had covered for him then and she still did to this very day.
Rupert’s career had progressed over the years and his agent had strongly advised him that the roles that were being offered would be far harder to come by if the world knew the truth. He was nothing more than a wonderful friend who, in recent years, had questioned why Isla chose to keep up the ruse that they were going out.
It suited Isla, too.
Despite her apparent confidence, despite her ease in social situations, despite the questions raised by magazines about her morals, because she put up with Rupert’s supposed unfaithfulness after all, no one had ever come close to the truth—Isla was a virgin.
Her entire sexual history could be written on the back of a postage stamp. She’d had one schoolgirl kiss with Rupert that hadn’t gone well at all. Now she’d had several more practised kisses with Rupert but they had been for appearances’ sake only.
Often Isla felt a complete fraud when she spoke with women about birth control and pelvic floor exercises, or offered advice about lovemaking during and after pregnancy, when she had never even come close to making love with anyone herself.
Yes, how she would have loved Rupert to be here tonight, to hold her friend’s hand and to lean just a little on him as the introductions were made and she stared into the black eyes of a man who actually had the usually very cool Isla feeling just a little bit dizzy.
‘Call me Alessi,’ he said.
‘Sorry, Alessi, I keep forgetting,’ Emily said. ‘Isla is Head of Midwifery at MMU.’
‘It is very nice to meet you,’ Alessi said. He held out his hand and Isla offered hers and gave him a smile. His hand was warm as it briefly closed around the ends of her fingers and so, too, were Isla’s cheeks. ‘Can I get you a drink?’ he offered.
‘No, thanks.’ Isla was about to say that she would get this round but for some reason, even as she shook her head, she changed her mind. ‘Actually, yes, please, I’d love a drink. I just promised Cathy, my patient, that I was going to have a glass of champagne for her tonight.’
Alessi headed off to the bar and Emily took the opportunity to have a quick word. ‘Isla, thank you for getting here, I know you were held back, but I’m really going to have to get home.’
‘Of course,’ Isla said. ‘I know how hard it is for you to get away and I really appreciate you coming out tonight. The numbers were just so low I didn’t want Alessandro, I mean Alessi, to think that nobody could be bothered to greet him. Go home to your babies.’
As Emily said her goodbyes, another colleague nudged Isla. ‘Gorgeous, isn’t he?’
‘I guess.’ Isla shrugged her shoulders. She could get away with such a dismissive comment purely because she had Rupert standing in the wings of her carefully stage-managed social life. Isla glanced over to the bar and looked at Alessi, whose back was to her as he ordered her drink. He was wearing black trousers and had a white fitted shirt on that showed off his olive skin. Isla felt a flutter in her stomach as it dawned on her that she was actually checking him out. She took in the toned torso and the long length of his legs but as he turned around she flicked her gaze away and spoke with her colleagues.
‘Thank you for that,’ Isla said when he handed her her drink. She was a little taken aback when he came and sat on the low sofa beside her, and she took a sip.
Oh!
With all the functions that Isla attended she knew her wines and this was French champagne at its best! ‘When I said champagne …’ Isla winced because here in Melbourne champagne usually meant sparkling wine. ‘You must think me terribly rude.’
‘Far from it,’ Alessi said. ‘It’s nice to see someone celebrating.’
Isla nodded. ‘I’ve just been at the most amazing birth,’ she admitted, and then, to her complete surprise, she was off—telling Alessi all about Cathy and Dan’s long journey and just how wonderful the birth had been. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said when she realised that they had been talking about it for a good ten minutes. ‘I’m going on a bit.’
‘I don’t blame you,’ Alessi said. ‘I think there is no greater reward than seeing a family make it against the odds. It is those moments that we treasure and hold onto, to get us through the dark times in our jobs.’
Isla nodded, glad that he seemed to understand just how priceless this evening’s birth had been.
They chatted incredibly easily, having to tear themselves away from their conversation to say goodbye to colleagues who were starting to drift off.
‘I can’t believe that we went to the same school!’ Isla said when Alessi brought it to her attention. ‘How old are you?’
‘Thirty.’
‘So you would have been two years above me …’ Isla tried to place him but couldn’t—they would, given their age difference, for the most part, have been on separate campuses. ‘You might know my older sister Isabel,’ Isla said. ‘She would have been a couple of years ahead of you.’
‘I vaguely remember her. She was head girl when I went to the senior campus. Though I didn’t really get involved in the social side—I was there on scholarship so if I wanted to stay there I really had to concentrate on making the grades. Were you head girl, too?’
Isla nodded and laughed, but Alessi didn’t.
Alessi was actually having a small private battle with himself as he recalled his private-school days. Alessi and his sister Allegra had been there, as he had just told Isla, on scholarship. Both had endured the taunts of the elite—the glossy, beautiful rich kids who’d felt that he and his sister hadn’t belonged at their school. Alessi had for the most part ignored the gibes but when it had got too much for Allegra he would step in. They had both worked in the family café and put up with the smirks from their peers when they’d come in for a coffee on their way to school and found the twins serving. Now Allegra was the one who smirked when her old school friends came into Geo’s, an exclusive Greek restaurant in Melbourne, and they realised how well the Manos family had done.
Still, just because they had been on the end of snobby bitchiness it didn’t mean that Isla had been like that, Alessi told himself.
They got on really well.
Isla even texted him an image she had on her phone of a school reunion she had gone to a couple of years ago.
‘I remember him!’ Alessi said, and gave a dry laugh. ‘And he would remember me!’
‘Meaning?’
‘We had a scuffle. He stole my sister’s blazer and she was too worried to tell my parents that she’d lost another one.’
‘Did you get it back?’
‘Oh, yes.’ Alessi grinned and then his smile faded as Isla pointed to a woman in the photo who he hadn’t seen in a very long time.
‘Do you remember Talia?’ Isla asked. ‘She’s a doctor now, though she’s moved to Singapore. She actually came all the way back just for the reunion.’
Alessi didn’t really comment but, yes, he knew Talia. Her name was
