Unmasking Elena Montella (14 page)

The water usually helped her to think but she didn’t think anything could have eased her mind that morning. She’d left Elena in the apartment with her fiancé, or, rather,
one
of her fiancés. The other, of course, was at one of the most expensive hotels in Venice. Two fiancés, Rosanna tutted aloud to herself. How on earth had she managed to do that? She knew Elena’s track record but she’d never thought that anything like that would happen. And to have them both turning up at the apartment!

Rosanna thought of her first encounter with Reuben and could feel her face flushing as she did so. It wasn’t because he’d been dressed only in a towel, which had been embarrassing enough on its own, but it was how she had felt. She closed her eyes and tried to recall it. It was warm, it was tingly, and it was incredibly disturbing because she hadn’t felt like that since school. Yes, that was it, she thought: it was like having a crush - that strange phenomenon she’d thought you left behind once you became an adult, but here she was experiencing the self-same feelings - for her sister’s fiancé.

This was terrible. Did she really have a crush on Reuben? It couldn’t possibly be anything more than that, could it? She’d only met him yesterday. It was outrageous to suppose that the emotion was anything more. She’d be in dreadful trouble if it was. No, she reasoned, he was just a very attractive man who’d happened to be standing half-naked in front of her. What normal red-blooded Italian girl wouldn’t respond to something like that?

But, the thing that was worrying her was that she couldn’t remember ever having responded that way to Corrado. There’d been no adrenaline rush. Her heart hadn’t fluttered inside her. Not once had she blushed when he’d looked at her. Was that normal? Did that mean she didn’t love Corrado? Or, should the question be, did it mean she was falling in love with Reuben?
Oh!
Elena had got her so confused with her ideas about each person having so many possible partners and how impossible it was to choose just one but, even so, she shouldn’t have been thinking about the physical beauty of one of her potential brothers-in-law. It wasn’t right. In fact, it was probably illegal.

Leaving the boat, and attempting to put any illegal and incestuous thoughts firmly out of her mind, Rosanna made her way to the heart of Murano, towards the street where Signore Vapori lived. He owned a tiny apartment above an antiques shop which he ran and it was stuffed full of beautiful objects which he’d have her pose alongside. She’d been naked under a chandelier, naked on an oak chest, naked on an eighteenth century chair and, the latest one was naked with a teddy bear - antique, of course. She’d never forget her horror as he’d handed the bear to her last week and told her to place it in her crotch. She didn’t want to think about where else this teddy had been. It didn’t look as if it had ever been washed in its long lifetime, and she was sure she could smell something unsavoury on its fur. But, she was being paid to do this and, no matter how strange it was, she reminded herself that it was preferable to many other jobs she could’ve ended up doing.

There were two ways she’d found to cope with such situations: she would either pretend that this was the greatest living painter she was sitting for and that this painting was her passport to eternal fame or, and this was her favourite, she would work out how much she’d earned that month and what she could spend it on if she so chose. Her mind would drift over the latest lipsticks and expensive perfumes to velvet scarves she’d seen draped gently over a mannequin or the latest season’s stylish boots. These thoughts would usually keep her occupied until she was given a tea break when she’d pull on her robe and have to make polite conversation. This too, she’d learned, was a necessary survival tactic. She’d soon discovered, after a couple of near-misses, that she should be polite but with an air of aloofness. A lot of her clients dabbled in art as a hobby and would forget that the woman who’d been sitting in front of them with no clothes on was actually doing it for the money and not to titillate them. Occasionally, if she felt a client was becoming particularly frisky, she would say something like,
And how is Signora Vassallo?
Or,
My fiancé, Corrado, got into a fight at the weekend! Can you believe it? A grown man fighting in the streets!
But she only used that one in extreme cases.

But, as she sat for Signore Vapori, she realized that he was far more interested in the old stuffed teddy than he was in her body and she felt herself relaxing or rather dwelling, once more, on the peculiar events of the last couple of days.

Reuben. Her mind wouldn’t leave him alone. She didn’t even know his last name. All she knew were the brief facts that Elena had told her. And that he was very handsome. She’d never seen a man with long hair before. Well, it wasn’t long like hers but it was almost shoulder-length, and it was so dark. That was another thing, once he was dressed, she’d noticed that he was wearing black from head to toe. She’d always thought she was rather cautious with colour - going for muted tones and subtle hues but she’d never gone as far as that. Strangely enough, though, she quite liked it.

No! No!
No!
She mustn’t keep thinking about him! She must put him firmly out of her thoughts.

‘
Miss Montella!’

A voice suddenly startled her out of her thoughts.

‘
Signore Vapori?’

‘
Could you please loosen your grip on the bear? You’re strangling him!’

Rosanna looked down and noticed that, in her agitation, her hands were, indeed, throttling the poor teddy to within an inch of his already threadbare life.

After three hours of posing with the smelly teddy, Signore Vapori paid her. Luckily, he didn’t deduct any money for her near-murder of his beloved toy, and she got the boat back to the mainland. Arriving back at the apartment, she couldn’t help feeling a little relieved to find she had it to herself. She didn’t think she could face Elena, not after the appalling thoughts had been having about Reuben.

She was just slipping out of her clothes for a shower before heading out for tea with
La Stronza
when the doorbell went. Grabbing her modelling robe, she ran down the stairs. Either it was Elena, having misplaced her key already, or another one of her secret fiancés, she thought to herself. But, she was wrong. It was Reuben.

Rosanna stood, transfixed in surprise. It was as if she’d conjured him up out of her thoughts but, now he was here, she wasn’t at all sure what to say to him.

‘
Hello,’ he said, sounding a little nervous.

‘
Hello,’ she said back, sounding even more nervous than he did.

‘
Can I come in?’

‘
Elena isn’t in,’ she said quickly.

‘
That’s okay. Actually, I wanted to talk to you.’

‘
I’m on my way out,’ she said before realising how rude she sounded.

‘
Oh.’

They stared at each other for a moment.

‘
You look like a model in that robe,’ he said.

‘
I am. I mean - this is my modelling robe. I model,’ she explained very badly.

‘
You do? I was going to suggest you do. You’ve got a great figure.’

Rosanna’s mouth dropped open. Had he really just said that?

‘
I’m sorry,’ he mumbled, looking down at his boots and kicking them against one another. ‘I shouldn’t have said that.’

‘
No! It’s okay,’ she said, anxious that he shouldn’t think he’d offended her. ‘Elena didn’t mention I was a model, then?’

‘
No. To be honest, she doesn’t really talk much about her family.’

Rosanna nodded. ‘No. I don’t expect she does.’

‘
Why is that?’

Again, she was surprised by his question. ‘Well, I’m not sure that’s for me to say. Especially not dressed in my modelling robe on the doorstep.’

Reuben gave a slight smile and she noticed the dimples in his cheeks. She wished she hadn’t because she couldn’t take her eyes off them after that.

‘
Look, I’m sorry, but I have to go out,’ she said again.

‘
Would it be possible for me to stay here and wait for Elena? I have a feeling that we’re going to keep missing each other otherwise, do you know what I mean?’

Rosanna looked at him. He still had an edge of suspicion hovering around him, and who could blame him? But what was she meant to do? What if Elena came back to the apartment with Mark in tow only to find she’d let Reuben in?

‘
I’m not sure that’s a good idea.’

‘
No? Why not?’

‘
I think you’d be better waiting for her at the Danieli. In fact, she’s probably there now, wondering where you are.’

‘
You think so?’

‘
Yes,’ she said, trying to dispel the image of her walking hand in hand by the Rialto with Mark.

‘
Look,’ Reuben began, ‘I don’t mean to be rude about your sister, but I think she’s doing her best to avoid me and I want to know why.’

Rosanna could see the pain in his eyes as he spoke. He looked as if he was speaking from the very centre of his being and she felt absolutely awful because she didn’t know what to say to him.

‘
I’m sorry, but I really have to get ready to go out,’ she said.

He examined his boots again like a lost schoolboy and it made her heart bleed. Her bloody sister! What did she think she was playing at - leading these two wonderful men on? For a dangerous moment, Rosanna wanted to tell Reuben everything about Elena. It would be an emotional scene, of course: she’d wring her hands and curse her sister to the sky and Reuben would probably tear up a few of Sandro’s canvasses in his passion but then she’d comfort him and the tears would turn to kisses…

‘
Rosanna? Are you okay?’

Blinking hard to dispel the fictional image that was floating, so beautifully, before her eyes, she looked at Reuben.

‘
Look,’ she said, ‘why don’t you come inside whilst I get ready? I’ll make you some coffee.’

‘
Thanks,’ he said softly, and followed her up the stairs.

Mark wondered where they were going. They’d been on the go for twenty minutes and had walked over the Rialto Bridge and still hadn’t reached their destination. But he trusted Elena knew where they were heading. Anyway, he was enjoying a bit of sightseeing on the way. The late morning sunshine sparkled like thousands of stars caught in the water of the Grand Canal. He had his first glimpse of a gondola and almost wrenched his neck out of joint at the precarious angle the gondolier was standing at whilst moving at such a great pace. He wondered how much it would be to hire one. They certainly didn’t seem to be short of business, he thought, counting the number of couples out on the water, but he knew that they were outrageously expensive and that his wallet wasn’t that well-padded.

They walked by dozens of shops which all seemed to be selling the same things: brilliant masks, glass in colours that blinded the eyes, and ropes of beads which glowed in the sunshine. But they didn’t stop to shop.

‘
I like your sister,’ he said as they left the shops behind and walked over yet another bridge in the bid to find a hotel he could afford.

‘
Don’t start that again,’ Elena snapped.

Mark blinked. It was, he thought, an odd response for what was meant as a compliment.

‘
What do you mean?’ He looked at her. Her dark eyes were cast down and her brow looked as if it had been ploughed by a very angry farmer. It wasn’t the sort of face you wanted to see on a bright spring morning in the middle of Venice.

She sighed. ‘Nothing. I meant nothing. It’s just that everyone likes Rosanna.’

‘
Oh. Well, that’s good, isn’t it?’ he reasoned.

‘
Of course,’ she said.

Mark couldn’t think how his comment could have upset her. ‘You are strange,’ he said with a half-laugh.

She turned and glared at him. ‘How?’

‘
The things you say sometimes. The way you look.’

‘
How do I look?’

They stared at one another. ‘Confused.’

Bang on cue, she gave him her best
confused
look yet. ‘That’s stupid! How do I look confused?’

‘
You just do,’ he smiled.