Jade made a series of wild guesses. ‘You’ve won the lotto? You’re going to play for AC Milan? Or drive for Ferrari F1?’
Leo tilted his head, as if solemnly considering these options, before giving way to her curiosity. ‘You remember I shared a house in Edinburgh with Bryce? He’s working at a big, new events centre now.’
‘Is he coming over?’ It didn’t seem madly exciting to her, but Leo had spent his university years living with his friend so it might be big news to him. He’d even taken advantage of Bryce’s contacts to spend a couple of summers working at the Edinburgh Festival rather than coming home to Como sunshine and prosperity.
Leo shook his head, then took a gulp of wine. ‘He’s recommended me for a job! I applied and took a video interview. And it’s mine if I want it.’
For a second, Jade shared his jubilation. ‘That’s fantastic. But won’t your parents mind you leaving Villa Panorama? Where’s the events centre?’ Then she noticed the spark of apprehension in his eyes and her heart pitched. ‘Oh. Bryce doesn’t live in Italy... the job’s in Scotland.’
‘England,’ he corrected her, taking her hand. ‘A swanky place outside Birmingham. It’s owned by a big chain so there will be opportunities to progress.’ His eager words began to trip over one another. ‘The venue isn’t open yet. They’re recruiting. There are loads of roles you could apply for too. We could live together in the city. What do you think?’
Jade’s tongue felt frozen to the roof of her mouth.
He squeezed her fingers and laughed awkwardly. ‘Sorry if I’ve taken you by surprise. I’m excited. It’s all happened so quickly – literally over two days.’
Her mouth refused to smile back. She had to swallow before her words would come out. ‘I’m not going, Leo.’
His brows, darker than his hair, sank slowly over eyes that no longer shone. ‘Without even seeing what roles are available for you? Are you annoyed that I didn’t tell you about my application and interview? I’m sorry. It happened fast.’ He gave her hand a tiny shake. ‘Come on, Jade. We’re twenty-three and there’s a big world outside of Como. I know it’s fantastic here,’ he added hastily. ‘It’s beautiful and historic, but it can’t grow because it’s hemmed in by mountains and the lake. It can’t change, because nobody wants it to. I want to experience places that are developing instead of always traditional and controlled. Something different.’
Unwelcome images of concrete and glass buildings soaring twelve or more storeys above crowded motorways slid into her mind. She licked dry lips. ‘I’d let myself forget how ambitious you are,’ she said huskily. ‘You went to uni when I didn’t. But I suppose I thought...’ She freed her hand to lift her wine glass, shaking, to her mouth. Just this morning, Gran had said that Sheenagh hoped Jade would be enough to keep him in Como. Pain seared her heart to realise that she wasn’t.First Joey, then Geneva. And now Leo.
He leant forward as if that would help him understand, his body heat reaching for hers across the table. ‘I should have talked to you before I went applying for jobs.’ His gaze was guilty, and though he was twenty-three, the same age as Jade, today he felt younger – or at least less mature. All the time he’d been a student and working at Villa Panorama – only until something better came up, it now seemed – Jade had been living real life, gradually easing the pressures of Pensione Three Sisters from Gran’s shoulders to her own.
She tried to smile, though her wobbling lips wanted to turn down at the corners instead of up. ‘I won’t abandon Gran.’
A frown had replaced his earlier laughter and light. ‘Surely Mairead wouldn’t hold you back?’
Now he felt like a stranger. She shoved back her chair, rising unsteadily. ‘I wouldn’t give her the choice. I’m all she’s got. Leaving her – leaving Como – would feel like wearing my skin inside out.’ She turned towards the door.
Leo jumped up, towering, loud and incredulous. ‘You’re not even staying to talk?’
Jade cast a last look at his bed across the room. All day she’d been picturing herself there, her limbs tangled with Leo’s, his mouth on her skin. But that was before. Before she realised how naive and foolish it was to expect Leo Sartori to stay in Como. With her.
She shook her head and quietly let herself out – of his apartment and his life.
She’d never trust so readily again.
Chapter One
Present day, Como
Jade faced Mary Smith, her grandmother’snotaio, in her office on Via Milano in a creamy primrose building with pale green shutters. Ten days ago, when the sun shone through June mist and turned the air pink over Lake Como, eighty-five-year-old Mairead Campbell had gently slipped away. Now it was the first of July and Jade was struggling with what her grandmother had always told her:I don’t want you to mourn.
Mary Smith was a pleasant ex-pat Englishwoman with untidy brown hair that shed all over the shoulders of her blue jacket. Her mousepad was printed with a picture of two toddlers about the right age to be her grandchildren, and a row of glossy green plants filled her windowsill. Jade could see that someone so cosy would be exactly Mairead’s kind of legal advisor.
‘Gran chose her own arrangements,’ Jade began. ‘She became a Catholic to marry Nonno, but didn’t attend church much.’ Except, of course, anything that had marked Jade’s progress through the local Montessori school, such as First Holy Communion, smiling proudly because Jade was involved. ‘The service will be led by a celebrant in the gardens of Villa Panorama. It’s owned by the Sartori family. Gran and SheenaghGregor were great friends, and I went to school with Leo Sartori.’ The last sentence tied a knot in Jade’s throat. Why in the hell would she think Gran’snotaiowould want to know about Leo? ‘It’s to be one of those funerals about celebrating her life, rather than mourning loss.’
Mary smiled. ‘That correlates with her instructions to me and the cremation people, and so on. She was a woman with her own ways.’ Before Jade could smile and amend ‘own ways’ to ‘unusual ways’, Mary cleared her throat. ‘She was also clear that Mr Giovanni Beretta, her only child, would renounce his inheritance. He has already confirmed to me via email that he will. He’ll attend a notary public in England to make the appropriate declaration.’
Jade let out a breath, relieved at this confirmation that she wouldn’t be faced with dealing with her father, the man who meant nothing to her, nor she to him. She smothered the voice in her head that whispered:what would it be like if you weren’t able to ignore each other?Crunching her hands together in her lap, she said nothing to indicate that Joey being in England was news. Neither did she bother asking whether he’d seemed sad to lose his mother. He’d paid Gran only cursory attention. He wouldn’t come to her funeral any more than he’d attended Nonno’s.
Mary frowned down at a folder on her desk before she spoke again. ‘I have your grandmother’s will, drawn up in accordance with Italian law, but she also left you a letter. I’m to ask you to read it before we go on.’ Rising, she withdrew a long white envelope from the folder and passed it across the desk. ‘I’ll leave you to digest the contents.’
A letter from Gran was so unexpected that Jade hardly noticed Mary treading quietly to the door. The envelope trembling in her hand boreJade Berettawritten in blue in Mairead’s cursive handwriting. While the open window admitted the drone oftraffic from the road outside, Jade turned the envelope, unstuck the flap, pulled out the pages and smoothed them.
My dearest, dearest Jade, it began.
You’ve been such a joy to me, as you were to Nonno. I want you to know how very much we loved you.
