Closer and closer it came, until suddenly the engine cut out and the grove returned to sleepy silence. The girl held her breath.
Her patience ran out. Instead of waiting in the doorway, looking cool and unaffected, she jumped off the low step and started running. As she turned the corner of the house she saw him jogging towards her, wearing a smile so bright it could light up the sky if the sun ever decided it wanted a siesta. Her leg muscles lost all tone and energy and she stumbled to a halt, unable to take her eyes from him.
Finally he was standing right in front of her, his dark hair ruffled by the wind and his grey eyes warmed by the residual laughter that always lived there. They stood there for a few seconds, hearts pounding, and then he gently touched her cheek and drew her into a kiss that was soft and sweet and full of remembered promises. She sighed and reached for him, pulling him close. Somehow they ended up back in the doorway of the old, half-fallen-down cottage, with her pressed against the jamb as he tickled her neck with butterfly kisses.
He pulled away and looked at her, his hands on her shoulders, and she gazed back at him, never thinking for a second how awkward it could be to just stare into another person’s eyes, never considering for a second what a brave act it was to see and be seen. She blinked and smiled at him, and his dancing grey eyes became suddenly serious.
‘I love you, Jackie,’ he said, and moved his hands up off her shoulders and onto her neck so he could trace the line of her jawbone with his thumbs.
‘I love you too, Romano,’ she whispered as she buried her face in his shirt and wrapped herself up in him.
Jackie hadn’t actually believed that a person could literally be frozen with surprise. Too late she discovered it was perfectly possible to find one’s feet stuck to the floor just as firmly as if they had actually grown roots, and to find one’s mouth suddenly incapable of speech.
Romano, however, seemed to be experiencing none of the same disquiet. He was just looking back at her in the mirror, his pale eyes full of mischief. ‘Bellissima,’ he said, glancing at the dress, but making it sound much more intimate.
She blinked and coughed, and when her voice returned she found a sudden need to speak in English instead of Italian. ‘What are you doing here?’
Romano just shrugged and made that infuriatingly ambiguous hand gesture he’d always used to make. ‘It is a dress fitting, Jacqueline, so I fit.’
She spun round to face him. ‘You made the dresses? Why didn’t anyone tell me?’
He made a rueful expression. ‘Why should they? As far as anyone else is concerned, we hardly know each other. Your mother and my father are old friends and the rest of your family thinks we’ve only met a handful of times.’
Jackie took a shallow breath and puffed it out again. ‘That’s true.’ She frowned. ‘But how…? Why did you…?’
‘When your mother told my father that Lizzie was getting married, he insisted we take care of the designs. It’s what old friends do for each other.’
Jackie took a step back, regaining some of her usual poise. ‘Old friends? That hardly applies to you and I.’
Romano was prevented from answering by an impatient Lizzie bursting into the room. Still, his eyes twinkled as Lizzie made Jackie do a three-sixty-degree spin. When she found herself back at the starting point he was waiting for her, his gaze hooking hers. Not old friends, it said. But old lovers, certainly.
Jackie wanted to hit him.
‘It’s beautiful!’ Lizzie exclaimed. ‘Perfect!’
‘Yes. That is what I said,’ Romano replied, and Jackie had to look away or she’d be tempted to throttle him, dress or no dress.
‘Come and show the others!’ Lizzie grabbed her hand and dragged her outside for Isabella and Scarlett to see. Isabella was just as enthusiastic as Lizzie but Scarlett looked as if she’d just sucked a whole pound of lemons. What was up with her? She just kept glowering at Jackie and sending daggers at Romano. Somebody or something had definitely put her nose out of joint.
The fitting was exhausting for Jackie. Not because her dress needed any alterations—she’d been right about that—but because she kept finding herself watching Romano, his deft fingers pinching at a seam as he discussed how and where he would make alterations, the way his brow creased with intense concentration as he discussed the possibilities with the bride-to-be, and how easily he smiled when the concentration lifted.
She’d spent the last seventeen years studiously avoiding him. It was laughable the lengths she’d gone to in order to make sure they never met face to face. Quite a few junior editors had been overjoyed when she’d sent them on plum assignments so that she wouldn’t have to cross paths with that no-good, womanising charmer.
How could she chit-chat with him at fashion industry parties as if nothing had ever happened? As if he’d never done what he’d done? It was asking too much.
Of course, sometimes over the years she’d had to attend the same functions as him—especially during London fashion week, when she was expected to be seen at everything—but she had enough clout to be able to look at seating plans in advance and position herself accordingly.
However, there was no avoiding Romano now.
At least not for the next twenty minutes or so. After that she needn’t see him again. Her dress was perfect. No more fittings for her, thank goodness.
Her mother chose that moment to sweep into the room. She gave Romano an indulgent smile and kissed him on both cheeks. Jackie couldn’t hear what he said to her mother but Mamma batted her eyelashes and called him a ‘charming young man’.
Hah! She’d changed her tune! Last time Lisa Firenzi had seen her daughter and Romano Puccini within a mile of each other, she’d had no compunctions about warning Jackie off. ‘That boy is trouble,’ she’d said. ‘Just like his father. You are not to have anything to do with him. If I catch you even talking to him, you will be grounded for a month.’
But it had been too late.
Mamma had made Jackie help out at Sorella that summer, to ‘keep her out of trouble’. And, if her mother had actually had some hands-on part in running the restaurant rather than leaving it all to managers, she would have known that Jackie and Romano had met weeks earlier when he’d come in for lunch with his father.
Of course she’d paid him no attention whatsoever. She’d seen him hanging around the piazza that summer, all the girls trailing around after him, and she hadn’t been about to join that pathetic band of creatures, no matter how good-looking the object of their adoration was. But Romano had been rather persistent, had made her believe he was really interested, and, when she’d noticed that he hadn’t had another girl on the back of his Vespa in more than a fortnight, she’d cautiously agreed to go out on it with him.
She should have listened to her mother. ‘Like father, like son,’ Lisa had said at the time. Jackie had always known that her mother and Romano’s father, Rafe Puccini, had known each other in the past, but it wasn’t until she’d moved to London and heard all the industry gossip that she realised how significant that relationship had been. By all accounts they’d had a rather steamy affair.
Look at her mother and Romano now! They were laughing at something. Her mother laid a hand on his upper arm and wiped a tear from under her mascara, calling him an ‘impossible boy’. That was as much as Jackie could take. She strutted off to the dressing room and changed back into her trouser suit, studiously ignoring her reflection in the mirror. She didn’t even want to see herself in his dress at the moment.
Keep a lid on it, Jacqueline.