CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Sapphire was having a surprisingly interesting time, apart from missing her old friends at Hot Air Aviation, and of course Marco. Her cousin Suzie was happy to have her living at her house and had also immediately offered her a job at the gallery, persuading her to frame some of her paintings and sell them.
Suzie hadn’t asked any awkward questions, much to Sapphire’s relief, as she couldn’t bear to relate what a gullible fool she’d been. She also couldn’t utter Marco’s name without her voice cracking. She wanted to hate him for what he’d done, but found it infuriatingly hard to work up the required anger.
Suzie had cleared out her airy loft for Sapphire, who was successfully venting her rage in the medium of oil paints, creating vivid and turbulent seascapes in the dead of night when she couldn’t sleep.
It was impossible for Sapphire to banish the images of Marco from her mind: the gentle smile that she’d thought was reserved just for her, and his laugh when they had chased each other on the beach in the Scilly Isles. But she refused to paint his likeness anymore. At such times pain ate away at her heart and her wild brushstrokes of the African savannah seemed to dull it somehow. Even though she knew he’d used her for his own ends, she still ached to hear his voice and she would often close her eyes in the dark, imagining his breath on her neck as he whispered her name.
She brought her mind back to the present and opened the cabinet on the counter to tidy up the jewellery display. Sparkling diamonds nestled next to pearls in exotically designed brooches, along with Ceylon sapphires and cabochons. The astronomical price tags were an indicator of the type of clientele Suzie had garnered, although the complicated locking system in the gallery was a bit of a giveaway.
Her cousin was discussing one of Sapphire’s African scenes with a client who was just out of earshot and she marvelled at her selling persuasion. She was shocked at the high price Suzie had suggested for her paintings, and even more surprised at how quickly they were selling, considering she’d only wanted to top up her wage from the gallery work.
It was the difference between sinking and swimming, so even though her heart was starved of love, at least her body had sustenance. The large African scenes were the best sellers, but she had also sold two pictures of Edinburgh castle and one of the Highlander playing the bagpipes, with a beggar man in the background, although she had felt as if she was losing a piece of her soul when she’d bubble-wrapped it for the customer, never to see it again.
Working in the gallery was not the same as her old job though. She missed flying and she craved Finbar’s daily bitchiness and humour. She longed for Marco too, even though she tried to convince herself that she didn’t.
She wondered if her daydreaming had taken on a surreal edge when she heard someone call her name, with an inflection that could only be Italian. Her eyes widened in panic when she heard her name called again.
‘Sapphire?’
Marco?
The air whooshed out from her lungs on his name, stunned as she was to see him. ‘Mr Cavarelli?’
She was gratified to see his brow furrow at her use of his title. She would never again call him Marco; he didn’t deserve it. She hated the way that her breath hitched, though, when she spoke his name.
‘Sapphire, how have you been?’
‘Unemployed.’
He shook his head slightly, as if accepting that she wasn’t going to make it easy for him.
‘We need to talk, I think.’
‘I don’t think we do.’ Her heart rate quickened and her skin prickled with heat and she resented that he could do that to her body, when he had been so obviously absent from touching it. She also hated him for looking so casually gorgeous and unflappable, while she was flustered and fractious from too many sleepless nights. She wanted to yell at him and throw things to make him see what he had done to her, while he just stood there, the epitome of reasonableness and composure.
‘Do you know how hard it has been to find you?’
‘Is the answer very?’ She needed to be cooler than cool, even though her legs were trembling behind the counter.
Marco walked towards her, then stopped and just stared as if drinking her in. He breathed in, paused and then spoke. ‘I didn’t come here to fight, Sapphire. It was all a misunderstanding; I didn’t sack you.’
‘What you did was worse. You betrayed me – and my colleagues.’
‘If we are being pedantic, I think you’ll find you betrayed your colleagues; I simply acted on the information you gave me.’ He flinched at his words as if realising too late that he wasn’t helping his cause.
Sapphire’s eyes widened. ‘Don’t you dare turn this around on me. Just leave, please.’
‘Please, Sapphire, talk to me.’
‘There is nothing to say.’
Marco took a step forward, his hands held out, imploring. ‘I think there is. And if I have to do all the talking, then so be it. Just hear me out.’
‘I’ve done enough listening. What I didn’t do was enough thinking, to realise how false your words were – along with your shallow emotions.’
Marco recoiled at her words. ‘I never lied to you, Sapphire, please believe me and –’
Sapphire cut him off. ‘This is not the place to be having this discussion, Mr Cavarelli.’
‘Will you stop with the Mr Cavarelli, for God’s sake, Sapphire, we slept together.’
‘Mr Cavarelli is just leaving,’ Sapphire said, turning towards her cousin.
‘Oh, stop being childish, for heaven’s sake.’ Marco butted in. ‘This is the real world. Hot Air is just a two-bit airline that needed shaking up. We need to move on from it and discuss our relationship.’ He compressed his lips, realising once again that he was handling the situation badly. He should have prepared better for it.
‘How dare you be so casual with people’s lives – with my life. How dare you think it’s fine to call in and speak to me as if what happened between us was a simple business trade-off. If you don’t leave now, I will not be responsible for my actions.’ Her eyes darted around the counter and she picked up a heavy bronze statue.
Suzie was by her side in seconds. ‘No, please don’t throw that one.’ She prized it out of Sapphire’s fingers and picked up a china figurine. ‘This one’s much less valuable.’ She pushed the figurine into Sapphire’s hand.
‘If it helps, throw the bronze. I’ll pick up the bill,’ Marco said, eyeing the statue.
‘You can’t buy your way out of everything.’ Sapphire slammed the figurine back on the counter, her breath heaving in her chest. ‘You make me so angry.’
‘You don’t say?’ Marco’s eyebrows rose slightly. ‘I’m sorry that I’ve upset you, Sapphire. Please meet me when you’ve finished work. I really want to put this right.’
‘Why would I want to meet you, Mr Cavarelli, when I’ve spent the last three months trying to erase you from my mind?’
Marco wiped a hand over his face and huffed out an exasperated breath. He stared at Sapphire, who stared back, unblinking.
‘Okay, you win,’ he said eventually, as he shook his head and placed a business card on the table. ‘Just in case you have mislaid my number.’ His smile was strained and Sapphire noted the worry lines around his eyes. Good, she thought. He deserves to suffer.
Marco’s hand hovered over the card. He looked into Sapphire’s eyes, and for a moment their eyes locked.
Sapphire saw the pain, clear in his eyes, but even so she could not forgive him. She let her gaze drift to his ear and past his head, focusing on the wall behind him. ‘Goodbye,’ she said.
Marco gave her a last pleading look but when she didn’t respond, turned his back on her and walked out of the gallery.
‘Good, I’m glad he’s gone,’ Sapphire reiterated to no one in particular. Her fingers itched to pick up the figurine and hurl it anyway, but instead she simply watched him disappear down the street, the fight draining out of her.
He had come looking for her – that meant something, surely? But she was so angry with him still; she couldn’t stand to talk to him. She didn’t want to forgive him, could never forgive him.
‘So, that was the man who screwed you over so badly?’ Suzie asked.
‘Yes,’ Sapphire answered limply, spent of energy. She should have realised Suzie would guess her troubles were because of a man.
‘Looks to me like a guy worth fighting for.’
‘He’s not.’
‘Your call.’ She picked up the business card, reading the front of it. ‘Isles of Scilly, eh?’
Sapphire grabbed the card from Suzie’s hand and studied it. ‘He bought the hotel, then.’ Crying was not an option. ‘And I don’t care.’ For a moment, she wanted to clamp the card close to her chest, but she instead traced a finger over the embossed writing before ripping it into shreds, watching as the pieces drifted towards the bin.
Sapphire tried to put Marco out of her mind and even managed it occasionally, although the nights were bad. She did very little apart from go to Suzie’s gallery and come home again, wondering how long it would take before she felt a stirring of happiness, or a semblance of peace. She hoped it was a form of grief and it would be just a matter of time before she could live and breathe without the shadow of Marco clouding everything she did.
She arranged to meet Finbar in Covent Garden one lunchtime with a mixture of happiness and trepidation. She wanted to hear all of the gossip but dreaded hearing about Marco. If anyone knew anything about him it would be Finbar, who no doubt had his every move recorded. Each time she prayed that he wouldn’t include juicy details of Amazonian women, or any women at all, although the odds were slight that Marco would not have found someone else: someone better and more suited to his lifestyle, she thought.
Finbar was mostly full of the news of his promotion to Cabin Services Manager of the newly formed airline Night Skies, and was excited to relate the story of how the two aircraft had arrived on a foggy Scilly Isles day and were the only ones that managed to land.
Moreover, Finbar seemed to have been turned by Mr Cavarelli too, and was positively gushing about his unbounded business acumen. ‘He got a fabulous deal with a travel agent and we are now specialising in a stargazing package. He’s put a domed roof on the hotel, and although it’s not even finished yet, people are flocking in. It’s attracting the sort of rich people who love the outdoors, but would rather see it from the confines of a sumptuous hotel; they can show off their knowledge to their girlfriends without the inconvenience of actually going outside.
A pensive look came over Finbar’s face as he glanced upwards, as if he could see the heavenly skies as he spoke. ‘You should see it, Sapphire, you wouldn’t believe how gorgeous the stars are on a clear night.’
Sapphire herself remembered the night sky of the Scilly Isles only too well, and her mind turned once again to Marco. She wondered if he’d even given her a second thought when he visited the newly refurbished hotel.
She put such thoughts out of her mind as Finbar continued. ‘I just can’t understand why he didn’t use my suggestions though – what an opportunity he missed there.’
‘Which were?’ Sapphire prepared herself.
‘Well, we had an inaugural flight and invited loads of journalists and famous people, with fabulous food and champagne. I suggested bow ties that squirted water, magicians, a clown or two – you know as in-flight entertainment in the aisles and a brilliant play on the name of the Scilly Isles. Dismissed the lot of it, miserable git.’ Finbar sighed. ‘What a great PR opportunity he missed.’
‘Yes, I suppose it would have been entertaining. But I don’t think it was quite the market Marco was aiming for.’
‘Hmm, I guess. Oh, Sapphire, we miss you so much – why don’t you come back? Mr Cavarelli hasn’t been seen for a month or so; you wouldn’t even have to bump into him.’
Sapphire experienced another kick to her heart on hearing that Marco had finally taken a back seat. He had probably returned to the country he loved so dearly and she would never see him again.
‘He didn’t exactly try very hard to win me back, did he?’ Suddenly the light had gone from the day. Marco had hardly ever been absent from Hot Air Aviation, always interfering and fussing, and now he had gone. She tried to feel relieved that she could put an end to that part of her life, but her smile drooped.
‘I thought you’d be pleased to hear that he’d gone. You said you hated him.’ Finbar’s eyebrows lifted, his two silver-stud piercings moving in unison on his left eyebrow.
‘I am – I did. And I hope you don’t try to get away with wearing that hardware on your face at work, now there’s no one to stop you,’ she added, hoping to change the conversation.
‘It’s no fun now, trying to be a nonconformist when I’m the boss; the naughtiness has gone out of it. It’d be like trying to wind myself up.’ He smiled ruefully. You should ask for your job back, you know, I’m sure Mr Cavarelli would consider it.’
Sapphire shook her head. ‘I couldn’t work anywhere near him now.’
‘Because you’re still in love with him.’ It was a declaration, not a question.
‘I’m trying hard not to be.’ She rested her chin on her hand, her thoughts far away in the Isles of Scilly. ‘Marco’s moved on; he’s finished what he came to do. He’ll be back to annoying the natives – might already have founded another small empire and …’ Her voice cracked. ‘Broken another heart.’
Finbar offered her his hand and she took it, holding on tight. She looked him in the eye for a moment before continuing. ‘It was an easy win, wasn’t it? I don’t suppose he had a clue that Rick was my first boyfriend and I had no idea what I was doing when it came to love. Think Marco might be my last, too, I’m obviously no good at it.’
‘Don’t say that. I’ll always love you.’
She tutted. ‘Fat lot of good that will do me. But let’s not focus on my disastrous love life. I have some good news. I’ve been selling my art at Suzie’s gallery. Actually selling paintings, not just putting price tags on for people to laugh at. It could even become my new career.’
Finbar’s forehead creased. ‘What paintings? Hang on, those scary pictures on your walls are your own?’
‘Yep.’ Sapphire looked abashed. ‘Sorry.’
‘Don’t be sorry – if they’re selling, good on you.’ But his eyebrows lifted and his kohl-rimmed eyes widened. ‘Wow – selling,’ he repeated, as if he’d just witnessed a miracle.
‘In fact, I’ve been invited to attend a gallery open evening in Mayfair – not exactly sure why, but that has to be a good sign, right? I might get to schmooze with some dealers and convince them to come and visit Suzie’s gallery. And they might just happen to notice my paintings there.’
Finbar patted her hand. ‘I’m sure it’s your ticket to fame and fortune. Just don’t forget your old mates when you’re hobnobbing with your betters, will you?’
‘Finbar, I have about three friends in the whole world and you’re the best of the lot, so I’m hardly likely to forget you, am I?’
‘Good girl. Now come on, let’s celebrate your talent for wielding a paintbrush. The ice-creams are on me.’
‘And let’s not forget my total inability to understand the male sex – surely that’s worth celebrating?’
‘With sprinkles on,’ Finbar agreed. ‘But you never know, you might meet your Prince Charming at the exhibition.’
‘I don’t think Prince Charming exists – and if he did he’d probably be gay, knowing my luck.’ She smiled bleakly.
‘Make sure you give me a call if he is,’ Finbar chirped. ‘I’m far better at this lurve thing than you.’ He took her elbow as they left the café. ‘Now, chocolate flake and sauce too, do you think?’