Especially if that woman wasn’t Gigi Nocella, Jemima thought, her throat closing over convulsively on a sob. He wouldn’t have had to make a special effort to say the right thing to a woman as perfect as Gigi had been. So, how often did he go down to visit that personal shrine in the guest house? If Jemima hadn’t existed and Luciano hadn’t been away on business, would he have been with Sancia right now happily reminiscing about the old days when his first wife and child had still been alive? It was hardly any wonder that Sancia resented Jemima and clearly felt threatened by her appearance on scene. Nothing could put Gigi more effectively back into the past than her once-besotted widower having another child and taking a second wife to put in Gigi’s place.
Well, it wasn’t Gigi’s place any longer, Jemima told herself urgently. In less than two days Jemima would be Luciano’s wife and she could hardly wait! She wasn’t so silly as to allow Sancia’s mean outlook to affect her personally, was she?
As her mobile phone rang she dug it out, grateful for an interruption that would hopefully give her thoughts a new and more positive direction. When she heard Steven’s familiar badgering tones she almost groaned, however, for she had thought she had heard the last from her ex-boyfriend when he had phoned her to say he wouldn’t be attending the wedding—he hadn’t been invited!—because he knew she was making a dreadful mistake.
‘Luciano has turned your head with his wealth,’ Steven told her, merely starting a new angle of attack.
‘His wealth doesn’t matter to me. His kindness does,’ Jemima parried, thinking of the generosity of Luciano’s invitation to her parents and their friends, who were all enjoying a wonderful holiday in the run-up to their wedding. And by bringing her family and Ellie out to join her, he had ensured that she wasn’t lonely and without support.
‘You may not see it but I see very clearly that you are paying me back for what happened with Julie.’ Steven sighed. ‘You weren’t able to forgive me.’
‘I did forgive you, Steven. I simply didn’t want to take back up again where we’d left off and I think that’s fair enough,’ Jemima fielded. ‘I saw you in a different light when you were with my sister.’
‘I made a dreadful mistake, Jemima,’ Steven groaned. ‘But I do love you.’
‘Not the way you loved her,’ Jemima told him without heat.
‘That wasn’t genuine love and you don’t love Luciano either. You’re marrying him to keep Nicky,’ Steven protested.
Jemima sat down on a stone bench surrounded by glorious rose beds and stared out blindly at the magnificent view of the bay. ‘That’s not true.’
‘Marriage is a sacrament and it shouldn’t be used.’
‘But I do love him,’ Jemima heard herself say and her whole mental view of the world lurched as she made that belated discovery. She was thinking about the male who had chilled her at first meeting and travelling at supersonic speed through the whole history of their relationship, ranging from his laughter in bed with her to the brutal background that he had triumphed over.
And there at the very heart of all her turmoil was the love she had neither acknowledged nor understood. She loved Luciano with all her being and easily zeroed in on every kind and caring thing he did for her from his hesitant tendering of his mother’s ring for their engagement to his patient, undemanding love for Nicky in which he was willing to wait and earn his son’s trust and affection. In the same moment she recognised why her encounter with Sancia and Gigi’s shrine in the guest house had distressed her so much. It had hurt to see Luciano’s love for her predecessor. It had hurt even more to frankly admit that she could never emulate such a woman to win that level of appreciation. With Luciano, she would always be Nicky’s loving stepmother first and his wife second. Second best, second best for all time...
Could she truly live with that?
‘Sorry, Steven. I have to go,’ she said, cutting the call on Steven’s expostulations with relief.
Her face was wet with tears. She had been crying without knowing it and she mopped her face, praying her mascara hadn’t run. There could be no pleasure in appreciating that she would always be inferior in her future husband’s eyes and heart to his first wife, but she was a practical, realistic woman and there really wasn’t much she could do about that hurt. Was there?
She wouldn’t even consider abandoning Nicky, for he felt as much her child as if he had been born to her rather than her sister. She saw no advantage to refusing to marry Luciano either. What would that achieve? She didn’t want to be Nicky’s nanny for the rest of her days or merely Luciano’s lover. And if she didn’t choose to marry him and give him more children, some other woman eventually would.