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'Cesare gave me the confidence to believe in myself and the business,' he had said quietly. 'And now I do.'
Bully for Cesare, thought Sorcha sourly.
She went through the mechanics of living—presenting to the world a close approximation of what Sorcha Whittaker was like. But inside it was like having something gnawing away at her and leaving a great, gaping hole. Had she once wondered if it was possible to feel as deeply as she had done as a teenager? Now she knew the answer certainly to be yes—but what she had not banked on was the level of pain, the aching deep inside her that she couldn't seem to fill with anything.
And then an invitation dropped through the letterbox—a stiff cream card, heavily embossed with gold, inviting Sorcha to a retrospective of Maceo di Ciccio's work in a prestigious gallery situated on the Thames in London.
'Are you going?' asked Emma, who was almost unbearable to be with—her 'loved-upness' so tangible that it seemed to be emanating from her in waves, even all these weeks after her honeymoon.
'I haven't decided. ’
'Oh, do go, Sorcha—he might have included a photo of you, in your famous gingham apron!'
Very funny.'
'And anyway’ Emma added mischievously, 'Cesare might be there.'
'Oh, do shut up,' said Sorcha crossly.
But he might be, mightn't he?
Was that why Sorcha took such inordinate care about her appearance—even going to the rather devious lengths of wearing a floaty skirt.
Just so he can put his hand up it? mocked the voice of her conscience and she drew herself up short—because, yes, that was the truth of it. Cesare liked women wearing skirts and dresses—he had said so—and here she was, conforming to his idea of what a woman should be. Wasn't that disgraceful?
But she didn't change. Instead she drove into London with a fast-beating heart, and had to park miles away from her eventual destination.
It was a windy day, and the river was all silver as a pale, ineffectual sun struggled to make itself seen.
The gallery was beautiful—vast, with huge windows, and lit with the double dose of light which
bounced off the restless water.
There were photos from every phase of Maceo's development as a photographer. Moody black and white shots of the backstreets of a city she took to be Rome, and countless pictures of the world's most beautiful women. He was good, thought Sorcha wryly.
In fact, he was more than good, she thought as she came across some of the tougher themes he'd handled: war and famine, natural and man-made disasters—photos which made you want to rail at the injustices in life.
And then—nerve-rackingly and unexpectedly—she came across a photo of herself. It was not, as Emma had teased, an advertising shot taken in the ghastly gingham apron, but a close-up taken when she hadn't realised that the camera had been trained on her.
She had been looking up, a look of consternation on her face, her eyes big and lost— as if something had just been wrenched away from her. And she knew just when it had been taken. When she had heard the door slam. When Cesare had jealously stormed out of the studio because Maceo had been getting her to pout and flirt outrageously.
She stared at the picture she made—a picture of longing and uncertainty, of a woman who was on the brink of falling in love again. But Cesare would not have seen that. He would only have caught the split-second before, when her face had assumed a seductive mask to sell a product. Yet here she was without the mask—and, oh, Maceo had managed to penetrate right through to the raw emotions beneath. Cesare was right—his friend had a real talent for seeing what was really there.
'Do you like it? ’ asked a velvety voice at her side, and Sorcha turned her head to see Maceo standing there, studying his own photo intently and then turning his head to look at her with his hard, brilliant eyes.
"It's... ’
'Revealing? ' he murmured.
'Possibly. ’
She thought how edgy he seemed today, in his trademark black, with none of the flamboyant behaviour he'd displayed in the studio. Or was that because she no longer had the protective presence of Cesare in the background?
Suddenly she felt a little out of place. It struck Sorcha that Maceo had his own mask which he donned whenever he needed to. Everyone did. She just wondered what lay behind Cesare's. She looked around. Was there the slightest chance that he might be here?
Maceo raised his dark brows. 'Have you seen him? ' he asked coolly.
If it had been anyone else she might have said, Who?—but it wasn't just Maceo's camera lens which stripped away the artifice, Sorcha realised, as those black eyes pierced through her.
