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‘Who’s that?’ asked Sarah as they got closer.
Lucy considered it for a moment. ‘It must be Neptune, like the one we saw outside the Palazzo Vecchio.’
Stella pointed at the steps ahead. ‘Carry on to the top?’
‘The view should be gorgeous from up there,’ said Bridget, picking up her pace.
They walked up a huge flight of wide stone steps towards another statue at the top, this one of a handsome woman holding aloft what looked to them like a handful of wheat, before turning to take in the view. Below them, beyond the fountain and the Pitti Palace, lay the city of Florence and surrounding hills.
‘There’s something quite extraordinary about this place.’ Stella sighed.
‘Like Valium. What’s through there?’ Bridget smirked, then pointed at a building hidden behind a tall hedge.
‘Can’t say I was thinking of Valium, but yes, sort of.’ Stella laughed.
They followed Bridget up towards the building ahead and took a path that led them into a small, manicured garden filled with pink roses. The scent reached them before they’d even made it to the garden, carried on a barely-there breeze. Another small fountain sat in the middle of the garden and beyond the far wall cypress trees and Tuscan villas dotted the rolling green hillsides. A castle, complete with imposing turret, dominated the horizon and on the other side, behind them, a yellow palazzo building with green shutters on the front and statues on the roof sat like an impossibly perfect backdrop.
They stood for a moment gazing at the landscape, breathing in the scent of the roses as they did so. Slowly, they wandered back down the path, then turned left along a long tree-lined avenue, past statues overlooking lawns and hidden in hedgerows. Soon, they came across another even bigger lake, this time, not just a fountain in the middle of it, but a whole landscaped garden.
‘This place is like a dream.’ Stella made her way to a stone bench to the side of the lake and took a seat.
Bridget sat down next to her. ‘Fancy a glass of Prosecco?’ She reached into her bag and pulled out a bottle and four paper cups.
‘Where on earth did you get that?’ Sarah said, laughing at her friend’s genius.
‘In the market when you lot were admiring yet another pile of mushrooms.’
They toasted Florence with their paper cups before taking a sip of the still-chilled Prosecco.
‘Delicious!’ Sarah’s eyes lit up.
‘Gorgeous,’ added Lucy. ‘Thanks, Bridge.’
The garden was quieter at this end, most of the tourists not making it far beyond Neptune. They sat in a line on the stone bench, their faces to the sun.
Stella looked up at the sky, now cloudless, and took another sip of her Prosecco, letting it sit on her tongue for a few seconds before swallowing. She looked at the floor and took a breath, knowing she needed to share what she’d found out with them. ‘I need to tell you something.’
They all turned to look at her.
‘Simon’s been stealing from the business.’ Stella looked up. ‘For a while, probably. I’m sorry to bring it up now, I wasn’t going to. I just found out this morning and being here with you all, I feel like he’s making me carry a secret and I don’t want to have to do that. It’s not fair, on you or me.’ Stella took another sip from her cup.
‘Stella, I’m so sorry. That is the last thing you need,’ said Lucy, softly.
‘Completely. What a bastard.’ Bridget closed her eyes, shaking her head.
‘I was just actually getting my head around the fact that he’s gone, that he doesn’t want to be with me or the children any more and there’s nothing I can do about that. But to find out he’s…’ Stella shook her head.
‘How did you find out?’ asked Lucy.
‘Lily rang this morning from the office, she’s been looking after the financial side of the business since he left. She said she hadn’t wanted to tell me when I was here, but at the same time she’s obviously had to freeze the accounts, so I needed to know. Otherwise, I might have got a notification from the bank and not known what was going on. Anyway, he’s been taking money out over time, cleverly, so it didn’t get spotted. God knows how long it’s been going on for, Lily’s looking into that now. But she thinks it’s quite a lot of money.’ Stella looked up, blinking away tears. ‘What I don’t understand is why. After all, we had enough. It’s not like we had any money worries.’ Stella wiped at her eyes briefly. ‘Why would he steal from us? From a business we built together?’
Bridget took a slow sip from her cup, wondering whether the words that were about to come out were the right ones. She decided to say them anyway. ‘Maybe that’s why he did it. Because it was your business originally, I mean. Not his.’
Stella looked at Bridget. ‘But why would he do that?’ Stella simply didn’t get it.
‘I’ve no idea. But Simon is turning out to be someone we really didn’t know. He’s been able to turn his back on you, and on his children. That is not normal. You cannot blame yourself for this. It takes a certain kind of person to do what’s he’s done.’ Bridget practically spat the words out.
‘Yes, a massive arsehole,’ snapped Lucy. She looked at Stella. ‘Sorry.’
