The Secret That Changed Everything

She tried to silence that voice. It spoke to her too often these days.

She began to walk the long path between the vines, trying to calm her thoughts. But they refused to be calmed. They lingered rebelliously on the memory of his naked body against hers, the heat of his breath, the way he’d murmured her name.

There had been almost a question in his voice, as though he was asking her if she were certain. But there was no certainty left in her life. Her family, her boyfriend—these were the things she had clung to. But her boyfriend had rejected her and the foundations of her family had been shaken. So she’d invited Lucio to her bed because—what did it matter? What did anything matter?

He was looking up, suddenly very still as he saw her. What did that stillness mean? That he recognised her and guessed why she was here? Or that he’d forgotten a woman he’d known for a few hours several weeks ago?

When Lucio first looked up the sun was in his eyes, blinding him, so that for a moment he could make out no details. A woman was approaching him down the long avenue of vines, her attention fixed on him as though only he mattered in all the world.

That had happened so many times before. So often he’d seen Maria coming towards him from a great distance.

But Maria was dead.

The woman approaching him now was a stranger and yet mysteriously familiar. Her eyes were fixed on him even at a distance.

And he knew that nothing in the world was ever going to be the same again.

CHAPTER ONE

GOING to Italy had seemed a brilliant move for a language expert. She could improve her Italian, study the country and generally avoid recognising that she wasn’t just leaving New York; she was fleeing it.

But the truth was still the truth. Charlotte knew she had to flee memories of an emotion that had once felt like love, but which had revealed itself as disappointingly hollow, casting a negative light on almost everything in her life. It was like wandering in a desert. She belonged to nobody and nobody belonged to her. Perhaps it was this thought that made her leave her laptop computer behind. It pleased her to be beyond the reach of anyone unless she herself decided otherwise.

For two months she wandered around Italy, seeking something she couldn’t define. She made a point of visiting Naples, fascinated by the legendary Mount Vesuvius, whose eruptions had destroyed cities in the past. Disappointingly it was now considered so safe that she could wander up to the summit and stand there listening hopefully for a growl.

Silence.

Which was a bit like her life, she thought wryly. Waiting for something significant to happen. But nothing did. At twenty-seven, an age when many people had chosen their path in life, she still had no clue where hers was leading.

On the train from Naples to Rome she thought of Don, the man she’d briefly thought she loved. She’d wanted commitment and when Don didn’t offer it she’d demanded to know where they were headed. His helpless shrug had told her the worst, and she’d hastened to put distance between them.

She had no regrets. Briefly she’d wondered if she might have been cleverer and perhaps drawn him closer instead of driving him away. But in her heart she knew things had never been quite right between them. It was time to move on.

But where?

As the train pulled into Roma Termini she reckoned it might be interesting to find the answer to that question.

She took a taxi to the Hotel Geranno on the Via Vittorio Veneto, one of the most elegant and expensive streets in Rome. The hotel boasted every facility, including its own internet café. She found it easily and slipped into a booth, full of plans to contact family and friends. She might even get in touch with Don on her social networking site, just to let him know there were no hard feelings, and they could be friends.

But the words that greeted her on Don’s page were ‘Thanks to everyone for your kind wishes on my engagement. Jenny and I want our wedding to be—’

She shut the file down.

Jenny! Charlotte remembered her always hanging around making eyes at Don. And he’d noticed her. Pretty, sexy, slightly voluptuous—she was made to be noticed.

Not like me, she thought.

Some women would have envied Charlotte’s appearance. Tall, slender, dark-haired, dark-eyed; she wasn’t a woman who faded into the background. She’d always had her share of male admiration; not the kind of gawping leer that Jenny could inspire, but satisfying enough. Or so she’d thought.

But Don hadn’t wasted any time mourning her and that was just fine. The past was the past.

She touched a few more keys to access her email, and immediately saw one from her sister Alex, headlined, You’ll never believe this!

Alex liked to make things sound exciting so, although mildly intrigued, Charlotte wasn’t alarmed. But, reading the email, she grew still again as a family catastrophe unfolded before her eyes.

‘Mom—’ she murmured. ‘You couldn’t have—it’s not possible!’

She had always known that her father, Cedric Patterson, was her mother’s second husband. Before him Fenella had been married to Clay Calhoun, a Texas rancher. Only after their divorce had she married Cedric and lived with him in New York. There she’d borne four children—the twins Matt and Ellie, Charlotte and her younger sister Alexandra. Now it seems that Mom was already carrying Matt and Ellie when she left Clay, Alex wrote. She wrote and told him she was pregnant, but by that time he was with Sandra, who seems to have hidden the letter but, oddly enough, kept it. Nobody knew about it until both she and Clay were dead. He died last year, and the letter was found unopened, so I guess he never knew about Matt and Ellie.

What do you think of that? All these years we’ve thought they were our brother and sister, but now it seems we’re only half-siblings! Same mother, different father. When Ellie told me what had happened I couldn’t get my head around it, and I’m still in a spin.

Quickly Charlotte ran through her other emails, seeking one from Ellie that she was sure would be there. But she found nothing. Disbelieving, she ran through them again, but there was no word from Ellie.

Which meant that everyone in the family knew except her. Ellie hadn’t bothered to tell her something so momentous. It had been left to Alex to send her the news as an afterthought, as though she was no more than a fringe member of the family. Which, right now, was how she felt.

Returning to the lobby she again knew the sensation of being lost in a desert. But this desert had doors, one leading to a restaurant known for its haute cuisine, the other leading to a bar. Right this minute a drink was what she needed.

The barman smiled as she approached. ‘What can I get you?’

‘A tequila,’ she told him.

When it was served she looked around for a place to sit, but could see only one seat free, at the far end of the bar. She slipped into it and found that she could lean back comfortably against the wall, surveying her surroundings.

The room was divided into alcoves, some small, some large. The small ones were all taken up by couples, gazing at each other, revelling in the illusion of privacy. The larger ones were crowded with ‘beautiful people’ as though the cream of Roman society had gathered here tonight.

In the nearest alcove six people focused their attention on one man. He was king of all he surveyed, Charlotte thought with a touch of amusement. And with reason. In his early thirties, handsome, lean, athletic, he held centre-stage without effort. When he laughed, they laughed. When he spoke they listened.

Nice if you can get it, Charlotte thought with a little sigh. I’ll bet his volcano never falls silent.

Just then he glanced up and saw her watching him. For the briefest moment he turned his head to one side, a question in his eyes. Then one of the women claimed his attention and he turned to her with a perfectly calculated smile.

An expert, she thought. He knows exactly what he’s doing to them, and what they can do for him.

Such certainly seemed enviable. Her own future looked depressing. Returning to New York smacked of defeat. She could stay in Italy for the year she’d promised herself, but that was less inviting now that things were happening at home; things from which she was excluded.

She thought of Don and Jenny, revelling in their love. All around her she saw people happy in each other’s company, smiling, reaching out. And suddenly it seemed unbearable that there was nobody reaching out to her. She finished her drink and sat staring at the empty glass.

‘Excuse me, can I just—?’

It was the man from the alcove, easing himself into the slight space between her and the next bar stool. She leaned back to make space for him but a slight unevenness in the floor made him wobble and slew to the side, colliding with her.

‘Mi dispiace,’ he apologised in Italian, steadying her with his hand.

‘Va tutto bene,’ she reassured him. ‘Niente di male.’ All is well. No harm done.

Still in Italian he said, ‘But you’ll let me buy you a drink to say sorry.’

‘Thank you.’