by Annie O'Neil
Just the sound of Jamie’s warm caramel voice—the rich, deep-chested tone he’d used to use when he was trying to coax a smile to her face when she’d had a rough day at the hospital—told her he was doing his best to mend fences.
How could she let him know he didn’t owe her a thing?
Bea silently smiled her appreciation, watching as he dug a hand into his pocket, rattling around for some change only to come up empty-handed.
He turned to her, and just as she realized she must be the one in possession of his loose change he tugged her around via the lapels of his jacket so that she was square onto him. Achingly slowly, he purposefully slid his hands down the lapels, just skidding along the tops of her hypersensitive breasts, pausing when her breath caught, then continuing until each of his hands found purchase on the edge of a pocket. His fingers dipped into the squares of linen, moving assuredly inside them, grazing her hips as he felt for coins.
Everything inside her was alight with anticipation.
When their eyes met, she knew he had felt it, too. The same thing she had felt when their hands had shifted and glanced across each other’s time and again on that long-ago Bonfire Night. The tension between them had built until it had been virtually unbearable, until at long last Jamie had finally taken charge of the situation and grasped her hand firmly in his.
And from the moment they had touched...
Fireworks.
* * *
“I’ve got a better idea about where to find supper.”
Jamie could hardly believe what he was saying. It was the smooth line of an assured lover. A man confident that if he made a move, he’d win the girl.
Was that why he was doing this? Trying to win back his girl?
A harebrained idea, given how it had ended last time. With him throwing himself into work as if it were the only thing keeping him alive. Neglecting his family. His home. Not that he’d ever been one to be house-proud. But what Beatrice didn’t know was that the house of their dreams was sitting as empty as the day he’d bought it. If she’d waited just one more day to tell him her news...
There were so many ifs.
Beatrice was looking up at him, thick lashes framing those perfect chocolate-pot-colored eyes of hers, posy held up to her nose, cheeks still flushed with the remains of a blush. Her lips were nestled among the flower petals and every bit as soft. Perfection.
A shot of heat seized his chest as the memory of that stolen kiss worked its way back into his blood flow. Beatrice had made him feel more alive than anyone else in the world and when she’d gone—
Was it foolish or wise to hold on to his pride? Resist what came so naturally?
“What’s this idea, then?” she asked, twisting back and forth like a schoolgirl behind her fistful of flowers. “Or are you going to keep it a secret?”
Excitement—or maybe it was just the fairy lights—twinkled in her eyes. She’d always loved an adventure. He had no idea what she got up to in her spare time here. Just went home, he imagined. He’d definitely not seen her in the square since the night he’d pulled her into his arms and reminded himself of everything he should have long forgotten.
She’d played with his heart.
And he’d lived to see another day.
What was that saying he’d learnt from one of the friars on the island?
He heard the monk’s voice as clearly as he could now hear the diva launching into a beautiful aria by Puccini.
Che per vendetta mai non sanò piaga.
Revenge never healed a wound.
A renewed sense of purpose gripped his heart, then released it, repurposing the sensation into the first shot of pure happiness he’d felt in years. He would have to say goodbye to Beatrice at the end of the summer. That much was sure. But this time he would do it with his pride intact. His heart at rest.
“As we’ve lost Teo for the evening, we’re going to be heading up on the chairlifts.” Jamie gave her an appraising look as she gamely weighed up his proposal. “But first I think we’d better stop at one of these stalls. Get you a shawl. It might be a bit chillier where we’re headed.”
Beatrice’s eyebrows rose. “Should I be worried? You’re not going to lock me up in a cave or anything, are you?”
“That all depends,” he countered, channeling the man he knew was buried somewhere deep in her heart.
“On...” Beatrice’s smile was growing bigger. They’d done this dozens, if not scores of times before. Explored. Found new places to show each other. Watched the delight unfold.
“On how much you like cheese!”
Something flickered in her eyes. Indecision? A hint of reserve? That wasn’t like her. To hold back.
Just as quickly it was gone.
“As long as there’s plenty of hard cheese. It’s my favorite these days.”
“Not ‘the gooier the better’?”
She shook her head and ran a fingertip along one of the flower buds in her posy before dropping it to her side. “No. I’m all about good old hard Italian cheeses these days. I’ll leave the gooey ones to the French.”
“All right, then.” He offered her his arm again. “I see slivers of pecorino and shavings of parmigiana in your future.”
He pressed his hand on top of Beatrice’s when she tucked it back into the inner crook of his elbow—with greater comfort than earlier in the evening, he noticed.
A shard of warning sounded in his mind.
This is only temporary. This is putting the past to rest. If you can do this without kissing her, you can do anything.
* * *
By the time they got to the stall selling locally woven cashmere scarves, Bea was beginning to feel as if she’d stepped back in time.
Jamie was the very embodiment of... Well...himself. She knew it seemed ridiculous, but the man she’d fallen in love with was right here beside her, as if nothing had happened, no hearts had been broken... As if their lives had carried on as one.
And it felt so right. Real, even.
Would it be tempting fate if she just allowed herself one night of pure happiness?
“Here—what do you think of this one?” Jamie tugged a beautiful evergreen wrap from the midst of one of the piles. In one fluid move he unfurled the downy, soft cashmere and swirled it around her shoulders.
She brushed her cheek against the fabric, reveling in how silky it felt against her skin. There were fine threads of cream and mixed pastel colors woven throughout the scarf, giving it a greater depth...almost as if it were a wildflower meadow in the midst of an evergreen glade, seen from afar.
Jamie lifted a corner of the scarf and tested it along his own cheek. “Does it do the trick?”
A whirl of heat swirled around her as a vivid memory of Jamie lifting her fingers first to his cheek and then to his lips for a light kiss. Something he’d be doing right now if she hadn’t bowed to her mother’s wishes...
The tiny slice of space between them filled with warmth—the exchange of body heat melding them from two bodies into one—But there was another body. A tiny little baby she would love with all her heart.
A wash of longing poured through her so powerfully she almost lost her balance. If that baby was Jamie’s...
She began to dig inanely through her handbag for her wallet. “It’s perfect.”
“Trade you for my coat?” Jamie was already handing a couple of notes to the vendor.
“You don’t have to do that.”
Why was he doing this? Each act of selflessness on his part only served to compound the ache of longing she felt for him. How was she ever going to channel the willpower to leave?
“Of course I do,” he countered taking his change and helping Bea slip his jacket from her shoulders and rearrange the wrap.
The wrap was beautiful but, ridiculous as it see
med, just those handful of minutes wearing his jacket had felt heaven-sent.
“Jamie, honestly. You don’t owe me a thing.”
If anything, she owed him... Well, she owed him the truth for one thing, but since his knowing she still loved him would probably only make things worse, keeping her lips sealed was her self-assigned atonement.
“A beautiful woman deserves beautiful things. I never bought you beautiful things before.”
“I never wanted things,” she chided softly. “You know that.”
He nodded. “Even so...”
His eyes flicked away, as if something else had caught his attention, but it was more likely for the same reason she found herself unable to hold eye contact with him for more than a few seconds at a time.
Too painful. Too perfect.
Two years ago the most natural thing for her to do would have been to go up on tiptoe. Give him a kiss. Swipe at his nose with her finger and tip his forehead to hers. The time they’d spent just breathing each other in...otherworldly.
She tugged at the edges of her sundress, fighting the instinctive urge to give her belly one of the protective strokes she so often found herself doing these days. A harsh reminder that she was still keeping secrets from Jamie.
Holding back this precious information was almost physically painful. Because Jamie had once been her port of call for all her thoughts. No editing. No filter. The only person in the world she’d been able to be herself with. None of the frippery and trappings that went with being a princess.
Her brother had cornered the royal market for their family. Why hadn’t her mother been content just to let her go?
“Look at these tomatoes!”
She smiled, grateful for the change of tack as Jamie steered her toward a table groaning under a mountain of tomatoes bigger than both her fists joined together.
Beautiful deep reds, oranges and yellows. There were even some green tiger-striped fruits, all piled up in a magnificent display of the summer’s early harvest.
“The North of Italy is far more generous than the North of England. My mother wouldn’t believe her eyes!”
“My mother wouldn’t know what a whole tomato looked like!” Bea shot back.
Both of them laughed, then said as one, “La donna è mobile!”
Woman—in this case her mother—was a fickle thing to be sure.
Jamie had heard more than enough stories of Beatrice’s mother only deigning to recognize food if it was on a plate at a Michelin-starred restaurant. Deconstructed this... Reimagined that... If it wasn’t à la mode, it wasn’t in her mother’s sphere of what existed in the world.
But she’d never been fickle about her choice for Bea’s intended. Her daughter would marry a prince. Such lofty heights for her white-coated daughter, more content in one-use-only surgical scrubs than a ball gown.
“And those peaches. They’re the size of a house! They’d fill up the fruit bowl nicely.”
Jamie pointed toward another vendor handing out slices of golden fruit dripping with summer sweetness. In true Italian style he was peeling them, then giving slice after juicy slice to wide-eyed passers-by.
Though she was tempted, the Italian in her had to insist upon being a purist.
“As you may recall, any true Italian would know these are from the South. Sicilian peaches are... Mmm...” A soft breeze carried a waft of perfumed air her way and suddenly she was ravenous. A pregnancy craving? Or just good old-fashioned hunger? She forced herself to regroup. “Their presence here is near enough sacrilege!”
“Like mayonnaise on chips?” Jamie parried, happily accepting a slice of freshly peeled peach from the farmer and making a big show of enjoying the sweet fruit, rubbing his belly to great effect as he swallowed it down.
“Che schifo!” Bea shuddered away the thought of gooey mayonnaise. “Anyone who knows how to eat a chip properly knows it’s salt and vinegar if eaten with fish—but only by the seaside—or tomato ketchup if eaten with a hamburger.”
Jamie smiled as she recited by rote the “training session” he’d given her. Bea had never eaten a chip in her life. She’d been astonished to hear they’d been a menu staple in his house when he was growing up.
“A man needs to keep up his strength when he goes down the mines...”
Jamie’s father had been deadly serious when he’d told her that. Right before sending his wife a saucy wink as he picked up a jug and near enough drowned his potatoes in the thick pool of shiny gravy Jamie’s mother had magicked up from the small joint of beef she’d prepared.
That had been a heavenly afternoon.
One of only two times she’d met his parents.
Once it had been just in passing...it might have been that Bonfire Night. Near enough every house had emptied into the town square that night. And, of course, when they’d gone over for traditional Sunday lunch.
Not one ounce of shame had crossed Jamie’s features when he brought her to the humble two-up two-down brick house in the middle of a seemingly endless swathe of similar homes. Ironic, considering she’d been too mortified even to consider taking him to her parents’ palazzo.
One of the most lavish in the whole of Venice, It was her mother’s work, of course. Her father would have been content with simpler furnishings. Less gilding. More wood. Less ostentation. More comfort. He often said a happy wife meant a happy life. It had been the spirit with which she thought she’d approach her arranged marriage. A happy husband meant...
Hmm... Maybe that was the problem.
Nothing really rhymed with husband.
James, on the other hand...
Blame. Shame. Tame. Flame.
She bit down on the inside of her cheek. Maybe that wasn’t such a good comparison.
“C’mon—over here, you. No wandering off just yet. You’re not getting away that easily.” Jamie turned to her, a broad smile on his lips, a second slice of peach pinched gently between his thumb and index finger. “Why not try living dangerously?”
When their gazes connected it was as if he’d flicked a switch, blurring everything around them. All Bea was aware of was the light shining in Jamie’s forest green eyes. The tempting slice of peach he was holding between them. His lips just beyond. Lips she knew would taste of peach juice and pure male strength...
He was a rock. He’d been her rock. And from the moment she’d left him she had felt more adrift in the world than at any other time in her life.
He slipped the slice of fruit between her parted lips, and for just one incredibly sensual moment her tongue and lips connected with his fingertip. The old Bea would have drawn it into her mouth, given it a swirl with her tongue, grasped the rest of his hand in hers so that she could taste the drops of peach juice on each of his fingertips. She would have met his gaze without a blink of shame, her body growing warm with desire as each second passed.
But she had no claim on him now. No right even to think the decadently sexual thoughts, let alone act on them.
As if reading her mind—or perhaps reminding her of where she stood—Jamie turned away, accepted an antiseptic wipe from the peach vendor, swiped his hands clean of the moment and threw it in the bin.
He turned back to her and smiled, as if they’d just been discussing the weather. “And how did little Beatrice become so au fait with the fruits and vegetables of the world?”
“My...my father, of course.” She stumbled awkwardly over the words, and most likely failed miserably to cover the ache of longing she felt for him by adding a jaunty elbow in the ribs. “You know that.”
“Yes, I do.” Jamie nodded, his lower lip jutting out for a moment, her comment having clearly hit an invisible target. “And there are a lot of things I don’t know.”
In equal parts Bea felt consumed by a wash of guilt and the powerful urge to tell him everyth
ing.
About the pregnancy.
About the separate bedrooms she’d insisted upon prior to agreeing to move into her ex-fiancé’s palazzo because something in her just hadn’t been ready to give herself to him physically.
The relief when her best friend had blown the whistle at the wedding.
The first full breath of air she had drawn after the wedding dress had dropped from her shoulders, then her hips, and plummeted to the floor in a huge flounce of silk and tulle. Part of her had wanted to shred it to pieces. The other half had just wanted to leave. Which was precisely what she’d done.
Only that time it hadn’t hurt at all. Not even close to the searing pain she’d felt when she’d left Jamie.
With Marco, she had felt backed into a corner. Trapped by ancestral duty. Or perhaps, more accurately, by the little girl hoping, for once, to win her mother’s approval. The more she thought about it, the more astonishing it was that Jamie had been able to rise above it now. Not just treating her civilly, but pretty much acting as if nothing had happened.
No. She gave her head a shake, knowing she hadn’t pinned it down right. Jamie was better than ordinary old “civil.” He was treating her with respect. Grace. Chivalry.
“All right, there?” Jamie bent down as he spoke.
Another reminder of his thoughtfulness. Her ex-fiancé wouldn’t have noticed if she’d fallen silent, talked too much or even started dancing like a chimpanzee.
She nodded, doing her best to focus on Jamie’s hand as he pointed out the small passageway across the square. If she turned to him now he’d see tears in her eyes.
“You feeling up to plunging through the crowds?”
“Si. Absolutely.” Her voice sounded bright. Too bright. But it would have to do.
Being with Jamie... It was like being whole again.
But he was the one thing she would have to learn to live without.
* * *
A few minutes of weaving through the crowd later, they turned onto a small road with lighter foot traffic than the square.
“You sure you’re still up for this? It may take an hour or two.” Jamie turned and gave Beatrice a smile.