I KICK OFF MY BOOTS AND head straight for my bedroom when I’m home again, throwing off my coat and hat and dragging the quilt over my head as I flop into bed. There’s so much about this morning to process, my guts feel like a pressure cooker of anxiety. I curl up into as small a ball as possible, warm and safe and alone. I guess it’s one of the side effects of being an only child—I crave solitude when the world overloads me, and head first under the quilt has been my preferred place since I was a small child.
So, Gio Belotti is the guy from the bookstore. The guy who got under my skin on Valentine’s Day. I don’t know how I didn’t make the connection straightaway. We were bundled in hats and scarves that day, maybe, distracted by all the Valentine’s guff around us, possibly, our attention concentrated on getting our hands on the book. And, of course, I’ve worked hard to scour the incident from my memory banks. Too hard, as it turned out. I should have realized—objectively speaking, Gio’s a handsome guy. Tall, definitely over six foot, and rangy, the kind of loose limbed you see on jeans campaigns. Sophia might not be his blood sibling but she definitely had her sister-goggles on when she called him dull, because he’s a striking man. I haven’t seen him laugh yet; I find myself wondering how joy might change his face. Maybe by dull Sophia meant serious—I definitely get that vibe, but then he’s a dad. Don’t all parents lose their silliness veneer in the face of nappies and sleepless nights and algebra and report cards and Easter bonnet competitions? Not that I have much experience of most of those things. My mother home-schooled me by necessity as we spent most of my younger years traveling wherever her backing-singer career took us. I’m not complaining—she had a way of making all of our lessons seem magical, even if they were mostly held in the cold back-seat classroom of our battered Vauxhall Viva.
Gio, though, he seems to be a person who does things by the book, someone who navigates life by trying to step carefully inside Santo’s footsteps and a whole line of Belottis who came before him. I remember the ache on his face when he talked about his late wife, and I tuck my knees tighter into my chest and screw my eyes closed, full of dread.
He’s a widower, and he remembers what I said on Valentine’s Day about Adam. Knowing I blurted that horrible lie to Gio Belotti of all people makes me deeply, mortally ashamed. I don’t know him well, but even so it wouldn’t surprise me if honesty was his middle name. I absolutely cannot tell him that I lied about Adam, the thought makes my skin crawl. God, I hate that even now, nearly a year later and thousands of miles away, Adam still has the capacity to screw with my life. I force myself to breathe slowly, intentionally, counting my breaths in and slowly out again until my racing heart calms. It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay. Except it isn’t. I’ve told Gio one lie on top of another. I went to the gelateria to try to help, but right now it feels as if I’m in danger of doing the exact opposite.
* * *
—
“SORRY, BOBBY,” I SAY, when he lands beside me on my sofa after midnight. “Gelato’s off the menu, I’ve packed up my machine to take to Belotti’s tomorrow.”
He looks aghast. “Surely they have their own? How can they need ours?”
I lean against him and close my eyes, exhausted. “I’ve made such a massive mess of everything, Bob.”
He puts his arm around my shoulders and tucks me into his body. “Come here,” he says. “Tell your Uncle Bobby all about it.”
I half laugh. “You know how creepy that sounds, right?”
He squeezes my shoulders. “Spill.”
I couldn’t have this conversation with anyone else, but over the months since I arrived here I’ve slowly shared some of the hideous details with Bobby about my past. He refers to Adam exclusively as “the asshole,” and has made it very clear that should said asshole ever set foot in New York, he’ll bust out his inner Liam Neeson, use his very particular set of skills to find him and, well…I don’t think he’d kill him, exactly, but the intention to protect me is there and I love him for it.
Even so, I’ve kept what happened in the bookstore on Valentine’s Day to myself, because I don’t want him to think badly of me for it. I close my eyes as I tell him now, not wanting to see his face. I don’t miss the way he mutters “if only” when I tell him I lied about Adam’s death, nor his sharp intake of breath when I say that Gio Belotti has turned out to be none other than bookstore guy. When I go on to say that Gio is genuinely widowed, he twists to face me on the sofa with both hands clamped against his mouth, his dark eyes mortified on my behalf.
“This is very, very bad,” he whispers.
“I know,” I say, utterly miserable. “What am I going to do?”
He shakes his head very slowly, staring at me. It’s not helpful. I wait.
“Okay,” he says, laying one hand on my knee. “So you either fess up, which would be an unmitigated disaster and most probably scar you both for life, or just keep mum about the asshole being alive and stick to plan A: drip feed the recipe and run.”
“I just feel so shoddy for lying,” I say. “Of all the people in all the world, why did it have to be him?” Bobby looks alarmed by the uncontrollable shake in my voice.
“Don’t even, Iris—God knows you’re an ugly crier.” He quickly tucks me back under his arm. I feel like a baby bird sheltering under its mamma’s wing, and it makes me feel both better and worse. There are no words for how much I wish my mother was still here—she’d know exactly what to say and do. But then, if she was here, none of this would have happened. I wouldn’t have been taken in by Adam, because I wouldn’t have felt exposed and alone and desperate to be one of two again. I’d still be living and chefing in London now, maybe getting closer to my forever dream of seeing my name over the door of my own restaurant. My heart shivers at the thought of having never met Bobby, though, he’s my silver lining. I slump into him when he plants a kiss on the top of my head, and finally untense my shoulders for the first time since walking out of Belotti’s this morning.
“We’ll figure everything out,” he says, and because it’s late and I’m knackered and it’s Bobby, I tell myself to believe him.
* * *
—
MY GELATO MACHINE MIGHT not be heavy to carry across my matchbox kitchen, but it turns out that lugging it around the neighborhood is a lot more effort than I imagined. By the time I reach Belotti’s I’m huffing like a carthorse, the box balanced in my arms, on the verge of hurling my bag in the nearest bin because it keeps sliding down my shoulder and dragging my scarf with it, almost strangling me.
I bump the door open with my backside and stumble in, depositing the box on the counter and my bag on the nearest stool, panting like an expectant mother.
“Help,” I half shout. “I need coffee. And a defibrillator.”
Gio comes through, flanked by Sophia, and then three more women follow in quick succession. They form a row behind the counter and smile at me; there is no question that these are the Belotti sisters, their similarity is striking. And intimidating.
“Francesca,” says the one on the end.
“Elena,” says the next one along.
“Viola,” says the third.