Page 41 of Bride of Betrayal
She said, ‘Did you see the layout of food? It looks amazing. They’ve outdone themselves. Come on, I’m starving.’ She caught his arm and led him back into the flickering light of candles dotted around the space and he allowed her to soothe the jagged edges inside him.
They filled up their plates and sat down. Angelica said, ‘It’s been so long since I’ve been able to just sit like this and eat good food.’
‘Still not cooking for yourself?’ Leo asked, unwittingly opening up the conversation to a memory of the past.
Angelica wrinkled her nose. ‘I’d like to say that I used the three years of purgatory to learn to cook well but I’m afraid I was working so much it was invariably takeout or food at work and if I was with…you know who, he had chefs cooking for us.’
‘I did a cooking course in prison.’
Angelica nearly choked on some pitta bread. Her eyes were watering but she took a sip of water before Leo had to go and pat her back. ‘You…what?’
Leo nodded. ‘Quite a fancy course too. I can chop vegetables like a pro and I can make an assortment of pasta dishes and slow-cooked stews. My boeuf bourguignon got special praise from the teacher.’
‘That doesn’t sound like it was all so bad…’
Leo made a face. ‘To be perfectly honest, while it wasn’t a nice environment and I learned to watch my back after I got stabbed, the worst part of it was probably the boredom. And the sense of impotency.’
He looked at her. ‘The thought of you, out there with him.’
Angelica’s eyes were huge. Bruised. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘You have nothing to be sorry for. It was all him. I boxed and did some self-defence too…to feel stronger, to be able to protect myself.’
Angelica’s cheeks pinkened. ‘I, er…noticed that you were a little more…muscular.’
Leo arched a brow, enjoying her embarrassment. Enjoying this whole unexpected scenario, on a tiny idyllic slice of land in the Caribbean far away from the trials and tribulations of the last few years. ‘Did you, now?’
She scowled and threw an olive at him. He caught it with lightning-fast reflexes and popped it in his mouth, smiling. In fact, he felt like laughing. And he hadn’t felt like laughing in a long time. Probably not since he was last with this woman.
He said, ‘So tell me about this more meaningful work you want to do…’
Angelica was trying not to let her emotions get out of control but if she closed her eyes she could almost imagine that she and Leo had never broken up. It was seductive and dangerous, because they had. And then, as if that hadn’t been enough, they’d been rent even further apart.
‘I’ve been feeling for a while that I want to get out of modelling. It’s a relentless business and I have no desire to be an influencer or start my own make-up or clothing line. I’ve been thinking about setting up some sort of charity, an outreach programme to target young people involved in areas controlled by gangs and crime, not just in Italy but all over…’
Leo popped a morsel of meat into his mouth. ‘How would it work?’
‘By offering a really comprehensive way out…bursaries, scholarships. A whole escape route through education with accommodation. A new life, far from their old lives.’
She went on, blossoming under Leo’s intent interest. ‘For instance, it was a religious charity that helped my mother to leave with my brother, but they could only afford to stay in Italy, where they would surely have been tracked down. I could afford to send them further afield, which…actually didn’t work out too well in the end, because Aldo still managed to find them.’
She sat back, a little dejected. ‘I don’t know, maybe it’s not such a great idea.’
Leo sat forward. ‘Aldo had an agenda. He wanted you and so he went after information about you specifically. That’s the only reason he found them. Itisa good idea. It would take a lot of time and planning and coordination and fundraising, but it’s possible. If I hadn’t been sent to a foster home on the mainland through the same sort of charity that had helped your mother and brother, my life would have been very different. But you’re right, at the moment it’s disparate groups and the funds aren’t there to give them a real, solid chance. If Aldo and I had been sent further afield, maybe to another country, who’s to say that he would have stayed entangled with some elements from our home?’
‘You didn’t stay entangled,’ Angelica pointed out.
‘No, because after losing my entire family I had no illusions about how toxic that world was. My father wasn’t even a big player, he’d just got into debt and couldn’t pay the dues. The guy who killed them all was high on drugs, a loose cannon.’
‘What a pointless waste of life…and to have witnessed that was horrific.’
Leo took a sip of wine but Angelica noticed that his hand wasn’t quite steady. ‘I think the only reason they didn’t come after me was because I was eight. Too young to be a threat and not important enough to chase to use, even though they were and are using kids those ages to do their dirty work.’
‘My father wasn’t a big player either,’ confided Angelica. They’d always skirted around the specifics of what had happened in their pasts before tonight. ‘He owned a shop and he’d been threatened into storing drugs and guns. A rival gang broke in and stole everything one night and he died because of that.’
Leo reached across the table and took Angelica’s hand. ‘I’m sorry.’
She looked at him, grief heavy in her chest. ‘I’m sorry too.’
