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‘You’ve never seen La Traviata then?’
She shook her head, never more conscious of their different lives and backgrounds. ‘I don’t know anything about it.’
‘And did you never see the film, Moulin Rouge?’
‘I saw that, yes.’
‘Then you know the story. It was based on the opera.’
‘Oh,’ she said, remembering, ‘Then it’s a sad story. It seemed so unfair that Satine should find love when it was already too late, when her time was already up.’
He shrugged, as if it was of no consequence. ‘Life doesn’t always come with happy endings. Come,’ he said, slipping her wrap around her shoulders, ‘let’s go.’
* * *
The entrance to the opera house at the Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista was set inside a small square, made smaller this night by the glittering array of people who stood sipping prosecco in the evening air. Heads turned as Luca arrived, heads that took her in almost as an afterthought, heads that nodded as if to say, She’s still here then.
Tina smiled as Luca made his way through the crowd, stopping here and there for a brief word, always accompanied by a swift and certain appraisal of the woman on his arm. It didn’t bother her any more. She was getting used to the constant appraisals, the flash of cameras going off around them. She was getting used to seeing the pictures of them turning up in the newspapers attending this function or that restaurant.
What they would say when she was gone didn’t matter. Except there was that tiny squeeze of her stomach again at the thought of leaving.
She would miss this fantasy lifestyle, the dressing up, being wined and dined in amazing restaurants in one of the most incredible cities in the world.
But it wasn’t just that.
She would miss Luca.
Strange to think that when at first she had been desperate for the month to be over, desperate to get away. But it was true.
She would miss his dark heated gaze. She would miss the warmth of his body next to hers in bed at night, the tender way he cradled her in his arms while he slept, his breathing slow and deep.
She would miss his love-making.
For there was no point pretending it was “just sex” any longer.
No point pretending it was something she could compartmentalize and lock away in a box and shove under the bed. It was too much a part of her now. It had given her too much.
‘Just sex’ could never feel this good.
He led her inside the building, more than five hundred years old and showing it, the wide marble steps to the first floor concert hall worn with the feet of the centuries, gathering in this place to listen and enjoy and celebrate music and song.
And art, she realised, looking around her.
The ceiling soared, the height of another two storeys above them, held up by massive columns of marble, the panels of the walls filled with Renaissance art featuring saints and angels and all manner of heavenly scenes, framed in gold.
Here and there the floor dipped a little, rose again as they walked; here and there a corner looked not quite square, a column not quite straight.
Unconsciously she clutched Luca’s arm a little tighter as he led her to her seat, fazed by the sensation of the floor shifting beneath her feet, as if the weight of the marble was pushing the building into the marshy ground beneath.
‘Is something wrong?’ Luca asked beside her, picking up on her unease.
‘It is safe, isn’t it? The building, I mean.’
He laughed then, a low rumble of pleasure that echoed into her bones. ‘The opera house has been here since the thirteenth century. I’m sure it will manage to remain standing a couple more hours.’ And at the same time she realised he was laughing at her, he squeezed her hand and drew her chin to his mouth for an unexpected press of his lips. ‘Do not be afraid. I assure you it is safe.’
Was it?
Breathless and giddy, she let herself be led to their seats.
Was it simply the ground shifting beneath her feet, or was it something more?
Please, God, let it be nothing more.
Heels clicked on marble floors and then stilled, the hum of conversation dimming with the lights until finally it was time.
The music started, act one of the famous opera, and in the spacious concert hall the music soared into the heavens, giving life to the angels and the cherubs in the delicate stuccoes, taking the audience on a heavenly journey.
The singers were sublime, their voices filling the air, and it was impossible not to be carried along with the tragic story of Violetta, as she discovered the heroine was called in this original version, and her lovers, warring for the affections of the dying courtesan. And yet, through it all, she had never been more aware of Luca’s heated presence at her side, at the touch of his thigh against hers, to the brush of his shoulder against hers.
