Chapter 19: A Lighter at Noon

I went to the town hall alone, as the note said.

Alessio drove me to the corner of the piazza and stopped the car.

"I'll wait here," he said. "I won't come in."

"Promise."

"I promise. If I'm wrong, I'll be wrong with my back to you."

I kissed his bruised cheek and got out.

The town hall was an old yellow building with a flag over the door.

The marriage room was on the first floor, with a long window and a table, and rows of empty gilt chairs.

The registrar stood by the table in a grey suit.

She was a woman of about fifty, with half-moon glasses.

She looked at me.

Ilaria stood at the window with her back to the room.

She wore the pale silk she had worn on the night of the cheque.

In one hand she held a cream-coloured folder, and in the other a small brass lighter.

"You came," she said.

"You asked me to."

"I asked you to come alone, and you did." She turned.

Her eyes were swollen, and her hair was loose, which I had never seen.

"Sit down, Nina."

"I'll stand."

"Then stand." She took a paper out of the folder and shook it open.

It was a single heavy sheet with a seal at the bottom and two signatures.

"This is the contract my father and Alessio's father signed," she said. "The original."

"My father kept it in a bank box for twenty years. Last night I took it out."

"Why?"

"To burn it."

The registrar did not move.

"Do you know what it has meant to me, this paper?" said Ilaria.

Keep reading free with an account. Start I Won't Bridge an Impossible Gap from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.