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CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Rome
THEGLORIOUSSIGHTof the city at night, from the vantage point of his helicopter, did not lift Nico’s spirits and there was no sense of relief to be home.
With wealth, Nico decided, came too much cream.
Here in Rome the chefs had been drilled as to his preference for plain food, but it hadn’t translated so well at the Silibri site. There the chefs had seemed determined to impress, but they had failed. Oh, the food had been spectacular, but for the first time Nico had heartburn.
Or was it more a sense of unease as he disembarked from his helicopter and saw his regular driver waiting for him?
‘I thought you were on leave?’ Nico said.
His driver and his housekeeper were married, and Nico had expected a stand-in driver to greet him.
‘My leave starts tomorrow,’
Nico glanced at the time. ‘It alreadyistomorrow.’
‘Perhaps, but better a familiar face to greet you than a stranger. How was the trip?’ his driver asked.
‘Fine,’ Nico responded. ‘It went well.’
By all accounts it had been amazing. The new hotel was sumptuous, and naturally he had his choice of suite there, so when he visited Silibri there would be no awkward stays with neighbours. He had visited the cemetery and knew his father was finally at peace. The hotel was thriving, with the rich and famous and even royalty reserving their spaces. It was wonderful to see the village come alive again.
Yet there was no Aurora.
And without her, without even the slightest chance of bumping into her, Silibri had felt more than ever like a ghost town.
He wished his driver all the best for his vacation and then let himself into his immaculate house. He left his case in the hall and went straight upstairs.
He stripped and showered. Got into bed. Though tired, he was restless. It was months since he and Aurora had last spoken, yet their last meeting still replayed in his head as if it were yesterday.
Why the hell couldn’t he move on?
Aurora had. As he had wanted her to do for so long.
He needed distraction, so he climbed out of bed to select a book. He was more than aware that he had lost focus of late.
And then he frowned when he saw a book he didn’t recognise on the shelf by his bed.
He laughed as he flicked through it—but then the laugh caught in his throat, because he had never shared his laughter with her.
Not really…
He turned off the light and lay there, thinking of a home that was far away, and the home he now lay in, and the world he had made for himself in Rome.
His driver had been right.
Better a familiar face to greet you than a stranger.
Aurora had always been the familiar face when he went to Silibri. Aurora had been the one he had tried to avoid yet nevertheless had found himself seeking out, and she hadalwaysmade things better.
But now when he went to Silibri it was as if she had been erased.
Bruno hardly mentioned her, and her mother spoke only about Aurora’s fancy new career that rendered her too busy to come back just yet. ‘Maybe soon…’
And then Nico’s eyes opened in the dark.
