what to do with me. He’s good with big ideas and balance sheets, but not so great with the people stuff. I think he wanted the problem to just go away. It was as much as he could manage just to let me go and live with him until the baby was born.’
Romano didn’t say anything. He’d always thought of Jackie as being just like him—a child of a wealthy family, secure in the knowledge of her place in the world. He’d even envied her the sisters and the multitude of cousins compared to his one-parent, no-cousin family. His father hadn’t been perfect, but he’d always shown him love, and that had made Romano too sure, too cocky, when he’d been young, but he realised that Jackie had never had that.
One loving parent—however unique he might be—had to be better than two clueless ones. His father would never have forced him to do what Jackie’s parents had made her do. Yes, her mother had been the driving force, but her father had to take responsibility too. He’d let her down by omitting to stand up for her, to fight for her, to do anything he could to make her happy. That was what fathers were supposed to do.
That was what he was supposed to do now.
Jackie lifted her head from her knees. ‘Once I was too big to keep it a secret any more, Mamma packed me off to London to live with Dad, and you know what?’ She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands and took a long gulp of air.
‘What?’ he said softly. No longer was he trying just to keep her talking, aiming to get dates and times and details from her. He really wanted to know.
‘When I went to live with him, he never even mentioned my pregnancy, even though I was swelling up in front of his face. He just…ignored it. It was so weird.’ She shook her head. ‘And when I came home from the hospital without…on my own…the only emotion he showed was relief.’
She hugged her knees even tighter and rested her chin on top of them. He could see her jaw clenching and unclenching, as if there were unsaid words, words she’d wanted to say to her father for years, but never had.
She’d been so young. And so alone.
He didn’t have a heart of stone. He would have been a monster if he couldn’t have imagined how awful it must have been for her. And she’d only told him bare details.
There wasn’t anything he could say to change that, to make it better. For a long time they sat in silence.
‘What was it like?’ he finally said. ‘The day she was born?’
Jackie frowned. ‘It rained.’
He didn’t push for more, sensing that the answer he wanted was coming, he just needed to give her room. The sun had started to set while they’d been in the clearing and, through the trees, the sky was turning bright turquoise at the horizon, and the ripples on the lake glinted soft gold. The temperature must have dropped a little, because Jackie shivered.
Not a monster, he reminded himself, and pulled his jacket off and draped it around her shoulders. The sleeves hung uselessly by her sides.
When she spoke again, she went on to describe a long, complicated labour that had ended in a distressed baby and an emergency Caesarean section. All the half-formed ideas of cute newborns sliding easily into the world were blown right out of the water. Real birth, it seemed, was every bit as traumatic as real life. And she’d done it all on her own, her father away on a business trip and her mother still in Italy keeping up at the façade, lest anyone suspect their family’s disgrace.
‘What was she like? Kate?’
Jackie’s face softened in a way he hadn’t thought possible. ‘She was perfect. So tiny. With a shock of dark hair just like yours and a temper just like mine.’
He wanted to smile but he felt strangely breathless.
A single tear ran down her cheek. ‘She’s amazing, Romano. Just so…amazing.’
He sat up a little straighter. ‘You’ve met her?’
She nodded. ‘She started looking for me a few months ago and we’ve been meeting up, trying to establish a bond.’ She pulled a face. ‘It’s not been going very well.’
Well, if she had Jackie’s temper, that was hardly surprising.
He watched Jackie as she stared out into the gathering dusk, not sure he’d ever seen her like this before, with all the armour plating stripped away.
‘I was going to tell my family after the wedding,’ she said. ‘She wants to meet them, find out where she comes from. And then Scarlett told me about the letter and I realised I had to tell you too—tell you first. But I was going to do it after today, to avoid all…this.’
You stupid fool, he told himself. All this time you thought she was coming on to you and all she was doing was paving the way for the truth to come out.
‘What are we going to do?’ she said, with equal measures of fear and uncertainty in her eyes.
He stood up and offered her his hand. She took it, and he pulled her to her feet and waited while she slid her feet back in her shoes.
He stared at a cluster of trees, looking for answers.
Honesty deserved honesty.
‘I don’t know,’ he said, ‘but it’s time we went back to the party and faced everybody.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
JACKIE felt as if her skin were too thick, as if sensations from the outside world couldn’t quite get through. She was floating and heavy all at the same time. The details of the walk back towards the terrace were fuzzy; she didn’t remember which path they took, or any of the sights and sounds. Just before they emerged from the trees and into the open, she stopped, pulled at Romano’s shirtsleeve.
‘Here. You’d better have this back.’
She started to slide his jacket from her shoulders, but he hooked the collar with a finger and pulled it back up. ‘Keep it. You look cold.’
She was cold. Ever since Romano had said those things to her in the grotto, she hadn’t been able to ignore the shivering deep, deep inside. Sometimes it worked its way outwards and she had to clench her teeth to stop them rattling, but it all felt a little disconnected from her, as if it were happening to someone else.
‘But—’
‘What’s the point, Jackie?’
‘I…’
She didn’t know. Just that it seemed the right thing to do, to hide the fact she’d been in the garden with Romano. The need to keep everything about their relationship under the radar had become a habit she’d never thought to break.
‘We don’t have to keep it a secret that we went for a walk in the garden,’ he said, taking her by the hand and leading her forwards. ‘Who cares if anyone sees us together? Your family will know all there is to know soon.’
Jackie nodded, because she recognised the need for response of some kind. Her brain wasn’t working fast enough to keep up. Romano’s words seemed to make sense. Why hadn’t she thought about this before? Somehow in the confusion
