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‘Thank you,’ Nico said.
Aurora resisted reaching over and taking his hand. Nico did not like affection, but she ached to give it to him. She attempted to keep some distance, as she told him the painful truth. ‘He’s nearing the end.’
‘I know he is.’
Aurora felt selfish for her assumption that Nico was going home just to avoid her. She sensed he had closed the subject, and so, after a moment’s pensive silence between them, she looked around the lavish bar.
‘Pino will be upset he missed this,’ Aurora said. ‘He wanted to buy you a drink and a meal.’
‘He wanted me to go on the bus tour.’
That made Aurora laugh.
‘I’m meeting them all for breakfast tomorrow, before I fly off.’
‘I wasn’t told.’
‘There’s an invitation being delivered to your rooms at turndown,’ Nico said. ‘And before you tell me that I should not be so formal with old friends, I will explain again that this trip is not about friends visiting Rome. It is work—and I take my work very seriously.’
‘I know,’ Aurora said. ‘And so do your staff. But aside from that fact, we are friends visiting Rome.’
He said nothing.
‘Well, they are your friends,’ she amended, for Nico had once told Aurora that they could never be friends. ‘Whether you want them to be or not.’
Nico’s eyes shuttered, and he wished that it was enough to obliterate the knives of her words—for she was right. Pino et al were his friends.
More than friends.
It takes a village…
And it was true that the people of Silibri had raised him.
He had sat in the park as a terrified child and Bruno Messina had insisted he come back to their home to sleep.
And he had been so hungry at times, too proud to beg, but the emptier his cupboards the more frequent the invitations.
‘Hey, Nico!’ Pino would say. ‘I need some work done in my yard.’
And that had meant supper…
‘Nico,’ Francesca would say. ‘I have made too many biscotti. Take them before they go stale.’
Tomorrow, at breakfast, he would take off his jacket and he would smile and laugh with them. Somehow, before the hotel opened and it was all down to business, he would thank the people who had always been there.
‘Don’t you ever wonder about home?’ Aurora asked.
‘I hear enough of what’s going on,’ Nico said. He didn’t like invasive gossip and exaggerated stories, but then he looked at Aurora. ‘Yes.’
They shared a small smile.
‘How’s Chi-Chi?’ he asked.
‘Still looking for a husband.’
‘Do you ever hear from Antonietta?’
‘Occasionally.’ Aurora nodded, but then she shook her head. ‘Not as much as I would like. I miss her a lot.’
