That and the fact he couldn’t bear the thought of being in that villa on his own with only the ghosts of the past to haunt him. He hadn’t been back since the day he’d left when he was eight years old.
It wasn’t like him to act so impulsively but seeing Miranda hiding behind that pot plant had made him realise how stressed she was about her father’s latest peccadillo. He had heard from her brothers the press had camped outside her flat for the last month. She hadn’t been able to take a step without a camera or a microphone being shoved in her face. Being the daughter of famous celebrities came with a heavy price tag. Or, at least, it did for her.
Leandro had always felt a little sorry for Miranda. She was constantly compared to her flamboyant and glamorous mother and found lacking. Now she was being compared to her half-sister. Kat Winwood was stunning. No two ways about that. Kat was the billboard-beautiful type. Kat would stop traffic. Air traffic. Miranda’s beauty was quiet, the sort of beauty that grew on you. And she was shy in an endearingly old-fashioned way. He didn’t know too many women who blushed as easily as her. She never flirted. And she never dated. Not since she had lost her first and only boyfriend to leukaemia when she was sixteen. Leandro couldn’t help admiring her loyalty, even if he privately thought she was throwing her life away.
But who was he to judge?
He hadn’t got any plans for happy-ever-after either.
Miranda was the best person to advise him on his father’s collection. Of course she was. She was reliable and sensible. She was competent and efficient and she had an excellent eye. She had helped her brother Julius buy some great pieces at various auctions. She could spot a fraud at twenty paces. It would only take a week or two to sort out the collection and he would be doing her a favour in the process.
But there was one thing she didn’t know about him.
He hadn’t even told Julius or Jake about Rosie.
It was why he had gone to his father’s funeral alone. Going back to Nice had been like ripping open a wound.
There’d been numerous times when he could have mentioned it. He could have told his two closest friends the tragic secret he carried like a shackle around his heart. But instead he had let everyone think he was an only child. Every time he thought of his baby sister his chest would seize. The thought of her little chubby face with its dimpled, sunny smile would bring his guilt crashing down on him like a guillotine.
For all these years he had said nothing. To anyone. He had left that part of his life—his former life, his childhood—back in France. His life was divided into two sections: France and England. Before and After. Sometimes that ‘before’ life felt like a bad dream—a horrible, blood-chilling nightmare. But then he would wake up and realise with a sickening twist of his gut that it was true. Inescapably, heartbreakingly true. It didn’t matter where he lived. How far he travelled. How hard he worked to block the memories. The guilt came with him. It sat on his shoulder during the day. It poked him awake at night. It drove vicious needles through his skull until he was blind with pain.
Speaking about his family was torture for him. Pure, unadulterated torture. He hated even thinking about it. He didn’t have a family.
His family had been blown apart twenty-seven years ago and he had been the one to do it.
‘YOU’RE GOING TO FRANCE?’ Jasmine Connelly said, eyes wide with sparkling intrigue. ‘With Leandro Allegretti?’
Miranda had dropped into Jasmine’s bridal boutique in Mayfair for a quick catch-up before she flew out the following day. Jaz was sewing Swarovski crystals onto a gorgeous wedding dress, the sort of dress for every girl who dreamed of being a princess. Miranda had pictured a dress just like it back in the day when her life had been going according to plan. Now every time she saw a wedding dress she felt sad.
‘Not going with him as such,’ she said, absently fingering the fabric of the wedding gown on the mannequin. ‘I’m meeting him over there to help him sort out his father’s art collection.’
‘When do you go?’
‘Tomorrow... For a couple of weeks.’
‘Should be interesting,’ Jaz said with a smile in her voice.
Miranda looked at her with a frown. ‘Why do you say that?’
Jaz gave her a worldly look. ‘Come, now. Don’t you ever notice the way he looks at you?’
Miranda felt something unhitch in her chest. ‘He never looks at me. He barely even says a word to me. This is the first time we’ve exchanged more than a couple of sentences.’
‘Clues, my dear Watson,’ Jaz said with a cheeky smile. ‘I’ve seen the way he looks at you when he thinks no one’s watching. I reckon if it weren’t for his relationship with your family he would act on it. You’d better pack some decent underwear just in case he changes his mind.’
Miranda pointedly ignored her friend’s teasing comment as she trailed her hand through the voluminous veil hanging beside the dress. ‘Do you know much about his private life?’
Jaz stopped sewing to look at her with twinkling grey-blue eyes. ‘So you are interested. Yay! I thought the day would never come.’
Miranda frowned. ‘I know what you’re thinking but you couldn’t be more wrong. I’m not the least bit interested in him or anyone. I just wondered if he had a current girlfriend, that’s all.’
‘Not that I’ve heard of, but you know how close he keeps his cards,’ Jaz said. ‘He could have a string of women on the go. He is, after all, one of Jake’s mates.’
Every time Jaz said Jake’s name her mouth got a snarly, contemptuous look. The enmity between them was ongoing. It had started when Jaz was sixteen at one of Miranda’s parents’ legendary New Year’s Eve parties. Jaz refused to be drawn on what had actually happened in Jake’s bedroom that night. Jake too kept tight-lipped. But it was common knowledge he despised Jaz and made every effort to avoid her if he could.
Miranda glanced at the glittering diamond on her friend’s ring finger. It was Jaz’s third engagement and, while Miranda didn’t exactly dislike Jaz’s latest fiancé, Myles, she didn’t think he was ‘The One’ for her. Not that she could ever say that to Jaz. Jaz didn’t take too kindly to being told what she didn’t want to hear. Miranda had had the same misgivings over Fiancés One and Two. She just had to hope and trust her headstrong and stubborn friend would realise how she was short-changing herself before the wedding actually took place.
Jaz stood back and cast a critical eye over her handiwork. ‘What do you think?’
‘It’s beautiful,’ Miranda said with a sigh.
‘Yeah, well, I’m going cross-eyed with all these crystals,’ Jaz said. ‘I’ve got to get it done so I can start on Holly’s. She’s awfully nice, isn’t she?’
‘Gorgeous,’ Miranda said. ‘It’s amazing, seeing Julius so happy. To tell you the truth, I wasn’t sure he was ever going to fall in love. They’re total opposites and yet they’re so perfect for each other.’
Jaz looked at her with her head on one side, that teasing glint back in her gaze. ‘Is that a note of wistfulness I can hear?’
Miranda rearranged her features. ‘I’d better get going.’ She grabbed her tote bag, slung it over her shoulder and leaned in to kiss