Page 81 of Winter With You

‘Luca, look at me,’ Sybille ordered.

‘I don’t want to,’ he answered, turning his head away.

‘I know you don’t, Luca. Because you know that I see you now. But what you don’t know is that… I’ve always seen you.’

Now he looked at her and there was something behind those pale blue eyes that was speaking to his truth. But she couldn’t know, could she?

‘When you walked in here with my favourite lemon dessert, you thought it was the first time I had seen you but, like you, research is one of my greatest strengths.’ She smiled. ‘I saw you many times before that, taking coffee at the same seat in the window of the same spot, most of the time alone, sometimes with your sister where you played your game… fake or fide.’

Now his eyes were open wide as he stared at her. This just wasn’t possible.

Sybille smiled. ‘I joined in that game with you sometimes, only in my head, and you never once made a mistake. That’s when I knew that there was a reason you were appearing in my favourite café, that fashion was your passion too and that one day, when you plucked up the courage to approach me, I would give you the opportunity you craved.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Luca said, shocked to the core at this revelation. ‘You were following me? Before I was following you?’

‘Now you make it sound creepy,’ Sybille said. ‘It was not like that. And I do not know who began first. Only that I saw you, dressed simply, yes, yet you were styled. The thin lines on your shirt matched the colour of your shoes, the lining of your jacket was the exact hue of the buttons. It was attention to detail to the extreme and it was exceptional. It is exceptional. You are exceptional, Luca Marcello.’

Tears were burning his eyes as she delivered his last name, his birth name, and it seemed to echo around the room, bouncing off the walls and back again to sear his heart. He hung his head, never feeling more foolish than he did now.

‘No,’ Sybille said, lifting his head with her index finger. ‘You do not do that. You look at me. You face me and you face what you are feeling right here, right now.’ She sighed. ‘Perhaps this is my fault for giving you too much time to keep pretending.’

‘How can I look at you?’ he asked, embarrassed. ‘Now I am even more ashamed, knowing that you know I lied to you, all this time.’

‘Pretended, Luca. Pretended sounds better. Kinder.’

‘But it’s the same thing, ultimately.’

‘Perhaps,’ Sybille admitted. ‘But, when there is no malintent, it matters less, don’t you think?’

He wasn’t sure that was true. He fisted his eyes, trying to dab the tears away as fast as his eyes were filling. ‘So what happens now?’

‘Now you know that I know you come from an infamous family who are rumoured to be more dangerous than Al Capone ever was?’

‘Something like that.’

‘What do you think happens, Luca?’

‘I think everything changes.’ How could it not?

‘I think you are right,’ Sybille agreed.

He nodded. His life was always going to alter again at some point. That’s what happened whenever his father infiltrated proceedings; it made no difference whether he was in prison or not.

‘But not how you think,’ Sybille added. ‘It’s time you stopped hiding the truth and stopped pretending, exactly like I had to. And it starts here, with me telling you that I know you’re Luca Marcello. I have always known since before the moment you started working here… and it makes no difference to me.’

‘I’m sorry, Sybille,’ he said, his voice choked up, ‘that I wasn’t honest.’

‘Oh, Luca, you have nothing to be sorry for. Because I wasn’t honest with you either. I could have told you that I knew from the beginning, but I didn’t. I suppose because one day I hoped it would come from you.’

‘And it didn’t.’

‘But it still could,’ Sybille said. ‘For Gabriella Felix.’

He blew out a tight breath he hadn’t even realised he was holding. ‘I don’t know if I can, Sybille. Because it’s a burden. To know. To be who I am and then be that person for someone else.’

‘Luca,’ she said, taking his hands in hers. ‘Your father’s legacy of crime is not who you are. It is just what you were born into and where you came from. You can be whoever you choose to be and you know this already because you are living it, every single day.’

He knew this. He had battled to have the opportunity to live life his way, yet it still didn’t feel as whole as it should.