by Fiona Harper
Where had that thought come from? He’d seen it in his mind’s eye as if it had happened only that morning.
He blinked and returned his attention to his food, an amazing lobster ravioli that the chef here did particularly well. But now he’d thought about Jackie in that way, he couldn’t quite seem to switch the memory off.
The main course was finished and Lizzie’s fiancé appeared and whisked her away. Isabella disappeared off to the restaurant next door and when Lisa was approached by her restaurant manager and scuttled off with him, talking in low, hushed tones, that left him sitting at the table with just Jackie and Scarlett. He made a light-hearted comment, looking towards his right at Jackie, and saw her stiffen.
This was stupid. Although he didn’t do serious conversations and relationship-type stuff, there was obviously bad air between them that needed to be cleared. He was just going to have to do his best to show Jackie that there were no hard feelings, that he could behave like a grown-up in the here and now, whatever had happened in the past. Hopefully she would follow his lead.
He turned to face her, waited, all the time looking intently at her until she could bear it no longer and met his gaze.
He smiled at her. ‘It has been a long time, Jackie.’
Jackie’s mouth didn’t move; her eyes gave her reply: Not long enough.
He ignored the leaden vibes heading his way and persevered. ‘I thought the March issue of Gloss! was particularly good. The shoot at the botanical gardens was unlike anything I’d ever seen before.’
Jackie folded her arms. ‘It’s been seventeen years since we’ve had a conversation and you want to talk to me about work?’
He shrugged and pulled the corners of his mouth down. It had seemed like a safe starting point.
‘You don’t think that maybe there are other, more important issues to enquire after?’
Nothing floated into his head. He rested his arm across the back of Lisa’s empty chair and turned his body to face Jackie, ready to engage a little more fully in whatever was going on between them. ‘Communication is communication, Jackie. We have to start somewhere.’
‘Do we?’
‘It seemed like a good idea to me,’ he said, refusing to be cowed by the look she was giving him, a look that probably made her employees perspire so much they were in danger of dehydration.
Now she turned to face him too, forgetting her earlier stiff posture, her eyes smouldering. A familiar prickle of awareness crept up the back of his neck.
‘Don’t you dare take the high ground, Romano! You have no right. No right at all.’
He opened his mouth and shut it again. This conversation had too much high drama in it for him and, unfortunately, he and Jackie seemed to be, not only on different pages, but reading from totally different scripts. He looked across the table at Scarlett, to see if she was making sense of any of this, but her expression was just as puzzling as her sister’s. She looked pale and shaky, as if she was about to be sick, and then she suddenly shot to her feet and dashed out of the restaurant door. Romano just stared after her.
‘What was that all about?’ he said.
Jackie, who was obviously too surprised to remember she was steaming angry with him, just frowned after her disappearing sister. ‘I have no idea.’
He took the opportunity to climb through the chink in her defences. He reached over and placed his hand over hers on the table top. ‘Can’t we let the past be the past?’
Jackie removed her hand from under his so fast he thought he might have a friction burn.
‘It’s too late. We can’t go back, not after all that has happened.’ Instead of looking fierce and untouchable, she looked very, very sad as she said this, and he saw just a glimpse of the young, stubborn, vulnerable girl he’d once lost his heart to.
‘Why not?’
Suddenly he really wanted to know. And it wasn’t just about putting the past to rest.
She looked down at his hand on the tablecloth, still waiting in the same spot from where she’d snatched hers away. For a long time she didn’t move, didn’t speak.
‘You know why, Romano,’ she whispered. ‘Please don’t push this, just…don’t.’
‘I don’t want to push this. I just want us to be able to be around each other without spitting and hissing or creating an atmosphere. That’s not what you want for Lizzie’s wedding, is it?’
She frowned and stared at him. ‘What on earth has this got to do with Lizzie’s wedding?’
Didn’t she know? Hadn’t Lizzie or Lisa told her yet?
‘The reception… Lizzie wanted to have it at the palazzo. She thought the lake would be so—’
‘No. That can’t be.’ She spoke quietly, with no hint of anger in her voice, and then she just stood up and walked away, her chin high and her eyes dull, leaving him alone at the table, drawing the glances of some of the other diners.
This was not how most of his evenings out ended—alone, with all the pretty women having left without him. Most definitely not.
Back at the villa, Jackie ignored the warm glow of lights spilling from the drawing-room windows and took the path round the side of the house that led into the terraced garden. She kept walking, past the fountains and clipped lawns, past the immaculately groomed shrubs, to the lowest part of the garden, an area slightly wilder and shadier than the rest.
Right near the boundary, overlooking Monta Correnti and the valley below, was an old, spreading fir tree. Many parts of its lower branches had been worn smooth by the seats and shoes of a couple of generations of climbers.
Without thinking about the consequences for her white linen trousers, Jackie put one foot on the stump of a branch at the base of the trunk and hoisted herself up onto one of the boughs. Her mind was elsewhere but her body remembered a series of movements—a hand here, a foot there—and within seconds she was sitting down, her toes dangling three feet above the ground as she stared out across the darkening valley.
The sun had set long ago, leaving the sky a shade of such a deep, rich blue that she could almost believe it possible to reach out and sink her hand into the thick colour. The sight brought back a rush of homesickness, which was odd, because surely people were only supposed to get homesick when they were away, not when they came back. It didn’t make any sense. But not much about this evening had made sense.
She’d expected Romano to be a grown-up version of the boy she’d known: confident, intelligent, incorrigible. But she hadn’t expected such blatant insensitivity.
She closed her eyes and tried to concentrate on the sensation of the cool night breeze on her neck and cheeks.
Thank goodness she hadn’t given into Kate’s pleading and let her daughter come on this trip. If Romano could be so blithe about their failed relationship all those years ago, she’d hate to think how he might have reacted to their daughter.
If only things had been different…
No. It was no good thinking that way. Time had proved her right. Romano Puccini was not cut out to be a husband and father. The string of girlfriends he’d paraded through the tabloids and celebrity magazines had only confirmed her worst fears. Maybe, if he’d settled down, there would have been some hope of him regretting his decision to disown his firstborn. Maybe a second child might have melted his heart, caused him to realise what he’d been missing.
A huge sigh shuddered through her. Jackie kicked off her shoes and looked at her toes.
And Romano had made her miss all of those moments too. Without his support she’d had no choice but to go along with her mother’s wishes. How stupid she’d been to believe all those whispered promises, all those hushed plans to make their parents see sense, the plotting to elope one day. He’d said he’d wait for ever for her. The truth was, he hadn’t even waited a month before moving on to Francesca Gambardi. One silly spat was all it’d taken to drive him away.
For ever? What a joke.
But she’d been so in love with him it had taken right up until the day she’d
handed her newborn daughter over to stop hoping that it was all a bad dream, that Romano would change his mind and come bursting through the door to tell her he was so sorry, that it was her that he wanted and they were going to be a proper family, no matter what his father and her mother said.
Well, she’d purged all those silly ideas from herself about the same time she’d tightened up her saggy pregnancy belly. It had taken just as much iron will and focus to kill them all off.
‘Jackie?’
It was Scarlett’s voice, coming from maybe twenty feet away. Jackie smiled. She’d never quite got used to the Aussie twang that both her sisters had developed since moving away. It seemed more prominent here in the dark.
‘Up here.’
‘What on earth are you doing up there?’
Scarlett walked closer and peered up at her, or at least in her general direction. She’d only just left the bright lights of the house behind and her eyes wouldn’t be accustomed to the dark yet.
‘Come up and join me. The view’s lovely,’ she said.
‘I know what the view looks like.’ Scarlett stared up at the tree. ‘You’re being silly.’
That was altogether possible, Jackie conceded silently, but she wasn’t going to admit that to anyone. Scarlett folded her arms and stared off into the distance.
‘What? You’re not going to tell me I had too much wine at dinner?’ Jackie said.
Scarlett just shook her head, the movement so small Jackie guessed it was more an unconscious gesture than an attempt at communication. She had that same can’t-quite-look-at-you expression on her face that she always wore in Jackie’s presence. It made Jackie want to be twice as prickly back. But it became obvious as she continued to observe her sister that Scarlett hadn’t taken into account that Jackie had been out here long enough to get her night vision and could see her sister’s features quite clearly. After a few seconds the hardness slid out of her expression, leaving something much younger, much truer behind.
‘No. I’m not going to tell you that.’ Her voice was husky but cold.
Jackie stopped swinging her legs. She knew that look. It was the one Scarlett had always worn when she’d heard Mamma’s footsteps coming up the stairs after she’d done something naughty. Was Scarlett…was she hiding something?
Just as she tried to examine Scarlett’s face a little more closely, her sister turned away.
‘Mamma wants us all in the drawing room for a nightcap. She says she’s got some family news, something about Cristiano not being able to come to the wedding.’
Jackie swung herself down off the branch in one fluid motion and landed beside her sister. She supposed they’d better go and make peace with their mother. Mamma hadn’t been best pleased when she’d returned from her powwow with the restaurant manager to find that all her illustrious dinner guests had deserted her.
CHAPTER THREE
DESPITE the lateness of the hour, Romano stripped off by the edge of the palazzo’s perfect turquoise pool and dived in. Loose threads hung messily from the evening he’d left behind and in comparison this felt clean, simple. His arms moved, his muscles bunched and stretched, and he cut through the water. Expected actions brought expected results.
But even in fifty laps he couldn’t shake the sense of uneasiness that chased him up and down the pool. He pulled himself out of the water, picked up his clothes and walked across the terrace and through the house, naked.
Once in his bedroom he threw the floor-to-ceiling windows open and let the night breeze stir up the room. But as he lay in the dark he found it difficult to settle, to find any trace of the tranquillity this grand old house usually gave him.
More than once during the night he woke up to find he’d knotted the sheet quite spectacularly and had to sit up and untangle it again before punching his pillow, lying down and staring mutely at the inky sky outside his windows.
When dawn broke he gave up trying to sleep and put on shorts, a T-shirt and running shoes and set out on an uneven path that ran round the perimeter of the whole island. When he’d been a boy, he’d always thought the shape of Isola del Raverno resembled a tadpole. The palazzo was on the wide end, nearest the centre of the lake, and the long thin end reached towards a promontory on the shore, only a few hundred metres away. As he reached the ‘tail’ of the island he slowed to a jog, then came to a halt on the very tip. He stood there for quite some time, facing the wooded shore.
Monta Correnti was thirty kilometres to the west, hidden by rolling hills.
He’d waited here for Jackie once. His father had been back in Rome, either dealing with a business emergency or meeting a woman. Probably both. When he and his father had spent the summers here, Papa’s presence had been sporadic at best. Romano had often been left to his own devices, overseen by an assortment of servants, of course.
He’d hated that when he’d been young, but later he’d realised what a gift it had been. He’d relished the freedom that many teenagers yearned for but never experienced. No wonder he’d got a reputation for being a bit of a tearaway.
Not that he’d ever done anything truly bad. He’d been cheeky and thrill-seeking, not a delinquent. His father had indulged him to make up for the lack of a mother and his frequent absences and, with hindsight, Romano could see how it made him quite an immature seventeen-year-old, despite the cocky confidence that had come with a pair of broad shoulders and family money.
Perhaps it would have been better if Papa had been stricter. It had been too easy for Romano to play the part of a spoiled rich kid, not working hard enough at school, not giving a thought to what he wanted to do with his life, because the cushion of his father’s money and name had always been there, guarding his backside.
He turned away from the shore and looked back towards the palazzo. The tall square tower was visible through the trees, beautiful and ridiculous all at once. He exhaled, long and steady.
Jackie Patterson had never been just a fling, but it made things easier if he remembered her that way.
She’d challenged him. Changed him. Even though their summer romance had been short-lived, it had left an indelible mark on him. Up until then he’d been content to coast through life. Everything had come easily to him—money, popularity, female attention—he’d never had to work hard for any of it.
Meeting Jackie had been such a revelation. Under the un-impressed looks she’d given him as she’d waited tables at her mother’s restaurant, he’d seen fire and guts and more life in her than he’d seen in any of the silly girls who had flapped their lashes at him in the piazza each day. Maybe that was why he’d pursued her so relentlessly.
Although she’d been two years his junior, she’d put him to shame. She’d had such big plans, big dreams. Dreams she’d now made come true.
He turned and started to jog round the remaining section of the path, back towards the house.
After they’d broken up, he’d taken a long hard look at himself, asked himself what he wanted to make out of his life. He’d had all the opportunities a boy could want, all the privileges, and he’d not taken advantage of a single one. From that day on he’d decided to make the most of what he had. He’d finished school, amazing his teachers with his progress in his final year, and had gone to work for his father.
Some people had seen this as taking the easy option. In truth he’d wanted to do anything but work for the family firm. He’d wanted to spread his wings and fly. But his mother had died when he’d been six, before any siblings had come along, and the only close family he and Papa had were each other. So he’d done the mature thing, put the bonds of family before his own wishes, and joined Puccini Designs with a smile on his face. It hadn’t been a decision he’d regretted.
He’d kept running while he’d been thinking and now he looked around, he realised he was back in the sunken garden. He slowed to a walk. Even this place was filled with memories of Jackie—the most exquisite and the most intimate—all suddenly awakening after years of being mere shadows.
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br /> Did she ever think of the brief, wonderful time they’d had together? Had their relationship changed the course of her life too? Suddenly he really wanted to know. And more than that, he wanted to know who Jacqueline Patterson was now, whether the same raw energy and fire still existed beneath the polished, highlighted, glossy exterior.
Hopefully, the upcoming wedding would be the perfect opportunity to find out.
‘What’s up, little sister?’
Jackie put down the book she was reading and stared up at Lizzie from where she was sitting, shaded from the morning sun by a large tree, her back against its bark. ‘Nothing. I’m just relaxing.’
Lizzie made a noise that was half soft laugh, half snort. ‘Jackie, you’re the only person I know who can relax with every muscle in their body tensed,’ she said as she carefully lowered herself down onto the grass.
Jackie took a sideways look at Lizzie’s rounded stomach. Carrying one baby had been hard enough. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have two inside her.
Lizzie was smiling at her. An infuriatingly knowing, big-sister kind of smile.
Okay, maybe trying to do the usual holiday-type thing wasn’t such a great idea. She found relaxation a little…frustrating. She kept wanting to get up and do things. Especially today. Especially if it distracted her from remembering the look in Romano’s eyes last night when he’d reached for her hand across the table.
He’d made her feel fifteen again. Very dangerous. She couldn’t afford to believe the warmth in those laughing grey eyes. She couldn’t be tempted by impossible dreams of love and romance and for ever. It just wasn’t real. And he shouldn’t be able to make her feel as if it were. Not after all that had happened between them.