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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.
They got her to her feet again and she met their eyes. There was no point in trying to hide anything now.
‘My daughter—Kate—contacted me a couple of months ago. We’ve met a few times—’
‘Kate?’ The strangled noise that left Scarlett’s mouth was hardly even a word. Jackie watched in astonishment as her normally feisty, bull-headed little sister broke down and sobbed. ‘You had a little girl, a little girl,’she whimpered, over and over.
Jackie was stunned. Not just by Scarlett’s reaction, but by the outpouring of emotion; it must mean that, on some level, Scarlett didn’t despise her as much as she’d thought. She’d always seemed so indifferent.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Scarlett finally mumbled through her tears. Jackie turned to Isabella, hoping for an explanation, but Isabella wasn’t in a much better state herself.
A thought struck her. ‘You can’t tell anyone about Kate!’ she said quickly. ‘Not yet.’
My goodness, if this was going to be the reaction to the news, she’d been right to decide to keep her mouth shut until after the wedding.
‘It’s okay,’she added, taking a deep breath. ‘Things are going to be okay. Kate and I are getting to know each other. Things are going to work out, you’ll see. So don’t be sad for me—be happy.’
She’d hoped she sounded convincing, but she’d obviously missed the mark, because Scarlett and Isabella, who had been in the process of mopping up a little with a few tissues that Isabella had pulled from her pocket, just started crying even harder. Jackie stood there, dumbfounded, as they sat down on the two tree stumps looking very sorry for themselves indeed.
And then another thought struck her. One that should have popped into her head at the beginning of this surreal ‘lunch’, but she’d been too shocked to even think about it.
‘How?’
Both the other women went suddenly very still.
‘How did you find out? Did Mamma tell you?’
They both shook their heads, perfectly in time with each other. If she weren’t in the middle of a crisis, Jackie would have found it funny.
‘Then how?’
Scarlett looked up at her, her eyes full of shame. She didn’t even manage to maintain eye contact for more than a few seconds and dropped her gaze to the floor before she spoke.
‘The letter.’
What letter? What was Scarlett talking about? Had Mamma written a—
White light exploded behind Jackie’s eyelids. She marched over to Scarlett’s tree stump and stood there, hands on hips, just as she would have done when she’d been a stroppy fifteen-year-old, and made her sister look at her.
‘You read the letter? My letter?’
Scarlett bit her lip and nodded.
‘How dare you! How dare you! How—’
She was so consumed with rage she couldn’t come up with any new words. Not even wanting to share a woodland clearing with the other two women, she strode over to the stream, as far away from them as she could possibly get without getting tangled up in trees, and stared into the cool green tranquillity of the woods.
Another thought bubbled its way to the surface. She turned round and found them twisting round on their tree stumps, watching her.
‘Then you know who…’
Isabella swallowed. ‘Romano.’
Jackie covered her mouth with her hand. This was worse than she’d imagined. Hen nights involving L-plates, obscene confectionery and tiaras would have been a walk in the park compared to this.
She exhaled. It all made sense now—why they’d freaked out when they’d seen her and Romano together back at the restaurant. But why had they dragged her away? Why tell her now?
‘We didn’t ever tell anyone else,’ Isabella added hastily.
Jackie breathed out and sat down on the crate—the good one—and looked at her sister and her cousin.
They knew. And that had been her secret mission this visit, hadn’t it? To tell everyone. Did it really matter if Scarlett and Isabella had known all along? Probably not. It would just be one difficult conversation she could cross off her list. They’d actually done her a favour.
Her anger had faded now, and she even managed a tiny smile. ‘I was planning on telling you all after the wedding, anyway. Kate would really like to meet her aunts and uncles and I think it’s time this secret came out into the open.’
Why weren’t Scarlett and Isabella looking more relieved? They were still folded into awkward positions on their tree stumps. She decided to lighten the atmosphere.
‘The least you two can do after all this is help me break the news to Mamma. I think you owe me!’ And to let them know she was rising above it, dealing with the past and moving on, she gave them a magnanimous smile.
‘You don’t understand,’Scarlett said, rising from her stump, her forehead furrowing into even deeper lines. ‘There’s more.’
More? How could there be more? She’d told them everything. There were no more secrets left to uncover.
CHAPTER FOUR
SCARLETT gulped and cleared her throat. ‘The letter…I brought it here to show Isabella.’
Jackie felt her core temperature rise a few notches.
‘You have to remember—’ Scarlett shot a glance at Isabella ‘—we were only eleven…’
Jackie’s voice was low and even when she spoke. This was the tone that made her staff run for cover. ‘What else, Scarlett? You did give my letter to Romano yourself, not pass it to someone else to give to him? If someone else knows—’
Isabella, who’d been unable to stand still for the last few moments, jumped in. ‘It was my fault. I wanted to tell Aunt Lisa at first…’ She trailed off at the look on Jackie’s face. ‘I didn’t!’ she added quickly.
‘We fought,’ Scarlett said, her voice gaining volume but at the same time becoming toneless, emotionless. ‘Isabella had hold of the letter and I tried to snatch it away from her. It just seemed to leap out of my hands…’
They ripped the letter a little? Got it dirty? What? Jackie willed Scarlett to say either of those things. Just a little smudge. No harm done. But she could tell from the look of pure desolation on Scarlett’s face that the fate of her letter had been much worse.