Normally Jordan didn’t mind this end-of-week get-together.
But it had been a long and difficult week, both professionally and personally. Making small talk seemed beyond her today, which was why she’d taken her glass of white wine off into a corner by herself.
‘Hiding, are we?’
Jordan looked up as Kerry angled her way into the same corner, carrying a tray of finger-food.
Kerry was the big boss’s PA—the nicest girl in the place, and the closest Jordan had ever had to a best friend. A natural redhead, she had a pretty face, soft blue eyes, and fair skin which freckled in the Australian sun.
‘I didn’t feel like talking,’ Jordan said, and picked up a tiny quiche-style tart from the tray. ‘What’s in these?’
‘Spinach and mushroom. They’re very nice, and not too fattening.’
Jordan popped the tart into her mouth, devouring it within seconds. ‘Mmm, these are seriously yummy. I might have another.’
‘Feel free. So what’s the problem? Other than Loverboy having flown off home today, leaving you alone for two whole weeks?’
Jordan winced at Kerry calling Chad ‘Loverboy’. Yet it had been his office nickname from the first day he’d waltzed in, with his wide, all-American smile, film star looks and buckets of charm. There wasn’t a single girl in the place who wouldn’t have willingly gone out with Jack Stedley’s only son and heir—Kerry included. But it had been Jordan he’d zeroed in on, Jordan whom he’d been dating for the past few months.
‘Come on, you can tell me,’ Kerry added in a conspiratorial whisper. ‘I’m not a gossip like some of the other girls around here.’
Jordan knew this was true. One of Kerry’s many good qualities was her discretion.
She’d also been round the block a few times, with one marriage and several boyfriends behind her—the last having broken up with her only recently. Yet she maintained a sense of optimism about life which Jordan admired and often envied.
Jordan looked into her friend’s kind blue eyes and decided to do what she very rarely did. Confide.
‘Chad asked me to marry him last night.’
‘Wow!’ Kerry exclaimed, before shooting Jordan a speculative look. ‘So what’s the problem? You should be over the moon.’
‘I turned him down.’
‘You what? Wait here,’ Kerry said, and hurried off to give the food tray to one of the other girls to distribute, sweeping up a glass of champagne before rejoining Jordan, a stern look on her pretty face. ‘I don’t believe this. The Golden Boy asked you to marry him and you said no?’
‘I didn’t exactly say no,’ Jordan hedged. ‘But I didn’t say yes, either. I said I wanted some time to think. I said I’d give him my answer when he gets back from the States.’
‘But why? I thought you were mad about the man. Or as mad as a girl like you is ever going to get.’
‘And what does that mean?’
‘Oh…you know. You’re super-intelligent, Jordan, and very self-contained. You’re never going to lose your head over a man, like I do.’
Jordan sighed. Kerry was right. She wasn’t the sort to lose her head over a man.
But she had once. And she’d never forgotten him.
‘What is it that’s bothering you?’ Kerry persisted. ‘It can’t be the sex. You told me Chad was good in bed.’
‘He is. Yes, he is,’ she repeated, as though trying to convince herself that there wasn’t anything missing in that department.
In truth, she wouldn’t have thought anything was missing if it hadn’t been for her relationship with Gino. Chad knew all the right moves in bed. But he simply could not make her feel what Gino had once made her feel.
No man could, Jordan suspected.
‘What is it that you’re not telling me?’ Kerry asked gently.
Jordan sighed a resigned sigh. That was the trouble with confiding. It was like throwing a stone in a pond, causing ever-widening circles. Kerry was not going to rest now till Jordan had told her the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Or at least a believable version.
‘There was this guy once,’ she began tentatively. ‘An Italian. Oh, it was years ago, during my first year at uni. We lived together for a few months.’
‘And?’
‘Well, he…he was a hard act to follow.’
‘I see. Obviously, you were madly in love with him?’
‘Yes.’
‘And what you feel for Chad doesn’t compare?’
‘No.’ Not Chad, or any other boyfriend she’d had since.
‘Was this Italian guy your first lover?’
‘Yes. He was.’ The first and by far the best.
‘That explains it, then,’ Kerry said, with satisfaction in her voice.
‘Explains what?’
‘It’s impossible for a girl to completely forget her first lover. Not if he was good in bed. Which I’m presuming he was.’
‘He was simply fantastic.’
‘You know, Jordan, he probably wasn’t as fantastic as you think he was. The memory can play tricks on us. For ages after my divorce I thought I was a fool for leaving my husband. But then I ran into him one night at a party and I realised he was nothing but a sleazebag and I was much better off without him. I’ll bet your Italian boyfriend dumped you, didn’t he?’
‘Not exactly. I came home from uni one day to find a note saying that his father was seriously ill. He said he was sorry, but he had to go home to his family, and he wished me well in the future.’
‘He didn’t promise to write or anything?’
‘No. And he didn’t leave me a forwarding address. I didn’t realise till he’d gone how little I knew about him. He never talked about his family. Or called them. At least not whilst I was around. I guessed later that he was probably out here from Italy on a temporary working visa and never meant to stay.’
‘That’s another reason why you find it hard to forget him,’ Kerry told her. ‘He’s unfinished business. Pity he had to return to Italy, otherwise you might have been able to look him up and see for yourself that he’s not nearly as fantastic as you thought. If truth be told, he’s probably fat and bald by now.’
‘It’s only been ten years, Kerry, not thirty. Besides, Italian men rarely go bald,’ Jordan pointed out, recalling Gino’s luxuriantly thick, wavy black hair. ‘And Gino would never let himself get fat. He was right into physical fitness. He worked on a construction site during the day, and went to the gym several nights a week. He’s the one who started me on the exercise kick.’ Jordan jogged a couple of kilometres most mornings, and did weights three times a week.
‘Worked as what on a construction site?’ Kerry asked.
‘A labourer.’
‘A labourer?’ Kerry repeated disbelievingly. ‘You prefer a labourer to Chad Stedley?’
‘Gino was very smart,’ Jordan defended, ‘and a darned good cook.’
‘Well, bully for him,’ Kerry said dismissively. ‘Marry Chad and you can go out to dinner every night. Or hire your own personal cordon bleu chef. Look, I don’t care if this Gino was Einstein and Casanova