Page 93 of Winter With You

She smiled. ‘You know what I mean.’

‘More of the person who threw a bottle at Benoit Torres’s head?’

‘And less of the person who has been hiding the truth about what happened to her sister.’

He nodded but said nothing more. He wasn’t going to push her. He wasn’t going to ask. She had to be ready on her own terms.

‘I want to tell you it all,’ she said softly. ‘But I need to have a conversation with someone else first.’ She put a hand to his cheek, her fingers cold against his skin. ‘Is that OK?’

‘Of course it’s OK, Gabriella.’ He took a breath, placed his hand over hers and interlocked their fingers. ‘There are things I want to tell you too but the same applies right now.’

‘Is everything OK?’ she asked.

He thought about that question. Perhaps nothing would ever be any kind of normal for the Marcello family but it was possible there could be something near to ‘OK’. Maybe.

‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘Everything is OK.’

‘Good,’ she answered.

And then she gave a shiver that had him instinctively putting his arms around her and drawing her tight to his body. ‘God, Gabriella, what are we doing standing out here in this weather?’

She held him tight. ‘Enjoying the moment. Not worrying about the moments to come, whatever they might bring.’

‘A great answer,’ he said, kissing the top of her head.

55

THE MARCELLO HOUSE, LITTLE ITALY

The next morning, Luca took a minute on the stoop to drink in the home he’d grown up in. It wasn’t the only property the Marcellos owned. There was the beach house at The Hamptons he hadn’t been to since he was thirteen and various other rental homes, some legitimately operated, others not… He breathed deep, putting his fingers to a mark in the wood by the door. He and Steffi had been playing on the sidewalk and she had got frustrated with him and launched a golf club that had thankfully missed him but had left this dent. Their father had gone mad and Luca had told him he was responsible not his sister. He’d always taken the rap and he was about to do it all again. But before he could raise his hand to knock at the door, it was whisked open and there was his mother.

‘Luca, what are you doing out here?’ she exclaimed. ‘Standing and looking and not coming in.’

‘I… didn’t know you knew I was here.’

‘We have a new doorbell,’ Vittoria informed him, pointing at a device he hadn’t noticed on the wall. ‘It has motion detection and a video camera and something that can alert the police if I press a button.’

He swallowed. ‘That’s necessary?’

‘I don’t like to think about if it’s necessary,’ Vittoria admitted.

He nodded, understanding that completely.

‘So, are you coming in? Because the only people who stand on this step are either singing carols for charity money at this time of year or Ronnie smoking his way through your father’s cigars.’

‘Yeah, I’m coming in.’

* * *

‘So,’ Vittoria said, when they were in the kitchen. ‘I’m guessing you have something to tell me.’

Luca leaned against the countertop, the space still all manner of chaotic as it always had been – pots covering the counters, recipe books gathering dust on the shelves, the clock on the cooker flashing a random time… He didn’t answer straight away so his mother spoke again.

‘Steffi said you saw your father but she said she didn’t know what you talked about.’

‘Yeah?’

‘I’m not going to ask questions to get information, Luca. That’s not my style.’