Cara Colter - Passionate Chef, Ice Queen Boss / Rescued in a Wedding Dress

Scarlett had to stop this nonsense, otherwise Jackie might start to think she wasn’t happy for her and that truly would be awful. ‘Izzie mentioned that you’d got some great photos of–of—Kate.’

‘I’d like you to see them.’ Jackie’s eyes softened. ‘At least that way you can start to feel as though you know her a little. Do you know, I can see Romano in her eyes and the shape of her nose.’

Jackie went on, enthusing about her daughter’s physical features. To hear Jackie tell it, her daughter was the most beautiful girl ever to exist.

It hurt Scarlett to hear it, even though it made her happy for Jackie, too. ‘I’d…love to see the photos, Jackie.’ What else could she say?

‘I’ll put a CD together for you.’ Jackie glanced towards the approaching men and raised her voice. ‘Romano. Come swim!’ She started to swim towards the other end of the pool to greet the love of her life.

Izzie laid her hand on Scarlett’s arm. ‘Are you okay, Scarlett? Jackie’s fine, you know. She’s bound to have these moments, but you heard her. Her life is so happy overall.’

‘I can see that.’ And Scarlett was happy for Jackie for that. Of course she was. ‘But she’s also dealing with old grief, and with feelings about family that you and I can only try to understand. She’s got a very generous heart, to be able or even willing to brush aside my part in all that the way she is.’

‘And mine.’ Isabella’s face tightened. ‘I was as much to blame.’

‘Not really. I’m the one Jackie entrusted that letter to.’

Isabella drew a breath and the tension faded from her face. She raised her arm to wave. ‘Lorenzo, I didn’t know you were out here. Come join us.’

Scarlett froze. She wanted to look, but she didn’t want him to know that she was interested.

Excuse me, you’re not interested!

But Scarlett turned her head just as there was a quiet splash. And there was Lorenzo slicing through the water towards them. Vaguely, Scarlett registered Romano and Jackie and another man in the water at the other end of the pool, talking. And Isabella talking.

‘We should do this more often, Scarlett. I could talk to Jackie about another visit here.’ Isabella’s voice went on.

But Scarlett wasn’t really listening. And all she could see was Lorenzo. Bare-chested, his lithe body slicing through the water as he moved with neat strokes until he surfaced at their end of the pool, a little to Isabella’s left.

He seemed…more comfortable with his body nowadays. Maybe maturity had brought that to him? Because back then he’d never liked to swim publicly, or even take his shirt off in front of others. He’d hated Scarlett to even see it if he’d had one of his spills and had a bruise or a scratch. At other times he’d been fine…

‘Scarlett? Did you hear me?’ Izzie asked the question in a puzzled tone.

What her cousin might have said prior to that, well, actually Scarlett had no idea. ‘Sorry, Izzie?’ Scarlett dredged her mind. ‘Oh, yes, it would be fun to come here again.’ The pool was shaded with beautiful trees and the whole complex was set halfway up a quiet hillside with a beautiful view over a lush green valley.

Scarlett had to act normally. She had already seemed quite out of it to her cousin. And she could be normal around Lorenzo. Of course she could. He was just a man!

He’s the man you had an affair with five years ago when he was still married.

Well, yes, but Scarlett hadn’t known about that until it was too late.

And she didn’t have those feelings about him any more. Being in his company simply made her uneasy because of past history, that was all.

‘Hello, Lorenzo.’ There. You see? She sounded perfectly normal.

Scarlett’s hand rose to pat at the ribbon in her hair. It got halfway to its goal before she stopped herself and let her arm fall back into the water.

It wasn’t helping that Lorenzo was practically naked, and look how tanned he was, and muscular, and he was wearing the medallion…

‘It’s a lovely day for a swim.’ Scarlett pushed her lips up into a very, very natural and completely relaxed and not at all overly conscious of him smile. ‘Do you teach classes out here or something?’

‘The board wanted to discuss that possibility with me.’ His eyes were narrowed.

Against the sun, Scarlett told herself, and refused to acknowledge that his gaze had followed the movement of her hand, had tracked the rest of the way to touch on her messy knot of hair before it travelled gently over her face and bare shoulders.

‘Um, well, that sounds interesting.’ She glanced at her cousin, whose gaze was passing from her to Lorenzo and back again.

‘With what they wanted, I’d have considered it a conflict of interest against my work at Rosa.’ He gave a shrug. ‘So unfortunately I had to turn the offer down.’

‘I see.’ Scarlett should have thought of the possible threat to Rosa straight away.

Well, it would be nice if she could think anything beyond wanting to swim over to him and speak at a much closer level, wouldn’t it? One that involved ignoring the presence of the others in the pool, and preferably allowing their lips to meet…

So much for telling herself that first kiss had been some random thing, like tripping over and falling onto his mouth or something. Maybe she should have examined that first kiss and its impact on her, rather than trying to pretend it hadn’t happened. Would that have better equipped her for now?

Failing that, Scarlett had another highly appropriate plan to implement. ‘I must take advantage and do some laps before we have to leave.’

She uttered the words as though to Isabella, and made an odd waving motion with one hand. ‘Excuse me. Do feel free to talk amongst yourselves.’

And with this obscure blessing handed to Izzie and Lorenzo, who both probably stared after her as though she’d lost her mind at the bottom of the swimming pool, Scarlett set off to do laps.

Perhaps until she swam herself into oblivion.

At least until she would no longer be conscious of Lorenzo’s presence in such an everything-else-fades-to-black kind of way.

Izzie wouldn’t have noticed anything all that odd in Scarlett’s reactions to Lorenzo, would she?

Scarlett increased her pace, churning through the water as though by doing so she might somehow escape all of her thoughts.

She decided Izzie would not have noticed, and, not only that, Scarlett didn’t have to think about anything. Not Lorenzo, not family, not her guilt over Jackie, not sending herself to Australia for years and years and then coming back here with all sorts of hopes apparently tucked away inside her like unexpected add-ons that she shouldn’t have stuffed into her mental suitcases.

Stroke, breathe. Stroke, breathe.

Scarlett focused one hundred, no, two hundred per cent of her attention on her movements through the water.

And pushed every other distraction right out!

‘THERE has to be an answer somewhere. I just know it’s there, but I can’t zero in on it.’ Scarlett murmured the words beneath her breath, mostly in the hopes of getting them out of her head.

Her swim earlier this afternoon felt aeons away. Night had fallen outside the restaurant while she slaved away in Luca’s office inputting financial information onto a computer system to bring Rosa’s paperwork side of things—kicking and screaming if necessary—into the twenty-first century.

Well, it had been a big day. Scarlett had come out onto the terrace that adjoined with Sorella’s terrace for a breath of air, even if that air was still quite warm and balmy.