As for Gio—she didn’t dare think about what she felt for Gio. Because she knew she’d crumble, right here, right now. At least she’d had the foresight to call a taxi, so she didn’t have to deal with the awkward situation of Gio feeling obliged to take her home.
Fran slept badly that night.
By the morning she’d made her decision. This really couldn’t go on; there was only one solution. One that was going to hurt like hell—but it was better than letting everything drag on, never letting the scars have a chance to heal.
To her relief, Gio was actually in the office when she walked in.
She closed the door behind her and leaned against it. ‘Gio.’
He swivelled round in his chair. ‘What?’
‘I’m sorry. I can’t do this,’ she said. Her throat felt as if it were filled with sand. Choking.
She was not going to break down and cry. She was going to do this with dignity.
‘I know we said a week’s notice on either side, but it’s not a good idea. I’ll forfeit a week’s wages in lieu of notice.’ Money wasn’t the most important thing here. She had her redundancy pay and her ‘garden leave’ from the studio. But she needed to leave now. Before she made a complete and utter fool of herself.
She was leaving?
Leaving Giovanni’s?
For good?
Gio stared at her, so shocked he wasn’t capable of uttering a single word.
‘Sorry to let you down. I hope the franchise thing works out okay for you. Um, bye.’
And that was it.
The door closed behind her again.
She was gone.
It hurt. It felt as if her heart were being torn out with a rusty spoon to walk away from Gio, to walk away from the colleagues she’d become fond of and the family she’d felt part of.
But Fran knew without a doubt it was the right thing to do.
Because Gio hadn’t even tried to stop her.
Quite what she was going to do now, she wasn’t sure. But she was going to walk out of the coffee shop with her head held high. And nobody was going to see her tears.
The black hole was back.
Except it was bigger than before.
A lot bigger, Gio thought savagely.
And throwing himself into work didn’t help. At all. Without his perfect office manager to be part of it, the franchise scheme had lost its appeal. He couldn’t care less any more about corporate identities and how to blend it with regional specialities.
Without Fran, nothing mattered.
Even his old stress relief—playing technically difficult pieces on the guitar—didn’t help any more. Because he kept remembering the nights he’d played to her, sung to her. The time he’d sung for his supper—and she’d rewarded him with kisses. Kisses that were gone for good.
He was sitting in his office after a week in hell, staring into space, when he heard the door close.
Fran?
No, of course not. He pushed the hope down before it had time to grow. He spun round in his chair to see his mother standing there, and pinned a fake smile on his face. ‘Hi, Mum. How’s it going?’
‘That’s the question I want to ask you,’ Angela said.
‘Fine, fine.’ He flapped a hand dismissively. ‘Just a bit busy with the franchise stuff.’
‘Which is why you haven’t called home for a week. Why you’ve ignored every single text from your sisters and you don’t answer your mobile phone. Why you take your office phone off the hook every evening and stay here until stupid o’clock. And why you never return any messages from your voicemail or answering machine.’
Gio forced his smile to widen. ‘I’m fine, Mum. Just busy.’
‘Right.’ She walked over to him and traced the shadows under his eyes with the tip of her finger. ‘So that’s why you have these, is it? And you’ve lost weight.’ Her mouth thinned. ‘You haven’t been eating properly, have you?’
‘Course I have,’ he fibbed. Food tasted like ashes. And he couldn’t remember what or when he’d last eaten. It didn’t matter. He couldn’t care less.
She shook her head, mouth pursed. ‘Don’t try to pull the wool over my eyes, Giovanni Mazetti. When you’re really busy, you persuade Netti to do you a takeaway and you at least stop for two minutes in her kitchen for a chat. But nobody’s seen you for a week.’ She paused. ‘Nobody’s seen Fran, for that matter.’
Ah. He should’ve guessed his mother would work it out for herself.
‘Are you going to tell me what happened, or do I have to nag it out of you?’
He shrugged. ‘It’s like you and Nonna always say. No sensible girl’s going to wait around for a workaholic, is she?’