Tempted By The Bridesmaid

“Of course I’d want to know,” he bit out. “But your claims are too far-fetched. The place where you’re saying you saw them is not even private.”

“I know! It doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”

Francesca’s eyes widened and the tears resting on her eyelids cascaded onto her cheeks before zipping down to her chin and plopping unceremoniously into the hollow of her throat. Luca only just stopped himself from lifting both his hands to her collarbone and swiping them away with his thumbs. First one, then the other... Perhaps tracing the path of one of those tears slipping straight between the soft swell and lift of—

Focus!

“Which one was it? Which woman?”

Francesca’s blue eyes, darkened with emotion, flicked up and to the right. “She had dark hair. Black.”

The information began to register in slow motion. Not Suzette...a flame-bright redhead. And the others were barely into their teens.

Elimination left him with only one option.

A fleeting conversation with his girlfriend came back to him. One in which he’d said he was going to be too busy with the clinic to come to the wedding. Marina had been fine with it. Had agreed, in fact. So much work at the clinic, she’d said. And then it all fell into place. The little white lies. The deceptions. The ever-increasing radio silences he hadn’t really noticed in advance of the clinic’s opening day.

A coldness took hold of his entire chest. An internal ice storm wrought its damage as the news fully penetrated.

“My girlfriend was not having sex with Marco.”

* * *

Francesca’s eyes pinged wide, a hit of shock shuddering down her spine before she managed to respond.

“Your girlfriend? That’s... Wow.” She shook her head in disbelief. “For the record, she is an idiot. If you were my boyfriend, lock and key might be more—”

Luca held up a hand. He didn’t want to hear it.

It was difficult to know whether to be self-righteous or furious. In Rome, his relationships had hardly warranted the title. Since moving back to Mont di Mare...

The home truths hit hard and fast. Sure, Marina had been complaining that she wasn’t the center of his universe lately, but any fool—anyone with a heart beating in their chest—could have seen that his priorities were not wooing and winning right now.

He owed every spare ounce of his energy to his niece. The one person who’d suffered the most in that horrific car accident. His beautiful, headstrong niece, confined to a wheelchair evermore.

He looked across at Marco. The sting of betrayal hit hard and fast.

He and Marina had never been written in the stars—but Beatrice? A true princess if ever there was one. She was shaking her head. Holding up a hand so that Marco would stop his heated entreaty. From where Luca was standing it didn’t look as if the wedding would go ahead.

He swore under his breath. He had trusted Marco to treat Bea well—cautioned him about his rakish past and then congratulated him with every fiber of his being when at long last he’d announced his engagement to Princess Beatrice Vittoria di Jesolo.

The three of them had shared the same upbringing. Privileged. Exclusive. Full of expectation—no, more than that, full of obligation that they would follow in their ancestors’ footsteps. Marry well. Breed more titled babies.

Luca might have considered the same future for himself before the accident. But that had all changed now. Little wonder Marina had strayed. He’d kept her at arm’s length. Farther away. It was surprising she had stayed any time at all.

“Why don’t you go and get her? Ask her yourself?” Francesca wasn’t even bothering to swipe at the tears streaking her mascara across her cheeks.

“You’re absolutely positive?”

Even as the hollow-sounding words left his mouth he knew they were true. There weren’t that many women wandering around the basilica in swirls of weightless ocean-blue fabric. And there was only one bridesmaid with raven hair. The same immaculate silky hair he’d been forbidden from touching that morning when Marina had popped into the hotel suite to grab the diamante clutch bag she’d left while she was at the hairdresser’s. Not so immaculate when she’d appeared at the altar, looking rosy cheeked and more alive than he’d seen her in months, if he was being honest.

“I—I can go get her for you, if you like,” Francesca offered after hiccuping a few more tears away.

He had to hand it to her. The poor woman was crying her eyes out, but she knew how to stand her ground.

“Why don’t I go find her?” Her fingers started doing a little nervous dance in the direction of the church, where everyone was still waiting.

“No offense, but you are the last person I would ever ask to help me.”

“Isn’t it better to know the truth than to live a lie?”

Luca swore softly and turned away. She was hitting just about every button he didn’t care to admit he had. Truth. Deceit. Honesty. Lies. Weakness.

He had no time in his life for weakness. No capacity for lies.

He forced himself to look Francesca in the eye, knowing there wasn’t an iota of kindness in his gaze. But he still couldn’t give in to the innate need to feel empathy for the position she’d been put in. Or compassion for the tears rising again and again, glossing her eyes and then falling in a steady trickle along her tear-soaked face. How easy it would be to lift a finger and just...

Magari!

Shooting the messenger was a fool’s errand, but he didn’t know how else to react... A knife of rage swept through him. If he never thought about Marina or Marco again it would be too soon.

“It didn’t seem like it was the first time,” Francesca continued, her husky voice starting to break in a vain attempt to salve the ever-deepening wound. “I’m happy to go and get her if you want.”

“Basta! Per favore!”

No need to paint a picture. He almost envied Francesca. Seeing in an instant what he should have known for weeks. He should have ended it before she’d even thought to stray.

“If you want, I’ll do it. Go and get her. I would do it for any friend.”

Francesca shifted from one foot to the other, eyes glued to his, waiting for his response. He’d be grateful for this one day, but right now Francesca was the devil’s messenger and he’d heard enough.

The words came to him—jagged icicles shooting straight from his arctic heart. “I know you mean well, Francesca, but you and I will never be friends.”

* * *

Shell-shocked. That was how Bea had looked for the rest of the day. Not that Fran could blame her. Talk about living a nightmare. She knew better than most that coming to terms with deception on that kind of scale could take years. A lifetime, even, if her father’s damaged heart was anything to go by.

From the look on Luca’s face when they’d finally parted at the basilica he was going to need two lifetimes to get over his girlfriend’s betrayal. Good thing they wouldn’t be crossing paths anytime soon.

“Want me to see if I can find a case of prosecco lying around? A karaoke machine? We could sing it out and down some fizz.”

Fran scanned the hotel suite. The caterers had long been sent away, the decorations had been removed and the staff instructed to keep any and all lurking paparazzi as far away as possible...

“No, thanks, cara. Maybe some water?” Bea asked.

“On it.”

As she poured a glass of her friend’s favorite—sparkling water from the alpine region of Italy—Fran was even more in awe of her friend’s strength. All tucked up in bed, makeup removed, dress unceremoniously wilting like a deflated meringue in the bathroom, Bea looked exhausted, but not defeated.