Bella Rosa Marriages: The Bridesmaid's Secret. Fiona Harper

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СКАЧАТЬ 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.

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