by Fiona Harper
Jackie held her breath. Why on earth had she thought they could keep this anonymous? A girl as sharp as Kate was always going to guess, was always going to be one step ahead. She too looked at Romano, willing him to give the perfect answer, even though she was pretty sure there wasn’t one.
Romano’s face split into the biggest grin yet. It was totally captivating. ‘Yes,’ he said simply. ‘And I’m very proud to be so.’
There was a perfect answer! And it wasn’t so much in the words as in the delivery. Kate rewarded Romano with a matching smile. ‘Cool.’
But over the next few minutes the smile faded, more questions arrived behind her eyes. She turned to Jackie.
‘So why didn’t you tell me about him right at the start? Why did you say all those things about not needing to know, about how it wasn’t the right time?’
Uh-oh. She needed an injection of Romano’s effortless charm. Quick. Jackie sent him a pleading look. He gave a rueful smile, and she knew he’d have helped her if he could have done, but this was her question and hers alone. She only hoped she could pull her answer off with as much panache as he had done.
She frowned. How did she say this? She didn’t want to tell Kate that she’d thought Romano hadn’t wanted her—that would be too cruel. So she started to tell a story. A story about a girl younger than Kate who had unexpectedly found herself pregnant, and her sadly inadequate attempt to deal with the situation. Kate’s eyes were wide and round as she listened and as she got deeper into the story Jackie found she couldn’t look at her daughter, that she had to concentrate on the fingers endlessly twiddling in her lap instead.
Before she’d finished all she had to say, they arrived at Kate’s home. None of them made a move to get out of the car. Jackie kept talking, afraid that if she stopped, she might never have the courage to start again. And then finally there was silence. All was laid bare. She held her fingers still by clasping her hands.
The air in the back of the limousine was thick with tension. Jackie’s heart thudded so hard she thought she could feel little shock waves reverberating off the windows with each beat. She looked up.
Kate was crying. Large fat tears rolled down her cheeks. Jackie reached for her, reached to brush them gently away. ‘Sweetheart—’
‘Don’t!’
Kate sprang away from her, back against Romano, her mouth contorted in a look of disgust. Jackie would never, ever forget that look.
‘Don’t you dare call me that! Don’t ever pretend that you care! You couldn’t even be bothered to name me. You left that up to Sue and Dave!’
Jackie dropped her hand. Her mouth was open, but she was frozen, unable to close it, unable to do anything.
‘You! This was all your fault! All of it!’ Kate broke off to swipe at her eyes. Her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘You ruined our lives. All of our lives. I…’
Don’t say it, Jackie silently begged. Please, don’t say it.
‘I hate you. I never want to see you again.’
She made a move for the door and Romano clambered out of her way. He reached for her, laid a hand on her arm. ‘Kate, please?’
She shook her head. ‘Sorry, Romano.’
And then she marched up the garden path and disappeared past a shocked-looking Sue into the house.
Jackie just sat there, numb. Just like that, her whole world had caved in around her. She really, really wanted to blame Romano, but she knew she couldn’t. Kate had been speaking the truth. It had been all her fault. How could she foist the blame on anyone else?
‘She doesn’t mean it,’ Romano said as he climbed back into the car.
Jackie’s eyes were fixed on the back of the driver’s seat. ‘Just like I didn’t mean it when I said I didn’t want to see you again? I think you’ll find she meant every word.’
‘Then you do what I didn’t do. Keep trying. Never give up. Don’t be a coward like I was and take the easy way out.’
The tiniest of frowns creased Jackie’s forehead. She smoothed it away with her palm. ‘The easy way out?’ she echoed quietly.
Romano nodded. ‘Pretending you don’t care. Distracting yourself with other things so it doesn’t hurt so much.’ He let out a dry, short laugh. ‘In my case, distracting myself with other girls.’
Jackie felt her shoulders tense. ‘I don’t want to know how many girls you had to sleep with to get over me, especially not as Francesca Gambardi was first in the queue.’
Romano’s arm shot out and he captured her face in his hand. ‘Look at me.’
The tension worked its way up from her shoulder and into her jaw. Reluctantly she let him manoeuvre her face until she was looking at him.
‘I never slept with Francesca. I didn’t even kiss her. How could I have? After all that we had?’
She wanted to spit and shout and tell him he was a liar, but the truth was there in his eyes. She nodded and tears blurred her vision.
‘You changed me, Jackie. Knowing you made me a better person.’
She started to laugh. That had to be the funniest thing she’d ever heard. As if she had that kind of power! Why, if she could do such miracles, she’d wave a magic wand and make her mother love her, she’d wiggle her nose and Kate would come skipping into her arms.
‘Stop it!’
The laugh snagged in her throat. She’d never heard Romano speak that way before and it shocked the hilarity right out of her. She’d never seen him look so fierce.
‘You were wrong about me and Francesca. Just allow for the fact that you might be wrong about this too?’
She nodded. Mainly because she knew it was the expected response. She was such a liar. Even when she kept her mouth shut she kept on lying—to him, to herself, to everyone.
‘Can you take me home?’ she asked, sinking back into the seat and kicking the stupid flip-flops off so they disappeared under the passenger seat. ‘I’m starting to get a headache.’
Once again, because of her own stupid decisions—the same stupid decisions—she’d lost her daughter.
Kate refused point-blank to have any contact with Jackie. Texts went unanswered. Calls ignored. If Jackie got creative and dialled from a number Kate wouldn’t recognise, she put the phone down on her.
At least she was still in contact with Romano.
Apparently the whole drama had only served to increase the bonding process between father and daughter. They’d been calling each other every day. Romano had even been to the house to see her again.
Jackie knew this because she demanded daily updates. Each evening they’d meet up to pick apart what had happened that day. Romano was unswerving in his belief that Kate would come around eventually. He was deluding himself. He’d even told her he was staying in London until it was all sorted, to which she’d replied that he’d better find himself a nice flat, because the hotel bills would bankrupt him.
By Sunday of that week she’d had enough of torturing herself. A call had come in from the office to say there was an emergency meeting of all the different editors-in-chief of the various international Gloss! editions in New York that Monday and Jackie had no reason to tell them to take a hike. Her job wouldn’t exactly be on the line if she didn’t go, but it wouldn’t look good. And with her personal life flushed down the pan, she might as well hold onto the one area that was working out.
She was busy throwing things into a suitcase when the doorbell went. She heard her housekeeper let someone in. Moments later there were footsteps on the stairs, then Romano appeared at her bedroom door. She flipped the lid of her case closed, bizarrely ashamed of her haphazard packing, and turned to face him. ‘How did it go today?’
He did one of those non-committal gestures that involved both hands and mouth.
‘That good, huh?’
‘She is a fiery young woman, not too different from another young woman I used to know.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘Give her time. All her life she’s wanted to know who we were, and it’s nothing like the fairy tale she invented for herself. It’s
been a shock.’
Jackie marched over to her wardrobe and threw the doors open. She didn’t know what she was looking for.
‘Well, it’s all worked out rather nicely for you.’
Romano ran a weary hand over his face and said something gruff in Italian before he answered her properly.
‘With two such women! I should be sainted.’
‘You do that,’ she said, then pulled a black suit from the rail, only to throw it back in again two seconds later.
Romano sat down on the armchair near her dressing table. ‘Jackie?’
She peered round the wardrobe door at him. ‘Yes?’
‘I have something to tell you. Good news, I think.’
She clutched the blouse she was holding to her chest and walked towards him. ‘You do?’
‘Kate has asked to come with me back to Italy to meet my father, and Sue has agreed—as long as she comes too.’
Of course Sue had agreed. With Jackie she’d been like a Rottweiler, but with Romano…
‘She thinks it will help Kate come to terms with all that has happened recently,’ he added. ‘She hopes that meeting my family—and yours—will help Kate put it all in context. I agree.’
Jackie crushed the silk blouse so hard she feared she might never get the wrinkles out again. ‘You want to take her to meet my mother?’
Romano nodded.
A short, hard laugh burst from her mouth.
He dropped his voice, laced it with honey. ‘I was hoping you would come too.’
Oh, yes. That would be really popular.
‘It’s impossible.’
He stood up and walked towards her, and his easy, graceful stride momentarily mesmerised her. What would it be like to just walk into a room and have people react that way…to love you, to adore you? She’d never know. And in truth she really didn’t care. There was only one person she wanted to impress and she doubted very much that walking anywhere, anyhow, was going to accomplish that.
He tugged the blouse from her claw-like hands and put it on the bed, then he ironed her fingers out with his and closed his hands round hers. ‘Nothing is impossible. Look at us. For years…nothing. And now—’
She began to shake her head.
‘No, Jackie. I know you feel it too. What we thought was dead is very much alive.’
She pulled her hands away. ‘You’re starting to sound like Uncle Luca. Pretty words aren’t going to solve this, Romano.’
Jackie opened her case up again and threw the crumpled blouse inside. Romano started to say something, but then stared at her and closed his mouth.
‘What are you doing?’
She went and picked the black suit up from the floor of the wardrobe, then folded it clumsily into the case. ‘Packing.’
He frowned. ‘But you were packing before I came in. Why?’
‘I’m going to New York. Work. Tomorrow morning.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
WAS she insane?
Who was thinking of work at a time like this? This was family! And if Jackie handled this badly now she might never be able to repair the damage. Wasn’t she even going to try?
He had the feeling that Kate was testing her mother, stretching the fragile bond between them to its utmost. The worst thing Jackie could do now was to disappear. He needed to persuade her to change her mind—and not just for Kate’s sake, but for his own.
He’d never expected to want a family, had never been sure he’d know what to do with all that permanence, all those expectations. But now he had one, he’d found himself rising to the challenge. The idea of loving someone, of pledging himself to one woman, come what may, didn’t scare him any more. He wanted that adventure.
‘You can’t go.’
Jackie paused from collecting together an armful of products from a drawer in her dressing table. ‘I have to.’
He walked over to her, took each item out of her hands one by one and put them on the dressing table. ‘No. You need to come with me, with Kate, to Italy. You need to come home.’
Jackie had her weight on the balls of her feet, rocking backwards and forwards slightly, as if she was getting ready to run. ‘There’s no point. Not now.’ She didn’t add the words not ever, but Romano heard them inside his head.
She was giving up. Locking herself up tight inside her pride.
But Jackie wasn’t arrogant, or full of hot air. Quite the opposite. Pride was her life jacket, her air bag—emotional bubble-wrap. She used it as protection, and as such it was extremely effective.
Even if there hadn’t been a trip to New York, she’d have found an excuse not to come with him. And it was this mindset that was dangerous. He had to shake her out of it, show her that there was a better way. He wanted her to learn how liberating it could be to knock down the walls, to feel the breeze on her soul and be seen.
But Jackie wasn’t thinking about breeze and walls and souls. She was packing.
Romano knew of only one sure-fire way to claim her full attention, so he decided to play dirty. He waited until she brushed past him on her way to putting more ‘stuff’ into her case, pulled her into his arms and kissed her.
When he finally felt the tension melt from her frame, he pulled back and looked at her. ‘I still love you, Jacqueline. Come with me.’
Jackie went white. Instead of reassuring her, his words only seemed to spook her further. He kissed her forehead and drew her back against him, letting her ear rest against his chest so she could hear the steady thump of his heart. And then he just held her.
‘Be brave,’ he whispered. ‘There is still a chance for you and Kate. And for us. Be patient. There will be healing.’
Jackie, who had been breathing softly against him, went still, and then she wriggled out of his embrace and stepped away. On the surface she was all business and propriety, but he could see the war inside shimmering in her eyes.
‘You’re going all Italian on me again, saying things you don’t mean, getting caught up in the moment…’
A corner of his mouth lifted. ‘You know that’s not true.’
She moistened her lips by rolling one across the other. ‘It doesn’t matter if it is or if it isn’t—’ she shook her head and backed away further ‘—because I don’t love you back.’
The words hit him in the chest like a bullet, even though he knew they were only blanks, empty words designed to scare, with no real impact, no truth to them. She must have seen this in his eyes as he gathered himself together, ready to make another assault of his own.
‘Don’t flatter yourself,’ she said, raising her chin and looking at him through slightly lowered lids.
So this was how it was going to be. Once again Jackie was going to abandon everything that was real in her life in order to keep herself safe.
He wasn’t going to beg, but he wasn’t above one last attempt at making her see sense—for their daughter’s sake.
‘Don’t do this,’ he said.
Jackie picked up the items he’d put back on the dressing table and placed them in strategic points in her half-full case. ‘I have to.’
Her voice didn’t wobble, but he knew that was only down to supreme effort on her part. He knew this was breaking her heart, but he had to keep pushing. He wanted her to believe in Kate the way she hadn’t been able to believe in him all those years ago.
It was useless. As each second passed he watched her use all her strength to board herself up. His compassion for her evaporated in a sudden puff.
He walked away from her, right to the bedroom door, and back again. ‘I never thought you a coward, Ms Patterson, but that is what you are.’ He shook his head. ‘She deserves more than this from you. A lot more.’
Jackie met his gaze, jaw tense, eyes narrowed. ‘You think I don’t know that? I can’t believe it’s taken you all these years for you to work out I’m just not up to it.’
His hands made an explosive gesture, like lava gushing out of a volcano. What was it with this woman? She was so stubborn
! So blinkered! It was so…familiar. He took a moment to assimilate that thought. So very familiar.
‘If it makes you happy to pretend that’s the way it is, fine! Why bother risking anything when you have your wall of denial to hide behind? You know, sometimes you are just like your mother.’
‘Get out!’
Jackie was holding a shoe in her right hand. Her fingers were tensing and flexing around the rather sharp heel and he sensed he might need to duck at any second. He kept himself ready but folded his arms across his chest.
‘I am not going anywhere until you agree to come to Italy with me.’
‘Fine!’ She tapped the heel of the shoe on her upturned palm, then tossed it on the bed. Then she pivoted round and headed for her bathroom. The door slammed hard enough to get an answering rattle from the hefty front door downstairs. ‘I’m taking a shower,’ she yelled through the door. ‘And if you are here when I get out, I’ll be calling the police!’ The sound of drumming water drowned out anything he might say in response.
Impossible woman! He let out a huff of air and scratched his scalp with his fingertips. Think, Romano. He was loath to beat a retreat, but if he stayed and fought Jackie would just dig deeper trenches, hide herself in her iron-clad excuses.
So he would go. But he wasn’t giving up entirely. A good soldier knew that when frontal assault wasn’t possible, guerrilla tactics were occasionally necessary.
First, he tore a page from a pad by the telephone and wrote down the details of the flight to Naples in the morning. There was still a ticket with her name on it. All she had to do was check in at London City Airport and the seat on the plane was hers. Secondly, he took a moment to retrieve a couple of items he’d spotted in the bottom of Jackie’s wardrobe and placed them in her case.
With one final look at the bathroom door he walked out of the room, out of Jackie’s house and back to his hotel. He had some packing of his own to do.
Jackie had such a migraine coming on by the time she emerged from the shower that she took a couple of tablets and crawled into bed, not even bothering to move the case that filled half of it. She’d work round it.
