A Scandal, a Secret, a BabyMarriage Scandal, Showbiz Baby!

by Sharon Kendrick

  ‘But it’s true! It’s true, Dante,’ she finished quietly.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ He shook his head. ‘Flattering as it is that you should feel that way, I’m afraid that I can’t do the kind of relationship you want, Justina. I told you that. I’m not interested in being your “friend with benefits”. I asked you to marry me and you threw it back in my face.’

  ‘Because I was being naïve—I was wishing for the stars!’ she burst out. ‘You never told me that you loved me, and I thought that marriage without love wouldn’t stand a chance.’ She drew in a deep breath. ‘But I’m prepared to concede that I was wrong. Because we’re doing this for Nico. I realise that. And if it boils down to marrying you or losing you then I’ll marry you tomorrow.’

  There was a long pause while his eyes captured hers, as if they were searching for a fundamental truth, and suddenly he knew that there was no turning back. No playing safe or covering his back any more. If he wanted her—really wanted her—then he had to have the courage to tell her what he hadn’t dared admit until now. Not even to himself. That some things never changed and the most important things never should.

  ‘Not just for Nico,’ he said slowly. ‘I thought it was, but it’s not. My lawyer told me that marriage was the only thing to guarantee my role in his life. But when I stopped to think about it afterwards, I knew there was no way that I would tie my destiny to a woman if I didn’t love her. No way I could tolerate a whole lifetime with a woman I didn’t care about. I have only ever loved one woman, Justina—and that woman is you. I thought that love had died, but it hadn’t. It came springing back to life when you had my baby.’

  She realised that the music had stopped and that her rapid breathing was the only sound she could hear. She stared at him, wanting desperately to believe him but still not quite daring to. ‘Then why...why didn’t you tell me that when you asked me to marry you?’

  ‘Would you have believed me?’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Didn’t you believe we’d spoken of love so often in the past that we had devalued the words by our actions? I wanted the chance to show you that I loved you rather than tell you. But even that won’t work if you aren’t prepared to forgive me. And I’m not sure you can.’

  She felt the ice-cold clench of fear as she heard an awful finality creep into his voice. ‘Please don’t say any more.’

  ‘I’m going to say it, because you need to hear it.’

  ‘Dante—’

  ‘I know your mother made bad choices. I know you grew up believing that men could never be relied on. And I know I made a mistake—a big mistake.’ He lifted his shoulders. ‘But if you can’t learn to forgive—not just me, but your mother—then the rest of your life is going to be shadowed by the past. Can’t you see that? Can’t you just let it all go, Jus, and allow yourself to be free?’

  And that was when the tears started. Tears she seemed to have been keeping at bay for most of her life. Tears she’d never been allowed to cry as a little girl in case Mummy’s boyfriends would think she was troublesome. She’d learnt early that she needed to be strong. To present a cool façade to the outside world and make like she didn’t care. She remembered that long night in a hotel suite when she’d been eight—the first time her mother hadn’t returned home. She’d lain trembling with terror in bed. And by the morning something had changed. She had survived—she could survive—and she could do it on her own. What other choice had there been but to take that forward into her adult life? To forge the independence which had been her one and only anchor and to cling to it?

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she sobbed. ‘But I was scared, Dante. So scared. And it was a long time since I’d felt that way. My career was the only solid thing I’d ever had and I was afraid that if I let it go—if I learnt to lean on you and rely on you—it would make me vulnerable. That it would all come crashing down around me.’ She shuddered in a breath and wiped her wet cheek with her fist. ‘The stupid thing was that it all came crashing down in any case.’

  ‘I should never have tried to hold you back,’ he said slowly. ‘I see that now. I should have realised that your talent and your career were all part of the woman I loved, and that trying to stop you from exploring your potential was like putting a bird into a cage. I should have realised you needed to spread your wings.’

  ‘I have done,’ she said huskily. ‘I went on the flight of my life. Only now I’m tired of flying and I’ve discovered that I need somewhere to come home, to roost.’

  He stared at her for a minute which seemed like an hour before letting go of a sigh which seemed to come from deep, dark place inside him. Then he opened his arms.

  ‘You’ve found it,’ he said simply. ‘I’m right here.’

  Her heart missed a beat as she stared at him, knowing that this was crunch time. That if she took those few small steps then she really would have to leave the past behind for ever. ‘Dante...’ she whispered.

  ‘There is just one more thing, and it’s probably the most important thing of all.’ His lips softened as every fibre in his being ached to touch her. But he knew that she had to come to him. He could not take from her what she needed to give to him freely. ‘I love you. You do realise that?’

  She read the truth in the molten depths of his black eyes and her heart turned over with longing. ‘Oh, Dante,’ she whispered back. ‘Darling, darling Dante. I love you. I tried so hard not to—but I couldn’t seem to stop myself.’

  He started laughing. ‘Then what the hell are you doing over there?’

  She moved almost without realising it, until he was holding her, and she was kissing his lips and his nose and his eyelids, and tears were welling up in her eyes and dripping down her cheeks.

  ‘I’m safe now,’ she whispered.

  He closed his eyes against her silken hair and let her cry as he knew she needed to. He let her cry until there were no tears left, and then he gently pushed her in the direction of the bathroom and told her to go and wash her face. When she returned, she found him on the sofa, with two glasses of red wine on the table before him, and it was as if he’d read her mind—for wasn’t this scene what she’d longed for when she’d first walked in?

  She walked over and sat on his lap, facing him, before lowering her head to kiss him. She kissed him tenderly. Deeply and slowly. She kissed him with all the love she’d been holding back until she felt him smile against her lips, and when she pulled away he gave a mock-groan.

  ‘Just one more thing,’ she said.

  ‘Hurry up,’ he grumbled. ‘I want you in my bed within the next ten minutes.’

  ‘It’s about all those men I told you I slept with.’

  His face darkened. ‘I am doing my best to be a tolerant and modern man,’ he warned. ‘But there is a limit, tesoro.’

  Ignoring his scowl, Justina wriggled her shoulders. ‘Well, they don’t exist. I made them up.’

  ‘What do you mean, you made them up?’

  ‘Just that.’ She shrugged as she met the dawning comprehension in his eyes. ‘I pretended that I’d had other lovers because I wanted you to believe I was over you. But I was never over you—I could never seem to stop wanting you or loving you. I invented a whole raft of fictitious lovers so that you would think I had moved on. Only I hadn’t. You see, there’s only ever been you, Dante. Only you.’

  She watched as the implications behind her words registered and he gave a distinctly macho smile of satisfaction.

  ‘Oh, I see,’ he drawled.

  ‘Now you can kiss me,’ she said.

  He smoothed back the hair which was clinging to her damp cheeks and smiled. ‘I’ve missed you, Justina.’

  ‘You were doing a good impression of a man who was fine without me. When we came back from Tuscany it was as if you’d stopped caring completely.’

  ‘Because I knew that I had to force your hand. I had to show you what life wou
ld be like if we split. I had to push you away in order to get you back. It was a gamble, but it was one I was prepared to take. You had to come to me because you wanted me—because you know your life would be bleak without me. Just as mine would without you.’

  She lifted her hand to his face and stared into the brilliance of his eyes.

  ‘I love you so much, Dante D’Arezzo,’ she said. ‘And I’m going to spend the rest of my life showing you just how much. But now, if you wouldn’t mind, would you please just kiss me?’

  EPILOGUE

  JUSTINA WAS OUT in the garden when the doorbell rang. She’d been writing a song in the autumn sunshine and she glanced at Nico, sleeping peacefully in his pram, before going into the house to see who was there. Maybe Dante had forgotten his key. She hoped so. He wasn’t due home for another couple of hours, but perhaps he’d managed to cut his meeting short. He was getting much better at doing that, she thought. They could take the baby for a walk to the nearby park—maybe stop off at that new coffee shop on the way home and sit at one of the tables outside.

  But the figure standing on the doorstep of the Spitalfields house was completely unexpected, and Justina stood stock-still as all kinds of conflicting emotions flooded over her. She felt resignation and slight irritation—but, interestingly, the thing she felt most of all was love as she looked at her mother.

  As usual, Elaine Perry was dressed in a style which was slightly too young for her years. Her admittedly very good figure was squeezed into a pair of jeans, and she was wearing a soft leather jacket which matched her caramel-

  coloured boots. From her narrow wrists clanged a symphony of narrow silver bands, and the enormous handbag she carried was one which was regularly toted by supermodels and celebrities.

  ‘Hello, Jus,’ she said.

  Justina screwed up her nose. ‘Well, this is a surprise,’ she said drily. ‘Where’s Jacques?’

  ‘It’s Jean, actually, and he’s...’ The older woman gave a helpless kind of shrug. ‘He’s history.’

  ‘Right.’ Justina digested this. ‘So, are you coming in? Or are you just passing?’

  There was a moment of hesitation while Elaine Perry delved around in her bag before holding up a package. It was wrapped in shiny paper and covered with images of dancing blue teddy bears. ‘I’d like to come in, if I may. I’ve brought a present for the baby.’ She looked almost sheepish as she met Justina’s eyes. ‘For...Nico.’

  Justina swallowed. There was so much she could have said in response to that. The old Justina might have commented that she’d thought her mother was too young to be a grandmother, but she had learned to think before she spoke. She had learned so much. People changed, Dante had said—and he was right. People did. She remembered what he’d said about forgiveness, too. That people couldn’t be free to move on into the future if they stayed shackled to the resentments of the past. She recognised that this wasn’t so much a toy that her mother was holding out towards her as an olive branch.

  ‘You’d better come in,’ she said. ‘Because I know he’d just love to meet you.’

  ‘Would he?’

  And for the first time in her life Justina saw her mother through adult eyes. She saw the vulnerability in her face and the thick make-up which failed to cover up the deepening wrinkles. And her heart turned over.

  ‘Of course he would, Mum,’ she said softly. ‘It’s true he’s not quite nine months old, but on some subliminal level he’s bound to recognise you because you’re family.’

  Her mother was still there when Dante came home a couple of hours later, to be greeted by the rather amazing sight of two women sitting close together in the garden, the older one cradling his son.

  He wondered what was going on, and then Justina looked up at him. ‘Oh, you’re home,’ she said simply.

  He smiled into her eyes and all his questions were forgotten. How could he possibly think straight when she was looking at him like that? ‘Si, tesoro. I’m home.’

  Elaine Perry stayed for dinner. She told them—falteringly at first—that she was tired. Tired of being the mistress of some rich man who didn’t value her. She told them how hard it was to keep up the perpetual fight to look younger than her years. It was only when she got on to the subject of leg-waxing that Justina quietly changed the subject and gave her mother another hug—though she couldn’t help but worry about what the future held for someone who had only ever been reliant on the largesse of men.

  It was several weeks later, when Justina and Dante were lying in bed, that she turned to him, running her fingers through his thick dark hair the way she loved to do.

  ‘Dante?’ she murmured.

  ‘Mmm?

  ‘You know my flat in Clerkenwell?’

  ‘I certainly do.’ He drifted a finger over her belly and felt her wriggle. ‘Are you going to tell me that you’re planning to sign it over to your mother?’

  ‘You’re a mind-reader!’

  He smiled. ‘It makes sense. She needs somewhere to live which doesn’t come with the price-tag of a man—and we’ll never live there as a family, will we?’

  She shook her head, but his words thrilled her indescribably. As a family. ‘No,’ she said, then hesitated. ‘And while we’re on the subject of property...’

  ‘You don’t like this house?’

  ‘I do. It’s just...’

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘It’s not really where I would have chosen to live. And we didn’t choose it together, did we? In fact, it was chosen when we were going through that horrible phase which I’d rather forget. I mean, if you—’

  ‘We’ll sell it,’ he said instantly. ‘Or rent it out. I chose this house because I wanted to be close to you, but now that we’re together it doesn’t matter where we live. As long as you’re happy, I’m happy.’

  ‘Oh, Dante,’ she whispered. ‘I love you so much.’

  ‘I know you do. And the best thing of all is that I feel exactly the same way about you.’ His smile was tender as he pulled her closer. ‘So tell me—are you looking forward to our wedding?’

  Was she? She couldn’t wait! They were flying out to Tuscany to be married at the palazzo, and Dante had taken off a whole month for their honeymoon.

  She suspected that he wanted to move out to Italy permanently, and she was going to tell him that she was perfectly amenable to the idea. She’d even restarted her Italian lessons in preparation, and this time around she was taking them much more seriously. And the great thing about her job was that you could do it just about anywhere.

  In fact she was in the middle of writing a song which she hadn’t yet shown him, but she thought it might be the best thing she’d ever done. It was called Forever—and it was a powerful tribute to the man she would always love.

  Forever.

  * * * * *

  Marriage Scandal, Showbiz Baby!

  For Mark. Thank you for believing.

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  EXCERPT

  CHAPTER ONE

  A thousand flashguns lit the sky and the Mediterranean night was turned into garish day as the crowd surged forward.

  ‘Jennifer!’ they screamed. ‘Jennifer!’

  Jennifer paused and smiled, the way the studio had taught her—“Don’t show your teeth, honey—they’re so English!”—but the irony of the situation didn’t escape her. You could be adored from afar by so many—yet inside be as lonely as hell.

  She placed one sparkle-shoed foot on the step of the red carpet—the famous red carpet which slithered down the steps of the Festiva
l Theatre like a scarlet snake. Oh, yes. A snake. Lots of those around at the Cannes Film Festival.

  At the back of the building lay the fabled promenade of La Croisette, where lines of palm trees waved gently in the soft breeze. Beyond foamed the sapphire-edged waters of the Mediterranean, into which the evening sun had just set in a firework display of pink and gold. But, despite the warmth of the May evening which caressed her bare shoulders, Jennifer couldn’t stop the tiptoeing of regret which shivered over her skin.

  Memories stayed stubbornly alive in your head, and you couldn’t stop them flooding back—no matter how hard you tried. She’d been in Cannes with Matteo during that first, blissful summer of their ill-fated romance, and she associated the whole dazzling coastline with him. Matteo had introduced her to the South of France and the heady world of films—just as he had introduced her to white wine and orgasm. Everything in life she thought worth knowing he had taught her.

  ‘You okay, Jen?’ came the gruff voice of her publicist, Hal, who—along with an assistant, had been shadowing her like a bodyguard all day, as if afraid that she wouldn’t actually turn up for the screening of her film tonight. And, yes, she’d been tempted to hide away in the luxury of her hotel room—but you couldn’t hide from the world for ever. Sooner or later you had to come out—and it was better to come out fighting!

  Weighted by her elaborate blonde hairstyle, Jennifer dipped her head so that her low words could be neither lip-read nor heard by the crowds who were pushing towards her from behind the barrier ropes.

  ‘What do you think?’ she questioned softly. ‘I’m being forced to parade in front of the world’s media and pretend I don’t care that my husband has been flaunting his new lover.’

  ‘Hey, Jennifer,’ said Hal softly. ‘That sounds awfully like jealousy—and you were the one who walked out of the marriage, remember?’

  And for good reasons. But she knew it was pointless trying to explain them. People like Hal thought she was mad. They had told her in not so many words that she couldn’t expect a man like Matteo to be faithful. As if she should just be grateful that he had cared enough to put a shiny gold band on her finger. Well, maybe her expectations were higher than those of other people in the acting world, but she wasn’t about to start lowering them now.