Page 252 of Modern Romance November 2024 5-8

He found himself having to swallow a sudden lump in his throat. ‘Do you miss them?’

‘Not as much as I would without the technology we have. I’m in all the family group chats and stuff but...’ She gave a small shrug. ‘It’s silly but I still feel excluded. It’s my own fault, I know. I chose to move across the Atlantic and live in a different time zone from them. But they answer each other’s posts within minutes, sometimes seconds whereas mine are often left hanging. The only one who always responds to mine is Grandma.’

Victoria gave a wistful shake of her head and tried to pull herself together and not let the despondency she’d worked so hard to smother that evening leach out. ‘I told you I’m being silly. It’s always great when I go home and we have such a lovely time together. I guess I just wish it didn’t feel like they forget me the minute I’m out of their sight.’

But as she said this, she realised that since working for Marcello, the sting of it had lost its needle precision. Her visits home had been happier occasions for her, not just because she no longer felt lost in the crowd of Cusacks but because she was happier and more confident in her own skin. And all because one man had seen something in her that had left a lasting impression.

Marcello had remembered her.

‘I can tell you this much,bella,’ he said.‘When you were ill, I nearly suffered a burst eardrum from all the calls I kept receiving from them.’

She spluttered a short burst of laughter at the imagery.

His smile was soft. ‘I cannot pretend to understand the dynamics of your family but I know they love you.’

She returned the smile. ‘I know they do. I guess it’s all a continuation of how things were for me growing up. My voice always got lost.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘I probably should have shouted louder to make myself heard. That’s what the others did.’

‘If you did not have your voice there, I would say that you have found it here.’

‘Do you think?’

‘There is not a person in the Guardiola Group who would dare ignore your voice.’

‘You make me sound like a dragon!’

Laughing, he shook his head and cut into his tuna. ‘No one thinks that. People listen to you because you have proven that you’re worth listening to. You organise your thinking the same way you organise my life.’

‘Thank you... I think.’

‘Bella, it is not just me who values and respects you. The whole workforce does.’

The tears she’d been fighting so hard to hold back suddenly brimmed as the life she’d enjoyed since arriving in New York flashed through her. The good friends she’d made. The great social life she’d enjoyed even if it had ground to a halt since working for Marcello. But that was her own fault too. She saw that now. She’d let him make outrageous demands on her personal time because, even when she was miffed with him, there was no one in the world in whose company she’d rather be.

Because of Marcello, she’d found a career to thrive in and was paid generously for it. For all that she’d often thought of herself as his glorified dogsbody, he’d taught her more about business than any number of degrees could have. He’d made it no secret that he was grooming her to one day take a seat on his board, a seat in her own right and not just as his Woman Friday.

At twenty-five, she’d built the life her bored, insecure teenage self would have thrilled for.

Tomorrow, she would take a sledgehammer to it.

Today she had everything. A great career. Disposable income. A decent apartment to live in. A love affair more fulfilling and consuming than she could ever have dreamed possible.

Tomorrow it would all be gone.

‘Bella?What is wrong?’

She looked back into the eyes she loved more than anyone’s in the whole world and knew that in the morning she would be taking a sledgehammer to Marcello’s world too, even if it was a much smaller one.

But tomorrow hadn’t arrived yet. They still had these last few hours together and she wouldn’t spoil them for anything.

With a soft sigh, she said, ‘I was just thinking my teenage self would approve of how my life has turned out.’

Shoulders relaxing, he raised his glass. ‘We should drink to that.’

‘As long as I don’t have to drink that evil stuff in your glass,’ she managed to quip.

His answering laugh helped smother the despondency back to where she could keep it hidden and contained from them both for their last few hours together.

Marcello’s eyes were wide open in the early morning darkness. He wasn’t sure if he’d slept at all. Too many thoughts crowding his head in the lulls between lovemaking.

---