Redeemed By Her Innocence

CHAPTER TWO

JACQUELYN STRETCHED HER SMILE and lifted a glass of champagne. She wouldn’t drink it but it was the perfect accessory, and gave her something to do with her hands.

She might be feeling as if she were dying but she knew how to put on a show. Her dress was a fairy tale. How could it possibly be anything else? Her blonde hair was tousled, in a knot held up with beads of fine crystals, silken and soft and sparkling.

Her gown was cerulean-blue satin. The chiffon bodice crossed over her chest and the skirt billowed out in the signature ‘Jones’ cut that flattered and flowed to the floor. Her long neck and elegant shoulders were shown to perfection with a single pearl droplet on a fine chain. Her make-up was just the perfect blend of colours and tones to hide and highlight, and her lips were glossily, naturally, plump and soft.

All in all she was a walking miracle, she thought to herself. It was amazing what a few tricks of the trade could do. But if she, with her know-how and connections, couldn’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear tonight, who could?

She pulled her lips into a superhappy smile as a camera flashed a photo of the table, and all the while she surreptitiously scanned the crowd. She would not crack an inch in front of anyone, in case it got back to Mum and Dad. She was on show, wearing the most flattering cut and colour of dress.

‘The best model you have is yourself,’ as Dad always said.

‘Don’t you get too big for your boots,’ said Mum.

Jacquelyn tried to straighten her shoulders, but they didn’t need straightening. She twisted her head a tiny bit to the left, to see if Martin was here yet, but not so much as to be too obvious. Not that it mattered. They’d all think she was showing off to Tim Brinley or, worse, pitching for Nikos Karellis. As if.

She had been flippant, blasé, when Dad had phoned her about the awards.

Of course she’d be fine with Tim being there. Life moved on. And she would have a chat with Nikos Karellis if she got the chance, and, yes, she remembered his friend Martin Lopez. She promised she’d make a point of saying hello to him. She could give him a cast-iron guarantee on that front.

She felt the smile slip from her face and tension creep across her brow, and checked herself, taking a tiny sip of champagne and putting the glass down as if she were having the most marvellous evening, chatting and gossiping with the people at her table.

‘I hear Nikos Karellis has arrived.’

‘Made quite a splash already. In the bridal suite but with no bride, of course.’

‘Ha-ha. I wonder who’ll be the second Mrs Karellis.’

‘I only just found out he was married to Maria Lopez. She was old enough to be his mother!’

‘I don’t think he’s looking for a mother now!’

‘I’d never heard of her before...’

‘Where have you been? I thought everyone knew that story!’

Jacquelyn knew. She’d known the story for years, since the morning at breakfast her father had put the newspaper down with a, ‘Good grief, you’ll never guess who’s died,’ and then proceeded to tell them the story of his friend Martin Lopez and his beautiful sister, who’d married a man fifteen years younger. Photographs of him carrying her coffin, grief painted onto such a handsome face, had filled the nation’s need for gossip for a day or so.

‘Poor man,’ her mother sighed, lifting the paper from her father’s hands.

‘Poor man, nothing. Rich man. He’s worth a fortune now,’ said her father.

‘He’s just lost his wife,’ her mother chided. ‘Money can’t take away that pain, no matter what you say. He must have really loved her. Just look at him.’

Jacquelyn sipped her tea. She knew what love was. Every fibre of her being pulsed with it for Tim, her childhood sweetheart. Love was going to school with him, listening to music. He was her best friend, boyfriend and soon-to-be husband.

Love was them agreeing to save themselves for their wedding night, no matter how tempting, because there was nothing more important than that. Their secret pact, their complicit agreement. Their bond of trust.

There was no other option. Because that was what good girls did. Although it was never shown in public, Nonna Ariana was sniffy about the girls who wore white when they should be wearing ivory.

‘If this is the most important day of their life, then they should act like it. It isn’t just a fancy dress, it’s real. They should know better, bringing shame on their families!’

So Jacquelyn was steadfast. She was determined. And Tim was too, because it was all going to be worth it. It was all leading to a rosy future. It was the rest of their lives. What did a few more months matter?

So no, Nikos Karellis had meant nothing to her then.

And unlike every other woman here, he meant nothing to her now. She wouldn’t waste a moment talking to someone whose interest in women was superficial.

It was Martin Lopez she needed to find, and fast. She couldn’t bear it if this whole night passed without a chance to give him her pitch.

‘It’s him. Here he is.’

She started, like a deer at the burst of a gun, but it was just the hotshot Australian that had entered.

‘Wow, isn’t he amazing?’

Despite herself, her head swivelled to the front of the stage to see.

Well, physically—there was no doubt about that. Was it the height of him, the breadth of his shoulders, or the gleaming white shirt and midnight-blue tux? Was it the short-cropped dark hair and dark stubble, the trademark tattoo that snaked from below his left ear and disappeared under the shirt collar?

Whatever, he was devilishly dark and handsome, and like every other woman in the room she found herself unable to stop staring. One by one, people crossed over to say hello, gushing and scraping before him—people that Jacquelyn knew to be supremely confident in business, acting star-struck and silly.

‘Are you coming over to meet him?’ said the woman next to her.

‘No, thank you. I don’t want to be caught in the crush of groupies,’ she said, a little unkindly.

‘Suit yourself,’ said her companion, and stood up.

Jacquelyn turned to watch her shimmy her way across the floor, still trying desperately to catch a glimpse of Martin, but the crowd around Nikos Karellis was thick now and totally obscured the table.

And then she saw him seated beside Nikos. He was older than she remembered. Streaks of silver in his dark hair, but still a handsome man, and, she hoped, still a gentleman.

Her stomach turned a somersault and her hands dampened. She tried to wipe them on the tablecloth discreetly as she stood up.

Please, please, please remember me, she thought, and began to make her way across the floor towards him.

* * *

Nikos’s patience had almost completely run dry. His smile was still fixed in place but he’d chatted and shaken hands with people all evening, in the bar and now here at the table. He hated the side effects of fame. The people who wanted to say hello were nice enough but they had no idea who he was—or where he’d come from. They were only seeing some airbrushed version of reality, as fake as the whole wedding industry itself.

He glanced down at Martin with a raised brow.

‘How much more of this?’ he said, leaning over.

Martin shrugged and smiled.

‘The awards start in five minutes. After that we’ll disappear off to my suite and talk properly.’

Nikos nodded and straightened up, trying to remember the name of the woman to his right who’d just introduced herself, but when he turned around, it wasn’t a plump old lady who was right in front of him, it was a beautiful young woman.

She was tall, toned and blonde, and with a practised sweep he took her all in—from the stunning cerulean-blue floor-length gown that held her feminine curves to perfection, and all the way up past the graceful curve of her shoulders, to the top of her elegant topknot.

She wasn’t overtly sexual, but something about the shape of her hips and the neat swell of her breasts made his body react violently. And he noted with some pleasure that he hadn’t felt such a reaction for a long time.

Suddenly the night was looking up, and even as he reached out his hand to shake hers, he made a mental calculation of how long he would be occupied with Martin before he could properly get to know her.

But she didn’t take his hand.

She didn’t even look in his direction. Instead she sailed right past him and stopped, as Martin looked up and got to his feet.

‘Jacquelyn. It is you! I saw you coming across the floor and I wondered if it was. I thought I might see you tonight.’

Jacquelyn? Nikos quickly noted her name and watched, wondering how this exchange was going to play out. By the warmth in the way Martin was leaning towards her, lingering as he kissed each proffered cheek, he was clearly fond of her. But he had to be at least twice her age...

And the way she was holding herself was interesting: she was transmitting anxiety, with her spine so rigid, shoulders tense; and that smile, beaming a bit too bright.

‘And this is my brother-in-law, Nikos Karellis. Nikos, Jacquelyn Jones—owner of Ariana Bridal. Her father Joseph and I were at school together.’

So, Martin really was old enough to be her father. That was helpful.

She turned her flawless face and keen blue eyes to Nikos. The smile she’d given Martin slipped slightly, he noted, and her spine tightened a notch more too. She blinked and with a long stretch of her arm she permitted her hand to be shaken.

Which he did and he read in that tense-fingered, quickly retracted handshake that he’d just been judged and dismissed. She didn’t like him.

Well, it did happen. Not often, but he wasn’t every woman’s cup of tea. Particularly the ones who thought they were a bit above him. Even with all his money, he never forgot where he’d come from. And nor, it seemed, did they.

He knew the type. They saw his tattoos, his warpaint as his mother called it. The sensual ones saw brutality and found it fascinating. The repressed ones didn’t get him. They saw brutality and found it disgusting.

The truth, of course, was that he had left brutal back in Sydney at the side of the road. Bikers were brutal; his dad was brutal. His entire childhood had been brutalised beyond what any of these lovely people could understand. They had no idea that his mother suffered brain injury as a result of a beating from his father. Or that he had run drugs for him as an after-school chore.

The fact was that he’d made it his life’s work to be free of every trace of violence and aggression. He’d severed ties with everyone except his mother, and poured millions into projects for delinquent kids.

So to be judged as ‘less than’ pressed his buttons, just a little.

He stood tall, squared his shoulders, one hand on his hip, in a gesture that called out her condescension.

‘Former brother-in-law. My wife passed away five years ago.’

She dropped her gaze completely, and when she swept her perfectly oval lids open again there was a tiny flash of recognition.

‘I’m sorry for your loss. I never met her but my father spoke about Maria. And you.’

Did he now? thought Nikos, his mind conjuring up an image of her baby blues widening over some story or other. Maria’s high jinks were always being reported on some media space. And the look on her face told him that she was remembering something of that sort right now.

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I appreciate your kind words. And I’m very pleased to meet you. Are you up for an award tonight?’

The dart of her eyes down to her feet and the blush of pink that bloomed over her face told him all he needed to know on that front. He was beginning to remember the earlier conversation. Was this the woman who was bad in business?

‘No, I’m afraid not.’

‘Someone else’s turn, this year. But Ariana has won awards in the past, Jacquelyn, haven’t you?’ cut in Martin, gallantly.

‘Oh, yes, one or two. We’ve won Wedding Dress of the Year and been runners-up a few times.’

‘That’s quite an achievement,’ said Nikos. So the business was once at the top of its game. ‘And is this one of your own designs?’

Despite her slightly dismissive glance he stood back to view.

He had a practised eye. He was a retail giant, for heaven’s sake. House was the ‘stylish woman’s department store of choice’, built on his keen eye, and in one of the most rapid, successful expansions in retail in recent years, he’d taken on concessions in all other departments. So he had every professional right to cast his critical eye over the very seductive shape of Ms Ariana Bridal, even as she tried to shield herself with her long slim arms, twisting to the side, speaking the least subtle body language he’d ever witnessed.

Then she started staring over his shoulder, as if looking for someone better to talk to, even more clearly communicating, I’m not interested.

Didn’t she know that being not interested made her uniquely the most interesting person here?

‘Sorry, did you say you designed this yourself?’ he repeated quietly.

She turned, with a slightly irritated look on her face, which he found curiously seductive.

‘Not me, but this is our original design.’

‘Isn’t this the Jones cut?’ said Martin, whom Nikos was beginning to find more than mildly irritating himself.

‘Nonna Ariana’s, yes. Martin, I wonder if we might have a word,’ she said, lowering her voice as she turned to him now and took a step away from the table. Martin mirrored her and moved away too. She was clearly trying to cut Nikos out of the conversation. ‘Later on this evening? Would that be all right?’

Music started to play, people were taking their seats, Martin hesitated and Nikos raised his eyebrow, reminding him that he had a prior engagement.

‘Tonight? Oh, I’m not sure. It’s not ideal.’

‘Please, Martin. There’s something I want to discuss.’

The floor was emptying, people were taking their seats. They were beginning to look very conspicuous as the only three people still standing.

Jacquelyn knotted her fingers together as if she was praying. She looked truly anguished.

Martin looked at Nikos with a what can I do?

Nikos felt a tiny twinge of regret on her behalf but he had bigger things to worry about than a buttoned-up Englishwoman, no matter how attractive.

‘Ah, this could be tricky. I’ve got Nikos here as my guest.’

She turned to look at Nikos as if he was even more of a pariah than she’d first thought, as if he were personally responsible for the fact that her business was dying on its feet.

‘We’d better take our seats now. See you later, sweetheart,’ he said, with a wink.

* * *

Jacquelyn walked back to her table as if she were entirely made of wood and tried to take her seat with grace that seemed to have completely deserted her.

Had she blown it already? She reached for her glass, something to hold as she quickly replayed the meeting in her head. Martin seemed to have been friendly enough but he’d been totally eclipsed by Nikos Karellis. And no wonder. The man was completely unnerving. She’d never met anyone so—intense. So physical. He’d made her self-conscious, tongue-tied and totally put her off her stride.

She slipped a glance to the side to look at him as the band struck up and was met with him staring right back at her. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up in an instant and she looked away.

All through the starter she could feel him staring and she absolutely would not look at him. Maybe he thought that she had gone over there to meet him? He probably thought that every woman was in love with him. He was so off the mark. She’d never let herself fall for a man like him. Anyway, she had one single mission here tonight, and it had nothing to do with love.

She turned again to tell him that with her eyes but he was talking intensely with the woman on his left. She watched as he listened to her, tilting his head towards her and smiling as the woman started flirting, throwing her head back when she laughed, playing with her hair, touching her chest and batting her eyelashes, all while Martin looked miserably at his salad.

She felt more and more desperate and in a haze of self-pity she began to cast around the room, looking for Tim. At the back of the hall she found him, his once boyish good looks now paunchy, his blonde hair thin.

He could have been her husband. They could have been sitting together at that table, waiting to collect awards, gossiping about how everyone was fawning over Nikos Karellis. At one point any other future would have been completely unimaginable.

Jacquelyn Jones not married to Tim Brinley? Don’t be ridiculous—it’s written in the stars...

But strangely enough she didn’t feel wistful. And she didn’t blame him for the mess of Ariana. She blamed herself. Funny how a crisis could put everything into perspective. And this was a crisis. For all she played it down with everyone, especially her parents, she was in a full-blown state of emergency.

She pushed the food about on her plate, unable to eat, and words seemed to stick in her mouth like cardboard. All she could focus on were the minutes ticking by and the location of Martin Lopez.

She sat through the tables being cleared, the lights being dimmed, and then the award hosts, two TV presenters she recognised from a breakfast show, arrived on stage to start the ceremony.

And then in a never-ending series of announcements and applause she sat through the awards, from Best Florist to Best Accessories, Best Cake to Best Make-Up, Best Venues to Best Stylist. When the Best Photographer names were called out, she prepared herself.

Suddenly there was the image of the winning photograph. A bride and groom on a horse. It was Tim’s—it had to be. He loved to ride and he loved to use the riding motif in his photographs. It looked so phoney to her now.

The compère boomed out his name.

As the crowd burst with applause, she lifted her hands from her lap and tapped them together briefly. Most people wouldn’t know what he’d done to her, but some of them would, and she couldn’t let herself down by acting so childishly.

She forced herself to watch him accept his award, and she realised then that there was nothing there now other than the memory of a man she’d once loved, an outline of something once vivid. A bare-branched tree in winter, once so full of leaves.

She had so much more to worry about now.

The final award was Best Wedding Dress, and to announce it Nikos Karellis bounded athletically to the stage.

‘He was her tennis coach,’ she heard the woman beside her whisper.

‘Ooh, he could coach me in anything he wanted,’ said someone else, and giggled.

Jacquelyn tried not to roll her eyes, but she couldn’t help looking closer, measuring his stature with her own innate sense of proportion. He was quite physically perfect. Exceptionally physically perfect. In the pit of her stomach something awoke, a swirl of longing, a primal feeling that tugged and shocked her, and she squirmed and moved in her seat. She looked around to see if anyone had noticed, but everyone’s face was turned to the stage, eyes wide with interest.

The finalists were announced. The winning dress displayed on the screen and then the flushed and jubilant face of the designer, a pretty brunette. Nikos delivered the glass trophy, kissed her warmly on each cheek and gave her an affectionate squeeze.

Nice, thought Jacquelyn.

She had barely had a peck on the cheek in the three years since Tim. She was never the most physical person, but she liked affection, as much as everyone else. She liked being held close; she liked her hair being stroked and all the intimacy that came with being with someone you cared for.

Another wave of self-pity washed over her.

Was she destined to be single her whole life? Would she ever meet someone else?

She looked around the room. She might not be the youngest person here, but she was almost certainly the only one who was still a virgin.

She wondered if anyone knew. Sometimes she felt as if she were wearing a sign. And sometimes, there were moments she wished she could just go out and find someone and have sex and be done with it.

Those months after Tim left she’d tortured herself thinking she’d been wrong, stupid, blindly falling in with Nonna’s views, not thinking for herself. She’d almost considered tracking him down to tell him she’d changed her mind. But he’d gone. And that was that. And now she was glad. She really was.

The ceremony was over. The audience was applauding. The final comments were being made. Some people had already started to move. The lights came up. She spun back round to see if Martin was still there, but he’d gone.

She threw down her napkin and pushed back her chair. It caught on the carpet. She struggled to right it as she looked up. Where on earth had he gone? Everyone was heading off to the bar, but where was Martin?