One Night in Italy Read Online Free PDF Page B

for years. It was enough. Of course it was enough!
    Anyway, she would probably move on soon now that the season here was winding down. She’d worked in a ski lodge in Val Thorens a couple of winters ago, and it had been a right laugh, just what she needed to recover from her broken heart. The staff had all celebrated Christmas and New Year together, and it had been one long, glorious party, way better than strained silence around the turkey back in Sheffield. There was always plenty of work up in the north-west, near the Swiss border, over the winter. Maybe it was time to leave the sea and head for the mountains . . .
    Perched in her usual spot on the balcony, with a book, a glass of red wine and a ripe juicy nectarine, Sophie was surprised by a knock at her apartment door that evening. Knocks at the door were extremely rare – unheard of, really. It was probably a mistake, somebody with the wrong apartment number, looking for the surly Polish guys upstairs.
    She opened the door. ‘ Si? Oh. Buonasera, Signor Russo .’ It was her landlord. Help. Was he about to give her notice, turf her out? Maybe someone had complained about her drying her knickers and vest tops on the small balcony railing. There had been that embarrassing occasion when her pink bra had actually fallen off in a gust of wind and landed on an old man’s shoulder in the street below, but he’d seen the funny side, thankfully – or so she’d thought at the time.
    ‘ Telefonata ,’ he said, thrusting a piece of paper at her. ‘For you.’
    ‘Somebody called me?’ she blurted out in surprise, then saw the scribbled name – Samantha, one of her cousins – and a British phone number. Her stomach clenched. ‘ Grazie ,’ she said, her fingers folding around the paper. ‘ Grazie, signor .’
    Oh shit. She shut the door blindly, her heart pounding. This was a million times worse than a free-falling bra. Samantha was married to Julian, a nice vicar, and busy with a toddler and a new baby according to Facebook. She would not have gone to the bother of tracking down her cousin all the way to the Amalfi coast for a pleasant chit-chat. Something must have happened. Something serious.
    ‘Oh, thank goodness, Sophie! I thought you’d fallen off the planet. I’ve been emailing you and messaging you, but was running out of ideas how to— Julian, could you take Henry for me, please? It’s Sophie. No, my cousin Sophie. There you go, my good little sausage . . .’
    ‘Hello? Sam? Are you still there?’ Sophie was in the echoing hall of the apartment block, cramming euros into the payphone. She didn’t have time to waste.
    ‘Sorry, yes I am. Listen, I hate to say this but it’s bad news. It’s your dad. He’s had a massive heart attack. He’s . . . well, he’s out of intensive care, but he’s pretty ill. Will you come home and see him?’
    Each sentence was like a hammer blow. Dad. Heart attack. Intensive care. ‘Oh God,’ she said hoarsely. ‘Yes. Yes, I’ll come.’
    ‘If it was my dad, I’d want to see him, so I just thought . . .’
    ‘Yeah. Sure. Thanks, Sam. Tell him . . . Tell him I’m on my way.’
    She sagged against the cool wall of the lobby once she’d hung up, the shock leaving her lightheaded, as if she was drunk or ill, not really there at all. Shit. A massive heart attack. Oh, Dad . . .
    Jim, her dad, had always been such a bon viveur – he liked wine and good food, and hogged the conversation at get-togethers with his anecdotes. A tall, robust man, he was never happier than when striding around the Peak District with muddy hiking boots and a compass. It was horrible to imagine him collapsing in pain, falling to the floor perhaps, one hand clutching uselessly at his chest.
    She had to go back, it was as simple as that. Contact with her parents had been limited since she’d left home so dramatically – a cursory postcard now and then, a brief, awkward phone call at Christmas – but this was her dad , a cornerstone of her