‘Take it,’ he said when she turned away. ‘For God’s sake, it’s only a piece of cloth. Come here, then.’
And he cupped her chin in his hand and began to dab her eyes and her cheeks. She smelt the spicy blend of his cologne and felt the gentle press of his fingers with every touch. She felt strength. She felt kindness. She couldn’t bear it.
She pulled away.
‘I hate you, Marco,’ she sobbed into the linen square. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose. ‘I hate you so much.’
He sat back. She could hear him laugh in between blowing her nose.
‘Plenty do, sweetheart. Plenty do.’
‘We both know that’s a lie,’ she said, giving her nose one final blow. ‘Unless you’ve had a personality transplant in the last five minutes. Those nurses were all over you like a rash. It kind of made me want to hurl.’
He laughed again. It was the best medicine she could have wished for.
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘And I thought it was from eating those pastries. You looked as if you hadn’t seen food in days.’
He turned back to the road and nosed the car in through the double gates.
‘No. Although that would be a great excuse,’ she said, her voice still thick with tears and tiredness. ‘They were amazing. And the coffee.’
She swallowed, shook her head.
‘Thanks,’ she said, cursing her own selfishness. ‘Thanks for getting me checked out. I appreciate it.’
He parked the car in front of a villa—pillars, wide windows and a terracotta-tiled roof. Planters stuffed with flowers and miniature trees and topiary. A rich man’s house. A very rich man’s house.
She flipped down the visor to look in the mirror. Panda eyes—the eyeliner had completely melted and seeped into her eye sockets. She pressed with her knuckle to wipe away what she could. Even her nose was swollen and red. She’d never looked worse in her life.
‘Forget it. The staff did it all. I’ll pass on your thanks to Lydia and the team.’
Instantly she saw Lydia’s perfect hair, Lydia’s perfect face. She slammed the visor shut on her own disastrous image.
‘If it’s all the same I’ll pass on my own thanks. To those that deserve it.’
‘There you go again. Flying off in some crazy direction, damning people whose only crime is not coming from the same social class as you. You want to tone that down, Stacey, or it’ll start to show on your face. And then you’ll be left an angry and bitter old woman—all alone.’
With that he got out of the car, closed the door and walked towards his house.
She sat in silence, enveloped by his words as they settled all around her, harsh and hurtful. But the truth of them was clearer than a clarion call. She knew she didn’t make friends easily. She knew she attracted men but just as quickly scared them away. She knew she was lonely to the bones of her being.
But she’d rather be lonely than patronised, or mocked, or judged.
Marco stopped, turned, raised a solemn eyebrow and held out his hand in a gesture of welcome. Or sufferance.
She didn’t feel welcome. She felt backed into a corner by Marco’s conscience.
What a guy. She could imagine the porch gossips already: ‘You know he even looked after Stacey Jackson in his own house when her mother was out of town.’
With the last of her strength she stifled the agony of her body and her head and her heart and swung herself out of the car. She could feel the cords of the town pulling tight round her neck. She could feel them pulling her back there, like fishermen landing their catch.
But nothing had made her more sure of her decision to have left the place than spending this time with Marco. She hated that world. She hated everything he stood for. And she was counting down the seconds until she could be back on the road, doing her thing, as far away from those parochial, judgemental pains in the ass as it was possible for her to be.
‘BEDROOM’S AT THE end of the hall. Bath’s en-suite. Terrace is accessed from every room.’
He tossed his keys down onto the gleaming worktop and watched them slide right into the fishbowl. It was empty. Had been since...always. Despite every girlfriend who had ever passed through having the notion that she was going to fill it up one day. Thank the Lord that had never happened. The last thing he needed was a goldfish as hostage to his so-called commitment phobia. On top of everything else.
What women didn’t get, of course, was that he was the most committed guy he knew. Commitment was the reason he got out of bed in the morning. But it wasn’t anything to do with pledging his troth to a woman—after the upbringing he’d had, pledging his troth was the last thing that was ever going to happen. Why not just give his legal team a million-dollar retainer and cut straight to the divorce?
It baffled him. Completely.
No, commitment was all about getting things back to the way they should be. And right now he was this close to getting it all back. This close.
Yes, only these next two days to get through and then he’d be back in Montauk, lounging in the Polo Club and watching Preston Chisholm slide the vellum deeds of Sant’Angelo’s—the final part of the Borsatto estate—across the table for him to sign.
Ten long years he had waited for this moment. Ten years of being in hock to poverty, to shame, and worst of all to pity. He could handle almost everything, but the twisted compassion that some of the Montauk natives dished out amounted to nothing short of blackmail.
He reached for the coffee machine, thinking of the women who had held their breath, hoping that poverty would reduce him to becoming some sort of gigolo. Women who’d been so-called family friends. Young and old alike. And the men who’d relished watching Vito Borsatto’s son lose every last cent, every brick, every blade of grass that the most influential family in the Hamptons had ever owned. Generations of Borsattos had built it up. And in one short year it had all gone.
That was when he’d truly known who his friends were. Finding out his father was a philandering compulsive gambler and his mother was a vain, narcissistic drunk hadn’t given him a lot of cachet. He had watched them destroy themselves and then one another and had been able to tell no one. Because the shame had been almost the worst thing of all.
Watching as first the gangsters and then the banks had rolled in to take the estate in chunks. And then the biggest gangster of all: Chisholm Financial Management. Gangsters in three-thousand-dollar suits with fewer scruples than any of the rest. Standing in the dilapidated summerhouse that last day, when the devil himself, Mr Chisholm Senior, had arrived personally to evict him. The pleasure he’d taken in marching him off his own land—the last of the Borsattos. Mother and father long gone. Nothing left but dirt and dust.
Marco drained the last dregs in his cup and poured another.
‘You get through a lot of coffee. Anybody ever tell you that?’
She’d been there that day. Stacey Jackson. She’d turned the town upside down with her attitude and her disappearance. And then she’d swanned back in as if nothing had happened. As if she’d expected some kind of welcome committee...
Was it any wonder he had a jaded view of women? They were after you for your money or your body. Your house or your head. All of them wanted a piece of something. He hadn’t met a woman yet who hadn’t let him down. Including his own mother. Women equalled trouble—especially this one.
‘Maybe I could have one, if it’s not too much trouble?’