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

he and Jackie had spent the evening eating at the grand six-metre-long dining-room table, sneaking sips of his father’s best vintage wine and pretending they were older and more sophisticated, free to love each other without remark or interruption.

      He hadn’t intended to seduce her. He’d just wanted some time alone with her far away from prying eyes, somewhere nicer than a dusty old run-down farmhouse. She’d been too young, and he’d been holding himself back, but that night…when they’d taken a walk in the gardens after dinner and she’d turned to him, kissed him, whispered his name and offered herself to him with wide eyes and soft lips, he hadn’t been able to say no. Not when she’d purposely played with fire, done things that she knew got him so hot and bothered that he could hardly think straight.

      But he couldn’t regret it.

      It had been intoxicating, and for the rest of the summer they’d lived in a blissful, heated bubble where the only thing that had mattered was time they could spend alone together. Foolish, yes. Forgettable, no.

      They reached the large terrace with the parterre and giant urns. He watched her amble round a few paths, stooping to brush the tops of the geometric hedges and leaning in to smell the flowers dripping over the edges of the stone ornaments. This time it would be different. An adult affair, free from all the teenage angst and complications. He had a feeling it would be just as memorable.

      On a large patio around to the side of the palazzo a table was set with linen and silver, a cream umbrella shading the waiting food. He led her to it. Crisp white wine was chilling in a bucket of ice, a dish on a stand stood in the middle of the table. She lifted her sunglasses for a moment and he noticed her eyebrows were already raised. He knew what she was thinking.

      ‘I had a little help,’ he said, not being able to resist teasing her, even though he’d prepared most of the meal himself. He liked cooking. It was just another way to be creative, and the results brought such pleasure, if the right amount of time and precision was lavished upon a dish. And he was all for pleasure, whatever the cost.

      ‘Would you prefer to sit in the sun? I can remove the umbrella.’

      She shook her head. ‘I don’t do sun. It’s aging.’

      He shrugged and pulled her chair out for her and she sat down, her eyes fixed on the domed cover over the central dish. He whipped it away to reveal a mountainous seafood platter: oysters, mussels, fat juicy prawns, squid and scallops, all stacked high on a mound of ice. Jackie forgot for a second to wear her mask of composure. He’d remembered well. She loved seafood.

      ‘Wow.’

      ‘See? I can cook.’

      For the first time since he’d zipped her up in her mother’s dressing room, she smiled. ‘You don’t really expect me to believe you prepared all this?’ She swept a hand across the table. ‘Even the salads?’

      He handed her a serving spoon and nodded towards the platter. ‘Any fool can shred a lettuce or slice a few tomatoes and drizzle a bit of oil and vinegar on them.’

      She fixed him with a sassy look. ‘It seems that any fool did.’

      Warmth spread outwards from his core. He’d always loved her acerbic, dry sense of humour. Jackie was funny, intelligent, and with a quirky prettiness that had fascinated him; she’d been his favourite summer fling. His last, actually. After that he’d had other things to concentrate on. Learning the ropes at Puccini Designs, proving he wasn’t a waste of space. It wasn’t until success had come that he’d returned to finding women quite so distracting. And by then he’d been older, and summer flings had had their day.

      Lunch was pleasant. He almost forgot that he’d sensed Jackie had a secret agenda for their meeting. They talked about work and what was new in the fashion world. She listened with interest as he bounced a few ideas for the next collection off her. Jackie Patterson deserved to be where she was. She knew her stuff. Not one person he’d ever come across in the length of his career had ever dared to suggest she was a success because her mother had once been a famous model. Quite the reverse, actually.

      Lisa’s prima-donna tendencies had been legendary. No one who’d been in Jackie’s company for more than five seconds would accuse her of being anything but highly focused, knowledgeable and professional. He was so taken with getting to know her again that he almost forgot his own secret agenda.

      ‘How long are you staying in Monta Correnti?’ he asked as he served her second helpings of almost everything from the platter, hoping that she wasn’t going to announce some urgent meeting back in London straight after the wedding.

      She swallowed the scallop she’d been chewing. ‘Two weeks. Mamma convinced me to take a holiday since Scarlett would be visiting.’

      He nodded, too preoccupied with his own calculations to fully register the heat that suddenly burned in her eyes and died away. Two weeks would be perfect. Long enough to seduce her—it was his turn this time, after all—but not long enough to tie them together for life.

      When they’d finished eating, there was a natural lull. They sat in silence, staring out at the lake, which was showing off for them, flipping its waves into frothy white crests. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed a subtle shift in Jackie’s posture, felt rather than heard her take in a breath and hold it. He moved his head so he could look at her.

      For a moment she was motionless, but then she pushed her sunglasses back onto her head and stared at him. He blinked and refused to let his muscles tighten even a millimetre.

      ‘Romano…’

      She broke off and looked at the lake. After a long, heavy minute, she turned to him again. ‘I…I wanted to talk to you about something.’

      Although they’d been talking Italian all this time, she switched into English and the consonants sounded hard and clunky in comparison. He stopped smiling.

      ‘Would you consider an exclusive fashion shoot for Gloss!, timed to come out the day after the new Puccini collection is revealed?’

      He opened his mouth and nothing came out. For some bizarre reason he hadn’t been expecting that at all.

      But that was Jackie Patterson all over. She had a way of overturning a man’s equilibrium in the most thrilling manner. It was a pity he’d forgotten how that excitement was always mixed with a hint of disorientation and a dash of discomfort. Didn’t mean he liked it any less.

      This could be the perfect opportunity to keep close to Jackie for the next few days, easing that frown off her forehead, making her relax in his company until she remembered how good they’d been together instead of how messily it had ended.

      ‘It’s a possibility,’he said and gave her a long, lazy smile. ‘But let’s save the details for later—say, drinks tomorrow evening?’

      CHAPTER FIVE

      IT WAS just as well that Jackie knew the road to Monta Correnti like the back of her hand, because she wasn’t really concentrating on her driving as she travelled back to her mother’s villa. Just as well she’d only drunk half a glass of wine at lunch too. Romano had her feeling light-headed enough as it was and she’d decided she needed her wits about her if she was going to tell him what could be the biggest piece of news in his whole thirty-four years on this planet.

      Only, it hadn’t quite turned out that way, had it?

      She’d chickened out.

      Jackie sighed as she made her way up the steep hill, hogging far too much of the road to be polite.

      She’d thought she’d been ready for it, thought she’d been ready to open her mouth and change his life for ever.

      What she hadn’t counted on was that, without the benefit of almost two decades of hate backing her up, Romano’s effect on her would be as potent as ever. He’d always made her a little breathless just by standing too close, just by smiling at her. It had got her completely off track. Distracted. She’d do well