‘No,’ she said softly, firmly, and she grabbed his chin with her hand, doing whatever she had to do to stop him.
He sighed and gave her a wistful look. ‘I thought we said we weren’t going to play games.’
Part of her softened, found his cheeky confidence charming. Another part of her took umbrage. He was too sure of himself. Too sure he could have her if he wanted her.
‘I’m not playing games,’ she said, looking him in the eye, refusing to waver.
‘Good,’ he said, wilfully misunderstanding her.
Jackie felt like wilting. They could do this all day, go back and forth, back and forth. Romano was as persistent as she was contrary, and she feared she might eventually weaken. That would do lasting damage to her plan to build a solid relationship with him, the kind of relationship that would give Kate stability and confidence in them as parents. Unfortunately, there was only one way she could think of to shock Romano out of seducing her amidst the ferns.
‘The reason we can’t do this,’ she said, ‘is that there’s something you don’t know. Something important.’
He froze. ‘You’re not married?’
She shook her head and the smile returned, saucier than ever. ‘Buono.’ And he went back to placing tiny little teasing kisses on her neck.
It was no good. Romano had obviously decided she was playing along with him, albeit in a very ‘Jackie’ way. He stopped what he was doing and straightened, one eyebrow hitched high, but paused when his lips were only a few millimetres from hers. She had to do this now.
‘There’s something you don’t know about that summer we were…together.’
He was too close to focus on properly, but she sensed him smiling, felt him sway just that little bit closer. ‘Oh, yes?’
‘When I left for England that autumn, after our summer, I was…’
Oh, Lord. Did she really have to say it? Did she really have to let the words out of her mouth?
‘I was pregnant.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
I WAS pregnant.
Those words had the combined effect of a cold shower and a slap round the face for Romano. His arms dropped to his side and he stepped back.
She had to be joking, right? It had to be some unfathomable, Jackie-like test. He searched her face as she stood there with all the flexibility of an ironing board, her eyes wide and her mouth thin.
‘You mean…you…and I…?’
She bit her lip. Nodded.
Now, Romano was a man who usually liked to indulge in the elegant use of language, but at that moment he swore loudly and creatively. Jackie flinched.
He looked at her stomach. After making that dress he knew her measurements to the millimetre, had crafted it to hug them. There was no hint. Fewer curves, even, than when he’d…than when they’d…
A million questions flooded his mind, all of them half finished. And then the awful truth hit him.
‘You had a…You lost it?’ he said, unable to work out why a solid wall of grief hit him as he uttered those words.
She shook her head, and the sorrow reared its head and became an ugly, spitting monster. He clenched his fists, spoke through his teeth.
‘You got rid of it?’
The look of pure horror on her face was more than enough of an answer. He didn’t need to hear the denial she repeated over and over and over. But that meant…
It couldn’t.
He’d never heard mention of a child…a family…in all the years he’d worked in the same gossip-fuelled industry as Jackie. She was a private person, sure enough, but could that fact have slipped by him unnoticed?
He turned in a circle but came back to face her.
Of course it could.
When had he ever been interested in colleagues’ pictures of pink-faced, scrunched-up newborns? He tuned out every single conversation about their children’s ballet recitals and football games, preferring to amuse himself with statistics of a different kind. Cup sizes, mainly.
He looked around his sunken garden, at the grotto, which now seemed less like a lovers’nest and more like a crime scene.
‘Romano?’
He looked back at her, confused. The soft, vulnerable expression she’d worn only moments ago had been replaced with something much harder.
‘You have a daughter,’ she said, voice as flat as if she’d been reading random numbers in the phonebook.
A baby? He had a baby?
He backed away, and, when he could go no further, sat down on a low, mossy wall.
No. Don’t be stupid. It had been such a long time ago. She was a girl by now. Almost a woman. He stood up again, suddenly fuelled by another revelation.
‘You kept this a secret from me? Why?’
There was a flicker of discomfort before Jackie resumed her wooden expression. ‘I tried, but—’she looked away ‘—it’s complicated. I’ll explain in a minute, when you’ve calmed down a bit.’
When he’d…?
This woman had been sent to test him to the limits. All these years she’d kept this from him. All these years she’d preferred to bring up their child on her own rather than involve him. Who gave her the right to make such decisions?
And why had she done it?
The answer was a sucker-punch, one from his subconscious: she hadn’t believed him ready or capable to take on that responsibility, hadn’t even entertained the thought he might be able to rise to the challenge. Just as she hadn’t deemed him worthy of her love. Inside his head something clicked into place.
‘Is that why you ended it? Refused to see me? Or take my calls?’
She inhaled. ‘No. I didn’t know then. I only realised…later.’
Then why hadn’t she told him later? The words were on his lips when he remembered he already knew the answer. He matched Jackie’s stance, returned ice with ice as he looked at her.
‘Where is she now?’ He looked to the terraced garden above them, back to the house. ‘Is she here?’ His stomach plummeted at the thought, not from a fear of being trapped, he realised, but in anticipation.
‘She’s in London.’
London. How many times had he been in that city over the last seventeen years? It was a massive place, with a population of millions, and the chances of having walked by her in the street were infinitesimal, but he was hounded by the idea he might have done just that.
‘Does she know about me? Does she know who her father is?’
At that question, the inscrutable Jackie Patterson wavered. ‘No.’
He closed his eyes and opened them again. Even though he’d had the feeling that would be her answer, it felt like a karate kick in the gut.
‘What about the birth certificate? You can’t hide it from her for ever. One day she’ll find out.’
To his surprise, Jackie nodded, but the words that followed twisted everything around again and sent him off in an even more confusing direction.
‘I didn’t tell anyone who her father was. Not even Mamma. The birth certificate has my name alone on it.’
Romano sucked in a breath. That