There was a noise behind him and he looked over his shoulder to find her standing in the doorway, backlit with dust and sunshine and looking anything but penitent.
‘This is stupid,’he said, sounding steelier than he’d meant to.
Instead of agreeing with him, softening and running to him and throwing her arms around him as he’d hoped she would, she just lengthened her spine and looked down her nose at him.
‘Hit a raw nerve, did I?’
He didn’t even bother answering her and she took a few steps towards him. ‘Francesca is a very pretty girl, isn’t she?’ She blinked innocently and her voice was suddenly all syrup and silkiness.
He didn’t know what kind of game she was playing but he had a feeling he’d lose, whichever tack he took. She went on and on, asking him over and over again, until he began to think she wanted him to agree with her, that on some level his capitulation would give her satisfaction, and eventually he got so cross with her incessant prodding that he walked over to her and gave her what she wanted.
‘Yes. Okay? Francesca is very pretty.’
There. That had shut her up.
Jackie seemed to shrink a little, wither, as her eyes grew round and pink.
‘You like her better than me,’ she said, her voice husky.
Romano ran his hand through his hair, sorry he’d let her goad him into agreeing with her. He loved her, he really did, but if he’d known that taking their relationship to the next level would have opened this Pandora’s box of female emotions, he might have resisted and sat on the lid a little longer.
She hadn’t been ready for this. Neither had he.
Suddenly a summer of sweet, stolen kisses and innocent eye-gazing had morphed into an adult relationship, full of complications and blind alleys.
‘I see you’re not denying it,’ she said, her voice colder than ever.
That was it. Romano didn’t lose his temper very often, but when he did…
His thoughts were red and bouncing off the inside of his skull, searing where they touched. Perhaps this wasn’t all worth it. Perhaps he would be better off with a girl like Francesca—a simple girl who wouldn’t tax him the way this one did. This jealousy of Jackie’s…it was ugly. And he was just furious enough to tell her so.
‘At this precise moment in time, I’m starting to think you are right.’
The look on Jackie’s face—pure horror mixed with desolation—warned him he’d gone too far, crossed a line. It wouldn’t help to tell her that he hadn’t jumped over it willingly, that she was the one who’d given him an almighty shove.
‘In that case,’ she said, backing away, walking heel-to-toe in an exaggerated manner, ‘I never want to see you again.’
And then she turned and sprinted out of the farmhouse, leaving him only one option. It didn’t take him long to catch up with her, despite those long toned legs.
‘Jackie,’ he yelled, when he was only a few metres away, that one word a plea to cool down, to see sense.
She stopped dead and turned around. ‘I mean it. If you try to call me, I’ll slam the phone down. And if you come to the house, I’ll set the dog on you!’
His burst of laughter didn’t help her temper, but surely when he explained she’d see the funny side and it would pop this bubble of tension. Then they could walk hand in hand to the bottom of the grove and spend the rest of the afternoon making up.
She was still glaring at him, but he stepped forward, brushed her cheek with his thumb. ‘Your mother’s dog is a miniature poodle,’ he said, a join-me-in-this smile on his face. ‘What is he going to do? Fluff me to death?’
It was at that moment that he realised he’d stupidly taken one of those blind alleys he’d been trying to avoid. Jackie was not amused by his observation in the slightest. She called him a few names he hadn’t even known were part of her vocabulary then set off down the dirt track. As she passed his Vespa, she gave it a hefty kick with her tennis shoe and it fell over.
Romano didn’t bother following.
There was no salvaging the situation this afternoon. He might as well get his Vespa vertical again and take off on a ride to clear his head. Jackie would calm down eventually—she always did—and then he would go and see her and they would both say sorry and things would get back to normal.
Jackie couldn’t help thinking about Romano as she slid into her bridesmaid’s gown. As Scarlett helped her zip it up it wasn’t her sister’s fingers she felt at her back, but his. Wearing his gown, knowing he had designed the ridiculously romantic bodice with her in mind, made her feel all fluttery and unsettled. And as the thick satin brushed against her skin she was reminded of what it had felt like to feel the tips of his fingers on her shoulder blades, the weight of his hands around the small of her waist, the tease of his thigh against hers…
‘There,’ Scarlett said as she did up the hook and eye at the top of the zip. ‘I’m just going back to my room to get my bag. I’ll meet you downstairs.’
Jackie just nodded. She needed to snap out of this, really she did.
There was no point in thinking about…remembering…Romano that way. Romantically, they were explosive. An unstable force. But what Kate needed right now were parents who could stand in the same room without tearing each other to shreds, and she knew from personal experience just how destructive bad parental relationships could be.
No, Kate needed security, stability. Sensible, supportive co-parent was the only relationship she wanted with Romano these days.
Jackie leaned towards the mirror on the dressing table and checked her make-up. It hadn’t helped that in the last couple of days she and Romano had been in constant contact. But that had been the plan, hadn’t it? They’d talked on the phone, had coffee together, another lunch. Conversation had mainly revolved around business, but she’d felt she’d accomplished what she’d set out to. They had the beginnings of a friendship, one that she hoped would survive the bombshell she was about to drop.
It was time to tell him.
Not today, of course. Tomorrow. She’d have to catch him at the wedding reception and arrange a meeting, somewhere far away from her family’s straining ears.
‘Jackie?’ Scarlett yelled for her as she ran past her bedroom door and headed down the staircase.
‘Coming,’ she called back and grabbed both her wrap and her bag. She ran as quickly and elegantly as she could in heels to meet the rest of the bridal party, which had now assembled in the wide marble entrance hall. She slowed as she reached the last couple of stairs.
‘Lizzie, you look absolutely perfect. Glowing.’
A slight blush coloured her elder sister’s cheeks just adding to the effect.
‘Well, it’s good to know I’m glowing, especially as these two—’ she paused to rub her tummy ‘—have been having a two-person Aussie rules football match inside me since five a.m.! I’m absolutely exhausted.’
Jackie kissed her on the cheek. ‘You’re not glowing in spite of those beautiful boys, but because of them.’ She sighed. ‘You have so much to look forward to…’
She hadn’t meant to say that. Her mouth had just done its own thing. Her mouth never did its own thing. She was always in control, always careful about what she said and what she projected, and she was horrified to have heard her voice get more and more scratchy, until it had almost cracked completely as she’d trailed off.
Lizzie did have so much to look forward