I’d just done a bit of shopping on the way home.’ She surveyed the squelchy mess around them. ‘I don’t think I’m hungry any more.’
‘Fran, you need to eat properly. I know this is a horrible situation, but skipping meals will only make you feel worse.’ He punched a couple of buttons on his mobile phone. ‘Mum? It’s Gio. I’m at Fran’s—there’s been a flood.’
Predictably, his mother wanted to know if he was helping Fran clear up and if she was going to stay at his flat. ‘Of course. Look, some of her clothes are dry-clean only, and they’re soaked.’
‘And you need help to salvage them. Do you want me to come over to yours?’
He smiled. ‘You’re an angel. Yes, please. You’ve got my spare key.’
‘I’m on my way now. Tell Fran not to worry.’
‘I will.’
‘Love you, Gio.’
‘Love you too, Mum.’ He snapped the phone closed and turned to Fran. ‘Sorted. Have you called your parents yet?’
She shook her head. ‘No point. They’re too far away to help.’
‘Don’t you think they need to know where you are, in case they try to call you here and can’t get through? They might be worried.’
She gave him a look as if to say, why on earth would they be worried? But she shrugged. ‘I’ll text them later.’
His first instinct in a crisis was to call his family. And yet Fran kept her distance from hers, sorting the problem out on her own. Was it the adoption thing that had made her so self-reliant? Or was it that she was scared to let herself be part of them, in case she was rejected again?
He remembered the way she’d suddenly tensed on Saturday night, but wouldn’t tell him what was wrong. Had that been it, the idea of being part of a family and fearing rejection?
But his family had liked her immediately. They wouldn’t reject her.
Neither would he.
If he could only trust himself not to let her down.
Angela and Isabella were already at Gio’s flat by the time they arrived. And something smelled fantastic.
‘I assume neither of you two have had the time to eat yet,’ Angela said. ‘So you can just sit down right now and eat.’
Fran felt the tears welling up and squeezed her eyes tightly shut. She was not going to be wet about this.
Angela gave her a hug. ‘Hey, it’s horrible when you get flooded out. Especially when you couldn’t have done anything to prevent it. Sit down and eat. You’ll feel a lot better when you’ve eaten something.’
Fran didn’t quite believe her, but the gnocchi and sauce were gorgeous.
And Angela was right: it was exactly what she needed.
Fifteen minutes later the washing machine was on, Angela had made a pile of clothes she intended to take to a friend who specialised in restoring textiles, and Nonna was brewing coffee to go with the box of Amaretti biscuits she’d brought over.
‘Thank you for coming to my rescue,’ Fran said. ‘I really appreciate it.’
‘Prego,’ Angela said with a smile. ‘Of course we would. You’re one of us.’
Oh, lord. She really was going to cry in a minute. Something inside her felt as if it had just cracked.
Gio ruffled her hair. ‘Come on, tesoro. Let’s put your things in my spare room.’
‘Room’ was probably a bit of an ambitious description, Fran thought; the space was more like a large broom cupboard. And it was already crammed with a computer, paperwork and three guitars. Even if he moved them all elsewhere, there wouldn’t be room for anyone to sleep there.
Gio might have a spare room, but he didn’t have a spare bed. She felt her cheeks scorch with heat. Was he expecting her to share his bed? And as for the message that would give his family…
As if he guessed what she was thinking, he said, ‘I’ll change the sheets for you, Fran. You’ll be having my room while you stay here—and my sofa turns into a guest bed, so, before you start worrying, let me reassure you that you’re not putting me out. Now, I’ll show you how the shower works—there’s plenty of hot water, so just help yourself whenever you want a bath or what have you. I won’t be expecting you to go in to work at the same time in the morning as I do—and you don’t need to come in at all tomorrow.’ He took a bunch of keys from a drawer and detached one. ‘Spare door key. So you don’t have to wait around for me.’
She swallowed hard. ‘I really appreciate this, you know.’
‘Prego.’ He smiled back at her.
By the time Gio had changed the bed and she’d sorted out her things in his bathroom—and it felt strangely domesticated to have her face cream sitting next to his razor on the bathroom shelf and her toothbrush next to his—Angela had finished sorting through the dry-cleaning pile. ‘I’ll take these to my friend tomorrow morning,’ she said.
‘Thank you.’ Fran hugged her. ‘Thank you so much. I thought they were beyond saving.’
‘My pleasure, sweetheart.’ Her voice softened. ‘And you’ve already done a lot for me. If anything, I’m in your debt: Gio’s not such a complete workaholic as he used to be, and he smiles a hell of a lot more.’
‘Oh, Mum.’ Gio groaned. ‘Much more of this, and I’ll be forced to put on a Derek Bailey CD.’
‘Who’s Derek Bailey?’ Fran asked, puzzled.
‘A jazz guitarist from the 1950s and 1960s. He used to do a lot of improvisation work,’ Gio explained.
‘It’s not actually music,’ Angela said, grimacing. ‘It’s the stuff Gio plays when he wants to clear the room.’
‘Don’t be such a philistine. Of course it’s music. Nonna, you tell her,’ Gio said.
Isabella put both hands up in a gesture of surrender, laughing. ‘I’m staying out of this one.’
‘It’s music—but not in the traditional sense,’ he said to Fran. ‘It works on rhythm and texture rather than a melodic basis. What’s known as tonal harmonics.’
‘What’s that in English? Or even Italian?’ Fran asked.
In answer, Gio fetched an acoustic guitar from his spare room and demonstrated.
‘See?’ he said.
‘Um…I’m with your mother,’ Fran said. ‘That’s not music.’
‘Why can’t you play nice things?’Angela asked. ‘Like the pretty bits you used to play. Like the stuff you were playing at the party.’
‘And I still think you should’ve gone to college,’ Isabella added. ‘Studied music.’
Gio put his guitar away again with a scowl. ‘Well, I didn’t. And it’s too late now.’
‘Don’t be silly. Of course it’s not too late. There are plenty of mature students around—and you’re not even thirty yet. You probably wouldn’t be the oldest one there. You sort him out, Francesca,’ Isabella said.
‘I think,’ Fran said gently, ‘Gio’s man enough to sort himself out.’
‘Exactly. Thank you for the support, honey.’ He slid his arm round her shoulders and kissed the top of her head.
Oh, lord. His closeness made her remember Saturday night. The way he’d held her and kissed her then. The way the whole room had dissolved around them. The way he’d kissed her, pressed against the front door of her flat.
‘Prego,’