uniform for a cheap cotton sundress in pale pink, and Angelo found his gaze helplessly drawn to the smooth olive skin of her shoulders, the swell of her breasts underneath the snug cotton. He yanked his gaze upwards.
‘Thank you for meeting me.’
She nodded, hitched her canvas bag higher up on her shoulder. ‘Shall we eat?’
‘Eat?’ He couldn’t keep from sounding rather revolted. ‘Here?’
She laughed softly. ‘You used to like the pizza here.’
And then a memory flashed through his mind, slotted into place. They’d once taken the bus into Palermo, wandered through this market. They must have been fourteen or so; all Angelo had remembered about that day was the burning anger he’d felt at seeing his half-brothers, Alessandro and Santo, out with their father. A happy family, father and sons, strolling through the narrow streets of Caltarione. They hadn’t looked his way once.
Lucia, he remembered now, had suggested the trip into the city, probably as a way to distract him from the Correttis. They’d eaten pizza and gelato, and she’d made silly jokes all the while, betting him she could eat more pizza than he could, and he, of course, had proved her wrong. But she’d succeeded in making him laugh, which had surely been her object all along.
Dio, he missed that. Laughing with someone, being stupid and silly and real. Lucia, he acknowledged with sudden, flashing insight, was the only person in the entire world with whom he’d ever been remotely real.
‘I remember,’ he said now, quietly, and he saw her mouth curve in the slightest of smiles.
She turned away, and the end of her plait brushed his shoulder. ‘So, pizza?’ she asked, and he fell in step beside her.
‘Pizza, it is.’
They settled for squares of sfincione, the doughy Sicilian pizza scattered with bread crumbs, cheese and anchovies. Angelo eyed his sauce-covered square somewhat dubiously. ‘We could be eating fresh flounder at one of the city’s best restaurants,’ he told her, not even half joking, and she shook her head.
‘I wouldn’t even know what fork to use.’
It wasn’t the first time she’d made a remark alluding to the difference in their stations now, and he wondered at it. ‘I’m sure you’d figure it out pretty quickly. And in any case, when you’re eating in a restaurant, use whatever the hell fork you want.’
She gave a little laugh. ‘That would be your attitude.’
‘It would.’
She eyed him over her pizza, her eyes wide and so very blue. ‘Why do you think I don’t love you, Angelo?’ she asked quietly.
Angelo felt something in him shift, lurch. He had the strangest, strongest impulse to deny it, to convince her of the opposite, that she did love him. He swallowed a bite of pizza and shifted his gaze a few inches to the right of her face. ‘Because you don’t.’
‘That’s not an answer and you know it.’ He just shrugged. He hadn’t thought through this very well, he realised. He had no arguments to make beyond what to him was the appallingly obvious: she couldn’t love him. All on its own it wasn’t very compelling. ‘How can you say what I feel, or if I really feel it?’ she pressed.
‘How do you know you love me?’ Angelo challenged. ‘How can you be sure?’
He shifted his gaze back to her face, saw how still she’d gone, trapped by truth. She wasn’t sure. Damn it if he didn’t feel disappointed. She swallowed, licked her lips, causing a shaft of pure desire to streak through him. Even now, amidst a painfully awkward conversation about emotions, he wanted her. Forget talking. Forget love or lack of it. He’d just haul her into his arms and kiss her until they were both senseless.
‘I know I love you,’ she said slowly, quietly, ‘because whenever I’m with you I feel complete and whole. And when you’re gone, I don’t.’
Angelo felt his jaw go slack, everything inside him seeming to shut down. He had no words; he had no thoughts. ‘You’ve been living without me for fifteen years,’ he finally managed, his voice hoarse, and she smiled sadly.
‘I know.’ He shook his head, his instinct, his need, to deny. ‘Tell me this, Angelo,’ she cut off whatever unformed reply he’d been going to make. ‘Why don’t you want me to love you? I’m not asking for anything back. I’m not making demands or a scene. I’m not doing or expecting anything.’ She smiled, the corners of her soft mouth curving up tremulously. ‘So what scares you about my loving you? About love?’
Everything.