The Italian Matchmaker Read Online Free PDF Page B

and shared moments watching the little miracles over the side of the cot. Then even the glow died and they existed as acquaintances or house-mates who didn’t laugh with each other any more. He didn’t blame her for finding someone else to love her but she felt guilty and chose to accuse him of driving her into John’s arms. Years of resentment gushed out in a venomous torrent: he hadn’t been there for her; she’d had to raise the girls single-handed; he didn’t listen to her any more; he only talked about himself; he was a shocking father; he didn’t deserve to have children. As deftly as he defended himself, he suspected she was probably right. He was guilty of all those things. They divorced on the grounds of irreconcilable differences. They were yet to work out a financial settlement but she was ensconced in their family house in Kensington, taking the girls to their home in Gloucestershire on alternate weekends and during the holidays. Her monthly maintenance was more than most people required in a year. If she was spoiled, he only had himself to blame.
    Reluctantly, she let him see the children. He had bought a mews house in Chelsea, hiring an interior decorator to do it up for him so that the girls had bedrooms of their own and a playroom full of toys. It didn’t feel like home to him; he was pretty sure it didn’t feel like home to them either. The weekends he had them he relied on his friends who had children the same age. Coco, although only seven, was a precocious little girl one would almost expect to see smoking Marlboro Lights over a cappuccino in Starbucks. Dressed in clothes from Bonpoint and Marie Chantal, she was pretty and slim with dark hair and blue eyes like her father, but her face was joyless, as if she had seen and done everything already, so nothing excited her anymore. Juno, four and a half, was less blessed in the looks department, but she was effervescent and smiley, caring more about her toy caterpillars than her own wardrobe of beautiful clothes. Since Luca had stopped working he had begun to get to know his daughters. He realised there was not an awful lot to like in Coco. Juno was more malleable: with her there was still potential.
    He considered Freya’s advice. The thought of leaving London was a very tempting one. His parents’ palazzo would offer just the sort of tranquillity he needed to search for the point in his now pointless existence. He’d find a corner away from his mother and her friends, take a suitcase full of books he had always wanted to read, and spend time on his own. He’d swim in the sea, go for long walks, unwind the years of tension that had slowly begun to choke him like a noose around his neck. There was something unsatisfying about his life but he wasn’t sure what it was. He had money, children, women whenever he wanted them, but there was an emptiness that, since leaving the frenetic world of banking, he had begun to feel more acutely; a silence in his heart as loud as clashing cymbals.
    He arrived in Chelsea just before lunch time. His house looked like a hotel, beautiful but impersonal. The housekeeper had cleaned it, tidying away any signs of life. Only the neat pile of post on the kitchen table indicated that somebody lived there. The light on his telephone winked at him, displaying messages. He pressed the delete button without even listening to the complaints of friends accusing him of not having confided his plans.
    He opened the fridge. It was empty but for a couple of bottles of Chablis and some pâté from Lidgates. He left his suitcase in the hall and walked round the corner to Vingt Quatre where he read the papers over smoked salmon and scrambled eggs. Opposite, there was a table of children supervised by two mothers who sat gossiping while the children flicked food at each other and got up and down from the table to play hide-and-seek. The mothers were both pretty, late thirties, blonde, with expensive highlights, designer handbags and