To Italy, With Love

by Nicky Pellegrino

Genres: Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

'An uplifting and delicious taste of Italy' ERICA JAMES

'The perfect recipe for the ultimate escapist read!' VERONICA HENRY

Love happens when you least expect it...

Assunta has given up on love. She might run her little trattoria in the most romantic mountain town in Italy, but love just seems to have passed her by.

Sarah-Jane is finished with love. She's hiring an old convertible and driving around Italy this summer - it's the perfect way to forget all about her hot celebrity ex-boyfriend!

But when Sarah-Jane's car breaks down in Montenello, she has to stay longer than she intended! And the trouble is, love is everywhere...

Praise for Nicky Pellegrino

'A novel about the joy of learning to live again. It also made me very hungry!' Jojo Moyes

'Warm, engaging and truly delicious' Rosanna Ley

'A delicious and sensual adventure . . . as evocative and captivating as Venice itself' Fiona Gibson

'A wonderfully evocative setting and mouth-watering descriptions of Venetian food' Pamela Hartshorne

'Full-bodied as a rich Italian red, it's a page-turner combining the missed chances of Captain Corelli's Mandolin with the foodie pleasures of Chocolat' Eve

'Three generations of Italian women talk romance and cooking . . . an evocative foodfest of a novel' Prima

'A slice of pure sunshine' Good Housekeeping

'A lovely read . . . with a genuine heart and true observation' Elizabeth Buchan

'A touching story about one woman's search for love' Sunday Express

'Set against a backdrop of love, friendship and food . . . The descriptions of Italian food will make your mouth water' Cosmopolitan

'Sink back on the sofa with this delightful read' Now Magazine

Release date: September 28, 2021

Publisher: Orion Publishing Group

Print pages: 336

Sample

Assunta

A girl in a white dress was standing beside the fountain in the main piazza of Montenello. There was nothing unusual about that. Almost every day, from spring to late summer, a different bride was there, smiling into the face of her groom. Today a breeze gusted through the hilltop town, catching at this bride’s veil and ruffling the blossoms in her bouquet, making the photographer’s job more difficult.

This was an ideal place to pose for a wedding portrait. With the fountain so pretty, especially when the sun was sparkling through the jets of water that cascaded over its scalloped stone tiers. With it being only a few steps from the Town Hall, where the ceremony had taken place, and a short stroll to the hotel where the reception would be held.

At first the weddings were a novelty. People used to pause and watch the scenes unfold, smile to share the joy and feel the love in the air. But there had been so many weddings now that it hardly seemed worth glancing up from whatever you happened to be doing to pass judgement on the bridal gown, to see how young or old the newlyweds might be, and watch them exchanging kisses for the camera.

From the kitchen of her low-ceilinged trattoria, Assunta had a view of the whole sweep of the piazza. Rarely was she in too much of a hurry to stop work and gaze through the window for a while. But what interest did Assunta have in weddings? None at all.

When she was much younger, Assunta had assumed marriage would be somewhere in her future. It was what everyone did, pair up and make a life together, and she hadn’t expected to be any different. But people had gone from Montenello since then – almost everyone who had been in her class at school, her friends and their families. Shops had closed and more houses been boarded up as they moved to the cities in search of work, or emigrated to distant countries.

Assunta wasn’t tempted to follow. As others left, she only put down deeper roots into the rocky earth of this small town that rose like a fortress from the peak of a southern Italian mountain.

It was a busy life running her small trattoria with its rough plastered walls covered in bright ceramics. At mealtimes hungry people crowded in, shouting conversations from one table to the next as she ladled out food and ferried plates. During the lulls she would go next door to the bar run by her half-brother Renzo, enjoy a drink, smoke a cigarette and talk about nothing important. At the end of the day there was always her house, with its garden to tend and a comfortable bed to rest in.

She was in her mid-fifties now, with a comfortably round body and salt-and-pepper hair, and it was a long time since Assunta had imagined being married. She let those thoughts go years ago without too much regret, telling herself a husband wouldn’t make her happier than she already was.

Assunta had never changed; it was the town around her that did. For many years Montenello could be relied on to be isolated and quiet. This was a place where not much happened and there weren’t many young people left. Empty buildings crumbled, weeds forced their way through cracks in the honey-hued stone, and slowly it was turning to dust. The same was happening in hilltop towns all over Italy. No one seemed interested in doing much about it.

Then along came a new mayor, full of energy and ideas. He promised that Montenello wasn’t going to become yet another ghost town; he would find a way to save it. Everyone had assumed this was the usual bluster and he would talk loudly but do nothing. To their surprise the new mayor was a man of his word, and now, bit by bit, their town was being transformed.

Most of the changes didn’t touch Assunta. She carried on with life as usual, even if it was against a soundtrack of drilling and hammering as houses were saved from ruin and the hotel was restored. When the foreigners began to come, Assunta noticed them milling round the piazza. Some even found their way into her cramped little trattoria but when they saw that she didn’t have a proper menu and there was no choice at all in what they were given to eat, they soon backed out again.

There was a new restaurant in the hotel serving modern Italian food and Assunta was certain they would be better served there. Her cooking was for the people who had always eaten it. Traditional dishes made slowly and with love, served with a basket of hard-crusted bread and a carafe of fruity white wine.

The rhythm of Assunta’s life stayed the same, changing only season by season like the food she cooked. Each morning the mirror showed her a woman who was small, round and entirely unremarkable; not someone love was ever going to find. She might not have dwelled on it if it hadn’t been for the brides, standing there beside the fountain so full of hope and love; if she didn’t keep seeing them day after day throughout the wedding season, all those girls in white dresses reminding Assunta of what she would never have.

This morning’s bride was pretty with pale skin and high cheekbones. The wind was whipping at her too-long veil, the groom trying to control it. They were laughing together as a stronger gust breezed through and the gauzy veil flew up, rippling in the air behind them, while the photographer hurried to capture the moment.

Looking away from the window, Assunta turned her attention to the beef she was braising. If she had found love at that girl’s age, surely it would have burned out its brightness by now. Still, as she pushed her wooden spoon through the rich ragu of wine and tomatoes, she couldn’t help imagining what it might be like to have someone beside her as she moved through the rest of her life; a person to talk to and laugh with, to lean on whenever it seemed she couldn’t stand alone.





























Sarah-Jane



It was all going so well, right up until the moment when everything went wrong, and the very first thing I thought was how many people were going to tell me, ‘I told you so.’ For a moment I was nothing but infuriated, then I started to panic. My little car, which had carried me for so many kilometres without a hint of trouble, died all of a sudden in the main piazza of a small Italian hilltop village.

I only visited Montenello because I read a newspaper article about the place, how the mayor had been selling off properties for one euro and his scheme was now regenerating what had been a dying town. It sounded intriguing so I planned to have a quick look around and then keep heading south. It was the kind of impromptu thing my trip was about, after all. Freedom to do whatever I liked was the whole point in coming.

The town was nice enough and I walked its narrow streets for a while, paused in the piazza to watch a bride and groom as they posed for their wedding photographs, and visited a pasticceria where I bought a little cake made of the lightest sponge filled with custard cream and spun sugar. After a couple of hours, having apparently exhausted Montenello’s possibilities, I decided to be on my way.

Baxter and I got in the car and I turned the key in the ignition. As the engine stuttered to life there was a loud bang as if I had crashed into something, which obviously I hadn’t because we were stationary. A few people turned to stare but then looked away when it became clear there was nothing interesting to see; just me in a car that wasn’t moving. I tried the ignition again, and nothing.

‘Shit,’ I said. ‘Shit, shit, shit.’

Baxter shot me a worried look from beneath his bushy eyebrows as if he had been fairly certain all along that something like this would happen.

I stared back at him. ‘It’ll be OK, I’ll find a mechanic, it’s probably nothing major.’

I didn’t feel as confident as I sounded. The inner workings of cars are a mystery to me; before I started on this trip I just about knew how to drive one. It was the main reason my friends were so certain this trip was a terrible idea. Tackling the chaos of Italian roads when, despite getting my licence years ago, I had spent hardly any time behind the wheel. Depending on who you listened to, it was at best reckless and at worst they imagined I was going to kill myself and probably several others.

The only one not to discourage me was my mother. She knows how determined I can be once my mind is set on something. Also Mum had been right there, watching and listening, as everything collapsed around me. We went through the whole thing together and she understood better than anyone how I must be feeling.

I’m close to my mum, far closer than most of my friends reckon is normal. I had a little self-contained flat in the basement of her house in Notting Hill and we were in and out of each other’s places all the time. Perhaps it’s because my father died when I was a child and she brought me up solo, but we’re best friends. My mother is a lot of fun and she never tries to tell me how to lead my life.

Still, Mum hadn’t needed to say a word for me to know she had a few reservations about Tom. It’s never the greatest idea to fall for your boss, is it? In retrospect, I can see that.

But who could resist Tom Whiffen? Anyone who has seen him judging TV cooking contests, or followed him on Instagram, or bought his books, or had him make a brief personal appearance at their table in his Soho restaurant, would be charmed. There is that strong jaw and the broad shoulders, and the deep masculine voice. And Tom has a way with him; he is outrageously appealing. Like I said, who could resist him? Not me, ordinary never famous me, drawn to him like some sort of glittering jewel I was mesmerised by. Just being near Tom made me feel happier.

We were together for a year, although most people didn’t know about us. Not because Tom was married – he most definitely wasn’t; it was to do with his public profile and wanting to keep his personal life out of the tabloids. Also, there is one thing most of Tom Whiffen’s fans don’t realise: he’s not that great a cook. Oh, he’s fine at making things look pretty and isn’t short on business acumen, but if you’ve cooked a recipe of Tom’s in the past five years – whether it came from his website, one of the books or a magazine – it was me who created it, one hundred per cent me, every time. While Tom has been out in the world putting on a big show, I’ve been in the background devising and perfecting the dishes he attached his name to.

Plenty of celebrity cooks have help – it isn’t uncommon. But Tom has this thing about the public believing he does everything himself. ‘Made With Love by Tom Whiffen’ is his motto; it was the name of the first book and his magazine – he even used it for the restaurant.

I never minded not being asked to accompany him to launches and parties. Couldn’t have cared less about not getting a credit in his books or my photo on his website. I didn’t want to be the star, I preferred not to be the centre of attention. My thing was doing the work I loved, steeped in deliciousness every day, at home in my little kitchen, creating lovely foods. And when it all changed with Tom, when our work partnership turned into something deeper, I was amazed he had chosen me, out of all the women he could have had.

We didn’t do any of the things other couples do; never went out for lunch or to a movie, and we couldn’t take a walk in the park for fear of the paparazzi stalking us. Keeping our relationship quiet was a challenge but it was important to Tom and that was fine by me. We were close, talking every day and spending weekends together at my place, mostly in bed or curled up on the sofa, eating whatever I had cooked and binge-watching Netflix.

‘Are you happy, Sarah-Jane?’ my mother asked every now and then, her brow slightly creased.

‘Absolutely,’ I always replied. ‘Couldn’t be happier.’

I expected things to change eventually. There would come a moment when we outed ourselves as a couple, but in the meantime, I quite liked it being just the two of us. It felt as if the outside world didn’t matter, and what we had was too special to be touched by it. I wasn’t in any hurry to push for more, sure that in our quiet way Tom and I were building a relationship that would last. All those days and nights together, just him and me, listening to his plans, sharing his dreams. I was important to him.

Then Tom started expanding his business even more ambitiously and working longer hours. He took on an assistant called Jo to look after the social media and merchandising – there was a range of Made With Love by Tom Whiffen cookware and crockery by then. I dealt with Jo almost entirely by email and she seemed efficient. Next, Tom opened his first Made With Love restaurant. The plan was for it to be the flagship of a chain and naturally he wasn’t going to be manning the kitchen himself.

He hired an executive chef, a French woman called Dominique Clairmonte, who was so lean and elegant it was difficult to believe she took even the tiniest taste of any dish she cooked. Tom always liked my curves, he had praised my food too, but once she appeared on the scene, nothing about me seemed good enough.

‘Dominique has been reviewing the last six months of the magazine and thinks we’re not paying enough attention to the latest food trends,’ Tom told me in the first of a series of excruciating sit-down meetings. ‘We need to be thinking about the way people are eating right now and the new ingredients that are exciting them.’

I ran my eyes down the list she had provided. Filipino food was having a moment apparently and she suggested I start with the desserts. We had missed out on the plant-based trend (irritatingly I had said that to Tom myself ages ago) and there were several Asian ingredients that Dominique thought I could be making more of.

‘Gochujang, really?’ I said, wrinkling my nose. Not that I have anything against Korean fermented red chilli paste but it didn’t seem to me that it belonged in a Tom Whiffen recipe. It wasn’t mainstream enough, not yet.

‘Our readers don’t want to invest in lots of jars that will only be used once and end up cluttering the fridge,’ I reminded him. ‘They’re looking for simple, fresh and fast, that’s what they tell us.’

‘Dominique thinks we ought to be challenging them. She’s using gochujang in the restaurant a lot. She did this thing with sweetcorn that was fantastic. Honestly, I’ve never tasted anything like it.’

‘Most of her restaurant food isn’t going to work in a home kitchen. There are too many elements, too much fuss,’ I argued.

‘Dominique says there’s no reason that the recipes can’t be streamlined. And this is the direction my food is going in now. I need you to be on board with it, OK?’

For the next week or so gochujang dominated my cooking. Fermented red chilli was dolloped into stews and soups. I used it in tacos and devilled eggs, marinades and dipping sauces. It packed such a punch of flavour, was thick and sticky, earthy and hot, an explosion of umami. Even using a small amount, and thinning it down with water or broth, it seemed to shout loudly from every dish I tried it in.

I really care about the recipes I develop. They may not have my name on them, but I get a buzz thinking about people in their kitchens recreating a dish I came up with. On the Made With Love social media pages, fans will often post photographs of their attempts at Tom’s world-famous carrot cake (the secret is a hint of curry powder) or his decadent raspberry chocolate brownie stack. I love seeing the personal twists they put on dishes and don’t want them led astray with recipes that will never work or be disappointed with flavours that won’t appeal to their palates.

The gochujang was the start of a nagging sense that things were changing, and not in a good way. Over the next few weeks I saw less of Tom. He was often too busy to come over at weekends and my phone didn’t ring as much. A day or two might pass without us talking and now, whenever we had our usual brainstorming meetings in the office, Dominique joined us, so instead of relaxed chats over coffee and interesting thoughts jotted down in a Moleskine notebook, there were spreadsheets and proper planning. Some of her ideas were good but it hurt to have so many of my own dismissed as dull. At the end of every session I was the one left with a long to-do list, while they went off together.

‘Tom’s got a lot going on at the moment,’ I told my mother. ‘The restaurant was a big financial risk and things have been so difficult.’

I waited, hoping life would get back to normal but Dominique’s influence only grew stronger and soon it felt as if she was my boss, not him. It was crushing all the joy out of my job and for the first time, work felt like work.

‘You don’t think there’s something going on between them?’ my mother wondered.

‘Definitely not,’ I told her. ‘Dominique is a lesbian and in a fully committed relationship. He’s crazy about her cooking, not her.’

For me the most obvious sign there was a problem came when the latest issue of the Made With Love magazine arrived in the post. I happened to notice that one of my recipes had been altered. For some reason saffron had been added to a fish soup. Saffron is one of the more expensive spices and normally I don’t use it. Looking closely at the recipes on other pages, I found more tweaks, usually to the ingredients. Not only unexpected spices but teaspoons of agave nectar where they didn’t belong, and butter where I had used olive oil, as though someone had decided my original recipes lacked flavour. That sort of thing wasn’t supposed to happen. Tom might edit an introduction, so it sounded more like his voice, but the recipes themselves were my territory and I was always meticulous.

I rang the magazine’s editor who sounded embarrassed as she told me that Dominique had been given final approval.

‘For the website recipes too,’ she admitted. ‘There’s nothing I can do … sorry, Tom authorised it.’

I felt sick. Was Tom not happy with my work anymore? But then why hadn’t he told me so himself? I tried his mobile and it went straight to answerphone. When I called the office, Jo said he was in a meeting.

Even though she was Tom’s assistant, Jo and I hardly ever saw each other because our jobs were very different. I looked after the recipes while she managed everything else and any exchanges between us tended to be short but friendly. Jo might email for my advice about which saucepans to include in the Made With Love kitchen essentials range. I would call and check in with her if I needed to know about Tom’s schedule. When we chatted, it was about the usual things that colleagues talk about – the weather, holiday plans, how busy we were.

Now I was speaking to her a lot more frequently as I tried to get hold of Tom. Day after day there was always a reasonable enough explanation for why he hadn’t had time to call. Jo said he was away on a shoot, then recording a podcast, busy in several more meetings, caught up with promotion for his latest book. She kept telling me how busy things were and how packed his schedule was. We chatted so much that eventually I confided in her, admitting my concerns about the changes being made to my work, and she was so reassuring that it made me think I might be overreacting.

‘I know what Dominique can be like,’ Jo sympathised. ‘I’ll make sure Tom calls you in the next day or so, when things quieten down, I promise.’

What Jo didn’t mention during any of those long chats was that she had been accompanying Tom to events. So it was a surprise to see the item on the Daily Post website a couple of mornings later, a paparazzi shot of them together heading into a cocktail party at The Groucho Club. Tom’s arm was around Jo, his hand resting on her rounded belly. The headline read: MADE WITH LOVE: TOM WHIFFEN’S BABY JOY.

I assumed the newspaper must have got it wrong. Jo did look quite pregnant (oddly she hadn’t mentioned that either), but it couldn’t be Tom’s child; I didn’t believe it. The more I looked at the picture though, the more I stared at that hand of his. It was a hand that had stroked the length of my body, touched every part of me, a square and strong-looking hand with neatly trimmed fingernails and it was resting very casually on Jo’s baby bump. She was smiling, and Tom was ducking his head, looking slightly sheepish. He was wearing a shirt that I had given him – blue with a fine pink stripe, which I knew was one of his favourites.

I grabbed my phone to call him then changed my mind in case I ended up sounding needy and insecure. Sooner or later Tom would hear about the paparazzi picture. He would get in touch to explain everything and we would laugh about it.

Mum was away on a yoga retreat in Cornwall at the time, so I had a strange few days, waiting for my phone to ring, with only Baxter to talk to.

Baxter is my dog; he’s one of those Border Terriers with an expression that always seems faintly worried and when I talk to him he stares at me, tilting his head to one side, so it seems like he’s really listening. Baxter wasn’t particularly fond of Tom, partly because he wasn’t allowed to sleep on the bed when he was staying over, but also weirdly for someone who was charming to other humans, Tom was bad with animals. He always played with Baxter a bit too roughly, patted him a little too hard, and yelled at him to shut up on the rare occasions he barked. When Tom was around, Baxter looked even more pensive than usual.

After the third day of trying to get on with work and stay off the Daily Post website, I caved in and made a call. Tom didn’t pick up but a few minutes later sent a text to say he was flat-out busy and would be in touch soon. I carried my phone in the pocket of my apron all afternoon as I tested recipes and rehearsed what I would say to him. The plan was to keep things light and breezy but drop into the conversation that I had heard about Jo’s pregnancy and wondered what the plan was for her maternity cover. Hopefully that would lead to an explanation; he would tell me the newspaper had got it wrong, and everything would be cleared up.

Except he didn’t call; instead later that evening I received an emailed meeting request. Tom wanted to see me the next day and I was to go into the office.

The Made With Love office is above the Soho restaurant and is actually just three high-ceilinged rooms with sash windows. Between travelling for so many TV shoots and live events, Tom doesn’t usually spend much time there and the place always has an over-tidy, staged feel about it with everything painted white and too many pot plants.

I arrived to find the office empty aside from a youngish guy I had never met before who was wearing a suit and sitting at the desk that Jo usually occupied.

‘Hi,’ I said. ‘Tom around?’

His eyes moved from the computer screen he had been frowning at and he looked at me, expression unchanging. ‘Tom’s running late, but shouldn’t be far away. Are you Sarah-Jane Santi?’

‘That’s right.’ I sank down on the expensive but uncomfortable sofa.

‘Did you bring a support person?’ he asked.

‘I’m sorry, did I what?’ I sat up straighter. ‘Who are you, anyway?’

‘I’m Robert Matthews, I look after Human Resources for Made With Love.’

‘You do?’ It was news to me that we had hired another staff member but the company was growing so fast it was difficult to keep up and I hadn’t been in the office for a while.

‘I started here a couple of weeks ago,’ he told me.

‘Oh right … and where’s Jo?’

‘Not in until later this morning – doctor’s appointment.’

While I was waiting, I flicked through the pages of a rival food magazine without taking it in. Something here felt very wrong. I kept asking myself why on earth I might need a support person, and whether Tom was running late because he was with Jo at the doctor’s appointment.

He was wearing a paisley shirt when he arrived, not one that I had given him. ‘Sarah-Jane,’ Tom said, not quite meeting my eyes. ‘Thanks for coming in. Shall we sit at the meeting room table?’

He didn’t say much after that, his new Human Resources manager did most of the talking, and I listened with a growing sense of disbelief. The company was changing, as I had probably noticed, and the restaurant was now its food hub. I had done so much to help Made With Love succeed and my contribution was valued but unfortunately it was time for my role to be disestablished.

‘You’re making me redundant?’ I turned to Tom, confused and hurt. ‘You can’t.’

‘Sorry, Sarah-Jane, but this is a business decision,’ he said awkwardly. ‘I have to make the best choices for the company. You’ll find the redundancy package that Robert has put together is very generous. And you’re so talented, you’ll pick up more work, you’ll be busier than ever.’

I tried to speak again but tears were dripping from my eyes and I couldn’t seem to breathe properly. Robert passed a box of tissues and, by the time I pulled myself together, Tom had disappeared somewhere and the meeting room table was covered in paperwork.

‘So you see, financially you’re going to do really well out of this,’ Robert was saying in an encouraging tone. ‘Apart from the lump sum, which is far more than we’re legally required to give, we’ll pay out all holiday leave owed and that’s a decent amount as you don’t seem to have taken much time off.’

‘Where’s Tom?’

‘Sorry, he’s not available now.’

. . .