been buffeting him on his moped. Now he was motionless, he felt it cling to his skin and wrap around him.
Wasn’t she here? Why hadn’t she come running round the side of the farmhouse at the sound of his arrival as she usually did?
Frowning slightly, he jogged round the old building calling her name. No one answered.
He found her sitting on the front step, her back against the rotted door jamb, her long legs folded up in front of her. She didn’t move, didn’t look at him, even though she must have heard him arrive.
‘Jackie? What’s the matter?’
He sat down on the step beside her and she swiftly tucked her legs underneath herself. Her long dark hair was pulled into a high, tight ponytail and combined with the coldness in her hazel eyes it made her look unusually severe.
‘I’m surprised you managed to drag yourself away,’ she said, looking up, her tone light and controlled. ‘I thought you’d be down in the piazza still, letting that Francesca Gambardi make eyes at you.’
Romano turned away. He was getting tired of this. Ever since they’d spent the night together almost three weeks ago Jackie had been acting strangely.
Oh, most of the time she was her normal, fiery, passionate self—a fact he was capitalising on, since they didn’t seem to be able to keep their hands off each other for more than a few seconds at a time—but every now and then she just went all quiet and moody. And then she’d come out with some outrageous statement. Just as she had done a few moments ago. His head hurt with trying to figure it all out.
He sighed. ‘We were just talking.’
Jackie humphed. ‘Well, you seem to do a heck of a lot of talking with Francesca these days!’
He felt unusually tired and old when he answered her. ‘There’s nothing wrong with talking to a friend and, besides, I was only in the piazza because I was waiting for a chance to ask you to meet me here. Which I did. And you came. So I can’t see what the problem is.’
She rolled her eyes and Romano felt his habitually well-buried temper shift and wake. ‘What more do you want me to do?’
Jackie’s answer was so fast it almost grazed his ears. ‘Tell her you’re not interested!’
‘I have told her! She keeps asking me why, wanting a reason. I can’t very well tell her it’s because I’m seeing you. The news would be all over town in a flash and we’d never be able to see each other again. So, until we can convince our parents to take us seriously, I’m just going to have to let Francesca talk and I will pretend to listen.’
‘How very convenient for you. Sounds like you’ve got the perfect excuse to flirt with whomever you want and still have me on the side.’
There was a hint of grit in his voice when he replied. ‘It’s not like that.’
She knew it wasn’t. How could she believe he’d spend every moment he could making love with her, whispering promises, making plans, and the next moment be chasing around after girls like Francesca? Did she really believe him capable of that?
Jackie’s silence, the thin line of her mouth told him all he needed to know.
He stood up and walked away. Only a few paces, but hopefully far enough from her distracting presence to let him think.
‘You’re not being logical,’ he said.
Jackie jumped to her feet. ‘I’m as logical as the next girl!’
That was what he was worried about.
She put her hands on her hips, looked at him as if she wanted to melt the flesh from his bones with just her stare. Jackie always had the oddest effect on him. Instead of making him cower, it made him want to stride over to her and kiss her senseless, persuade her she was everything he wanted.
He was on the verge of doing just that when she shot his plan full of holes by marching over to him and poking him in the chest with one of her fingernails. ‘I don’t need your so-called logic when I’ve got eyes in my head. You like her, don’t you? Francesca?’
He shoved his hands in his pockets and walked swiftly back towards the farmhouse and went inside, hoping the cool air would improve his mood.
Jackie had fooled him.
At best the rest of the world saw him as a financial drain on his famous father, at worst a spoiled brat who knew no limits and respected no authority. He’d always thought that Jackie was the one person who credited him with more depth than that—more than he did himself even. So it stung for her to accuse him like this, it stung. It was the worst insult she could have flung at him.
It was a pity that just a few short months ago she would have been right. He’d been all those things. But that was before he’d met her, before she’d challenged him to join her in seeing who he could be if he was brave enough. But he’d obviously failed her, and that hurt.
There was a noise behind him and he looked over his shoulder to find her standing in the doorway, backlit with dust and sunshine and looking anything but penitent.
‘This is stupid,’he said, sounding steelier than he’d meant to.
Instead of agreeing with him, softening and running to him and throwing her arms around him as he’d hoped she would, she just lengthened her spine and looked down her nose at him.
‘Hit a raw nerve, did I?’
He didn’t even bother answering her and she took a few steps towards him. ‘Francesca is a very pretty girl, isn’t she?’ She blinked innocently and her voice was suddenly all syrup and silkiness.
He didn’t know what kind of game she was playing but he had a feeling he’d lose, whichever tack he took. She went on and on, asking him over and over again, until he began to think she wanted him to agree with her, that on some level his capitulation would give her satisfaction, and eventually he got so cross with her incessant prodding that he walked over to her and gave her what she wanted.
‘Yes. Okay? Francesca is very pretty.’
There. That had shut her up.
Jackie seemed to shrink a little, wither, as her eyes grew round and pink.
‘You like her better than me,’ she said, her voice husky.
Romano ran his hand through his hair, sorry he’d let her goad him into agreeing with her. He loved her, he really did, but if he’d known that taking their relationship to the next level would have opened this Pandora’s box of female emotions, he might have resisted and sat on the lid a little longer.
She hadn’t been ready for this. Neither had he.
Suddenly a summer of sweet, stolen kisses and innocent eye-gazing had morphed into an adult relationship, full of complications and blind alleys.
‘I see you’re not denying it,’ she said, her voice colder than ever.
That was it. Romano didn’t lose his temper very often, but when he did…
His
