‘What if Leandro does?’ Jaz asked.
‘He doesn’t,’ she said. ‘He’s not the commitment type.’
‘That could change.’
‘It won’t,’ she said. ‘He only ever dates a woman for a month or two.’
‘So you’re his Miss October.’
Miranda didn’t care for her friend’s blunt summation of the situation. But that was Jaz. She didn’t sugar-coat anything—she doused it in bitter aloes. ‘Stop worrying about me,’ Miranda said. ‘I know what I’m doing. But I’d appreciate it if you didn’t let it slip to my brothers, okay?’
‘Fine,’ Jaz said. ‘I only ever speak to one of your brothers, in any case. But are you going to tell Mark’s parents?’
Miranda bit down on her lip as she thought about that poignant ICU bedside scene seven years ago. Her promise to Mark had comforted his parents. They still got comfort from having her call on them, spending time with them on Mark’s birthday and the anniversary of his death. How could she tell them she was falling in love with someone else? It would shatter them all over again. It would be better to let this short phase in her life come and go without comment. She couldn’t bear to hurt them when they had been so loving and kind towards her. They needed her. She saw the way their faces lit up every time she called in. She lifted their spirits. She gave them a break from the depressing emptiness of their life without their son. ‘Why would I tell them?’ Miranda said.
‘What if someone sees you with Leandro?’ Jaz said. ‘He’s been photographed in the press before. He’s one of London’s most eligible bachelors. You and him being linked would be big news, especially right now, with your dad’s stuff doing the rounds. Everyone wants to know what the scandalous Ravensdales are up to.’
Miranda groaned. ‘Did you have to remind me?’
‘Sorry, but you guys are seriously hot property just now,’ Jaz said. ‘Even I’m being targeted on account of being an adjunct to the family.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah. I’m thinking I might meet up with this Kat chick,’ Jaz said. ‘She sounds kind of cool.’
‘Why do you think that?’ Miranda said, feeling a sharp sting of betrayal deep in her gut.
‘I like her ballsy attitude,’ Jaz said. ‘She’s not going to be told what to do no matter how much money your family’s hot-shot lawyer, Flynn Carlyon, waves under her nose.’
Miranda couldn’t bear the thought of Jaz kicking goals for the opposition. Jaz was an honorary family member. She was the sister she had always longed for. Ever since Jaz’s mother had dropped her off for an access visit at Ravensdene and never returned, Miranda and Jaz had been a solid team. When the mean girls had bullied Miranda at boarding school, Jaz had stepped up and dealt with them. Jaz had been there for her when Mark had got sick and had been there for her when he died. Jaz had been everything and more that a blood sister would be. The prospect of her becoming friendly with Miranda’s father’s love child was unthinkable. Unpalatable. Unbearable. ‘Well, I don’t want to meet her,’ she said. ‘I can’t think of anything worse.’
‘I can,’ Jaz said. ‘Leandro lost his little sister and here you are pushing away what you’ve always wanted. It doesn’t make sense. The least you could do is make the first move. Be the bigger person and all that.’
Miranda frowned. ‘I don’t need a sister. Why would I? I have you.’
‘But we’re not blood sisters,’ Jaz said. ‘You shouldn’t turn your back on blood. Only crazy people do that.’
Miranda knew there was a wealth of hurt in Jaz’s words. Jaz put on a brash don’t-mess-with-me front but deep down she was still that little bewildered eight-year-old girl who had been dropped off at the big mansion in Buckinghamshire and had watched as her mother drove away from her down the long driveway into a future that didn’t include her. Miranda had heard Jaz cry herself to sleep for weeks. It had been years before Jaz had told her some of the things her mother had subjected her to: being left in the care of strangers while her mother had turned tricks to feed her drug habit; being punished for things no child should ever be punished for. Jaz had suffered horrendous neglect because her mother had been too busy, or too manic, or off her face with drugs, to care about her welfare.
But Miranda didn’t want to meet the result of her father’s infidelity to her mother. If she met Katherine Winwood she would be betraying her mother. Elisabetta was devastated by Richard’s behaviour. How could she not be when at the time of his affair with Kat’s mother he had been reconciling with her?