Bella Rosa Marriages: The Bridesmaid's Secret

‘What happened to it?’ she asked, and her voice wobbled in unison with her stomach.

Scarlett didn’t say anything but her gaze shot guiltily towards the stream innocently bubbling over the stones, and lingered there.

‘No!’ It was barely a whisper, barely even a sound. Suddenly Jackie needed to hold something, to cling onto something, but nothing solid was within easy reach. Everything was moving in the breeze, shifting under her feet.

Tears started to flow down Scarlett’s cheeks again. ‘I’m so sorry, Jackie. I’m so sorry…’

Jackie tried to breathe properly. Her letter to Romano had ended up in the stream? Thinking became an effort, her brain cells as slow and thick as wallpaper paste. She knew it was awful, her worst nightmare, but she couldn’t for the life of her seem to connect all the dots and work out why.

‘I didn’t realise at the time what I’d done,’ Scarlett said, dragging the tears off her cheeks with the heels of her hands. ‘I didn’t realise what it meant, that Romano was even the father…It was only later, when you and Mamma were shouting all the time.’ She hiccupped. ‘And then she sent you away. I knew I’d done something bad, but it wasn’t until I was older, that I put all the pieces together, and understood what it all meant for you and Romano.’

Romano.

The letter had been for Romano.

Work, brain. Work!

She looked at the stream.

And then the forest upended itself. She didn’t faint or throw up, although she felt it likely she might do either or both, but the strength of the revelation actually knocked her off her feet and she found herself sitting on the hard compacted earth, her bottom cooling as its dampness seeped into the seat of her trousers.

She closed her eyes and fought the feeling she was toppling into a black hole.

Oh, no…Oh, no…Oh, no.

The truth was an icy blade, slicing into her. Adrenaline surged through her system, making clarity impossible. She had to do something. She had to go somewhere.

Jackie staggered to her feet and started to run.

Romano didn’t know.

Romano had never known.

There was a knock at the bedroom door. Jackie hadn’t been moving, just lying spreadeagled on the bed staring at the ceiling, but she held her breath and waited. When she heard footsteps getting quieter on the landing she let the air out again slowly, in one long sigh.

From her position flat on the bed she could hear voices murmuring, the occasional distant chink of an ice cube. Mamma must have opened the drawing-room doors that led onto the terrace. She glanced at the clock. Ah, cocktail hour. Vesuvius could erupt again and Mamma would still have cocktails at seven.

But there were no Manhattans or Cosmopolitans for Jackie this evening, just an uneasy mix of truth, regret and nausea, with an added slice of bitterness stuck gaily on the edge of the glass.

A migraine had been the best excuse she’d been able to come up when she’d arrived back at the house, uncharacteristically pink, sweaty and breathless. And to be honest, it wasn’t far from the truth. Her head did hurt.

Mamma had moaned in her sideways way about self-indulgence, but she hadn’t pushed the issue, thank goodness. She was far too busy to deal with her middle daughter. Nothing new there, then.

No way was Jackie going downstairs tonight. Mamma and Scarlett would be more than she could handle in her present state of mind. No, she wouldn’t leave this room until she had pulled herself together and done the laces up tight.

Now the threat of interruption had diminished she hauled herself off the bed and looked around her old bedroom. If she squinted hard she could imagine the posters that had once lined the walls, the piles of books on the floor, the certificates in frames.

Of course, none of it remained. Mamma wasn’t the kind to keep shrines to her darling daughters once they’d flown the nest. She’d redecorated this room the spring after Jackie had moved to London for good. In its present incarnation, it was an elegant guest room in shades of dusky lavender and dove grey.

Jackie caught herself and gave a wry smile.

Here she was, undergoing the most traumatic event since giving birth, and all she could think about was the decor. What was wrong with her?

Nothing. Nothing was wrong with her.

It was just easier to notice the wallpaper than it was to delve into this afternoon’s revelations.

Uh-oh. Here came the stomach lurching again. And the feeling she was stuck inside her own skin, desperate to claw her way out. She steadied herself on the dressing table as her forehead throbbed, avoiding her own gaze in the mirror.

Everything she’d believed to be true for the last seventeen years, the foundation on which she’d forged a life, had been a lie.

She stood up and walked across the room just because she needed to move. She couldn’t get her head round this. Who was she if she wasn’t Jacqueline Patterson, a woman fuelled by past betrayal and life’s hard knocks? Possibly not the sort of woman who could have climbed over a mountain of others, stilettos used as weapons, to become Editor-in-chief of Gloss! And if she weren’t that woman, then she had nothing left, because work was all she had.

Romano didn’t know.

He’d never known.

She closed her eyes and heard a gentle roaring in her ears.

Would that have changed things? Would he have stood by her after all, despite the fact they’d been so young, despite the argument that had sent them spinning in different directions? A picture filled her mind and she didn’t have the strength to push it away: a young couple, awake long after midnight, looking drained but happy. He kissed her on the forehead and told her to climb back into the bed they shared, to get some sleep. He’d try and rock the baby to sleep.

No.

It wouldn’t have been like that, couldn’t have been. They couldn’t have lost their chance because of a few sheets of soggy paper.

She had to be real. Statistics were on her side. She was more likely to have been a harried single mother, burned out and bored out of her mind, while her friends dated and went to parties and were young and frivolous.

Yes. That picture was better. That would have been her reality. She had to hang onto that. But the tenderness in the young man’s eyes as he looked over the downy top of the baby’s head at its mother wouldn’t leave her alone.

She walked towards the window but kept back a little, just in case any of the family were milling on the terrace with their cocktails. She stared off into the sunset, which glowed as bright as embers in a fire, framing the undulating hills to the west. Tonight the sun looked so huge she could almost imagine it was setting into the crystal-clear lake that lay behind those hills. Where Romano probably was right now.

All these years she’d hated him. For nothing. What a waste of energy, of a life. Surely she must have had something better to do with her time than that? Maybe so, but nothing came to mind.

Slowly, quietly, she began to feel the right way up again. Get a grip, Jacqueline. You’re not a terrified fifteen-year-old now; you’re a powerful and successful woman. You can handle this.

Romano wasn’t the monster she’d needed to make him in her imagination. And he probably wasn’t the boy-father of her fantasies either. The truth probably lay somewhere in between.

She had to give him a chance to prove her wrong, to find out what the reality would be. He had a daughter on this planet, one who was hungry to know who she was and where she came from.

Jackie walked away from the window and sat back down on the edge of the bed. This changed all her plans. She couldn’t tell her family about her daughter’s existence yet. She had to tell Romano first. It was probably a bit late for cigars and slaps on the back, but he needed to know that he was a father.

Warm light filtered through the skylights in Romano’s studio, dancing across the walls as tiny puffy clouds played hide-and-seek with the sun, daring him to come out and play. That was one of the downsides of having a home office in a home like his. Distractions, major and minor, bombarded him from every direction. One of the reasons he’d accepted Lizzie’s wedding invitation was that it had given him a perfect excuse to spend two whole weeks at the palazzo. The plan had been to use the free time running up to and after the festivities to think about the next Puccini collection.

Just as he’d managed to dismiss the idea that the sky was laughing at him for sitting indoors working on a day like this, his mobile rang. He stood up with a growl of frustration.

He didn’t recognise the caller ID. ‘Hello?’

There was a slight pause, then a deep breath. ‘Romano?’

He stopped scowling and his eyebrows, no longer weighted down with a frown, arched high.

‘It’s Jackie,’ she said in English. ‘Jackie Patterson.’

It wasn’t lack of recognition that had delayed his reply, but surprise. After all these years her voice was still surprisingly familiar. It was her reasons for calling that had stalled him.

Why, when she’d been at pains to avoid him at all costs for the last couple of days—including that ridiculous show of some ‘secret’ lunch with Isabella and Scarlett—had she called him? As always, Jackie Patterson had him running in circles chasing his own tail. It was to his own shame that he liked it.

He smiled. ‘And to what do I owe the pleasure?’

There was a pause.

‘I believe you owe me lunch.’

He might be laid-back, but he wasn’t slow. She hadn’t actually agreed to lunch before she’d been whisked away.

He let it pass. If thirty-two-year-old Jackie was anything similar to her teenage counterpart, the starchy accusation was only the surface level of her remark. With Jackie, there were always layers. Something that had both bewitched him and infuriated him during their brief summer fling. Her about-face could only mean one thing: Jackie wanted something. And that also intrigued him.

‘So I do,’ he said, injecting a lazy warmth into his voice that he knew would make her bristle. Jackie might like to play games, rather than come straight out and say what she thought and felt, but that didn’t mean he was going to lie down and let her win. The best part of a game was the competition, the cycle of move and counter-move, until there was only one final outcome. ‘Do you want to go to Rosa?’

‘No,’ she said, almost cutting the end of his sentence off. ‘Somewhere…quieter.’

Romano smiled. ‘Quieter’ could easily be interpreted as intimate.

‘Okay,’ he said slowly, letting her lead, letting her think she was in control.

He racked his brains to think of somewhere nice…quiet… to take Jackie. He doodled on a pad as he came up with, and rejected, five different restaurants. Too noisy. Bad food. Not the right ambience…

He looked out of the window, at the shady lawns and immaculate hedges. ‘You want to talk? In private?’

‘Yes.’

Did he detect a hint of wariness in her voice? Good. Jackie was always more fun when she was caught off guard. She always did something radical, something totally unexpected. He liked unexpected.

‘Come to the island, then,’ he said. ‘We’ll have all the quiet we want. We’ll eat here.’

There was a sharp laugh from Jackie. ‘What? You can cook?’ Her response reminded him of the way he’d used to tease her until she just couldn’t take it any more and had either walloped him or kissed him. He’d enjoyed both.

He laughed too. ‘You’ll just have to accept my invitation to find out.’

There was a not-so-gentle huff of displeasure in his ear. He waited.

‘Okay.’ The word was accompanied by a resigned sigh. ‘You’re on.’

Jackie was on time. He hadn’t expected anything less. She parked a sleek car on a patch of scrubby grass near a little jetty on the shore of Lake Adrina, just south of Isola del Raverno. He had been waiting in a small speedboat tied at the end of the rough wooden structure. The gentle side-to-side motion lulled him as he watched her emerge from the car looking cool and elegant.

She had style—and that wasn’t a compliment he assigned easily.

She was dressed casually in a pair of deep turquoise Capri pants and a white linen halter-neck top, which she immedi-ately covered with a sheer, long-sleeved shirt the moment she stepped into the sunshine. Her hair was in a loose, low ponytail and the honey highlights glinted gold in the midday sun. Bewitching. She pulled a large pair of sunglasses down from the top of her head to cover her eyes and it only added to the effect, making her seem aloof and desirable at the same time. He’d always been a sucker for forbidden fruit.

There was no doubt in his mind, though, that when she’d got dressed for this meeting, she’d thought very carefully about the ‘look’ she wanted to create. The clothes said: Think of me as any other woman—down-to-earth, non-threatening, relaxed. Romano was intrigued with her choice, why she’d felt the need to dress down when most other women would have dressed up.

He stood up, vaulted out of the boat and walked towards her. She didn’t smile, and he liked her all the more for it. A smile would have been a lie. He was very good at reading women, their bodies, the silent signals their posture and gestures gave off, and as he watched Jackie walk towards him the signals came thick and fast—and all of them contradictory.

Greeting people with visible affection, even if little or no emotion was involved, was part of their world and, almost out of reflex, they leaned in, he kissed her on the cheek and took her hand. He’d done it a thousand times to a thousand different women at a thousand different fashion shows, seen her do the same from across the room, but as he pulled away a wave of memories as tall as a wall hit him.

She smelled the same. Warm. Spicy. Feminine.

And suddenly the hand in his felt softer, more alive, as if he could feel the pulse beating through it, and his lips, where they had touched her cheek, tingled a little.

Up until now the idea of embarking on a second summer fling with Jackie Patterson had been a mentally pleasing idea rather than a physical tug. He sensed that afterwards he would be able to erase the niggling questions about their romance that surfaced every few years from his subconscious, only to be swiftly batted down again. A rerun now they were older and more sensible would soothe whatever it was that jarred and jiggled deep down in his soul, wanting to be let out. But this time they would end it cleanly. No fuss, no ties.

As he ushered her into the small speedboat he realised that his only half-thought-out plans had moved up a gear. Now he didn’t just want to get close to Jackie again to put ghosts to rest; his body wanted her here and now. But it wouldn’t do to rush it. While she was all cool glamour on the surface, underneath she was awkward and nervous. Skittish. If he wanted to take Jackie to his bed, he was going to have to see if he could peel back some of those layers first.

He smiled. Not many men would guess what warmth and passion lay behind the glossy, cool exterior. But he knew. And it made the anticipation all the sweeter.

There were several mooring sites on the island and he chose the one that gave them a walk through the lush gardens to the palazzo. Jackie didn’t say much as she walked in front of him, looking to the left and right, a slight frown creasing her forehead as she climbed the sloping steps from terrace to terrace. Now and again he saw her eyelids flicker, the very bare hint of colour flare in her cheeks, and he knew she was remembering the same things he was—memories of soft naked flesh, cool garden breezes that carried the scent of flowers. Heat and fulfilment.

It was here that they’d first made love, one night when his father had been away. He’d managed to invent an excuse to send the housekeeper and cook off for the evening—making sure they’d prepared food before they’d left, of course—and he and Jackie had spent the evening eating at the grand six-metre-long dining-room table, sneaking sips of his father’s best vintage wine and pretending they were older and more sophisticated, free to love each other without remark or interruption.

He hadn’t intended to seduce her. He’d just wanted some time alone with her far away from prying eyes, somewhere nicer than a dusty old run-down farmhouse. She’d been too young, and he’d been holding himself back, but that night…when they’d taken a walk in the gardens after dinner and she’d turned to him, kissed him, whispered his name and offered herself to him with wide eyes and soft lips, he hadn’t been able to say no. Not when she’d purposely played with fire, done things that she knew got him so hot and bothered that he could hardly think straight.

But he couldn’t regret it.

It had been intoxicating, and for the rest of the summer they’d lived in a blissful, heated bubble where the only thing that had mattered was time they could spend alone together. Foolish, yes. Forgettable, no.

They reached the large terrace with the parterre and giant urns. He watched her amble round a few paths, stooping to brush the tops of the geometric hedges and leaning in to smell the flowers dripping over the edges of the stone ornaments. This time it would be different. An adult affair, free from all the teenage angst and complications. He had a feeling it would be just as memorable.

On a large patio around to the side of the palazzo a table was set with linen and silver, a cream umbrella shading the waiting food. He led her to it. Crisp white wine was chilling in a bucket of ice, a dish on a stand stood in the middle of the table. She lifted her sunglasses for a moment and he noticed her eyebrows were already raised. He knew what she was thinking.

‘I had a little help,’ he said, not being able to resist teasing her, even though he’d prepared most of the meal himself. He liked cooking. It was just another way to be creative, and the results brought such pleasure, if the right amount of time and precision was lavished upon a dish. And he was all for pleasure, whatever the cost.

‘Would you prefer to sit in the sun? I can remove the umbrella.’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t do sun. It’s aging.’

He shrugged and pulled her chair out for her and she sat down, her eyes fixed on the domed cover over the central dish. He whipped it away to reveal a mountainous seafood platter: oysters, mussels, fat juicy prawns, squid and scallops, all stacked high on a mound of ice. Jackie forgot for a second to wear her mask of composure. He’d remembered well. She loved seafood.

‘Wow.’

‘See? I can cook.’

For the first time since he’d zipped her up in her mother’s dressing room, she smiled. ‘You don’t really expect me to believe you prepared all this?’ She swept a hand across the table. ‘Even the salads?’

He handed her a serving spoon and nodded towards the platter. ‘Any fool can shred a lettuce or slice a few tomatoes and drizzle a bit of oil and vinegar on them.’

She fixed him with a sassy look. ‘It seems that any fool did.’

Warmth spread outwards from his core. He’d always loved her acerbic, dry sense of humour. Jackie was funny, intelligent, and with a quirky prettiness that had fascinated him; she’d been his favourite summer fling. His last, actually. After that he’d had other things to concentrate on. Learning the ropes at Puccini Designs, proving he wasn’t a waste of space. It wasn’t until success had come that he’d returned to finding women quite so distracting. And by then he’d been older, and summer flings had had their day.

Lunch was pleasant. He almost forgot that he’d sensed Jackie had a secret agenda for their meeting. They talked about work and what was new in the fashion world. She listened with interest as he bounced a few ideas for the next collection off her. Jackie Patterson deserved to be where she was. She knew her stuff. Not one person he’d ever come across in the length of his career had ever dared to suggest she was a success because her mother had once been a famous model. Quite the reverse, actually.

Lisa’s prima-donna tendencies had been legendary. No one who’d been in Jackie’s company for more than five seconds would accuse her of being anything but highly focused, knowledgeable and professional. He was so taken with getting to know her again that he almost forgot his own secret agenda.

‘How long are you staying in Monta Correnti?’ he asked as he served her second helpings of almost everything from the platter, hoping that she wasn’t going to announce some urgent meeting back in London straight after the wedding.

She swallowed the scallop she’d been chewing. ‘Two weeks. Mamma convinced me to take a holiday since Scarlett would be visiting.’

He nodded, too preoccupied with his own calculations to fully register the heat that suddenly burned in her eyes and died away. Two weeks would be perfect. Long enough to seduce her—it was his turn this time, after all—but not long enough to tie them together for life.

When they’d finished eating, there was a natural lull. They sat in silence, staring out at the lake, which was showing off for them, flipping its waves into frothy white crests. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed a subtle shift in Jackie’s posture, felt rather than heard her take in a breath and hold it. He moved his head so he could look at her.

For a moment she was motionless, but then she pushed her sunglasses back onto her head and stared at him. He blinked and refused to let his muscles tighten even a millimetre.

‘Romano…’

She broke off and looked at the lake. After a long, heavy minute, she turned to him again. ‘I…I wanted to talk to you about something.’

Although they’d been talking Italian all this time, she switched into English and the consonants sounded hard and clunky in comparison. He stopped smiling.

‘Would you consider an exclusive fashion shoot for Gloss!, timed to come out the day after the new Puccini collection is revealed?’

He opened his mouth and nothing came out. For some bizarre reason he hadn’t been expecting that at all.

But that was Jackie Patterson all over. She had a way of overturning a man’s equilibrium in the most thrilling manner. It was a pity he’d forgotten how that excitement was always mixed with a hint of disorientation and a dash of discomfort. Didn’t mean he liked it any less.

This could be the perfect opportunity to keep close to Jackie for the next few days, easing that frown off her forehead, making her relax in his company until she remembered how good they’d been together instead of how messily it had ended.

‘It’s a possibility,’he said and gave her a long, lazy smile. ‘But let’s save the details for later—say, drinks tomorrow evening?’

CHAPTER FIVE

IT WAS just as well that Jackie knew the road to Monta Correnti like the back of her hand, because she wasn’t really concentrating on her driving as she travelled back to her mother’s villa. Just as well she’d only drunk half a glass of wine at lunch too. Romano had her feeling light-headed enough as it was and she’d decided she needed her wits about her if she was going to tell him what could be the biggest piece of news in his whole thirty-four years on this planet.

Only, it hadn’t quite turned out that way, had it?

She’d chickened out.

Jackie sighed as she made her way up the steep hill, hogging far too much of the road to be polite.

She’d thought she’d been ready for it, thought she’d been ready to open her mouth and change his life for ever.

What she hadn’t counted on was that, without the benefit of almost two decades of hate backing her up, Romano’s effect on her would be as potent as ever. He’d always made her a little breathless just by standing too close, just by smiling at her. It had got her completely off track. Distracted. She’d do well to remember the mess she’d ended up in the last time she’d given in to that delicious lack of oxygen.