From Humble Beginnings (Joe Steel) (9 page)

Because that’s exactly what she’s doing. 

Smiling up at me, her gaze flickering between the pair ahead of us and up to my eyes.  She’s tall and in a pair of wedges, is a few inches above my chin.  I can flirt; it’s an easy way to manipulate people and there are times when it comes in very handy, but I’m not in the mood for it now.  If anything, I’m in the mood to push her away and slouch into the car.  A bit like a bratty kid, I need to sleep off my mood and considering it’s getting late, that shouldn’t be too long away. 

To the small questions she peppers me with as we walk out to the car, I manage to give equally small answers and for the moment, she seems content with that.  Angelo reaches the car as I’m attempting to field yet another query and within two seconds, has unlocked the vehicle and settles Cass into the front seat, beside his own. 

Meaning I’m going to be sat with Clordina in the backseat for the trip. 

Great. 

Okay, her legs go up to her armpits and her tits are the size of melons and if I hadn’t just left a distressed Juliet behind, maybe,
maybe
I’d have been interested. What guy wouldn’t be? But as it is, I just keep seeing those tear-drenched eyes and each and every time that happens, my mood plummets. 

On top of that, she’s like a tarantula.  Her arms always moving and coming into close contact with me, touching me.  And Christ, we’ve only walked out of the terminal!

Settling myself in the back seat, I roll my eyes as Clordina joins me, ensuring that as she takes a seat, the split in her skirt reveals a lengthy expanse of thigh.  She settles in the middle of the back seat, almost as though someone else were due to get in with us.  It means that I’m tucked against her and it’s the last place I want to be. 

“How long does it take to get to Bergamo?”

Clordina answers for me as Angelo is still tackling the luggage.  “It’s about a hundred kilometres away from here.”

That doesn’t seem too bad.  At least, it wouldn’t when the air conditioning kicks in. Angelo has started the ignition and hot air is blasting out of the vents.   Once again regretting my sweater, I ruffle the sleeves to shove them up my forearms and immediately regret
that
as Clordina’s hands cover my wristwatch. “What a lovely watch.”

In the dim overhead light, my eyes glance at her red talons and back towards her own gaze.  “It was a present.”

Once again, my dismissive answer isn’t enough to shut her up.  “From who?”

“My boss.”

“That was kind of him, wasn’t it?” she murmurs.  “What did you do to earn it?”

“I found a thief in the company.”

At my words, she tenses and turns towards me.  “That was very clever of you,” she murmurs in a husky voice. 

Wondering if I’m being set up, I frown down at the fingers still entwining my wrist and work the joint out of her grasp.  “I’m a very clever man,” I mock and turn away to stare out of the window. 

She tried.  I’d give her that. 

Throughout the rest of the hour and a half journey, she kept on trying to entice me into a conversation, but I continued my vigil at the window.  At my back, a vent gushed cool air and I relaxed into the leather seats, content to let Angelo drive me.  Even if I wasn’t content about the level of attention he was bestowing upon Cass.

Damning my lack of knowledge of Italian, out of the corner of my eye, I watched Cass chat and flirt with the driver.  Seated diagonally to me, I had a perfect position to watch her flutter her lashes at him and coyly chat with her body as well as her tongue. 

Having never seen her so disarmed, I myself felt blown away.  Usually armed to the teeth with a cast-iron control, to see her relaxed was almost peculiar.  I felt discomforted by the insight. 

And also suspicious as well. 

A driver, I can understand.  A translator too.  But neither of us had requested escorts!

It was with relief that we finally made it to a villa tucked into a river; Clordina told me was called the Brembo.  They were cosseted by the Val Brembana and even in the darkness; I could tell that the views of the river would be magnificent.  A slightly fusty smell permeated my nostrils, but there was a cooling breeze that made me sigh with pleasure as it curled about my body, cooling it down.

Angelo soon disappeared after introducing us to the housekeeper, who was sporting a nasty bruise on her cheekbone, and bringing our luggage into the house.  Clordina went soon after. 
Although, I didn’t escape entirely.  She pressed two kisses to my cheeks in the Italian fashion, but call me paranoid; I’d swear I felt the slight trail of her tongue against my flesh. 

There were come-ons and
there were come-ons,
for Christ’s sake. The attention bestowed upon the pair of us by our translator and driver was grossly exaggerated.  Call me suspicious, but if that was to soften us up for something, it failed majestically!   If anything, it’s made me more cautious as well as wanting to find out what the pair of them are actually involved in.  Because they have to be up to something, to behave the way they had. 

I’ve come across a lot of people in my line of work and no one has ever behaved the way that pair have done tonight.

My suspicions are validated by that alone!    

And with Clordina offering herself on a plate… well, call me old-fashioned, but I prefer to do my own flirting!    How I wanted and when I wanted.  Especially not when I’ve a woman back home, who I hope is waiting for me.

Calling her my girlfriend and proffering her up to Clordina to save me from her clutches seems like a smart idea, but the idea of being a
boyfriend
makes me grimace.  It sounds so juvenile.  So bloody gormless.  In the end, I stay quiet, thankful when she blends into the background and departs a few minutes after Angelo, leaving Cas and I alone, in silence, on the veranda. 

“
Signori
, the dinner is ready to serve if you’d like to come in now?”

With the cooling breeze from the river calming me, I’m reluctant to leave, but my stomach protests and I soon follow Cass into the house. 

After the Porsche Cayenne and the ‘uniform’ of the chauffeur, the house itself comes as no real surprise to me.  Ornate, gilt, ormolu.  Three words that sum it up.  It’s a cross between a bordello and a rich man’s palace.  The outside lights had shown a rather nice villa; square, tall, white with plenty of windows each with green shutters.  Nothing remarkable outside of what had to be a beautiful view of the river and a pleasantly tended garden.

Inside is where the interior decoration had exploded. 

The entry hall is bland in comparison to the dining hall, into which the battered cook shows us.  The latter had been a mixture of cream walls with golden dado rails, a colour that matched the cornices and the edging on every single piece of wooden furniture within the vestibule.  The console table to the side, a central circular table in the middle of the hall, even the picture frames and the trim on the staircase...  all of it was golden. 

And yet, the dining room is worse!

Here red reigns.  It looks like red velvet on the walls, but I’m not even sure if that’s possible!    The curtains curling around the patio doors that lead on to a well-illuminated terrace are scarlet red and on the walls, Christ reigns supreme.  There are crucifixes all over the shop.  The table is large and as expected, in the centre.  A large heavy piece of mahogany, it’s carved to within an inch of its life and had the room not been so over the top, it might have made a grand focal point.  Instead, it’s shrouded by religious artefacts. From crucifixes to pictures of deities and saints, I’m not sure if I’m eating in a dining room or in a church!

At the head of the table, on the back wall, is a crucifix which looks like solid gold to me and has to be the size of a reasonably large painting.  In the overhead lights, which have red velvet shades, the gold gleams dully and makes me think that it truly is a precious metal.  

“If shit goes to shit, we could always flog that, Cass.  That would stop us from going bankrupt!” I point at the golden crucifix and she grins, understanding my point.  It’s only then that I realize she’s been absorbing it all with the same astonishment as I myself have!

I also realize that I whispered the comment.  Almost as though I wasn’t sure if the previous owner could hear me or if one of the carvings of Jesus on the cross would come to life and swat out my sorry existence for daring to swear in this place. 

My eyes darting about the furniture, I take a seat at the table and thank the housekeeper, Brigida, as she brings in two plates loaded with gnocchi in some kind of butter sauce.  We both thank her and she departs, leaving us to enjoy our meal. 

“I wonder how she got the shiner.”

Cass pulls a face.  “It’s usually the husband, isn’t it?”

And while she wasn’t wrong,
I had a strange insight into Cas’ life there and then. That whole sentence seemed to sum up
why
she hadn’t married Bernard and didn’t mind Rebecca taking her place.

Although, from her flirting in the car, I’d be hesitant in saying that Bernard and Cass were faithful to each other. 

I make no comment on my insight, because I could be completely wrong and I don’t entirely know where the epiphany came from.  Silence seems to be appropriate, so I only say, “It’s a nasty bruise.  She’s far too small to be enduring that sort of violence.” I’m not lying.  Brigida has to be all of five feet and as skinny as a pigeon on Trafalgar Square.  Although, with the food she just served us, I’m not sure how!

“No.  But there’s usually little we can do to help.  She’s the cook too.”

Frowning at Cass’ dismissal of domestic violence and her abrupt change of topic, I make a mental note to ask after Brigida and to see if her husband is the one beating her.  “Is her husband on staff?”

“Yes.  He’s the gardener.”

If he was behind the beating, then he wouldn’t have a job for much longer.  I’ll see to that myself. 

Brigida bustles in again, removing our plates and replacing them with steaming bowls of pasta in a cream sauce alongside a heavy sponge cake, which she places in the centre of the table beside a decanter of sweating limoncello and a hot urn of black coffee as well as all the utensils we’d need to prevail ourselves of her spread. 

“If that is all, signori, then I will go to bed now.  The hour is late.”

Surprised at her level of English, I smile at her.  “That’s fine.  Thank you for a delicious meal.  If the pasta is anything like the gnocchi, then we’re in for a treat.”

She blushes, the rouge of her cheeks clashing with the vitriolic shade of purple clouding her eye and cheekbone.  “Thank you.
Buonanotte
.”

Ca
ss stares at me with a raised brow and I glare at her, shrugging off her amusement. “You could have thanked her yourself!”

At my chiding, she merely smiles. “Why? When you did it for me and so charmingly.”

Ignoring her, I tuck into the cheesy pasta and proceeded to gorge on the cake, drizzling limoncello over it rather than take it as a liqueur.

“It’s wonder y
ou’re as skinny as you are,” Cass comments, after leaving half of her pasta and skipping over dessert to black coffee. 

“I work out.  And I’m not skinny.”

As a kid, I’d been skinny. All bones and lanky muscles.  A beanpole had been overweight in comparison to me.  I’d worked hard for my lean muscles and I still could eat whatever I wanted. 

As I finish my cake, I murmur, “You were flirting with the driver.  Is that appropriate, do you think?”

Cass raises her cup to her lips and sips at the hot brew.  “He was flirting with me and I returned the favour.”

“Don’t you think that’s odd?” As I ask the question, I pour myself a small cup of coffee.  At that point, even if I have to endure Cass as a dining companion, I’m looking forward to the rest of my stay. I never cook for myself and having a talented woman like Brigida in the kitchen, my mouth is drooling at the thoughts of all the meals ahead of me. 

“No.  Not really.  I like to think I’m an attractive woman. . . ”

There’s a
sharpness to her tone that tells me I’ve inadvertently offended her.  God, women can be so prickly.  “I didn’t mean it that way,” I interrupt with a roll of my eyes.  “I meant Clordina did exactly the same to me.  Flirting.  Excessively.  Touching.  Excessively.  Uncomfortably so.  I don’t trust it.  Especially not when the pair of them came together; it’s like a battle tactic!”

“I’m sure you’re being melodramatic.  If a handsome man chats to me then I’m not churlish enough to ignore him.  And Clordina was gorgeous! You’re only dating Juliet.  That doesn’t mean you can’t talk to other women!” she mocks. 

Refusing to listen to her taunts, I stand, my chair scraping against the wooden floor.  “If you want to be blind, then be blind.  It will all go into my report regardless of whether you agree with me or not.  Something weird is going on; they approached us as though they were escorts! Not employees!”

“They’re Italian! They flirt. It’s what they do best.”

“Yeah, well, pull the wool over your eyes if you want.  I don’t like it.  It stinks to me.”