others!’ Lizzie grabbed her hand and dragged her outside for Isabella and Scarlett to see. Isabella was just as enthusiastic as Lizzie but Scarlett looked as if she’d just sucked a whole pound of lemons. What was up with her? She just kept glowering at Jackie and sending daggers at Romano. Somebody or something had definitely put her nose out of joint.
The fitting was exhausting for Jackie. Not because her dress needed any alterations—she’d been right about that—but because she kept finding herself watching Romano, his deft fingers pinching at a seam as he discussed how and where he would make alterations, the way his brow creased with intense concentration as he discussed the possibilities with the bride-to-be, and how easily he smiled when the concentration lifted.
She’d spent the last seventeen years studiously avoiding him. It was laughable the lengths she’d gone to in order to make sure they never met face to face. Quite a few junior editors had been overjoyed when she’d sent them on plum assignments so that she wouldn’t have to cross paths with that no-good, womanising charmer.
How could she chit-chat with him at fashion industry parties as if nothing had ever happened? As if he’d never done what he’d done? It was asking too much.
Of course, sometimes over the years she’d had to attend the same functions as him—especially during London fashion week, when she was expected to be seen at everything—but she had enough clout to be able to look at seating plans in advance and position herself accordingly.
However, there was no avoiding Romano now.
At least not for the next twenty minutes or so. After that she needn’t see him again. Her dress was perfect. No more fittings for her, thank goodness.
Her mother chose that moment to sweep into the room. She gave Romano an indulgent smile and kissed him on both cheeks. Jackie couldn’t hear what he said to her mother but Mamma batted her eyelashes and called him a ‘charming young man’.
Hah! She’d changed her tune! Last time Lisa Firenzi had seen her daughter and Romano Puccini within a mile of each other, she’d had no compunctions about warning Jackie off. ‘That boy is trouble,’ she’d said. ‘Just like his father. You are not to have anything to do with him. If I catch you even talking to him, you will be grounded for a month.’
But it had been too late.
Mamma had made Jackie help out at Sorella that summer, to ‘keep her out of trouble’. And, if her mother had actually had some hands-on part in running the restaurant rather than leaving it all to managers, she would have known that Jackie and Romano had met weeks earlier when he’d come in for lunch with his father.
Of course she’d paid him no attention whatsoever. She’d seen him hanging around the piazza that summer, all the girls trailing around after him, and she hadn’t been about to join that pathetic band of creatures, no matter how good-looking the object of their adoration was. But Romano had been rather persistent, had made her believe he was really interested, and, when she’d noticed that he hadn’t had another girl on the back of his Vespa in more than a fortnight, she’d cautiously agreed to go out on it with him.
She should have listened to her mother. ‘Like father, like son,’ Lisa had said at the time. Jackie had always known that her mother and Romano’s father, Rafe Puccini, had known each other in the past, but it wasn’t until she’d moved to London and heard all the industry gossip that she realised how significant that relationship had been. By all accounts they’d had a rather steamy affair.
Look at her mother and Romano now! They were laughing at something. Her mother laid a hand on his upper arm and wiped a tear from under her mascara, calling him an ‘impossible boy’. That was as much as Jackie could take. She strutted off to the dressing room and changed back into her trouser suit, studiously ignoring her reflection in the mirror. She didn’t even want to see herself in his dress at the moment.
Keep a lid on it, Jacqueline. In a few minutes he’ll be gone. You won’t have to see him again for another seventeen years if you don’t want to.
When she emerged, smoothing down her hair with a hand, her mother was just finishing a sentence: ‘…of course you must come with us, Romano. I insist.’
Jackie raised her eyebrows and looked at the other girls. Scarlett stomped off in the direction of the en suite, while Isabella just shrugged, collected up her clothes and headed for the empty dressing room.
‘Give me a hand?’ Lizzie asked and turned her back on Jackie so she could help with the covered buttons once again. As she worked Jackie kept glancing at her mother and Romano, who eventually left the room, still chatting and laughing.
‘What’s going on?’ she muttered as she got to the last couple of buttons.
Lizzie strained to look over her shoulder at her sister. ‘Oh, Mamma has decided we’re all going to the restaurant for dinner this evening.’
Jackie kept her focus firmly on the last button, even though it was already unlooped. ‘And she’s invited Romano?’
Lizzie nodded. ‘He’s been spending a lot of time at the palazzo in the last few years. He comes into Monta Correnti regularly and eats at both Mamma’s and Uncle Luca’s often.’
Jackie stepped back and Lizzie turned to face her.
‘Why?’ Lizzie said, sliding the dress off her shoulders. ‘Is that a problem? That she’s invited Romano?’
Jackie smiled and shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘No problem at all.’
She looked at the door that led out to the landing. Would her mother be quite as welcoming, quite as chummy with him, if she’d known that Romano Puccini was the boy who’d got her teenage daughter pregnant and then abandoned her?
She’d always refused to name the father, no matter how much her mother had begged and scolded and threatened, too ashamed for the world to know she’d been rejected so spectacularly by her first love. Even a knocked-up fifteen-year-old had her pride.
Jackie picked up her handbag and headed for the door. It still seemed like a good plan. There was no reason why her mother should ever know that Romano was Kate’s father. No reason at all.
Refusing an invitation to dine with five attractive women would not only be the height of bad manners but also stupidity. And no one had ever accused Romano Puccini of being stupid. Infuriatingly slippery, maybe. Too full of charm for his own good. But never stupid. And he’d been far too curious not to come.
He hadn’t had the chance to get this close to Jackie Patterson in years, which was odd, seeing as they moved in similar circles. But those circles always seemed to be rotating in different directions, the arcs never intersecting. Why was that? Did she still feel guilty about the way their romance had ended?
That summer seemed to be almost a million years ago. He sighed and took a sip of his wine, while the chatter of the elegant restaurant carried on around him.
Jackie Patterson. She’d really been a knockout. Long dark hair with a hint of a wave, tanned legs, smooth skin and eyes that refused to be either green or brown but glittered with fire anyway.
Yes, that had been a really good summer.
He’d foolishly thought himself in love with her but he’d been seventeen. It was easy to mistake hormones for romance at that age. Now he saw his summer with Jackie for what it really
