looked up then and he went to correct her to say that what he had meant was that he was sure there were people who wanted her...
Not him.
She put a hand up to his face and held his cheek. ‘You’re so handsome.’
Maria ran a hand through his thick black hair and it did not feel like when the baker’s wife had; this felt more than an affectionate ruffle and, confused, Bastiano removed her hand and stepped back. ‘I have to go,’ he told her.
‘Not yet.’
She wore just a slip and her breast was a little exposed; he did not want Maria to be embarrassed when she realised that she was on display, so he turned to leave.
‘Please don’t go,’ she called out to him.
‘I have to go to work.’
He had left school and worked now in the bar that was a front for the seedier dealings of his zio.
‘Please, Bastiano...’ Maria begged. She reached for his arm and when he stopped she came around so that she stood in front of him. ‘Oh,’ she apologised as she looked down and saw that her breast was exposed to him, but Bastiano did not look. He was still pretending that he had not noticed.
And she would cover herself now, Bastiano thought, yet she did not. In fact, she took his hand and placed it on her plump, ripe skin.
He was good with the girls but in those cases he was the seducer. Maria was around forty, he guessed, and, for heaven’s sake, she was the mother of his best friend.
‘Signora Di Savo...’ Her hand pressed his as he went to remove it.
‘Maria,’ she said, and her voice was low and husky. He could feel and hear her deep breathing and when she removed her hand, Bastiano’s remained on her breast.
‘You’re hard,’ Maria said, feeling him.
‘Gino might—’
‘He won’t be back till dinner.’
Bastiano was usually the leader and instigator, but not on this hot morning. Maria was back on her knees but this time by her own doing. It was over within minutes.
As he left, he swore he would never return there.
But that very afternoon Bastiano made a trip to the pharmacy for protection, and an hour later they were in bed.
Hot, forbidden, intense—they met whenever they could, though it was never enough for Maria.
‘We’re getting out,’ Bastiano told her. He had been paid and, if all else failed, he had his mother’s ring. He could not stand the thought of her with Gino for even a moment longer.
‘We can’t,’ she told him, even as she asked to see the ring and he watched as she slipped it on.
‘If you love me,’ Maria said, ‘you would want me to have nice things.’
‘Maria, give me back the ring.’
It was all he had of his mother but still Maria did not relent. Bastiano left.
He walked up the hill to the convent and sat looking out, trying to figure it all out. All his life he had wanted a taste of this elusive thing called love, only to find out he did not care for it. It was Bastiano who now wanted out.
And he wanted his mother’s ring.
He stood, walking with purpose to the town below, where he saw it unfold.
A car driving at speed took a bend too fast. ‘Stolto,’ he muttered, and called the driver a fool as he watched him take another bend...and then the car careered from the road.
Bastiano ran in the direction of the smoking wreck but as he approached he was held back and told that it was Gino’s car that had been in the accident.
‘Gino?’ Bastiano checked.
‘No!’ a woman who worked in the bar shouted. ‘I called Maria to say that Gino was on his way home and angry. He had found out about you! She took the car and—’
* * *
Maria’s death and the aftermath had not painted Bastiano in a very flattering light.
Raul returned from Rome and on the eve of the funeral they stood on the hill where once they had sat as boys.
‘You had your pick of the valley!’ Raul could barely contain his fury.
‘I went to check on her—’
But Raul did not want to hear that his mother had been the seducer. ‘And you turned on that fake charm...’ Raul had seen him in action after all. He knew how Bastiano could summon even the shyest woman with his eyes and melt restraint with a smile. ‘I was a fool to trust you,’ Raul said. ‘You as good as killed her.’
Yes, he was the first to be blamed and the last to be forgiven.
‘Stay away from the funeral,’ Raul warned him.
But Bastiano could not.
And the next day things went from bad to worse. After a bloody fight at the graveside, it later transpired that half of Maria’s money had been left to Bastiano.
Raul, once his friend, now accused Bastiano of engineering Maria’s death and swore the rest of his days would be devoted to bringing him down.
‘You’re nothing, Conti,’ Raul told him. ‘You never have been and, even with my mother’s money, you never will be.’
‘Watch me,’ Bastiano warned.
It is said that it takes a village to raise a child.
The Valley of Casta had never really been kind to Bastiano, but when the entire population considered you a cheat, a liar, a seducer, a bastard...that’s what you become.
So, when a drunken Gino came to confront him, instead of taking it on the chin, Bastiano fought back, and when Gino called Maria a whore, Bastiano saw red and did not stay quiet. Instead, he gestured with his hand in the sign of horns and tossed Gino the biggest insult of all.
‘Cornuto!’
Cuckold.
Bastiano, the villagers agreed, was the worst of the worst.
SOME NIGHTS WERE HELL.
‘Bastiano!’
He heard the familiar, syrupy call of his name and knew that he must be dreaming, for Maria was long dead.
Unusually, he was alone in bed and as dawn sneaked over Rome, Bastiano fought to wake up.
‘Bastiano!’
She called his name again.
When he reached his hand down and felt that he wasn’t hard for her, it was a triumph, and Bastiano smiled a black smile as he silently told her she didn’t do it for him any more.
Maria slapped his cheek.
She wore his mother’s ring on her finger and he felt the cold metal as she delivered a stinging slap, one that had his hand move to his face for the wound was gaping. His cheek was sliced open and there was blood pouring between his fingers.
Bastiano fought with himself even in sleep. He knew that he was dreaming, for the savage fight with Raul had happened at the graveyard; the wound to his cheek had come after Maria had been lowered to the ground.
Everyone had said that it was Bastiano’s fault she was dead.
And it was the reason that he was here, some fifteen years later—lying in one of the presidential suites at Rome’s Grande Lucia hotel.
Raul Di Savo was considering its