A Scandal, a Secret, a Baby

She took another sip of wine. ‘Oh, I do all right with men,’ she said, and the sudden darkening of his face gave her a brief thrill of pleasure. Because if that was jealousy then it was only a fraction of what she’d felt when she’d walked into his hotel suite that day and seen that naked woman writhing all over him. Fighting back a sudden feeling of nausea, she raised her eyebrows, as if daring him to continue his interrogation.

‘But nobody permanent?’ he persisted.

‘Nope.’ She made it sound like a conscious choice instead of an unwanted situation into which she had been cast. She hadn’t realised that love would be so difficult to find second time around. She hadn’t realised that she would look at other men, compare them to the arrogant Tuscan—and be left completely cold. ‘I don’t do permanence. And now, if you don’t mind, Dante, I think we’ve exhausted pretty much everything we need to say to each other.’

Very deliberately, she turned her back on him and started talking to the Brigadier, who was sitting on her other side—although it took her a moment before she had composed herself enough to concentrate. But the old soldier was a lucky choice of companion. He knew lots about the groom’s ancestral home, and once he got going there was no stopping him. Acting like balm on her ruffled senses, he made for unexpectedly engaging company—especially to someone like Justina, who’d had such an erratic education.

Her mother’s louche and nomadic lifestyle had meant that Justina had changed schools as often as most people changed their wardrobes. By the age of seventeen she’d had a wealth of experience, but not much in the way of formal teaching—unless you counted her mother’s weekly master classes in gold-digging. But from an early age she’d learnt the art of asking the right questions, and the Brigadier was able to answer them all to her satisfaction. He told her all about the battles which had been fought around the beautiful Norfolk estate, and described in detail all the house’s treasures—including the rare Titian painting in the picture gallery.

If only she could have blocked out the occasional drift of Dante’s accent as she heard him entertaining his side of the table throughout the meal. The redhead wearing emeralds had a particularly piercing laugh, and Justina had to stop herself from wincing every time she heard it. If only she could have blotted out her aching awareness of his presence, too. She could almost feel the heat from his body and detect the raw, masculine scent which was so uniquely his.

Someone began banging a spoon against the side of a glass, and as the bride’s father stood up to make his speech Dante leaned over to speak in her ear.

‘You turned your back on me, Justina—and nobody ever does that.’

‘Shh. I know you love talking about yourself but you really must be quiet. The speeches are about to begin.’ She caught the brief look of frustration on his face, before sitting back in her seat and fixing her eyes on the top table.

The bride’s father began to speak. his crumpled linen suit and long hair making him stand out from the rest of the guests. He told a few inappropriate anecdotes which should have had the aristocratic relatives groaning—but it was such a happy occasion that people just started giggling in response. Justina looked around at all the laughing faces and a terrible emptiness started to gnaw away at her. Suddenly it felt as if everyone was sitting within the warm circle of a fire while she was alone on the outskirts, in the dark and cold. The outsider who had no real sense of belonging. And hadn’t it always been that way?

She sat through the rest of the speeches and laughed in all the right places, but after the ceremonial cutting of the cake she picked up her satin clutch-bag and looked around. Dante was busy talking to the redhead and she doubted whether the Brigadier would miss her too much. She’d make as if she was going to the washroom and leave without anybody noticing. She’d have the early night she needed and sleep away her jet-lag—and tomorrow she would wake up and start forgetting about Dante all over again.

She managed to slip from the room without comment, but had got no further than the pillared entrance hall when her search to locate her cell phone was halted by the deep caress of a familiar accent.

‘Going somewhere?’

She turned to find Dante effectively blocking her path, and she hated the shiver which whispered its way down over her spine. Hated even more the way she seemed mesmerised by the sardonic curve of his lips. ‘Trying to,’ she said pointedly. ‘If you’d be so good as to get out of my way?’

‘But there’s dancing.’

‘I know there is. But I’ve had enough.’ Of you. She didn’t say the words out loud; she didn’t need to.

He frowned. ‘So you’re travelling back to London?’

‘Not tonight, no. I’ve booked into a hotel in Burnham Market.’ She gave a little sigh as she met his raised eyebrows. ‘It’s a town not far from here.’

He nodded as he delved into the pocket of his suit trousers for his car keys. ‘I’ll drive you there.’

‘Thanks, but I’d prefer to get a cab.’

‘Don’t be melodramatic, Justina. A cab will take ages and my car is parked by the stables.’

In the cool shadows she could see the bright gleam of his eyes.

‘What are you so afraid of?’

She wondered how he would react if she told him the truth. She was afraid of wanting him. Of wanting him to kiss her, despite knowing that it was wrong. Because what did it say about her that she should still desire him after everything that had happened?

‘I’d hate to drag you away from the party.’

‘I’m happy to be dragged. As it happens, I’d intended driving back to London tonight anyway—I have a flight to the States tomorrow.’

Put like that, it made her continued resistance sound unreasonable—or maybe she just didn’t have the strength to oppose him any more.

Justina accompanied him outside as he handed his keys to a valet. While they were waiting for his car to be brought round he turned to her.

‘Whatever happened to Lexi?’ he asked suddenly.

Justina met his curious gaze. It was a long time since anyone had mentioned Alexi Gibson, the third member of the Lollipops—or ‘Sexy Lexi’ as the press used to dub her.

‘You know she went solo?’ she questioned. ‘That it was her desire to go it alone which led to the break-up of the band?’

‘No, I didn’t know that.’ Up until the day he’d received the wedding invitation he’d deliberately excised all references to the Lollipops from his life, as carefully as a surgeon might remove an area of diseased tissue. ‘Is she here?’

‘Nope. Nobody ever sees her since she married one of Hollywood’s biggest players.’ Briefly, Justina found herself wondering if Lexi was happy—and for the first time in a long time, she turned the question on herself. Am I happy? she wondered. The answer hit her with a jolt. She wasn’t. Successful and fairly contented, yes—and certainly fulfilled in her choice of career. But happy? No way. Not compared to the happiness she’d known in the past, with Dante.

The valet had arrived with Dante’s sports car—a low and gleaming machine which made wriggling into the passenger seat something of a challenge, despite the accommodating side-split in her cheongsam dress.

‘Name of hotel?’ he questioned steadily, as if the sight of her bare thigh hadn’t just sent his blood pressure shooting through the ceiling.

‘The Smithsonian.’

She watched as he keyed the details into his sat-nav and then sat back as the powerful car pulled away from the big house with a small spurt of gravel. The silence which descended hung heavily on the air—with what they weren’t talking about filling the space around them and making the atmosphere feel claustrophobic. The elephant in the room was alive and well, thought Justina wryly, and currently crammed into a powerful car in Norfolk.

They drew up outside the lighted hotel which stood in a pretty Georgian Square and her fingers were unsteady as she tried to unclip her seat belt. Despite her relief that the awkward journey was over, she felt strangely reluctant to get out and just walk away. It was funny, but the older you got, the more you realised the significance of goodbyes. At twenty-five she hadn’t really thought about whether or not she’d see Dante again because at that age she hadn’t been thinking beyond her heartbreak. This time she was aware that their paths were unlikely to cross again, that this was probably the last time she would ever see him—and she was unprepared for the sudden twist of pain in her heart.

‘Justina?’

The soft dip in his voice was distracting, and so was the false intimacy created by the limited space inside the vehicle. In the dim light she could see the gleam of his eyes and she became aware of just how close he was. ‘What?’

There was a pause. ‘You know that I still want you.’

She thought how blatant he was. How only Dante D’Arezzo would have the nerve to come out and say something like that. ‘Well, tough. The feeling isn’t mutual.’

‘Oh, come on. You’ve been undressing me with your eyes since you walked down the aisle and saw me at the cathedral.’

‘I think you must be mistaken. I’m not interested in a man who spreads his favours so thinly.’

There was a heartbeat of a pause, and when he spoke his voice was harsh. ‘You know damned well that it was over when I went with her! How many times do I have to tell you that?’

Justina looked down at her lap. Yes, it had been over between them—certainly as far as he’d been concerned. Her determination to go on tour with the Lollipops had led to Dante abruptly ending their engagement. But she had missed him. She had missed him more than she’d thought it possible to miss anyone. The reality of life without him had hit her hard, and his absence had felt like falling down a bottomless black hole. So she had flown back to England unexpectedly, planning to go to his hotel and ask him if they could try again, to give it one more go—because deep down she’d thought that they loved one another enough to overcome their fundamental differences. But she had been cruelly mistaken.

Her last memory of Dante was bursting into his hotel suite and seeing him in bed. But he hadn’t been alone. His eyes had been closed and something had been moving at his groin beneath the sheet. Justina’s horrified gasp had made the movement stop and a head had emerged. It had been a tousled blond head, and somehow that had only driven the knife in deeper. As if he was piling on cliché after cliché. Not just taking another lover—taking a blonde lover.

Justina had managed to turn on her heel and make it all the way to the lift. She’d even managed to hold it together enough to hail a taxi outside the hotel. But her heart had felt as if he’d stamped on it with a metal-studded boot.

She had cut all communication with him from that moment and done everything she could to try to forget him. No one could have been more assiduous than Justina in cutting all references to Dante from her life. She had destroyed every photo of him and had sold all the jewellery he had showered on her and then donated the proceeds to charity.

She was aware that his dark eyes were still fixed on her questioningly, and she vowed that he would never know the true depths of her heartbreak. ‘I wasn’t expecting you to move on with quite such insulting speed!’