete
and brilliant under the bright lights. “But now I do; now it’s
clear.”

“You would have realized sooner if it hadn’t
been for my own blindness and selfishness. I’m so sorry. Please,
stay with me, make a future with me.”

She closed her eyes tight. Everything was
clear now. Everything. Including the fact that it wasn’t enough to
build a future on.

“I’m sorry, Alessandro, the answer’s
‘no’.”

He reeled back as if she’d hit him. His face
was ghastly under the bright lights. He shook his head. “You can’t
mean it.”

“I do. You’ve held me now. You know I’m
pregnant. But my child deserves more than a sense of duty. I know
you’re a man of your word. But I don’t want you like this.”

“Emily, don’t you realize what I’m
saying?”

“Of course I do. You see the future through
our child. It’s because I’m pregnant, isn’t it? You don’t love me,
you’ve always been clear about that.”

He laughed aloud with relief.

“You are one crazy woman. Why would I chase
you around Italy, bring you back here, if I didn’t want you, if I
didn’t love you?”

“Why wouldn’t you say you loved me, if you
did?”

He pulled her to him.

“Because I’m stupid. I love you, Emily. Marry
me.” He pulled her close until her stomach nestled into his body.
“Keep me warm, keep me grounded, keep loving me like I love you.”
He kissed her hair, her cheek her lips. “Give me many babies, keep
eating, keep laughing, keep enjoying life. Marry me because I want
to share your life with you. Because I can’t live without you.”

Tight against each other Emily felt her
stomach—her new life—press into Alessandro, his warmth filling her
body. Tight against each other, she could feel his heart beat under
her cheek, vibrating through her body and finding its rhythm with
her own. Tight against each other she looked up into his eyes,
their brown depth illuminated by the white glare of the
floodlights: full of love, full of promise for the future.

She nodded once briefly and watched as his
eyes flickered with hope and then concern.