A Wedding At The Italian's Demand

Ivo didn’t notice a tremor in his grandfather’s voice as he stared blindly ahead, and the words just rolled over him in a meaningless jumble until one sentence made itself heard above the loud static hum in his head.

‘I will need you to take care of this personally, you understand?’

Ivo fought his way through the swirl of churning emotions that made their physical presence known in the fog in his head and the constricting band that felt like steel around his chest before he spoke.

‘The funeral?’ It still didn’t seem possible—would it ever? Bruno—nine years his senior...what did that make him? Thirty-eight? How did anyone die at thirty-eight?

Outrage at the thought elicited a mind-calming burst of rage followed swiftly by denial. It had to be a mistake. Yes, that was it, some awful mistake. If his brother was dead, he’d know.

His grandfather’s eyes narrowed fractionally as his lips compressed in faint irritation at the interruption.

‘Their funeral was last month, I believe.’

The words ricocheted around in Ivo’s head. He needed to sit down. His fingers clenched his knuckles white against the leather armrest...he was sitting down. He had been walking around functioning as normal for weeks while his brother was dead. How could he not have known, not have felt something? He tipped his head in a sharp motion of denial and cut across his grandfather, who was speaking again.

‘Last month?’

His grandfather looked at him without speaking before he reached for the stopper on the crystal decanter that sat on the desk and glugged some of the amber liquid into one of the glasses that sat beside it on the silver tray.

The full glass scraped on the desk as he pushed it towards his grandson.

Ivo shook his head, not mistaking the action for empathy; he had accepted years ago that his grandparent was incapable of that. Emotional responses were, in Salvatore’s eyes, weaknesses to be studied and exploited. It was not coincidental that Ivo was famed for his unreadable expression. What had begun as a self-protective device was now second nature.

‘You said their?’ Ivo’s brain was starting to function, but he was not sure if that could be classed as a good thing. The sense of loss had a physical presence; he could feel it at a cellular level in a way he’d sworn never to feel anything again. As he’d coped alone after Bruno’s desertion, the realisation that he could not count on anyone else had required he closed off the part of himself that made him vulnerable to such painful feelings. And now, the unfamiliar dormant feelings had exploded into painful life, blurring his normally sharp-edged wits.

‘The woman was with him.’

‘His wife.’ Ivo emphasised the word as an image flashed into his head, probably not even accurate.

He’d only met the woman his brother had walked away from his own family for once, and that had been fourteen years ago. Her eyes probably hadn’t been that blue, but the memory of that vivid colour had stayed with him even after the resentment towards Samantha Henderson had faded. Samantha was, after all, responsible for robbing Ivo of the big brother he had worshipped and the future he had dreamt of.

Not immediately, Bruno was coming to get him, he had promised, tears on his cheeks as he, Ivo, had begged his brother not to leave. How long had it taken him to realise that Bruno was never coming back?

Fool, mocked the derisive voice in his head as he thought of his younger self waiting, believing. Bruno had said what Ivo had wanted to hear. In truth, he’d never intended coming back for him; he had deserted him.

The people in Ivo’s life had a habit of doing that: first his father, then Bruno. A person who invited that sort of pain and disillusion had to be a fool, and Ivo was no fool.

In a world obsessed with pairing people off, he had learnt that, far from being a deficiency, being alone was a strength. He never intended to be in a position where someone else had the power to inflict that sort of pain. He was not looking for love; love exaggerated men’s weaknesses, left a man less than whole.

To this point it hadn’t been difficult to avoid the infection of love, any more difficult than walking away from sexual encounters. The compartments in his life remained unpolluted by love, but loyalty was another thing.

His grandfather never demanded love but he did demand loyalty and Ivo considered he had earned it. The only person who had ever been there for him was Salvatore; a man who didn’t pretend to be something he wasn’t. The old man was a devil, but he didn’t hide behind a saint’s mask.

Bruno had been his favourite grandson.

His heir.

Ivo, who’d worshipped his brother, had been fine with that.

There had always been an expectation that Ivo would one day rebel, and, growing up, his occasional failures, while not going unpunished, were almost expected. It was whispered that he was like his father; that he had inherited the same weakness.

Ivo had heard the whispers, gritted his teeth and determined that he would prove them all wrong. It was not news to him that his father was weak, because only a weak man would take his own life and leave two motherless sons behind because he couldn’t live without the woman he loved.

His mother must have been special, Bruno always said she was, but Ivo didn’t really remember his mother at all. He didn’t allow himself to remember his father; instead he despised him.

For his brother it had always been different—he was the golden boy. Not easy—the bar had been set high for the heir to his grandfather’s empire and failure was not tolerated, and he’d lived up to expectations, which was perhaps why, when he’d finally challenged Salvatore, the consequences had been so extreme.

Salvatore had already had a bride picked out for his heir. It would be a profitable union, as the woman was the only child and heir of a man almost as wealthy as the Grecos and with an equally proud lineage, which for his grandfather was almost as important. He was fond of speaking of bloodlines and pointing out the proof that the Grecos, who could trace their bloodlines back centuries, were among the elite of Europe.

Ivo had been fifteen when his brother had walked away to be with the woman he loved. He’d finally realised when the brother he idolised had not returned for him that the whispers had been wrong all along. Ivo hadn’t been the one who had inherited their father’s weakness; Bruno was the one that couldn’t live without the woman he loved.

But Bruno could live without honour, and his little brother.

His older brother had betrayed him but, even so, Bruno had been living out there somewhere, some place cold and bleak, a Scottish island, but now he wasn’t.

It didn’t seem possible.

‘Nobody informed you?’ He pressed a finger to the groove between his dark brows, struggling to make sense of what he was hearing.

His grandfather’s bushy brows lifted. ‘Obviously I was informed, by your brother’s solicitor. Oh, and the woman’s sister sent a letter, handwritten,’ he added with a contemptuous snort. ‘Barely legible.’

Ivo shook his head and felt anger separate itself out from the multi-layered raw emotions churning in his belly. Tangled as they were with the irrational guilt he refused to acknowledge, the physical effort of keeping the toxic mixture in check sent fine tremors through his lean body.

‘You knew?’ A muscle along his jaw clenched and quivered as the old man simply shrugged in confirmation, feeding the flame of fury inside him. He could feel it building. None of his feelings showed on his face but there was ice in his voice when he pressed his point. ‘And you did not see fit to share that information with me, until now?’

There was the slightest edge of defiance in Salvatore’s voice as he met his grandson’s eyes and bit out, ‘What would have been the point, Bruno?’

The muscles along Ivo’s jawline quivered. His grandfather seemed unaware of what he had called him, his heavy eyelids lowered over dark flame-lit eyes.

‘It did not occur to you that I might want to go to the funeral?’ Would he have...? Well, he’d never know now,he concluded with bitter irony.

‘No, it didn’t. You had your closure all those years ago when he stopped being your brother, and...’ Eyes that held no expression flickered as he scanned his grandson’s face. ‘You’re not a hypocrite.’ He arched a brow, his lip curling in mild mocking contempt as he threw out the challenge. ‘Are you?’

Ivo’s head came up slowly, his almond-shaped dark eyes resting without expression on his grandfather’s face. The surge of colour that had highlighted the slashing curves of his razor-edged cheekbones had receded. The normal vibrant olive glow had been overwhelmed by a waxy pallor that gave his features the sepia cast of an old photo; his features were utterly still. Only the nerve spasmodically clenching to the right of his clamped bloodless lips a sign of life.

He shook his head in an attitude of someone expecting to wake up. ‘Bruno contacted me eighteen months ago. He wanted to meet up.’ Ivo, staring blankly into middle distance, did not see the look of anger that crossed his grandfather’s face. He was too consumed with the guilt clawing low in his belly.

‘You met up with him?’

Ivo turned his head, the bleakness in his eyes profound. If the love he’d felt for his brother really had died when he hadn’t come back, should he be feeling this sort of pain now?

Pushing the question away, he took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. A man took responsibility for his actions. ‘No, I didn’t.’

A decision that he might never forgive himself for now. His brother had reached out and he had rejected him, and why? Because he had carried the anger and resentment of a youth into adulthood, because he wanted to punish Bruno?

Self-contempt quivered queasily in his belly, guilt and regret adding to the toxic sensation. The fact was he could have forgiven the desertion but he could never have forgiven the lie that had kept hope alive.

‘I thought he’d given up on that,’ the old man mused, dragging a hand over the grey stubble on his chin.