A Life Sublime (14 page)

He leaned forward and removed the sunglasses from her face, placing them between the plates. “That is much better. I can talk to you now.”

“This is lovely,” Belinda sighed, leaning an arm on the back of the cushion to look at the expanse of water surrounding them. Massimo noted more than a few people who saw the boat, saw Belinda then him and their facial expressions made him laugh. Belinda gave more than a few sarcastic waves, ignoring even the more enthusiastic returns and focused on the meal.

“You are quiet, which is not at all like you.”

“Two days has taught you a lot,” she muttered.

“Three,” he corrected. “Are you not happy to be here?”

“I’ve never had anything like this. It’s so beautiful.”

“But you should. You deserve this and more. What would you like more of? The meats, yes?
Prego
.” Slowly she began to relax, anything that orientated around discussing the children relaxed her and then he was able to talk with her about first arriving in London, experiences they had both shared.

“My English was not good. Not good at all,” Massimo admitted. “I had to learn very quickly or not survive.”

“It is about survival,” she echoed. “People don’t understand how hard it is to change so no one thinks you’re different. That you don’t belong in the country. When I first came to London, we didn’t eat in public, never, ever. We would wait until we got home and there were plates, knives and forks.”

He recalled the same in his past and remembered how he missed alfresco dining particularly when there were days of little else but rain and more rain. She told him her first job had been in a bank as an administrator, how she would have a glass of wine at lunch, every lunch and she felt all the better for it. When she asked him what he had employed himself with, he told the truth.

He told her an old family had asked him for
il pizzo
protection money to protect his father’s farm. The threat had lit something new within him and he had burned the family to the ground, until there wasn’t a member left to cross him or demand
il pizzo
again. Then with Mary Alice’s encouragement, he left Naples for London, completed accountancy while turning over banks like the ones she worked in without lifting a single weapon.

He needed to be smarter than the men who had come before him. Finance was becoming a consumerism that could be much more lucrative and better exploited than any of the old professions.  He had begun to launder money through companies, through houses, buying into stocks and shares, paying people like Rocco Mamione’s father for tips to ensure money was flowing the correct way. How he begun to employ people to wipe out those who caused him trouble, who challenged him when he realised it was becoming too difficult to continue to do so himself without compromising the whole structure of his organization and the reasoning for undertaking accountancy in the first place. His sons had been brought up with the knowledge they would both need to survive in his world and ensure that everything he had worked for did not go to waste.

Belinda didn’t say anything when he finished. “Now you know,” he said above the quiet, the engine of the boat stilled.

“Why tell me?” she asked, slipping her sunglasses back on and worrying at her bottom lip. Her tone made him feel sick to his stomach. In his time, he had only been admired for his activities and never received condemnation, particularly from women. It was what guaranteed him a warm bed for the night with a willing woman beside him — what he could do, what he could give a woman, was what had led Mary Alice to him. Belinda seemed only bitterly disappointed and the hurt it caused him was an unpleasant surprise.

“It is important that you do know.”

She picked up a fork and moved an olive stone across her plate. “It doesn’t make any difference to me. I’m not even related to your daughter-in-law.”

Massimo firmly removed the fork from her hand and took her sunglasses, throwing them overboard. Her eyes flashed fury, “What’s the matter with you?”

“Talk to me,” he ordered. “Properly.”

“And say what? You’re so great. You’re so powerful. You’re a big man. I’ll tell you this. You’re not. Why? You’re just lucky because you haven’t been caught.”

He was insulted and ashamed by the truth in her words. “I like to think it has been more than luck.”

“Cunning, quickness, whatever,” she shrugged. “I don’t want to know.”

“
I
want you to know. I need you to know what I am, so you can—”

“What?” she flashed, “What do I do with that?”

Love me in spite of it
, he thought feeling her distance as if she were back in London and he were alone on this damn boat. “I want us to be even. You know me and I know you. We were very close this morning.”

“It was the drink,” she dismissed.

“It was there before you touched a drop,” he reminded her, annoyance creeping along his spine.

Her lashes lowered defensively. “I’m too—”

Massimo unclenched his jaw just to speak, “If you say old, Bella, you and I will be having serious words.”

To his surprise she gave a snort of laughter. “I always say it, I know. But I am. I can’t be saying this is good, if it’s not and I’m happy if I’m not.”

“You were happy when you did not know, but it would not be fair to either of us to keep it from you.” She didn’t disagree with him to his relief. “Spend today with me. Let us enjoy it before realities make us both sad and regretful. I am tired of regrets, are you not also?”

He begged her with his eyes to let go, to do something that was out of her conservative character, to be free and honest to her very nature.

“Aren’t you one more regret?” she asked.

“Not unless you allow me to be one.” He placed his hands on either side of her face, trying to send reassurance in his touch that there was no danger in a single day. For now…

“I think you need to leave me alone for a little bit,” she said finally.

At least she wasn’t jumping overboard and swimming back to shore. “Maybe take a rest down below or on the upper deck?”

“Up there,” she nodded to the sundeck. Without waiting for his permission, she took her straw bag and climbed up the stairs. He watched her tug down her floral kaftan and lie down on the lounger. She removed a huge straw hat from her bag of magic tricks and placed it firmly on the back of her neck before tucking her face into her elbow.

With a sigh he called one of the staff for a bottle of ice cold white wine. If he had learned anything from his past, it was patience that delivered. Belinda was more than worth his patience.

She fell under the sedation of the sun’s heat, the yacht rocking her into slumber and had the oddest dream. Belinda was back working for the bank, sitting at her old desk in her swimming costume, only Massimo seemed to be her boss, one hand firmly curled around her left breast as he talked her through transferring monies from one account to another. “The money’s not yours,” she told him on a sigh, wishing he’d move his hand further south.

“You are though.” His words collided with the straps of the costume being pulled to her waist. “You will understand in about forty years. Now lift your ass for me. I want to taste you while you finish.”

Her eyes flew open.
My word
. Massimo was sitting beside her, stroking his hand along her arm almost carelessly. He tilted his head to her once he sensed her movement.

“Are you awake?”

She gave a slight nod. So the bit before hadn’t been part of a dream. They were still on the yacht now beneath a stone based huge blue umbrella. And she still knew far too much. He continued to stroke her arm, glancing out over the sea. Belinda was furious with herself for allowing herself to begin to care about this man and the thought made her even angrier.

Her whole life she’d only ever done the right thing, the moral thing and she’d ended up alone. All the men she had ever associated with, the ones who were supposedly God fearing, had showed their lack of belief not only in themselves or even God, but her. She’d been let down by those she had been taught to trust, in that lesson, she’d taught herself to be trusting only in God. To do only what was sensible. Head over heart, every single time. Then this happened. And she was suddenly torn in a way she’d never needed to be. Making the right decision had been easy when she didn’t feel like this.

Massimo had treated her with more care, more honesty than she had even thought possible from a man. Would one day cause that much harm? She wasn’t foolish enough to think that she’d be able to change him or set him on some righteous path and neither was she so weak that she would be on the road to hell because of him either.
What the hell do I do?

“Do you want to go back?” Massimo asked her quietly.

She sat up, dislodging the hat and placing it on her lap. “Let me go tidy myself up.”

“Use the master bathroom. It will have everything you need.” She gave him a slight smile. He looked so sad as if he thought he’d lost her to the realities of his past. Hurrying to the bathroom two decks below, she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror.
Why don’t I feel like I deserve to be a little bit happy?
She was thinking too hard. When had that ever worked out for her? Combing a protecting gloss through her hair, she cleaned her teeth slowly. “Stop,” she chided herself. “You’ll be one foot in the grave if you stay here any longer.”

Massimo was waiting for her on the fly bridge, resting his elbows on his knees. He looked up when he saw her approach and the look in his eyes caused a lump to form in her throat. “It will not take us long to get back,” he said quietly. “I can have a taxi take us back to the villa from the marina.”

Just do it.
She took a deep breath. “Show me the island.”

He started, blue eyes round with surprise. “Are you—?”

She interrupted him immediately. “Don’t ask me that. Just let’s go.”

With a short nod, he went to have a word with the captain and returned in swimming trunks. Physically, he was a sinfully attractive man. But then the devil is always more attractive. Massimo jumped overboard first and when he surfaced he beckoned to her. She joined him and felt that wonderful realisation of nothing but the buoyancy of the water beneath her feet. It was so clear. With a smile, she tipped her head back and allowed herself to float on the surface. Nothing wrong could ever happen when she was in the sea. It was her second home.

“Bella, come this way.”

They swam through crystal clear water, tiny silver fish scattering in their wake. Belinda kept her head above water so she could follow him. The sun disappeared behind the imposing, white faced rocks. He told her in the muted darkness of a slight alcove that the island had been subject to invasions and had been gifted by emperors. It had seen plagues, Christianity, isolation. She reached up and ran a wet hand over the nearest wall of rock. To think, with all the island had experienced, it had survived, it had endured. All at once she felt very small in the world and even foolish for her supposed dilemma. She looked at Massimo who was looking to the sunlight, his profile strong, stately, like the emperors he had spoken of.

If he hadn’t done what he had would she be here? Would any of this be happening to her, to them right this minute?

“What did your parents do again?” she asked.

“They ran the winery and traded the olives for oil, bread, butter, beauty products,” he replied. “It was a good business but it was not enough for me.”

“And you didn’t care how you got it?” she finished for him. He breathed out heavily, looking down into the water.

“Please. Do not make me wish it undone, because I would not have my boys and without them I have nothing.”

His voice broke her heart. She swam close to him and slipped her arms around his neck. “I would never wish that. Never.”

She kissed away those tears, her mouth trailing along the planes of his face until their lips met. He froze in her embrace, as if he couldn’t understand why she was kissing him. She urged him to respond to her with the press of her body and mouth.
Kiss me!
She begged. And he needed to soon, before she lost all confidence that this what he wanted just as much as she did. Suddenly, he kissed her back! Her stomach fluttered violently when his tongue met hers. She tasted the salt of the sea water and in the depth of that kiss, his vulnerability. Tightening her arms around his neck, she kissed him harder. He was glorious muscle and heat and such strength. She felt herself sinking into the water but he held her tightly, as strong as the rocks surrounding them. She could feel his heart beating fast against her chest almost at the same pace as hers.