He put his head back and breathed deeply, willing his heart to stop this irregular rhythm.
What the hell was wrong with him? Why was it today of all days that he couldn’t shake her from his mind? Why today, when he was mourning his best friend and cousin, had the old memories returned to haunt him?
He could see it so vividly, leaving his room in the castello to head outside to join the rest of his family in the marquee for his aunt and uncle’s thirtieth wedding anniversary party. Natasha had left the room she’d been sharing with Francesca just a short way up the corridor from his at the same time. His heart had skipped to see her and he’d been ecstatic to see the necklace he’d sent for her eighteenth birthday there around her slender neck. He’d been disappointed not to make it to England for her party but he’d been a resident doctor at a hospital in Florida close to where he’d been to medical school. An emergency had cropped up at the end of his shift, a major car crash with multiple casualties that had resulted in all hands on deck. By the time they’d patched up the last casualty he’d missed his flight.
He’d been taking things slowly with her, waiting for her to turn eighteen before making a physical move. And then, in that cold castello corridor, Natasha in an electric-blue dress, the epitome of a chic, elegant woman, he’d realised he didn’t have to back off any more.
All the letters and late-night calls they’d been exchanging for months, the dreams and hopes for the future they’d shared, had all been leading to this, this moment, this time. It was time for their future to begin right then and he’d fingered that necklace before taking her face in his hands and kissing her for the very first time.
It had been the sweetest, headiest kiss he’d ever experienced in his then twenty-eight years, interrupted only by Francesca steamrolling from her room and clattering up the corridor to join them. If she’d been three seconds earlier she would have found them together.
Three seconds.
What would she have done, he wondered, if she had caught them in that clinch?
Because only two hours later Pieta had got to his feet and, in front of the three hundred guests, had asked Natasha to marry him. And she’d said yes.
Matteo rubbed his eyes as if the motion could rub the memories away.
He shouldn’t be thinking of all this now.
Why had he even come here, to the house she had shared with Pieta?
A light came on upstairs.
Had she just woken? Or had she been in the darkness all this time?
And was Francesca right to be worried about her?
Francesca had cornered him as he’d been making his own escape from the wake and asked him to keep an eye on Natasha while she, Francesca, was in Caballeros. She was worried about her, said she’d become a lost, mute ghost.
Although Natasha and Pieta had only been married for a year, they’d been together for seven years. She might be a gold-digging, heartless bitch but surely in that time she must have developed some feelings for him.
He’d wanted her feelings for Pieta to be genuine, for his cousin’s sake. But how could they have been when she’d been seeing them both behind each other’s backs?
Other than the few social family occasions he’d been unable to get out of, he’d cut her out of his life completely. He’d blocked her number, deleted every email and text message they’d exchanged and burned all her old-fashioned handwritten letters. The times he’d felt obliged to be in her presence he’d perfected the art of subtly blanking her in a way that didn’t draw attention to anyone but her.
He should have just said no to Francesca. Lied and said he was returning home to Miami earlier than planned.
Instead he’d nodded curtly and promised to drop round if he had five minutes over the next couple of days.
So why had he driven here when he’d left the castello fully intending to drive straight to the hotel?
* * *
Natasha pushed Pieta’s study door open and swallowed hard before stepping into it. After a moment she switched the light on. After going from room to room in complete darkness, in the house that had been her home for a year, her eyes took a few moments to adjust to the brightness.
She didn’t know what she was looking for or what she was doing. She didn’t know anything. She was lost. Alone.
She’d stayed at the wake as long as had been decently possible but all the consolation from the other mourners had become too much. Seeing Matteo everywhere she’d looked had been just as hard. Harder. Her mother pulling her to one side to ask if there was a chance she could be pregnant had been the final straw.
She’d had to get out before she’d screamed the castello down and her tongue ran away with itself before she could pull it back.
The rest of the Pellegrinis were staying at the castello and with sympathetic but concerned eyes had accepted her explanation that she wanted to be on her own.
At her insistence, the household staff had all stayed at the wake.
This was the first time she’d been alone in the house since she’d received the terrible news.