Page 50 of Giorgio

“When?”

“As soon as I clear it with Edoardo.”

“I see.”

Giogio laughed harshly. “Do you? She has forced me to face myself, to look at myself in the mirror and what I saw there wasn’t very appealing. She never comes right out and says anything, that’s not her style.

She would just stare with those large dark brown eyes and that would do it. I have never met anyone like her.” He shook his head in puzzlement.

“Sounds like love to me,” his father said calmly.

“For how long? Until the novelty has worn off? I am shallow. My sexual experiences are legendary and numerous. I flit from one woman to the next, without batting an eye. Oh, I convince myself that I am a generous lover and insist on being friends after, I have certainly left them with expensive gifts, but the fact remains that I am selfish.

I have been handed everything and never had to ask for anything. Ever since I realized the power I have over the fairer sex; I have used it to my advantage. I would never be the man she deserves.”

“You haven’t attended the usual gatherings since you met her,” his father pointed out.

“No. But that’s because I wanted to be there for her. I felt guilty, knowing I almost cost her life.”

“It’s been three weeks.”

“I know.” He rubbed a hand over his scruff. The photographer, Giovanni, an annoying and hyperactive unapologetically gay and spritely dressed man had oohed and aahed over the shadow on his face and insisted that it was just what was needed for the shoot.

“That sexy just tumble out of bed look is going to set the female shoppers into a tizzy. Male shoppers like me as well.” He hadtrilled. Giorgio wondered what the man would say if he knew how accurate he was. He had just stumbled out of bed, her bed and wanted so much to be back there with her, he was avoiding going home.

“Giorgio?”

“Yes?”

“What are you going to do?”

“I have no idea.”

*****

Her memory will come back. The doctors had warned her that it would probably return without any fanfare.

“It does not have to necessarily be something significant, a familiar item or word, something you have seen before. It might just simply return when you least expect it.”

One minute she was wrapping herself in her robe and sliding into bed and the next she was going still as the memories tumbled over themselves inside her brain.

It might have something to do with the fact that she was pissed off at Giorgio. He hadn’t returned her calls all day and she had ended up having supper in the library. When she asked Lucia where the men of the house were, she had been told that as it was Sunday, they were no doubt at the club.

He didn’t even have the decency to tell her he wouldn’t be home. But then again, he didn’t owe her anything, did he? She was just the willing flesh that had made herself available to him last night and this morning.

But thoughts of him had fled. She remembered everything and most of all, the most excruciating memory of them all, was the fact that she had lost her dad.

She recalled the funeral. The local church had been filled to capacity, because Cecil Campbell had been well-loved and very popular. The cancer had eaten away at him and before he succumbed to the illness, his usual robust frame had been reduced to almost skeletal proportions.

She had hated seeing him like that and yes, he had tried to hide the fact that he was suffering badly, but she had seen it in his eyes, because she knew him and loved him so much.

She had begged God not to take him away from her but had realized that her prayers had been selfishly motivated. She had been thinking about the loss she would feel instead of taking his feelings into consideration.

Dragging the pillow across her chest, she buried her face into the softness of the Egyptian cotton and felt the keening loss all the way to her toes.

“Oh daddy,” she whispered aching, the tears coming. “I miss you so much and now is the time I need you to most. I have made such a mess of my life and I…” Her throat thickened with emotions and for a minute, she felt as if she was drowning.

Chapter 11

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