The Undoing of de Luca (19 page)

She realized that in all of her maudlin musings on her father’s double life, she’d never considered how his other family felt; how hard it must have been to feel like the impostors, hidden away, unable to claim him as their own. She’d felt betrayed, yet they must have, as well.

And so must Larenz, whose own father had never even acknowledged him. Had his father’s rejection made him the man he was, Ellery wondered bleakly, unwilling and perhaps even unable to love, or even to have a relationship longer than a few weeks? And, if that was the case, how could she reach him? How could they ever find a way forward—if there was even one to begin with?

They were so different, yet so unbearably alike, crippled by their families’ failures, holding on to the one tangible thing that proved they’d had families at all:
houses.
And, while Larenz’s palazzo was in immaculate condition, it was as much a millstone to him as Maddock Manor was to her.

‘Larenz—’ She took a step forward, hope lurching inside her, making her almost stumble. She would not give way to despair; she’d done that for too long, and so had Larenz. At least they were alike. They were the same at least in this, and knowing that made her realize this impossible chasm could, in fact, be bridged. What had seemed to keep them apart could, possibly,
hopefully
, draw them together.

If they were willing to take the risk. If she was.

‘What is it?’ Lost in his own thoughts, he turned to her as if he’d forgotten she was even there. He looked blank, bored, and she knew he was closing himself off again.

And then Ellery understood what she needed to do—and what Larenz needed to do. She closed the space between them and reached up to touch his shoulders, letting her hands slide along the silk of his suit, drawing him to her. He tensed, resisting, and she let her own body relax into his, daring him to accept her own surrender. She wouldn’t let this separate them. She wouldn’t let either of them back off, shut down. Stay safe. ‘Take me to your real home,’ Ellery said. ‘In Naples. Is your mother still there?’

‘Yes—’

‘Take me there,’ Ellery implored quietly, her body still nestled into his. ‘Show me your home, not this…this mausoleum. Show me
you.
’

Larenz shook his head, the movement one of instinctive denial and self-protection. ‘I’ve never taken anyone there.’

‘Take me.’ Ellery held her breath, knowing how much she was asking. Her heart bumped against her chest, against Larenz’s, and the silence stretched on. ‘Please,’ she whispered and, tilting her face up so she could see his, she saw expression after expression chase each other across Larenz’s features. Denial, fear, uncertainty, hope. She knew them all herself. Felt them deeply, these painful feelings that could in fact—maybe,
please
—bind them together. After an endless moment Larenz finally answered.

He put his arms around her, drawing her even closer into the shelter of his own body, and buried his face in the warm curve of her neck, his lips grazing her skin. This was, she knew, his own surrender. ‘All right,’ he whispered, and Ellery closed her eyes in relief and gratitude as the sun’s rays slanted through the long elegant windows of the palazzo and bathed them in warmth and light.

Chapter Eleven

D
ARKNESS
was falling by the time they reached Naples. It had been a long day driving, for Naples was at least four hundred miles from Milan, and yet, for all the time they’d spent in the car, Larenz and Ellery had hardly spoken. The memories were too thick, too suffocating, and yet, even in the midst of them Ellery felt a small strong ray of hope. She’d felt it in Larenz’s arms and she clung to it now, even through the silence, the growing tension. The memories were strong but she wouldn’t let them win. She would not be defeated.

Larenz glanced at Ellery, her profile pale against the darkened window. She looked tired and a little sad, and he could hardly blame her. The last few days had been a hell of a roller coaster; he felt their toll in every part of his body, especially his heart.

He’d never wanted this. To care—and, perhaps, God help him, even more than that. He couldn’t voice it. He wasn’t sure he could even feel it, and he wasn’t about to tell Ellery any of it, and yet the thought of her leaving…

Larenz’s fingers tightened on the steering wheel. Taking Ellery to Naples—to his past—was surely a way to guarantee that she
would
leave. He might exhibit the trappings of wealth and privilege now, but he certainly didn’t come from it. Even his mother, ever proud, refused his offer of a house in the better part of town. She still lived in the cramped flat he’d grown up in, much to Larenz’s dismay and even disgust.

And perhaps Ellery’s, as well…Most women, he’d found, weren’t interested in anything but the man he’d become. Not the man he’d been. Not even the man he was. Yet, from nearly the moment he’d met Ellery, he’d been revealing the man he truly was, as if he
wanted
to be known.

It was maddening. Frightening. Why—and how—did she make him reveal his secrets, make him long for that dangerous vulnerability? What would she really think of the boy whose father had told him he didn’t know him, who had turned him away from his door—the same door Larenz had opened that morning? Possessing the palazzo was an empty victory; the man he’d been trying to impress was already dead. Yet Larenz hadn’t realized that—fully understood the futility of his grand gesture—until he’d shown the place to Ellery. Until he’d seen the grand empty rooms through her eyes.

Sighing, Larenz steered the Porsche through the narrow streets of one of the city’s solidly working-class neighbourhoods. This was his childhood, his home, and he felt its shabbiness keenly. Ellery gazed at the apartment buildings with their peeling paint and shutters askew, her face impassive.

It wasn’t much different than her Manor, Larenz supposed, although there weren’t any Aubussons here, threadbare or otherwise. He nudged the Porsche into a street parking spot, a few inches on either side of the bumpers. ‘Here we are.’ His voice sounded tight and strained even to his own ears.

‘Will your car…’ Ellery asked hesitantly.

Larenz pressed the lock on his key, smiling grimly. ‘No one would dare touch my car here,’ he said. ‘They know me. And they know my mother.’ He saw her flicker of surprise and wondered how she would react to his mother’s cramped flat, her oppressively working-class background, her refusal to accept the world Larenz now inhabited. Would Ellery feel as stifled by that life—that love—as he did?

He’d rung his mother from the road to say he was coming home; she’d crowed with delight and promised plenty of pasta. Now, leading Ellery down a narrow alley to one of the buildings in the back, he wondered if he was making the biggest—and most heart-wrenching—mistake of his life.

This wasn’t what she’d expected. Perhaps she should have expected it, Ellery acknowledged, although, considering Larenz’s own wealth, she hardly thought his mother would still live in a crumbling apartment building in what was certainly not one of the finer neighbourhoods of Naples. Judging by the tight set of his jaw, Ellery wondered if Larenz wished his mother lived in more comfortable circumstances. Had she refused his money? For a proud man like Larenz, who must have worked his way up to his current stunning level of success, that must have been hard to accept.

She was beginning to understand why he hadn’t taken anyone here, why he’d been reluctant to take her. She was beginning to understand so much of this man she’d once judged as simply entitled and shallow. He was, she knew now, anything but.

‘Buon sera! Buon sera!’
The door in front of them had been thrown open, and a woman in her fifties, her curly greying hair pulled back from her smiling face, stood there. She grabbed Larenz by the shoulders and kissed him soundly on both cheeks. Ellery didn’t understand the sudden stream of Italian the woman fired at her son but, from the wagging finger and teasing frown, she suspected Larenz’s mother was telling him he didn’t visit or eat enough. From their embrace, she knew their relationship had to be warm, yet she could still feel the undercurrent of something—tension? resentment?—tautening the air.

‘Mamma, this is Ellery Dunant, Lady—’

‘Nice to meet you,’ Ellery interjected hurriedly. Why on earth would Larenz use her stupid title now? Was he
trying
to emphasize their differences? She wanted to focus on the similarities. ‘Please, call me Ellery.’

‘And I am Marina de Luca. It is a pleasure,’ Larenz’s mother said in halting English. Ellery gave Larenz an involuntary startled glance when she heard his mother’s name. Marina. He’d named his line of haute couture after his mother. The realization made her heart twist.

Marina shooed them both inside. ‘Come in, I’ve kept dinner.’

‘Of course,’ Larenz murmured to Ellery and she smiled. It was good to see Larenz out of his element, and yet also in it. Good and unsettling, too, because he most certainly wasn’t the man she’d once thought he was, the man he wanted the world to believe he was.

In the past few days he’d been—willingly, even—showing her someone else. The man he really was. And that man, Ellery knew, was someone she could love.

She swallowed, pushing the thought away. It was too much—too frightening—to deal with now, even though the thought kept creeping up on her mind, twining its way around her heart.

She gazed around the small tidy living room with its framed embroidery, the sofa and chair covered in crocheted slipcovers. The room was cosy in a worn way; it was a million miles from Larenz’s luxuriously sterile hotel suites. It was his home.

Marina took a huge dish of rigatoni out of the oven in the tiny kitchen and brought it to the small table in the dining nook. ‘Here. Eat. You must be hungry.’

‘This looks delicious,’ Ellery murmured as she sat down. ‘I’m sorry I don’t know any Italian, but your English is very good.’

Marina beamed. ‘Larenz, he teach me,’ she said.

‘Really?’ She shot a quick speculative glance towards Larenz, but he simply shrugged. He seemed uncomfortable here, almost embarrassed. Ellery knew he didn’t like showing her this part of himself, his true self, and she wanted to show him it was okay. She accepted it; she accepted him.

‘Eat,’ Marina said again and, knowing that food could be love, Ellery did. It was indeed delicious.

Afterwards Marina plied them with tiny cups of espresso and meltingly scrumptious slices of
panetta.

‘Larenz, he never brings anyone to see me,’ she said as she watched Ellery eat her cake. ‘I sometimes think he is ashamed.’

‘Mamma, you know that’s not true,’ Larenz said quietly. His own cake was untouched.

She shrugged pragmatically. ‘I know how far you’ve come in this world. I can understand how this is a step down for you.’

‘It’s not,’ Larenz said in a low voice. Ellery’s heart ached at the intensity she heard.

Marina turned to Ellery. ‘Larenz, he wanted me to live in a big place on the outskirts of town. A palazzo! Can you imagine? What would the neighbours say? Who would visit me then?’

Even though Ellery understood the older woman’s predicament, she felt a shaft of sympathetic sorrow for Larenz. He’d tried to provide for his mother, and she wouldn’t take his money, his love.

Marina glanced at her son, bemused and affectionate. ‘Besides Larenz. And he only comes a few times a year, if that.’

‘I’m sure Larenz is very busy,’ Ellery said quietly, smiling at him, but he only looked away and Marina let out a laugh.

‘Oh, yes,’ she agreed, ‘very busy. But no one should be too busy, eh?’

‘I need to make a few calls,’ Larenz said and excused himself from the dining area.

A silence stretched between the two women. Ellery couldn’t tell if it was friendly or not. Marina gazed at her in an assessing way as Ellery toyed with her fork. Her mind buzzed with all the new things she’d learned today, all the parts of Larenz that he’d shown her. Now she had to process them. Accept them. ‘This was all so delicious,’ Ellery finally said. ‘Thank you.’

‘He’s never brought a woman to see me,’ Marina said quietly. ‘You know? A woman…friend.’

Ellery glanced up, blushing. ‘Oh. Yes.’

‘But you. He brings you.’ She shook her head slowly. ‘English girl. I don’t know…’

‘It’s not…’ Ellery began, having no idea what to say or how to explain. She didn’t know what her relationship to Larenz was; the uncertainty was overwhelming, on both sides. She wanted more—at least, part of her did—but even now she was afraid. Everything had happened so quickly, so intensely, and she didn’t know whether to trust it. Trust Larenz, trust herself.

Marina leaned forward, her eyes narrowed. ‘You don’t break his heart, eh? I know he has money, but inside? He is just a poor city boy. That’s all he ever was, and he can never forget it.’ She sat back, sighing. ‘I know how many mistakes I’ve made,’ she said quietly.

‘I don’t want to break anyone’s heart,’ Ellery said, her throat turning tight. She didn’t add,
and I don’t want mine broken either.
They didn’t speak again until Larenz came back in the room.

‘I reserved us a room at a hotel in town,’ he said. He reached down to kiss his mother’s cheek. ‘It’s late, Mamma, and we drove all day from Milan. But tomorrow we’ll come back. Perhaps we can take a walk in the city gardens?’

‘Why would I want to walk?’ Marina said a bit grumpily. ‘You know how it makes my feet ache.’

‘What about those new trainers I bought you? They’re supposed to help.’

Marina shrugged, and Larenz gave a tiny sigh. ‘They weren’t that expensive,’ he said quietly, and she just shrugged again.

Outside, they didn’t speak as Larenz unlocked the car and opened Ellery’s door before sliding into the driver’s seat.

‘Thank you for taking me,’ Ellery finally said, and he shrugged.

‘Now you know.’

Know what?
Ellery wondered as Larenz pulled away from the kerb and headed towards the historic district of the city. Know where he came from? Know what he’d experienced and endured? Know that even though he had money, and power, and prestige, he still was that poor city boy underneath, and she loved that about him?