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'You mean he's here?' she questioned, her heart leaping with painful hope in her breast.
His mouth curved into an odd kind of smile. 'No. He isn't here. I meant his photo.'
Sorcha shook her head. 'No. No, I haven't.'
His eyes had narrowed and he seemed to be subjecting her to some kind of silent assessment. 'Come with me’ he said softly.
Sorcha followed him across the silent polished floor of the gallery, aware from the glances and the little buzz of the spectators that he had been recognised, but a small phalanx of assistants walking at a discreet distance kept any fans at bay.
He took her into a room that she hadn't noticed, a smaller one, with family photos— obviously his—and Sorcha had to bite back a gasp as she saw the terrible poverty in which he had grown up.
And then her gaze alighted on a group shot of some teenage boys in singlets and jeans, all with their arms folded, gazing with suspicion at the camera.
She saw Cesare immediately—to her prejudiced eye he looked the fittest and the strongest, and of course the most stunningly handsome of the lot. But how young he looked—extraordinarily young. And something else, too...
'How old was he when this was taken? ' she questioned slowly. 'Eighteen. ’
Eighteen. The age she had been that summer, when he had come to the house, when she'd felt so mixed and jumbled up inside, so frightened of the future and all the consequences of her choices.
Yet here on Cesare's face was the similar uncertainty of youth—the sense of standing on a precipice and not knowing whether you should step back to safety or take that leap of faith into the unknown. Had she imagined that he had never known a moment's uncertainty or doubt—even as a teenager?
Yes, of course she had. When she had met him he had been in his mid-twenties— polished and sexy and supremely confident. But that was just the external packaging.
What lay beneath?
When she'd turned down Cesare's proposal of marriage she had known that his pride had been wounded—but what about his heart? She hadn't even considered that, because she had only thought about how she felt. Why had she never credited him with having feelings like she did—of pain and hurt and fear of loneliness?
Just because he behaved in a shuttered way and didn't show his emotions, it didn't mean he didn't have them, did it? Why, she had never even stopped for a moment to wonder just why he behaved that way. She had never dared try to explore the substance of the man under the brilliant patina of charisma and success.
She had never allowed herself to consider that there was a chance that somehow they could be happy. And would she ever forgive herself if she didn't find out?
She stared at the photo of the teenage boy, knowing that she had to be willing to put her feelings on the line and run the risk that she might be rejected. The risk which Cesare had talked of didn't just apply to businesses, but to relationships, too. It was part of life. But this time a rejection would be final. A clean break. A sharp and terrible hurt, but one from which she could allow herself to heal properly and rid herself at last of the terrible ache of regret.
She turned to the photographer. Thanks, Maceo, ' she said, a little shakily. He shrugged. 'Ciao, bella’ he said coolly.
He doesn't approve of me, thought Sorcha suddenly, and wondered what it was she was supposed to have done. But she wasn't going to let Maceo's opinion of her distract her from what she knew she had to do.
She rang the airline from her mobile and learned that there was a flight to Rome later that afternoon. Grateful to a college lecturer who had once told her to always carry her passport with her 'just in case', she booked it. Well, why not? she asked herself. What was the point in delaying?
She drove to Heathrow and parked, and there was time before the flight to buy some
underwear, toiletries and a phrasebook—it wasn't until she was mid-air that Sorcha began to realise that this was pretty rash. But it felt better just doing something instead of moping around at home. Regrets were terrible things. They ate away at you and eroded your chances of finding peace and contentment.
But by the time she found a delighted taxi driver who was willing to take her out to Panicale, she was seriously beginning to question the wisdom of her actions.
Was she mad?
The motorway cut through huge patchwork mountains where toffee-coloured cows grazed and fields of sunflowers became more muted as the sun set and nighttime began to fall.
The driver was obviously labouring under the illusion that his cab was a sports car, and Sorcha tried to distract herself by staring out at the cloudy sky and wondering if she should have phoned Cesare to tell him she was on her way.
No.
She needed to see his face, his first instinctive reaction to her. Some heated things had been said in their conversation before he'd left—words which he might or might not have meant—just like some of the things she'd said.
And how was she going to explain her sudden bizarre appearance? She would be guided by him—if he scooped her up into his arms and told her that there hadn't been a moment when he'd stopped thinking about her...
She leaned back in the seat and closed her eyes. Oh, please. They would hold each other tight, and she would have to show him that she did have a heart that loved and yearned and beat like a drum only for him.
