Matteo had pretty much been left to his own devices.
‘Do you remember when you used to visit me as children when your parents were still alive?’ Giovanni asked.
‘I don’t think about that time,’ Matteo answered.
He did his best to never look back.
‘You were very young, of course. Maybe you can’t remember...’
Oh, Matteo did.
He remembered only too well life before the Di Sione children had come to live here. He could still recall, with painful clarity, the fights that could erupt at any given time and just the sheer chaos of their existence. Of course, he hadn’t understood then that there were drugs involved. Matteo had just known that his family lived on the edge.
A luxurious knife edge.
‘Matteo.’ Giovanni broke into his dark thoughts. ‘Do you remember when I used to tell you all the story of the Lost Mistresses?’
‘No.’ Matteo shrugged and dismissed the conversation. As he looked out of the window to the lake, his gaze fell on a tree that was so high his stomach churned as he remembered climbing it and falling. A branch had broken his fall. Had it not, he’d probably have died.
No one had seen and no one had known.
Alma, the housekeeper, had scolded him for the grass stains on his clothes and had asked what had happened.
‘I tripped near the lake,’ he had said.
His ribs and head had hurt and his heart had still been pounding, not that he would let Alma see that.
Instead it had been easier to lie.
The sensation of falling still woke Matteo to this day but that wasn’t all that he recalled as he stood there staring out of the window. There was a darker memory that he had never shared, one that could still bring him out in a cold sweat—pleading with his father to stop, to slow down, to please take him home.
From that day to this, Matteo had never again revealed fear.
It got you nowhere. If anything, it spurred others on.
‘You surely remember,’ Giovanni insisted. ‘The Lost Mistresses...’
‘I don’t.’ He shook his head.
‘Then I’ll remind you.’
As if I need to hear this again, Matteo thought! He said nothing, though, and let the old man speak.
‘Don’t ask me how I came by them, for an old man must have his secrets...’ Giovanni started. Matteo remained standing, his face impassive, as his grandfather recited the tale. ‘But when I came to America, I had in my possession trinkets, my Lost Mistresses. They meant more to me than you can ever know but in order to survive I was forced to sell them. My Lost Mistresses, the love of my life, we owe them everything.’ Giovanni stopped speaking for a moment and looked at Matteo’s pale features and unshaven jaw, which was now clenched. ‘You do remember.’
‘No.’ Matteo was getting annoyed now. ‘I’ve told you I don’t.’ He loathed delving into the past and he didn’t want a trip down memory lane today. ‘Do you want to go out?’ he suggested. ‘I could take you for a drive. We could go to your club...’
‘Matteo.’ Giovanni cut him off. He knew that Matteo was trying to change the subject. He loved his grandson very much. Even if they had had their problems, still Matteo came by often and took him out. He just, Giovanni knew, let no one in.
Giovanni had to put things right while he still could. ‘I have to tell you something.’
‘Come on, we’ll go for a drive...’ Matteo pushed. He did not want to be here and he did not want to hear what he knew his grandfather was about to tell him.
‘I’m dying, Matteo.’
Giovanni watched his grandson for his reaction but Matteo never gave his true feelings away.
‘We’re all dying,’ Matteo responded, trying to make light of the devastating news while his heart pounded in his chest, as still his mind fought to deny the truth.
He did not want to have this conversation.
He could not stand to think of his grandfather gone and his family together at another funeral. Images of his parents’ coffins and the children all walking behind them still appeared in magazines at times and were always in his mind.
He did not want his grandfather to die.
‘The leukemia is back,’ Giovanni said.
‘What about that treatment you had?’ Matteo asked. Seventeen years ago they had nearly lost Giovanni. A bone marrow donor had been needed and all the grandchildren had been tested but none of them had returned a match. It had been then that the eldest, Alessandro, had confessed that he knew their father had another son. They had tracked Nate down and he had returned a match. ‘Couldn’t Nate...’
‘A transplant is out of the question, and I’m not sure that treatment is the best way forward at this stage,’ Giovanni said. ‘The doctors say we can hope for remission but, failing that, it is a matter of months. The reality is, I have a year at best.’
‘You know how I loathe reality,’ Matteo said and the old man smiled.
‘I do.’
And Matteo escaped reality often—in casinos, clubs, daredevil escapades, constantly pushing both his body and the hedge fund he had set up to the very brink.
How Giovanni wished he could take back the damaging words he had said and handled this complex man so much better. Yes, while there were many similarities between Matteo and his father, there were other traits too—there was an innate kindness to Matteo that had been absent in Benito, a rare kindness of which Giovanni was immensely proud. And though Matteo was eternally restless, in other ways he was the most patient man Giovanni had ever known. As his health had deteriorated, as his stamina had waned, it was Matteo who would come around and take him out, Matteo who fell easily into a slower step beside him and let Giovanni ramble as he had just done.
‘Matteo, I want you to do something for me. I have something that I need for you to do if I am going to go to my grave content.’
Matteo took a breath and braced himself for the inevitable. Here came the lecture! He was quite sure he was about to be told to settle down and tame his ways and so he frowned when the old man voiced his thoughts.
‘I want you to bring me one of my Lost Mistresses.’
Matteo turned and looked at his grandfather and wondered if he’d finally lost his mind. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’
‘My Lost Mistresses!’ Giovanni went into one of the drawers in his desk and Matteo saw a flare of excitement in the old man’s eyes as he took out a photo. Giovanni’s hand was shaking as he handed it to Matteo.
‘This necklace is one of my Lost Mistresses.’
Matteo looked at the photo. It was a lavish emerald necklace and it was, quite simply, beautiful. ‘White gold?’ he checked and Giovanni shook his head.
‘Platinum.’
The emeralds were amazing—the size of robins’ eggs, they sparkled and beguiled. They were so beautiful that even their image made Matteo reach out to run his finger over the stones. ‘We thought it was just a tale that you told, that they were some old coins or something.’
‘So you do remember!’
Matteo conceded that he did with a half smile. ‘Yes, I remember you telling us your tale.’ He let out a low whistle as he looked at the necklace again. ‘This would be worth...’ Usually he could pick this sort of thing but in this instance he really didn’t know. ‘Millions?’ he loosely gauged.