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‘He seems good,’ Santo said as he pulled back the sheet. ‘And I can’t see myself ever fancying him. Still...’ He smiled. ‘You know what they say—never say never.’
‘You’re incorrigible.’
‘Only with words,’ Santo said. ‘And from now on, those words are only to you.’ She looked up at him. ‘I’m done,’ he said. ‘I’m through. I will have Paulo cancel my condom order from my shopping list and, if you will have me, I am exclusively yours.’
It wasn’t the most romantic proposal but they were the nicest words she had ever heard.
‘I will never hurt you,’ Santo said.
‘I know.’
She did.
‘I mean it, Ella. I want to marry you as soon as Paulo can arrange.’
‘We’ll just slip away...’ She couldn’t believe they were actually discussing a wedding, their wedding.
‘No.’ Santo shook his head. ‘We will do this properly. A good Sicilian wedding.’
‘How!’ Ella asked. ‘We’ve no idea where your brother is, and my parents would never come.’
‘Hey,’ Santo broke in. ‘I thought you said that you trusted me.’
And she remembered then how much she did. ‘Teresa came and saw me.’ Ella turned to him. ‘She told me some of the stuff that’s going on in your family. I’m sorry I haven’t been there for you.’
‘You’re here now,’ Santo said. ‘And you can make up for lost time—believe me when I say that there is plenty more to come.’
‘I’m sorry your family is such a mess.’ She ran a finger over his bruises.
‘So is yours,’ Santo pointed out. ‘Your father likes to use his fists....’
Ella didn’t want to talk about that now and she went to tell him that, but Santo spoke first.
‘I promise you though, I didn’t hit him back.’ He saw her eyes widen in realisation, an appalled look on her face as she realised that the bruises he wore came from her own stuffed-up family. ‘I went to ask your father for permission to marry you and I saw firsthand how it was.’
‘Santo!’ She was panicking, appalled at what must have taken place, what her mother was going through at this very moment. As she went to rise from the bed, he grabbed her, pinned her down with his weight.
‘Your mum’s here,’ Santo said. ‘She is staying for a couple of nights with my nonna and then we will take her to meet with her sisters.’
It was too much to take in. ‘She left.’
‘She was scared to, but yes. She came back on the plane with me,’ Santo said. ‘You have to understand our ways. It is the same for my grandmother—they are loyal, their vows are more important than themselves.’
‘How though?’ Ella asked. ‘She wouldn’t leave for me. How did you convince her?’
‘I spoke to my nonna.’ He looked at Ella. ‘I wanted to better understand...I wanted to know what best to say when I spoke to your mother.’
‘How would she know?’ Ella didn’t get it. Yes, the two women were similar, both very locked in ways of old, but their lives were completely different. She looked to Santo and saw that for once he was struggling with words, not avoiding talking and not deflecting, just breaking a lifetime of silence. Ella knew how hard that could be.
‘Salvatore beat her.’ Santo’s lips were white as he said it, curling in disgust at what his own blood had done.
‘She told you?’
‘Never.’ Santo shook his head. ‘That is one reason she liked you. You played by family rules. You say things are fine, you stay for dinner, you do what a good Sicilian girl should, but I have told her that that ends now. There will be no silence on certain subjects and my nonna agrees. She had held her secret for too long.’
‘How did you know?’
‘That birthday party she was talking about. I was listening at a door—I did a lot of that—and I heard my father confront him, said what he had seen all those years ago.’
‘What did Salvatore say?’
‘That is was just once.’ Santo looked at her. ‘That is no excuse.’ Ella just lay there. ‘No one else knows this, not even Benito, and I have told my nonna I will not repeat...except to you. It is her story to tell if she feels she needs to.’
‘Why wouldn’t he have told Benito?’
‘To spare him perhaps?’ Santo shrugged. ‘They were rivals, but at the end of the day they were still brothers.’
She couldn’t believe he would go and speak with his nonna, that he would confront so boldly a shame from the past, just to better help her, and she told him the same.
‘Of course I would,’ Santo said. ‘I will always stand by you as in the coming months you will stand by me as my family tears itself to shreds.’
‘They might not,’ Ella said. ‘There must be some bond there—you’re related.’
‘The worst enemies to have,’ Santo said. ‘Because they never go away. But at times they prove to be the best allies too. My nonna said that despite all he had done, your mother would be scared for your father too.’
‘I’m scared for him,’ Ella admitted, for though she loathed all he had done, the thought of him alone and suffering did not bring comfort when once she had thought that it would. ‘I’m scared for him too.’
‘You don’t have to be,’ Santo said. ‘I have arranged a nurse daily, a housekeeper. He will be looked after, but not by your mother. I promised your mother all these things to get her to leave, and I did not hit your father back, but had I known what I do now, I might not have managed such restraint. I spoke at length with your mother. It is a long flight from Sydney to here.’ He watched the colour spread across her cheeks and the tears pool and then fall from her eyes.
‘He beat you.’
‘Once.’
It was a pale defence of her parents and his expression struggled not to move.
‘I left home as soon as I could and I got a place and enough money. Then a few months ago I went back to get her....’
‘How badly did he beat you?’
And he insisted on details—he did not believe her mother’s version, he only believed in her—and so she told him. She pulled back her head and showed him the scar and that capped expensive smile, and his face never moved a fraction. ‘I should have gone to the police—pressed charges. But I knew that it would only make things worse for her. I just could not believe she would stay after what he did to me.’
‘She does not think you can forgive her.’
‘I’m trying to.’
‘I will try then too,’ Santo said. ‘I will never show her my anger, but...’ He swallowed it down. ‘She’s here now. I said that we needed tonight and we will go over tomorrow.’
‘That’s not very Sicilian.’ Ella smiled.
‘I know.’ He grinned back, but then he was serious. ‘You will work through it with your mother, I am sure.’
‘We’re already starting to. I almost rang her last night....’
‘Why do you think you were sitting drinking in a bar with my nonna?’
She turned and grinned in quiet surprise.
‘You sent her!’
‘Of course! Surely you know that the Correttis are very good at arranging decoys. We were so worried you might ring home and get your father, so Teresa suggested we make sure that you were too tired to even think of ringing home.’
Santo climbed from the bed. ‘And now,’ he told her, ‘we have an after-party to go to. I have been around long enough to disappear and be forgiven, but your career is still new.’
Even in that, he was looking out for her. Ella looked over to him, to the man she could not wait to marry, to the man she could not wait to spend the rest of her life with. His eyes met hers and they told her he loved her just the same. There was time for one more kiss before they headed out to the party and then Santo suddenly remembered something.
‘I haven’t told you I love you.’
‘I think you just did.’
‘Well, to be certain.’ He pulled her back to his arms. ‘I love you,’ he said. ‘And I have never said that to another. I love you so much that I will spend the rest of my life proving to you that, though you had every reason to be wary of me, you were so right to trust me.’
And Ella answered with a truth of her own. ‘You already have.’
EPILOGUE
THE REFORMED SANTO didn’t come wrapped in a bow.
But, as was the Sicilian way, there was a huge white bow on the church in her mother’s village to show that there was a wedding about to take place.
‘Even in my dreams,’ Gabriella said as they walked along the dark cobbled streets lit by flaming torches towards the church, ‘I never thought I would see this.’
‘Where your daughter marries a Corretti?’
‘I still cannot believe it!’ Gabriella smiled. ‘But no, that I would see you married in my church, with my sisters there....’
Together Santo and Paulo had worked wonders. Yes, they had wanted quick and discreet—the family was too fractured to make for a pleasing wedding and there was still a twist of pain for Ella when she thought of her father who, through his choices, would not be here for this day—but for Santo there were certain traditions that he would not cast aside.
