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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 unimpressed 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.

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, bigsister 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.

The nerve of the man!

Ah, this was better. The horrible achy, needy feeling was engulfed by a wash of anger. She knew how to do anger, how to welcome it in, how to harness its power to drive herself forwards. Who cared if it left an ugly grey wake of bitterness that stretched back through the years? She was surviving, and that was what counted.

Being angry with Romano Puccini was what she wanted, because without the anger it would be difficult to hate him, and she really, really needed to hate him.

Jackie exhaled, measuring her breath until her lungs were empty. This was better. Familiar territory. Hating Romano for rejecting her, for abandoning her and their daughter.

How could the man who had left her pregnant and alone, a mere girl, flirt with her as if nothing had happened?

‘You’re doing it again.’

Jackie hurt her neck as she snapped her head round to look at her sister. She’d half forgotten that Lizzie was sitting there and her comment had made Jackie jump. ‘Doing what?’

‘Staring off into space and looking fierce. Something’s up, isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’ The word shot out of her mouth before she had a chance to filter it. Lizzie leaned across and looked at her, resting her hand on Jackie’s forearm.

‘No…’ Jackie said, wearing the poker face she reserved for fashion shows, so no one could tell what her verdict on the clothes would be until it was printed in the magazine. ‘It’s nothing.’

Why had she said yes? It wasn’t as if she’d been planning on telling Lizzie her problems, certainly not in the run-up to her wedding. She looked at her sister. The poker face started to disintegrate as she saw the warmth and compassion in Lizzie’s eyes.

Could she tell Lizzie now? It would be such a relief to let it all spill out. Over the years, her secrets had woven themselves into a corset, holding her in, keeping her upright when she wanted to wilt, protecting her from humiliation. Seeing Romano last night had tightened the laces on that corset so that, instead of giving her security, it made her feel as if she were struggling to breathe. Suddenly she wanted to rip it all off and be free.

But it wasn’t the time to let go, even if her sister’s open face told her that she would understand, that she would comfort and not condemn. Already Lizzie was tapping into her maternal side, helped along by the buzzing pregnancy hormones. It brought out a whole extra dimension to her personality. She was going to be an excellent mother, really she was.

The sort of mother you have never been. May never be.

A shard of guilt hit Jackie so hard she almost whimpered, but she was too well rehearsed in damage limitation to let it show. Just as an underwater explosion of vast magnitude happening deep on the ocean floor might only produce a small irregularity on the surface, she kept it all in, hoping that Lizzie couldn’t read the ripples on her face.

She smiled back at her sister, squinting a little as she faced the morning sun. ‘It’s just wedding jitters.’

Lizzie’s concerned look was banished by her throaty laugh. ‘I thought it was me who was supposed to get the jitters.’

Jackie saw her chance and grabbed it, turned the spotlight back where it should be. ‘Have you? Got any jitters?’

Lizzie shook her head. ‘No. I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life.’ She went quiet, gazing out over the gardens, but the look on Lizzie’s face wasn’t fierce or hard; it was soft and warm and full of love. Jackie envied her that look.

She leaned in and gave her sister a kiss on the cheek. ‘Good.’ This was about as expressive as communication got in their family. But Lizzie got that. She knew how pleased her little sister was for her.

Lizzie began to move and Jackie stood up to lend her a hand as she heaved herself off the slightly dewy grass. ‘Why don’t you get rid of those jitters of yours by going into town with Mamma and Scarlett? They’re planning to leave shortly.’

‘Maybe.’

As she watched Lizzie walk away Jackie decided against the idea of joining her mother and other sister on their jaunt. A morning in the company of those two would give her grey hairs.

Going into Monta Correnti, however, taking some time to rediscover her home town, to see whether it still matched the vivid pictures in her head, now that was a plan she could cope with.

Exploring Monta Correnti was fun, but it didn’t take more than an hour or so, and Jackie soon returned to feeling restless. She kept wandering anyway, and ended up in the little piazza near the church, outside Sorella.

It was late morning and Scarlett and Mamma were probably inside, having a cool drink before they decided what they were going to eat for lunch. She really should go in and join them.

But beautiful smells were coming from Uncle Luca’s restaurant next door and, despite the fact she’d sworn off carbs, she had a hankering for a simple dish of pasta, finished off with his famous basil and tomato sauce.

So, feeling decidedly rebellious, she sidestepped her mother’s restaurant and headed for Rosa. Uncle Luca was always good for a warm welcome and she wanted to pump him for more information on all of Isabella’s brothers. This year had certainly been a bombshell one for her extended family. So much had happened already. First, there had been the shocking announcement that Uncle Luca had two sons living in America that nobody had known about. Isabella had been trying to get in contact, but she wasn’t having much luck. The family had thought that sending invitations to Lizzie’s wedding might help break the ice, but Alessandro had declined and Angelo hadn’t even bothered to reply.

Personally, Jackie wasn’t too optimistic about Isabella getting any further with that. This family was so dysfunctional it wasn’t funny. But she understood the need to heal and mend, to ache to bring forgotten children back into the fold.

She also wanted news of Isabella’s little brothers. She didn’t know if Valentino was in Monta Correnti at the moment or not, but it would be great to catch up with him before the hustle and bustle of Lizzie’s wedding. She also wanted to find out the latest news on Cristiano. Mamma had announced last night that he’d been injured at work, fighting a fire in Rome, and was currently in hospital. Of course, Mamma had made it all sound totally dramatic, even though he’d only suffered minor injuries. Jackie would have preferred an update straight from her uncle, minus the histrionics, hopefully. Cristiano wasn’t going to make it to the wedding either, which was such a pity. She’d always had a soft spot for him.

The entrance to Rosa was framed by two olive trees in terracotta pots. Jackie brushed past them and stood in the arched doorway, looking round the restaurant. The interior always made her smile. Such a difference from Sorella’s dark wood grain and minimalist decor.

Everything inside was a little outdated and shabby, but, somehow, it added to the charm. There was a tiled floor, wooden tables and chairs in various shapes and styles, fake ivy climbing up the pillars and strings of garlic and straw-covered bottles hanging from the ceiling. Locals knew better than to judge a restaurant’s food by its decor. Sorella, next door, was where the rich visitors and tourists ate, but Rosa was where the locals came, where families celebrated, where life happened.

At this time of day, the restaurant was deserted, but not silent. There was a hell of a racket coming from the kitchen. A heated argument seemed to be taking place between two women, but Jackie couldn’t identify the voices above the banging of pots and pans and the interjections of head chef Lorenzo.

Unfortunately his fierce growling was not having the desired effect, because nobody shot through the kitchen door looking penitent. However, she heard someone enter the restaurant behind her.

Jackie had never been one for small talk. She didn’t chat to old ladies at bus stops, or join in with the good-natured banter when stuck in a long queue. Perhaps it was her upbringing in Italy. When things went wrong, she wanted to complain. Loudly. So she didn’t turn round and make a joke of the situation; she just ignored whoever it was. For a few seconds, anyway.

‘Buon giorno.’

The warm tones, the hint of a smile in the voice, made her spine snap to attention. She licked her lips and frowned.

‘Are you stalking me?’ she said, without looking round.

Romano had the grace not to laugh. ‘No. I came to see Isabella, but I won’t lie—I was hoping I would run into you this morning.’

She didn’t dignify the pause that followed with an answer.

‘Jackie?’

She took a deep, calming breath, opening her ribs and drawing the air in using her diaphragm, just as her personal trainer had taught her. It didn’t work. And that just irritated her further. She’d bet the man standing behind her didn’t have to be taught how to breathe, how to relax.

He wasn’t standing behind her any more. While she’d been on her way to hyperventilating he’d walked round her until she had no choice but to look at him.

‘I would like to talk with you. I believe we have some things to discuss, some mistakes from the past to sort out.’

Now she abandoned any thoughts of correct breathing and just looked at him. That, of course, was her big mistake. The expression on his face was so unlike him—serious, earnest—that she started to feel her carefully built defences crumbling.

What if he actually wanted to acknowledge Kate after all these years? What if he really wanted to make amends? Could she let her pride prevent that?

No.

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 her feet on the floor and looked Jackie squarely in the eye.

‘We know your secret.’

Although her mouth didn’t open, Jackie’s jaw dropped a few notches. Her secret? Not about Kate, surely? They had to mean some other secret—the anorexia, maybe. Her eyes narrowed slightly. ‘And what secret would that be, exactly?’

The leaves whispered above their heads, and when Isabella’s answer came it was only just audible. ‘About the baby.’

An invisible juggernaut hit Jackie in the chest.

‘You know I…? You know about…?’

Their faces confirmed it and she gave up trying to get a sentence out.

But exactly how much did they know? All of it? She stood up.

‘You know I was pregnant when I went away to live with my father?’

They both nodded, eyes wide.

‘You know I gave the baby up for adoption?’

Isabella nodded again. ‘No one told us, but it was kind of obvious when you came home the following summer without a baby.’

Oh, Lord. They knew everything. She sat down again, but she’d chosen the wrong crate and it tipped over, leaving her on her hands and knees in the dirt. Both Isabella and Scarlett rushed to help her up. She was shaking when she grabbed onto their arms for support.