have dressed up.
He stood up, vaulted out of the boat and walked towards her. She didn’t smile, and he liked her all the more for it. A smile would have been a lie. He was very good at reading women, their bodies, the silent signals their posture and gestures gave off, and as he watched Jackie walk towards him the signals came thick and fast—and all of them contradictory.
Greeting people with visible affection, even if little or no emotion was involved, was part of their world and, almost out of reflex, they leaned in, he kissed her on the cheek and took her hand. He’d done it a thousand times to a thousand different women at a thousand different fashion shows, seen her do the same from across the room, but as he pulled away a wave of memories as tall as a wall hit him.
She smelled the same. Warm. Spicy. Feminine.
And suddenly the hand in his felt softer, more alive, as if he could feel the pulse beating through it, and his lips, where they had touched her cheek, tingled a little.
Up until now the idea of embarking on a second summer fling with Jackie Patterson had been a mentally pleasing idea rather than a physical tug. He sensed that afterwards he would be able to erase the niggling questions about their romance that surfaced every few years from his subconscious, only to be swiftly batted down again. A rerun now they were older and more sensible would soothe whatever it was that jarred and jiggled deep down in his soul, wanting to be let out. But this time they would end it cleanly. No fuss, no ties.
As he ushered her into the small speedboat he realised that his only half-thought-out plans had moved up a gear. Now he didn’t just want to get close to Jackie again to put ghosts to rest; his body wanted her here and now. But it wouldn’t do to rush it. While she was all cool glamour on the surface, underneath she was awkward and nervous. Skittish. If he wanted to take Jackie to his bed, he was going to have to see if he could peel back some of those layers first.
He smiled. Not many men would guess what warmth and passion lay behind the glossy, cool exterior. But he knew. And it made the anticipation all the sweeter.
There were several mooring sites on the island and he chose the one that gave them a walk through the lush gardens to the palazzo. Jackie didn’t say much as she walked in front of him, looking to the left and right, a slight frown creasing her forehead as she climbed the sloping steps from terrace to terrace. Now and again he saw her eyelids flicker, the very bare hint of colour flare in her cheeks, and he knew she was remembering the same things he was—memories of soft naked flesh, cool garden breezes that carried the scent of flowers. Heat and fulfilment.
It was here that they’d first made love, one night when his father had been away. He’d managed to invent an excuse to send the housekeeper and cook off for the evening—making sure they’d prepared food before they’d left, of course—and he and Jackie had spent the evening eating at the grand six-metre-long dining-room table, sneaking sips of his father’s best vintage wine and pretending they were older and more sophisticated, free to love each other without remark or interruption.
He hadn’t intended to seduce her. He’d just wanted some time alone with her far away from prying eyes, somewhere nicer than a dusty old run-down farmhouse. She’d been too young, and he’d been holding himself back, but that night…when they’d taken a walk in the gardens after dinner and she’d turned to him, kissed him, whispered his name and offered herself to him with wide eyes and soft lips, he hadn’t been able to say no. Not when she’d purposely played with fire, done things that she knew got him so hot and bothered that he could hardly think straight.
But he couldn’t regret it.
It had been intoxicating, and for the rest of the summer they’d lived in a blissful, heated bubble where the only thing that had mattered was time they could spend alone together. Foolish, yes. Forgettable, no.
They reached the large terrace with the parterre and giant urns. He watched her amble round a few paths, stooping to brush the tops of the geometric hedges and leaning in to smell the flowers dripping over the edges of the stone ornaments. This time it would be different. An adult affair, free from all the teenage angst and complications. He had a feeling it would be just as memorable.
On a large patio around to the side of the palazzo a table was set with linen and silver, a cream umbrella shading the waiting food. He led her to it. Crisp white wine was chilling in a bucket of ice, a dish on a stand stood in the middle of the table. She lifted her sunglasses for a moment and he noticed her eyebrows were already raised. He knew what she was thinking.
‘I had a little help,’ he said, not being able to resist teasing her, even though he’d prepared most of the meal himself. He liked cooking. It was just another way to be creative, and the results brought such pleasure, if the right amount of time and precision was lavished upon a dish. And he was all for pleasure, whatever the cost.
‘Would you prefer to sit in the sun? I can remove the umbrella.’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t do sun. It’s aging.’
He shrugged and pulled her chair out for her and she sat down, her eyes fixed on the domed cover over the central dish. He whipped it away to reveal a mountainous seafood platter: oysters, mussels, fat juicy prawns, squid and scallops, all stacked high on a mound of ice. Jackie forgot for a second to wear her mask of composure. He’d remembered well. She loved seafood.
‘Wow.’
‘See? I can cook.’
For the first time since he’d zipped her up in her mother’s dressing room, she smiled. ‘You don’t really expect me to believe you prepared all this?’ She swept a hand across the table. ‘Even the salads?’
He handed her a serving spoon and nodded towards the platter. ‘Any fool can shred a lettuce or slice a few tomatoes and drizzle a bit of oil and vinegar on them.’
She fixed him with a sassy look. ‘It seems that any fool did.’
Warmth spread outwards from his core. He’d always loved her acerbic, dry sense of humour. Jackie was funny, intelligent, and with a quirky prettiness that had fascinated him; she’d been his favourite summer fling. His last, actually. After that he’d had other things to concentrate on. Learning the ropes at Puccini Designs, proving he wasn’t a waste of space. It wasn’t until success had come that he’d returned to finding women quite so distracting. And by then he’d been older, and summer flings had had their day.
Lunch was pleasant. He almost forgot that he’d sensed Jackie had a secret agenda for their meeting. They talked about work and what was new in the fashion world. She listened with interest as he bounced a few ideas for the next collection off her. Jackie Patterson deserved to be where she was. She knew her stuff. Not one person he’d ever come across in the length of his career had ever dared to suggest she was a success because her mother had once been a famous model. Quite the reverse, actually.
Lisa’s prima-donna tendencies had been legendary. No one who’d been in Jackie’s company for more than five seconds would accuse her of being anything but highly focused, knowledgeable and professional. He was so taken with getting to know her again that he almost forgot his own secret agenda.
‘How long are you staying in Monta Correnti?’ he asked as he served her second helpings of almost everything from the platter, hoping that she wasn’t going to announce some urgent meeting back in London straight after the wedding.
She swallowed the scallop she’d been chewing. ‘Two weeks. Mamma convinced me to take a holiday since Scarlett would be visiting.’
He
