True Read Free Page B

after Isabella's seventeenth birthday, Carlo Bacci had been both parents to her. She stepped forward and put her arms round him. 'Hello, Professor Bacci.'
    He turned, and his dark eyes lit up. 'Hello, Dr Bacci.' He dipped the wooden spoon into the bubbling sauce, blew on it and passed it to her.
    The taste sent saliva rushing to her mouth, but something was missing. 'More lemon, I think.'
    He tasted it. 'You're right.' He squeezed half a lemon into the pan, tasted again and nodded. Then he put down the spoon and wiped his hands on his apron. He went to the fridge, poured a glass of Asti and passed it to her. 'For my daughter with the sweet tooth.' Then he helped himself to a glass of Barolo. In the alcove behind him, Isabella saw empty biscuit tins and wine botdes. Her father was an inveterate hoarder. His second bedroom was filled with stacks of yellowing, out-of-date science periodicals and newspapers. She had given up nagging him to clear them out. She sipped the Asti. 'So what's the news, Papa?' He took a gulp of his wine. 'Let's wait for Maria. Don't worry, it's good.'
    'Is it about your project? How's it going?'
    He tapped his nose and winked, as he always did. 'I'll tell you when it's finished.'
    She smiled. He had let slip once that his project might help her own research into prosopagnosia, but nothing more. She put down his secrecy to his disillusionment with the pharmaceutical companies in the United States: he had never received the recognition she knew he craved, and still believed that the companies he had worked for had stolen his best ideas. Now he trusted nothing and no one with his work. Not even her. 'How's your work going?' he asked.
    Isabella was a neurologist at the university hospital, and spent two days a week conducting research into a rare and curious disorder, prosopagnosia. Also known as face-blindness, it was a neurological condition that rendered someone incapable of recognizing human faces, even when they had perfect sight and an excellent memory.
    She tapped her nose and winked. 'I'll tell you when it's finished.'
    'Touche'.' He laughed. Then he stroked her back. 'How are you feeling, Bella? You certainly seem happier than the last time I saw you. Has he come to his senses yet?'
    'No.'
    'He will.'
    She shrugged and twisted her engagement ring self-conciously to hide the diamond. Her father had been supportive when she had come to see him after the split, which had stiffened her resolve not to run back to the States. He had hugged her, called Leo a fool and said how much he wished her mother was still alive because she had always known what to say. His support had been unconventional, too: he had used his own prodigious knowledge of neurology and genetics to explain clinically why she couldn't get Leo out of her mind and why she felt compelled to call him at every minute of every day. Even why she had spied on his apartment to watch Giovanna settling into the home from which she had been ejected. Her father's insights hadn't eased her pain -- knowing why some-thing hurt didn't stop it hurting -- but the earnest way in which he had promised her it would all work out for the best had cheered her. 'I'm not sure I want him back, Papa.'
    He glanced at her ring. 'If you decide you do, you'll get him.' He sipped his wine. 'Are you still living with Phoebe?'
    'Just till I get a place of my own.'
    'She's been a good friend to you.'
    'The best. She's going to help me move the last of my stuff out of his place over the next week or so. Then we're going on holiday togetherr.'
    'Great. Where?'
    'The French Riviera. Antibes. The Hotel du Cap Eden-Roc'
    He whistled. 'Wow!'
    She laughed. 'We're not paying. The hotel likes to keep its quota of A-list celebrities and the manager virtually begged Phoebe to take a couple of suites. Her sister and Kathryn Walker are in Europe so they'll be joining us.'
    'Fantastic.'
    The phone on the wall rang. Bacci listened for the message.
    'Carlo, it's Marco Trapani.' He picked