Beautifully Broken (The Montebellos Book 6) Page 17

  “Why do you cook?”

  The question surprised Isabella. Not because it was strange, necessarily, but because it was one she’d never been asked before. People asked how she got into it, or when she started the blog, but the specificity and contradictory vagueness of ‘why’ she cooked was new.

  “I guess because I can’t not,” she said after a beat. Then she shrugged. “My adoptive mum was a great cook. It reminds me of her.”

  “She’s not here?”

  Isabella shook her head. “She died when I was eight.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Isabella knew Yaya understood. Even if Gabe hadn’t told her about Yaya’s own losses, she felt the other woman’s compassion and affinity with Isabella’s circumstance.

  “Cooking can make us feel close to people. And places.” Yaya took a sip of her wine, pausing while she savoured the warmth and flavour. “Many of my favourite recipes are Greek, because they remind me of my own childhood.”

  “Like what?”

  “Pasticcio, strapatsada, baklava, spanakopita.”

  “I love Pasticcio,” Isabella enthused.

  “Mine is the best. I will make it for you one time.”

  Isabella’s heart almost cracked apart in a sudden, desperate burst of anguish. That wouldn’t happen. This was all temporary – an illusion. She was here in this beautiful home being welcomed by this unique, down to earth family, but when Gabe took her away, it would be final.

  Her smile was noncommittal. “Gabe cooked only Italian dishes for me,” she said.

  “I’m not surprised. For my part, I prefer Greek recipes, but Gianfelice, my husband, their grandfather, was a proud Italian male. He thought everything his mother did was the best.” Yaya rolled her eyes, but with obvious affection. “I learned her ways, though changed them enough over time.” She winked. “My revenge.”

  Isabella couldn’t help a small laugh. “The way of all good cooks is to put their mark on a dish so that it’s unique yet familiar.”

  “Exactly.” She sipped her drink. “I often think people are a little like this, like recipes.”

  “Oh?”

  “Look at my boys. All the same ingredients, but each so different.”

  Isabella nodded.

  “You cannot tell what you are getting at the start, and many things can happen that change how a person turns out. We hope that between good biology and upbringing we can succeed in creating a happy, well-rounded person, but it is not always so simple.” She looked at Isabella, her eyes deep and probing. “You can include all the ingredients and follow a recipe precisely, but sometimes it doesn’t work out. Other times it does.” She shrugged. “It’s a mystery.”

  “That’s true,” Isabella murmured. “Your family is lovely.”

  “My grandchildren are,” she agreed.

  Isabella understood the sadness underscoring Yaya’s admission – she felt the incompleteness of the woman’s ‘family’. Her own children were absent. Two sons exiled, and a daughter lost to pride first and ultimately illness.

  “Gabe has puzzled me most of all over the years.”

  Isabella was very still, wanting to hear everything Yaya had to say on the matter, yet knowing it was invasive to allow her to continue. Somehow it felt like a betrayal of whatever she and Gabe shared, admitting someone else – even his beloved Yaya – into the dynamics of their relationship.

  “He is independent and determined, spirited and so moralistic it frustrates me almost to death, even when I can see that such moralism is, probably, a benefit. He cannot see the world as I do, or I suspect you do. For example, the accident is a weight on his chest, every second of every day.”

  Isabella’s heart twisted with pain. “I know.”

  Yaya’s eyes widened. “Do you?”

  “He told me as much.”

  She could see the older woman’s wheels turning, as though Gabe’s sharing this information was the opposite of what she’d suspected.

  “Perhaps then he is finally ready to change. To forgive himself, even.” She sipped her drink. “The first step to forgiveness is admitting you’re ready. In telling you about the past, maybe he crossed that line?”

  “Perhaps,” Isabella conceded, the woman’s thoughts closely echoing her own hopes. “He deserves better than the purgatory he’s made himself exist in since then.”

  Yaya’s features were taut as she studied Isabella intently. “Life is too precious, is it not?”

  “Definitely.” She reached for her drink and took a generous gulp. “Thank you for including me in your Christmas. I feel very honoured.”

  “Di Nada,” Yaya waved her hand through the air. “We are the ones who are grateful to you.”

  “Oh?”

  “You’ve brought Gabe some of the way back to us.”

  Isabella stared at the gift with chagrin and shock. “This isn’t necessary,” she shook her head. “I’ve landed on your doorstep unannounced. There’s no need for presents.”

  “We’ve discussed this,” Yaya overruled her objection, the rest of the group silent. It was late at night, the Christmas dinner – a delicious feast of soup, bread, vegetables, gnocchi and ragu, roast meats and creamy potatoes preceding a sweet smorgasbord that had made Isabella’s teeth ache! The family had been loud and happy, the children – at varying ages and all adorable and besotted with their Yaya – gathered at one end of the table, with manners far superior to Isabella’s at a similar age. They ate with gusto and didn’t interrupt the flow of conversation much at all. Champagne flowed freely and the mood was convivial and bright.

  Isabella sat there and absorbed it all, and somehow the perfection was only improved by Gabe’s presence at her side, his silence not brooding so much as reflective.

  Happiness was seductive indeed. She looked at his brothers and cousins – five men of the same mould, or the same ingredients, as Yaya had said – and wondered at the steps they’d taken that had allowed them to fall in love and commit to their partners. Surely it wasn’t so out of the question to imagine Gabe might one day make a similar commitment?

  But even the thought of that was out of bounds. She had to work hard to suppress it though. It was far easier to find herself imagining a shared future – the idea coming to her out of nowhere and surprising her with its fulsome rightness.

  Gabe had said his family would love her, but what she hadn’t anticipated was that she would love his family right back. And after only one night! It was so improbable that she hadn’t properly protected herself against the likelihood after all. She’d been complacent and out of that had come genuine affection.

  She passed the present from one hand to her other. “Open it,” Gabe urged quietly. They sat around the Christmas tree shimmering with vintage lights and well-loved ornaments, just like a vision conjured out of one of Isabella’s fantasies. The children were awake but tired now, stifling yawns with the backs of their hands. Isabella had been very happy to watch everyone else rip into their presents – quietly impressed by the low-key nature of the gifts, given the family’s wealth. Books, trinkets and sports toys for the children, with some meaningful jewellery given to the women by yaya, from her personal collection. Sentimental bling, she’d explained with a wink to Isabella. And now there was something for her – an interloper.

  Isabella slipped a finger beneath the wrapping paper, her heart banging so loudly against her ribs she was sure it must be audible to everyone. Her fingers were shaking; she couldn’t say why, only it was making it difficult to open the present. Taking a deep breath, she concentrated on appearing as unaffected as possible, folding up one triangle of gift wrap before rotating the present and unsticking the next piece of tape, before opening it completely, her heart trebling in speed when saw what was contained within.

  “It’s too much,” she shook her head. “I can’t accept this.” She was conscious of the others leaning forward, craning to get a look, but unless you had Isabella’s vantage point – and perhaps Gabe’s – it was difficu
lt to discern the nature of the gift.

  She looked up at Yaya, sitting as a Queen on a throne, comfortably ensconced in an armchair at the head of the circle.

  “Nonsense,” Yaya waved her hand in a gesture that was already familiar to Isabella. “I want you to have it.”

  Isabella turned her attention back to the book, a film of tears making it almost impossible to read the scratchy handwriting properly. Written on the front of the book’s brown cardboard cover was ‘Paula Vasannaki’. The Vasannaki had been crossed out at some point and replaced with ‘Montebello’. The first recipes were written in a child’s hand, then a more elegant script – all in Greek. Halfway through, the nature of the recipes changed, though they were still written in Greek. Every now and again, she came across a piece of paper torn from a magazine or recipe book and folded neatly into the margins.

  “These are your recipes,” Isabella shook her head. “They should stay in the family.”

  Yaya’s eyes narrowed, and the room paused, waiting for her to speak. “It felt right for you to have it. Please, cara. Accept the gift.”

  Was it any surprise Isabella needed a moment to herself? So much kindness, happiness and love might have been normal for many people, but to Isabella – so used to being alone – it was thawing parts of her that she wasn’t sure she wanted thawed. After all, a defence mechanism served a valuable purpose and she wasn’t sure she should allow hers to quit so quickly.

  And yet…she wanted to. She wanted to ignore her long-held sensibilities, her pragmatism and emotional caution and be a part of this group for as long as they’d have her. She wanted to be a part of Gabe’s life most of all. She wanted to wake up with him every morning, she wanted to share meals with him, to laugh with him, to see him coming back to life. She wanted all of him.

  The realisation had her head dropping forward, panic and euphoria spreading like wildfire through her blood, so her skin felt blotchy and pink.

  As soon as she could politely excuse herself, she slipped from the room and down the corridor, finding a quiet room, where she could lean against a wall, surrounded by darkness, only her rasping breaths punctuating the silence.

  She loved him.

  She loved him completely, with all of her heart. Relief exploded through her veins, as though her heart was rejoicing that her brain had finally caught up. She loved him! But she couldn’t love him! Not in the sense that ‘to love’ was a verb, an active, doing word, that implied a sense of ongoingness. The idea of being able to continue to love him every day, to wake up beside him, smile at his nearness, run her fingertips over his body as she’d done every morning for this last week – that’s what she wanted. But Gabe?

  What did he want?

  Her heart was running to a staccato beat now, doubts at war with hope, uncertainty plunging into a river of determination. Isabella didn’t know which way to go, nor what she should do, but she held her love deep in her heart, a touchstone to ground her for the rest of the night. In the morning, she would have to make a decision – to risk everything, and tell him how she felt? Or to ignore her heart’s wishes and accept that all good things really did, eventually come to an end? It was the lesson of her life, but maybe just this once she’d ignore it. Maybe just this once she’d hope for that thing other people seemed to effortlessly believe in: the everlastingness of love.

  “Just, let it go,” Gabe muttered, the conversation the last thing he wanted to be having this early on Christmas morning. Thoughts of a quiet run in the gym had dissipated when he’d walked in to find Luca and Max side by side on the rowing machines. He’d nodded at them and jumped onto a treadmill, but Luca had stopped rowing and come to stand right in front of him, one arm leaned nonchalantly across the controls, making it impossible for Gabe to start his exercise.

  “We will,” Luca grinned. “When you start making sense.”

  Gabe expelled a sigh of irritation. “Cristo, Luca, what do you want me to say?”

  “He wants you to say you’re madly in love, just like him,” Max teased.

  Gabe swore, something like bright white light blinding him. “You’re ‘in love’ too and you’re not acting like a mad man.”

  “I can see why you might think I’d have your back here, but I’m actually with Luca.”

  Gabe glared at his cousins. “Why?”

  “Because you obviously do love her.”

  Gabe nudged Luca’s hand aside and pressed the ‘start’ button on the treadmill. Luca and Max shared a look; Gabe fought an urge to ask them to leave in the rudest terms at his disposal.

  Instead, he dialled the speed of the treadmill up until he was running so fast he had to use all his breath for exercise rather than conversation.

  “What’s the problem?” Luca asked over the whirr of the treadmill’s mechanism. “She seems like a great woman.”

  “Isabella is great,” he had to raise his voice to be heard.

  “So what’s the deal then?”

  “You’re saying I can’t know a great woman and not be in love with her?”

  Luca and Max shared a look. “It just seems…” Max said thoughtfully.

  Gabe waited on tenterhooks for him to finish, but Luca wrapped his hand around Max’s arm, shaking his head. “Forget about it, man. We must have got it wrong.”

  Max frowned. “I guess so.”

  “Enjoy your run. I’m…glad you’re back.”

  The parting comment played on Gabe’s mind for the entire six-mile run. I’m glad you’re back was a simple statement and yet he felt the implications with a sense of frustration. It was possible Luca had meant only that Gabe had returned to Villa Fortune, yet he knew his cousin better than that. There was more to the throwaway comment. Enough people had made remarks on his changed mindset for him to feel as though he were being backed into a corner. It was like everyone thought he’d crossed some sort of line and no longer carried a burden of guilt for what he’d done, for Carmen and Avery, for that December night that had brought an end to Carmen’s life and Avery’s as she knew it. And his family was glad and relieved, like finally he was ‘happy Gabe’ and they could stop worrying about him.

  Well, he didn’t want their concern – he never had – but he didn’t want their expectations either.

  It was undeniable that Isabella had done something to him – he did feel differently about life and love now, but if everyone kept wanting a happy ending for him, they were going to be disappointed. Isabella was a temporary part of his life – a wonderful, beautiful, sensual chapter, but it was coming to an end. It had to end. Because regardless of what everyone in his family obviously wanted, Gabe wasn’t prepared to give away his grief and guilt. He didn’t want to forget what he’d done and lose himself in a shared life – and there was no way he’d risk poisoning Isabella with the darkness of his soul.

  A whisper of regret ran through him. Perhaps bringing her here had been a stupid idea after all? But the second he thought that, he knew it was wrong. Seeing her face as she’d opened Yaya’s present had shifted something inside of his chest – he’d never seen someone feel greater happiness and warmth than in that moment. He was glad he could give that to her, just this one Christmas.

  14

  ISABELLA FELT AS THOUGH her tummy might be on the brink of exploding! So much delicious food, wine and merriment – the world was bright and perfect. It was most perfect of all though because of the revelation she’d had the night before, the secret kernel of knowledge she carried in her heart, that she loved Gabe.

  She slipped away from the salon, where board games were being played by adults and children alike, needing a moment to herself. She also needed to record a video for her followers, wishing them a happy holidays.

  She’d barely thought of her online community in the last few days, and guilt at that betrayal made her determined to film a lovely clip and post it right away. She just needed a private space to record something, a room that didn’t show too much décor – it was important to respect the Montebellos’
privacy.

  Finally, she found a lovely sitting room with windows that looked out onto the stunning pool area. She sat at the window seat with the light on her face, angling the camera so it framed only her head and a hint of wallpaper behind her, and began to talk. She spoke in the way she always had – open and honest – her online community incredibly important to her. It was just a quick message, a few minutes. She watched it back once, then uploaded it, waiting for the video to clear, enjoying the peace and quiet of the room until voices punctuated it.

  “For God’s sake, just leave it alone.” Gabe’s exasperation was easy to hear. She frowned, leaning towards the windows a little, until she could see him, standing out by the pool. His back was to her, so she couldn’t see his face, but she could tell he was talking to one of his brothers, Nico and his body language was tense, shoulders taut, back straight.

  “Not while you’re being so stupid.”

  “What’s with you guys? First Luca and Max, then Raf, and now you? Is this some effort to indoctrinate me into the ‘happily married’ club before sunset?”

  “I’d settle for the ‘happy in life’ club, to be honest,” Raf fired back.

  “I’m fine. Stop worrying about me.”

  “For the first time in years, I can almost believe you when you say that.”

  There was a static pause, filled with sparks of tension. Isabella knew she should leave; it was wrong to eavesdrop. But something kept her bottom glued to the window seat.

  “You do seem fine, or as close to it as you’ve been in a long time. And obviously it’s because of her.”

  Pleasure spread through Isabella’s chest. She held her breath.

  “Leave it.” Gabe’s irritation was obvious; it brought a crooked smile to Isabella’s face. It was so like him to want to defend his – their – privacy.

  “You don’t get it. I know how hard it is for any of us to open up and find love. I had it right in front of me and almost let it – her – go. Maddie was such a gift and I couldn’t see that. It’s not easy for any of us to get our heads around the idea of love, but least of all you. You’ve been determined to shut people out since the accident but I can tell she’s different. You’re different around her.”