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

      She couldn’t do that to her daughter. She had to hear him out.

      As always, Romano had sensed the course of her mood change before it had even registered on her face.

      ‘Have lunch with me,’ he said.

      Lunch? That might be pushing it a bit far. She opened her mouth to tell him so, but the kitchen door crashed open, cutting her off.

      ‘We have to, Isabella!’ Scarlett said, marching into the dining area, looking very put out indeed. ‘What if she talks to him again? What if—?’

      ‘I don’t think it is the right time,’ Isabella countered in Italian. ‘After the wedding, maybe.’

      Scarlett, as always, was taking the need for patience as a personal affront. ‘After the wedding might be too late! You know that.’

      Isabella’s hands made her reply as she threw them in the air and glared at her cousin. ‘You’re so impulsive! Let’s just wait and see how things—’

      It was at that moment that she spotted Jackie and Romano, her view half blocked by a pillar, both staring at her.

      ‘—turn out,’ she finished, much more quietly, and gave Scarlett, who was still watching Isabella intently, a dig in the ribs. Scarlett turned, eyes full of confusion, but they suddenly widened.

      ‘Jackie!’ she said warmly, smiling and rushing over to give her a hug. Jackie stayed stiff in her embrace. It felt awkward, wrong. But she had to give Scarlett credit where credit was due—she was putting on a wonderful show.

      ‘Isabella and I were just talking…’

      That much had been evident.

      Scarlett paused, her gaze flicked quickly to the ceiling and back again. ‘We’re planning a surprise hen party for Lizzie and we want to drag you out to lunch to help us organise it!’

      Isabella looked at Scarlett as if she’d gone out of her mind.

      Isabella voiced Jackie’s very thought. ‘I don’t think Lizzie—’

      ‘Nonsense!’ Scarlett said with a sweep of her hands. ‘And there’s no time like the present. You don’t mind, do you, Romano?’

      Romano didn’t really have time to say whether he minded or not, because Scarlett grabbed Jackie’s elbow and used it as leverage to push her back out into the sunshine, while Isabella followed.

      Yep, thought Jackie, rubbing her elbow once she’d snatched it back, Scarlett was getting more and more like their mother every year.

      Once they were clear of the tables and umbrellas out front of the restaurant, Jackie turned and faced them. ‘You two are deranged!’

      Isabella looked at the cobbles below her feet, while a flash of discomfort passed across Scarlett’s eyes. ‘We need to talk to you,’ she said. ‘Don’t we, Isabella?’ She hung a lead weight on every word of that last sentence.

      Jackie looked towards the restaurant door, not sure if she was annoyed or relieved that her chance meeting with Romano had been unexpectedly hijacked. She looked back at her cousin and her sister in time to see a look pass between them. Isabella let out a soft sigh of defeat.

      ‘I suppose we do. But we need to go somewhere private,’ she said. ‘Somewhere we won’t be interrupted or overheard.’

      The three of them looked around the small piazza at the heart of Monta Correnti hopelessly. Growing up in a small town like this, you couldn’t sneeze without the grapevine going into action. And, this being Italy, the grapevine had always had its roots back at your mamma’s house. She’d be waiting with a handkerchief and a don’t-mess-with-me expression when you got home.

      That was why Jackie and Romano had gone to such lengths to keep their relationship secret once their respective parents had warned them off each other. They’d been careful never to be seen in public together unless it was when Romano and his father had eaten at Sorella on one of Jackie’s waitressing shifts.

      Scarlett stopped gazing around the piazza and put her hands on her hips. She fixed Isabella with a determined look. ‘I know one place where we won’t be disturbed.’ She raised her eyebrows and waited for her cousin’s reaction.

      ‘You don’t mean…?’ Then Isabella nodded just once. ‘Come on, then,’ she said and marched off across the old town’s market square. ‘We’d better get going.’

      A low branch snapped back and hit Jackie in the face. She lost her footing a little and gave her right ankle a bit of a twist. Nothing serious, but she’d been dressed for a stroll around town and a leisurely lunch, not a safari.

      ‘Sorry,’ called Scarlett over her shoulder as she tramped confidently down the steep hill.

      Jackie said nothing.

      What had started off as a brisk walk had turned into a full-on hike through the woods. Her stomach was rumbling and she was starting to doubt that food was anywhere in the near future. What kind of shindig was Scarlett planning for Lizzie that involved all this special-forces-type secrecy?

      Eventually the trees thinned and the three women reached a small, shady clearing at the bottom of the hill with a small stream running through it. Jackie smoothed her hair down with one hand and discovered far too many twigs and miscellaneous seeds for her liking. When she’d finished picking them out, she looked up to see Isabella and Scarlett busy righting old crates and brushing the moss and dirt off a couple of medium-sized tree stumps.

      As she looked around more closely Jackie could see a few branches tied together with twine lying on the floor, obviously part of some makeshift construction that had now collapsed. A torn blue tarpaulin was attached by a bit of old rope at one corner to the lower branch of a tree while its other end flapped free.

      Scarlett sat herself on the taller of the two tree stumps and motioned with great solemnity for Jackie to take the sturdiest-looking crate. Isabella took the other crate, but it wobbled, so she stood up and leaned against a tree. Jackie suddenly wanted to laugh.

      It all felt a bit ridiculous. Three grown women, sitting round the remains of an ancient childhood campfire. She started to chuckle softly, but the shocked look on Scarlett’s face killed the sound off while it was still in her throat. She looked from her sister to her cousin and back again.

      ‘So…What’s this all about? You’re not planning something illegal for Lizzie’s hen do, are you?’

      Scarlett looked genuinely puzzled and every last trace of hilarity abruptly left Jackie at that point. Despite the summer sun pouring through the leafy canopy, she shivered.

      ‘It’s you we need to talk to,’ Isabella said. ‘The party was just an excuse.’

      Scarlett looked scornful at Jackie’s tardiness to catch on. ‘Can you imagine what Lizzie would do if we planned a night of debauchery and silliness? Not very good for her public image.’

      Not good for anyone’s image, Jackie thought.

      Scarlett stood up and looked around the clearing. ‘This was our camp. Isabella and I used to come here to share secrets.’

      ‘I remember how close you both were—joined at the hip, Uncle Luca used to joke. It was such a shame that you fell out. I thought—’

      ‘Jackie! Please? Just let me talk?’

      The hint of desperation in her sister’s voice sent cold spiralling down into Jackie’s intestines.

      ‘This is difficult enough as it is,’ Scarlett said, and stood up and ran a hand through her hair. She looked across at Isabella.

      ‘There’s no easy way to say this,’ Isabella continued. She pushed herself away from the trunk of the tree she’d been leaning on and started pacing. Jackie just clasped her hands together on her knees and watched the two women as they walked to and fro in silence for a few seconds, then Scarlett planted