‘He stole from me!’ Geo said now, and cursed. ‘He took what was mine.’
‘You tell tall tales, Geo,’ Aurora said gently.
‘Well, he can stick his nursing home in Rome. I hate him. Why would I want to live closer to him?’
Aurora knew that father and son did not get on. She knew it very well.
But, though she loathed Geo’s treatment of Nico, she could not walk past the old man’s house and not drop in. It was worth it if it made things a little easier on Nico to know that his father was being cared for.
‘Now,’ Aurora said. ‘Is there anything else that you need me to do?’
‘Take some money from my dresser and run down to the store.’
‘I’m not getting you whisky, Geo,’ Aurora told him.
‘Why not? We’re all going to die in these fires!’
Aurora beamed. ‘Then you will meet your maker sober.’
‘Take the money and get me my whisky.’
‘Don’t.’
The very deep voice caused Aurora’s stomach to flip over, but even before she turned to face its direction she knew its source.
‘Nico…’ she said. ‘You’re here?’
‘Yes.’
He wore suit trousers and a white shirt—which somehow, despite the ash floating in the air, looked fresh. His hair was black and clean, unlike hers, which felt heavy after a day spent sweeping leaves outside Geo’s home and trying to get his house as safe as possible.
Oh, why couldn’t he have arrived in a couple of hours, when she was all washed and dressed up for Antonietta’s party?
But, really, what did it matter? Nico would never look at her in that way.
‘How did you get here?’ Aurora asked. ‘The road from the airport is closed.’
‘I came by helicopter,’ Nico said.
‘Told you,’ Geo declared to Aurora, but then he addressed his son. ‘I’m not going anywhere and you’re not welcome here. Get out!’
Here we go, Aurora thought, and sure enough, within two minutes of Nico arriving, Geo was shouting and waving his stick at his son.
‘Get out!’ he raged.
‘Pa…’
‘Out!’ Geo shouted. ‘I want you gone. You bring nothing but trouble. You’re not welcome in my home. You’re a thief and a liar and you ruined me.’
It was Aurora who calmed things down. ‘I’ll take Nico outside and show him what has been done to prepare for the fire,’ she suggested.
They stepped out of the small house, but there was no reprieve—Geo’s words followed them out into the oppressive heat, where the air was smoky.
‘He won’t leave willingly,’ she said.
‘I know he won’t.’ Nico sighed.
He had his chopper waiting, and a care facility in Rome ready to receive Geo, but even as Nico had asked Marianna to put the arrangements in place he had known it was futile.
‘You could carry him out,’ Aurora suggested.
‘I could,’ Nico agreed, ‘but then he would die on my shoulders just to spite me. What about you?’
‘Me?’
‘Yes, why are you staying, Aurora?’
‘Because we have to protect the village.’
‘And what can you do against the might of a wildfire?’ Nico asked.
All five-foot-three of her. She was tiny—a stick.
Except she wasn’t a stick any more.
They had avoided each other as much as possible since that awkward walk four years ago, and he had watched her blossom from a distance. The child he had rejected was now all woman. The cheeky, precocious brat who had hung on his every word was a forthright, assertive woman who, to Nico’s cold surprise, completely turned him on.
Not that he showed it. For one thing had not changed. Nico did not want a family and he did not want the responsibility of another heart.
‘Aurora, you can’t do anything to stop the fire.’
‘I can feed the firefighters,’ Aurora responded. ‘Anyway, Pa says the village is safe.’
‘Aurora…’ Nico kept his voice even, but fear licked at his throat at the thought of her staying here.
The village was not safe. Far from it. Nico had, after all, just viewed the fires from the sky, and heard the worrying comments from his pilot, who was ex-military. Bruno, Aurora’s father, was probably regretting his foolish decision and just putting on a brave face.
‘Leave.’
‘No.’
He persisted. ‘Come with me now and get out.’
‘I already told you—no.’
‘I could insist…’ Nico said, and it angered him when she snorted.
Did she not get that the village was going to go up in smoke and that the fire would destroy all in its path?
‘I could just put you over my shoulder—the same way I am tempted to do with my father.’
‘And then what, Nico? What will you do with me in Rome?’
He gritted his teeth.
‘My father would not object,’ she said. ‘In fact, all the villagers would come out and cheer if you carried me off.’ She gave him a smile that did not quite meet her eyes. ‘But then you would surely return me, Nico, and that would not go down very well.’
No, Nico thought, it would not. ‘Don’t you ever think of leaving?’ he asked.
‘Why would I?’ Aurora shrugged. ‘La famiglia is everything to me. Give me good food and family and my day is complete. What more could I want?’
‘You should deepen your voice, Aurora,’ Nico said, ‘when you impersonate your father.’
‘But I wasn’t impersonating him.’
‘No? You’ve heard it so often you believe it to be your own thought.’
‘Why do you have to criticise?’
‘I’m not.’
‘Oh, but you are.’
Nico took a breath. Aurora was correct. He was criticising—and he had no right to. Especially when she did so much for his father.
He addressed that issue. ‘You still haven’t sent me your bank account details so that I can pay you for the time spent with my father.’
‘I don’t count it as work.’
No, she saw it as duty. Nico knew that.
Even though he had not married her, she had taken on the role of caring for his family.
‘Aurora…’
‘I don’t have time for this, Nico. I want to move the firewood away from your father’s home. I thought my brother had done it…’
‘Give me a moment,’ Nico said.
Walking away from the house, he took out his phone and made a call to his pilot.