temptation in florence 04 - expected in death (2 page)

“A big clash? What do you mean?”

“Something between your mother and Olga.” He frowned until his eyebrows bristled. “I can't recall exactly what it was all about. But you must know that your mother is not pleased about me dancing with her so often tonight.” He took a deep breath. “Not pleased at all.”

Carlina had to smile. “Uncle Teo, you may be old, but you've got a sharp mind. How on earth did you notice this so quickly?”

He gave her a mischievous wink. “Your mother, my dear, is the easiest person to read in the whole town of Florence.”

Carlina chuckled. “I agree. Did you enjoy dancing with Olga?”

“Yes, my dear, I did.” Uncle Teo grinned. “And I'm going to do it again. Very soon. I'm too old to be told what to do.”

Several hours later, the party guests had returned home, but a few of them stayed for the night at the old farmhouse that had been converted into a boutique hotel. Uncle Teo had reserved rooms for everybody who wanted to stay, and Carlina had jumped at the chance to spend a weekend in the country, away from busy Florence. Her naked feet made a soft sound on the uneven terracotta tiles as she went from the bathroom to the bed.

Stefano was standing next to the bed and looked at her with a smile. “I'm glad you haven't yet taken off your dress.” He stretched out his hand and switched off the overhead light, leaving only a soft lamp in the corner to illuminate the room. Then he went to her and trailed kisses along her neck. “Because I've been looking forward to doing just that for hours.”

Carlina felt a shiver of pleasure going through her. She smiled and turned to him. “Don't let anything stop you.”

He lifted his hand and caressed the nape of her neck, but just as he pulled her closer, a knock came from the door.

They froze.

“Your mother.” His voice was dry.

“No way.” Carlina lowered her voice to a whisper and pulled him toward the bed. “I didn't tell her our room number.”

The knock came again, louder this time.

He looked at her. “Are we going to open?”

“No.” Carlina slipped her arms around his neck and started to kiss him.

He burrowed his hands in her hair. “What if there's a fire?” His voice teased her.

Carlina smiled. She knew his moods by now and could tell if he was serious or not, even if his face didn't betray his emotions. “In this house, there's just one fire at the moment, and it is right in front of you.”

II

The next morning, Fabbiola stopped in front of them while they were sitting at the breakfast table. The table was long enough to seat twenty people at once, and almost all the seats were taken by Mantoni family members. At the moment, however, the place was almost deserted because they had all stormed to the buffet, with the exception of Fabbiola who now sat down like a Queen and glowered at her eldest daughter. “I knocked at your door last night, but you didn't open.”

Carlina looked at her mother and smiled. “What happened?” she asked. “Was there a fire in the house?”

Stefano stepped on her foot.
Don't overdo it,
his eyes said.

“I wanted to discuss something with you.” Fabbiola pouted and looked at her daughter with a wounded expression on her face.

“Well, you can do so now,” Carlina said.

“It's confidential.” Fabbiola hissed.

Stefano lifted his eyebrows. “Do you want me to leave?”

“No, of course not.” Fabbiola looked over her shoulder. “But Uncle Teo will come down any minute now. Did you hear that this . . . this . . .” she seemed at a loss for words.

“Yes?” Carlina had to suppress a grin.

“This Olga! She stayed the night, too.”

The words had hardly left her mouth when the door opened and Uncle Teo ushered Olga in like royalty.

Stefano and Carlina exchanged a glance.

Fabbiola made a sound like an angry cat and flounced toward the buffet as if she hadn't seen the newcomers.

“Good morning, my dears.” Uncle Teo stopped next to the table. His gaze swept over the family, just coming back from the buffet with loaded plates.

Behind Benedetta were her children, Ernesto and Annalisa, their red hair flaming in the morning sun. At eighteen and twenty, they were on the threshold of adulthood, but that didn't stop them from behaving like teenagers. At the moment, they were teasing each other. Behind her siblings came their older sister, Emma, her long legs shown off by a skirt not much longer than a standard towel. Her husband, Lucio, had both hands full with their plates. Emma carried nothing but a slim handbag. Though they all lived together in separate apartments in the house on Via delle Pinzochere in the ancient town of Florence, they rarely had breakfast together. Breakfast was a quick affair: tossing down a cup of coffee while standing. It was nothing compared to the elaborate lunches and dinners that were usually cooked by Benedetta and then eaten together in her large kitchen, in her second floor apartment.

“Good morning, my dears.” Uncle Teo beamed at them all. Then he turned to Olga and looked at her as if he were a dashing young man and she a princess. “Shall we go and see what the buffet has to offer?”

Olga shuddered. “I never eat anything in the mornings.” She patted her slim hips. “It's the only way to keep up a good figure. But a cup of coffee would be nice.”

“Of course.” Uncle Teo hurried to the buffet.

Olga took a seat at the long wooden table and checked her impeccable fingernails. She was dressed in an apricot-colored dress that fluttered around her and enhanced the impression that she was small and fragile, someone to be cherished and protected. Her mahogany hair was cut fashionably short and emphasized the perfect shape of her cheek bones.

Carlina frowned. Something about Olga bothered her, but it was hard to pin it down. She was attractive, nice to look at. What was it?

Annalisa slid into the seat next to Olga and gave her a curious look. Annalisa was probably the best-looking woman in the Mantoni family, with her pearly teeth, perfect skin and long, red hair. Just turned twenty, she was the youngest woman in the family house on Via delle Pinzochere, and she knew how to use that fact to her advantage. In fact, Annalisa knew how to use most facts to her advantage.

Olga moved her chair to the side as if she didn't want to be in direct comparison to Annalisa.

No wonder
. Carlina suppressed a smile. For someone like Olga who so obviously took care of her appearance, being placed next to Annalisa presented a catastrophe – no woman could get away with that, not even a doll-like fifty something.

Now Olga smiled at Annalisa – it was more a stretching of the lips than anything else – and said, “You're Annalisa, aren't you?”

Annalisa smiled. “I am. You've heard of me?”

Olga lifted one carefully plucked eyebrow. “Indeed I have. You're the woman who took a lover thirty years her senior.” Her voice was sweet like honey.

Carlina caught her breath. Annalisa was hard to hurt, but Carlina knew that her cousin's affair with the older man last Christmas had gone deeper than Annalisa ever admitted. From the corner of her eyes, she saw Benedetta half rising out of her chair in defense of her daughter, her red mouth pressed into one angry line.
Oh, no.

But she needn't have worried.

Annalisa gave Olga a contemptuous look from beneath her long lashes and said, “Well, I can't recommend it, so you'd better stop taking me as a role model.”

The family gasped.

Olga turned red and opened her mouth, but at this moment, Uncle Teo reappeared, carefully balancing two cups of coffee on a tray. “Here you are, Olga.” He placed the cups onto the table in front of the tiny woman, then beamed at everyone around the table. “I see you're having a good time together. How nice.”

Chapter 2

“I can't believe that Uncle Teo didn't feel the vibes this morning.” Carlina struggled upstairs on a rickety staircase and stopped to catch her breath. “I swear there was murder in the air.”

Stefano smiled. “You don't have to tell me; I was there. I wonder if Olga knows what she's doing.” He held out his hand. “It's just one more floor. Come on.”

Carlina didn't budge. “Actually, I don't think we should go on at all. There's no way I'll trudge up and down these stairs several times a day just to get to my apartment.”

“Maybe it's beautiful inside.”

She snorted. “It would have to be a palace to convince me at this point. And if the staircase is anything to go by, it'll turn out to be a pig sty anyway.”

He bent forward and cupped her face with his hand, then traced his thumb over her cheek. “I know. But this is the only apartment on offer that's even remotely suitable and affordable. Let's at least have a look.”

She sighed and continued to climb up the stairs. “The things I do for you . . .”

He grinned. “I know. I'm a lucky man.”

But by the time they had done the tour of the apartment, his smile had faded. The kitchen window was ill fitted enough to allow a busy army of ants to pass without hindrance from the inside to the outside, the outdated bathroom smelled moldy, the carpet was stained, and the balcony was too dangerous to use at the moment, but was supposed to be fixed before the year was out.

“And if you believe that, then you'll believe that the stars sing good-night songs to you every evening.” Carlina's shoulders slumped forward as they descended the stairs again. She took Stefano's hand and held onto it. “Do you think we'll ever find something?”

“I hope so.” He shrugged. “If only Florence wasn't such a magnetic city. Maybe we should consider moving to the outskirts after all.”

She shook her head. They had been through this before, and were agreed that living close to her lingerie store and the police station was important to their quality of life. Commuting each day for an hour or more would take away too much of their time together. She clenched her fist. “Let's go on looking. There has to be a decent apartment somewhere, just waiting for us. We've only seen a few so far.”

“Twenty-one.”

She opened her eyes wide. “Twenty-one? You counted?”

He shrugged. “Yep.”

Carlina fell into a depressed silence as she followed him out onto the street. Twenty-one apartments, and not one of them even remotely suitable. Again, she wondered if she should just move into his apartment. Hers was out of the question – on the fourth floor of the family house, just beneath the roof, it had loads of charm, but it simply wasn't big enough for two people, particularly if one of them was so tall that he had to stoop every time he moved away from the center of the living room. Apart from that, she just couldn't imagine Garini in the bosom of the crazy Mantoni family, apt to be interrupted whenever one of them took it into his or her head to mount the stairs and burst into the apartment without so much as a perfunctory knock.

His apartment was slightly bigger, but she didn't feel at home there. Maybe it was his minimalistic furniture or the hideous modern print above the sofa; she couldn't tell, but for some reason, the atmosphere in his living room was chilly even in the middle of summer. The only place she liked was his bedroom, and not only for the obvious reason. She loved the fitted shelves which covered the walls from floor to ceiling, only leaving a free square around the head of the bed. Every slot was filled with CDs and books and somehow, that filled the room with his personality. Yes, she liked Garini's bedroom, but that was it. There was nothing magical in any of the other rooms in his apartment.

Another thought raised its head. If she moved in with him, it would always remain his apartment. She would be the guest; she would be the newcomer, even if they remodeled the whole thing. And remodeling an apartment that he found perfectly adequate offered plenty of pitfalls for their relationship. No, much better to start together on neutral ground – to build something from scratch, so she wouldn't have to dethrone any hidden deities in his house. Moving in with Garini was a big step. They were both in their thirties, used to be being single and independent. It would take some getting used to. What if their relationship could not cope with all the changes? A sudden shiver went through her.

Garini turned and looked at her in concern. “What is it?”

Trust him to notice her every single mood. She tried to smile. “I'm discouraged.”

“We'll keep on looking.” He pressed her hand. “At least, we've got time. Nobody is going to kick us out.”

She nodded and decided to change the subject. “I'm hungry, and I think it's almost time for dinner. Tonight, Benedetta made g
nocchi
. Do you want to come?”

He hesitated. “I'm not sure.”

She put her arms around his neck and rubbed her cheek against his, then she whispered, “I know what you're thinking: 'Benedetta's
gnocchi
are mouth-watering, but will they get stuck in my throat if I have to listen to the bickering of the Mantoni family again?' ”

He slanted her a glance. “Are you expecting anything even worse than usual tonight?”

She grinned. “No. I was just teasing you.”

“Then I'll join you.”

But when they were seated around the dinner table, Carlina realized that the atmosphere was more explosive than usual. To the dismay of the entire family, Uncle Teo had invited Olga. She now sat next to him like a model, on the chair that used to be occupied by Uncle Teo's wife Maria. Maria had been as broad as she'd been good-natured, and for a fleeting instant, it made Carlina uncomfortable to see Olga in her place.
Stop this,
she admonished herself.
You have to move on. Think of Uncle Teo. He's happy
. Next to Olga was another newcomer she had ever seen before.
He's a mammoth.
The thought caught hold of her before she had fully taken in his shock of messy hair, his chest that could probably serve as a steamroller, and his right fist which clutched a knife that looked like a toothpick in comparison.

“This is my son Ugo.” Olga beamed with pride.

Carlina choked. Her son? How could a little doll like Olga ever have produced such a huge specimen?

Ugo had a flat face that looked as if someone had tried to sweep all emotions from its planes, leaving only a little nose that reminded her of a deformed
gnoccho.
With a vacant look, he gave a slight nod, then bared teeth that were larger than sugar cubes and said,
“Ciao.”
After this profound statement, he fell back into silence.