‘A good boy…’
She didn’t know how many times she heard that phrase, always imbued with love and approval. She grew genuinely fond of the old man and felt sorry for the life that was slipping away—a remarkable life, fully lived in so many ways. Sometimes he patted her hand, saying she was, ‘A good girl,’ making her wish she was his grand-daughter.
Though, she was glad there was no blood relationship when she was alone with Dante. They spent siestas and the nights together, pleasuring each other, and it wasn’t only hot, urgent sex. She loved the physical intimacy of simply being held close to him, going to sleep in his arms, the mental intimacy of being locked into a secret world of their own.
Quite often they talked late into the night, she relating things his grandfather had told her, he elaborating on them, connecting them to the life he’d shared with Marco. She told him things about her own life she’d never confided to anyone, even about the nasty clash with the sleazy welfare officer. Somehow it didn’t matter that he knew. This was time out of time, and once it was over, nothing she said to him would come back to hurt her. The one thing she wasn’t open about was how much her heart had filled with loving him.
Occasionally she worried that Lucia was suspicious about how close they were—unguarded moments when a look or a comment revealed an intimacy that shouldn’t be there, not between cousins. She grew more and more conscious of Lucia watching, making snide little remarks about how amazingly occupied Dante was with her company, how considerate he was to her needs—taking her off to various parts of the island for her to paint pretty landscapes, staying with her while she did them—and how incredibly well they clicked when they talked.
‘Anyone would think you were lovers,’ she tossed off one morning while they were lazing on lounges by the pool, her keen bright eyes sharply observing their response.
It was impossible for Jenny to stop a tide of heat from racing into her cheeks.
‘You’re embarrassing Bella again, Lucia,’ Dante rolled out with an air of impatience over her pretend playfulness. ‘I promised Nonno I’d look after her as best I could and I’m grateful that Bella is making it easy for me. Which is something you rarely do.’
‘No fun in that, dear cousin,’ she flipped back at him.
He glowered a warning. ‘Don’t inflict your brand of fun on Bella.’
‘Big Brother is watching,’ she intoned in a robotic voice, her eyes merrily mocking him.
‘Nonno asked me to,’ he said, as though he was simply fulfilling a duty of care.
Lucia smiled sweetly. ‘Well, Little Sister is also watching, Dante, and one day…one day you’ll slip up and I’ll get the better of you.’
He shrugged. ‘A rather petty aim in life.’
‘But, oh, so satisfying,’ she drawled, relaxing back on her lounge with a smug air.
Dante brushed off the incident as just another gambit from Lucia to make mischief, wanting to discomfort Jenny into being less responsive to him. Still, it made her more wary of how she acted in front of Lucia and only truly relaxed in his company when they were alone together.
Marco grew too weak to leave his bedroom suite. Visits to him were necessarily brief. He was in bad pain and his doctor organised a morphine drip, monitored by shifts of nurses to ensure he had twenty-four-hour care. Warned that the end was near, Dante immediately notified Sophia and Roberto to come to Capri and be on hand for their father’s last days.
My last days, too, Jenny thought, but she couldn’t wish for Marco to suffer any longer than he had to. Nor did she speak of the end to Dante, knowing he drew comfort from having her to come to at night. The imminent loss of his beloved grandfather weighed heavily on his heart. Being with her was helping him through a bad time, and Jenny refused to spoil one precious moment with him by bringing up what could wait until there was no longer any need for her to be Bella.
The role did not worry her anymore. Dante had been right. It didn’t hurt anyone, and Marco had liked having her here—someone with whom he could recount his life, dwelling on what had been good for him. She had served him well and had no regrets over anything she’d done.
The morning of Sophia’s and Roberto’s expected arrival came. Dante left her bed to return to his own suite and get ready for the day—one that was sure to be harrowing for him, Jenny thought, having to handle his aunt’s and uncle’s emotions, as well as his own. She watched him walk towards the door that linked their suites, hoping she could take some of the burden off his broad shoulders, make herself available to be sympathetic company.
She had thrown off the bedclothes and was heading for her own bathroom to get ready for the day when he opened the connecting door. He stepped inside his suite, and Lucia’s voice rang out in gleeful triumph.
‘Got you!’
Jenny froze in her tracks, shock ripping through her.
Lucia was in Dante’s bedroom.
He was naked, coming from her suite.
His voice cracked out in anger. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’
Then he slammed the door shut behind him, protecting her, but Jenny knew, knew as sickeningly as the nausea that rolled through her, that Lucia would revel in telling Marco that Dante was sleeping with his cousin. Never mind if the shock of it killed him. Lucia would not deny herself the pleasure and satisfaction of taking Dante down in his grandfather’s eyes before he died.
Dante glared at Lucia, his mind scrambling to grapple with the situation, knowing she would make capital out of it. Was there a price he could pay—anything she’d take to keep quiet about it and let Nonno die in peace?
She rolled off the top of his pristine bed—the bed he obviously hadn’t slept in—and bounced to her feet, her face alight with malicious delight. ‘I paid Nonno an early-morning visit and he asked me to fetch you, Dante. I knocked on your door but you didn’t answer so I came in to wake you up.’
He’d forgotten to lock his door. Stupid oversight! And he should have stayed in his room, given that Nonno might want him at his side. No excuse that he had wanted to be with Jenny.
‘Better get dressed,’ Lucia mockingly advised him, heading for the door she’d left ajar. ‘I don’t think Nonno will appreciate the naked evidence that you’ve seduced his precious Australian grand-daughter into sleeping with her first cousin.’
‘Wait!’ he commanded, needing to stop her, to reason with her.
She scuttled the rest of the way to the door, hanging onto it for a moment to throw back at him, ‘Oh, I can’t wait to tell Nonno what you’ve been up to.’