An Italian Dream

‘I told her.’

‘You did what?’ He slammed his fist against the wooden side of the pool room. She flinched but held his gaze. He was so close, she could smell his familiar woody aftershave, see the spittle on his lip and the brown flecks in his otherwise blue eyes. Stella wondered what she’d ever seen in him.

‘She needed to know the truth,’ she said calmly. ‘She deserved to know.’

‘Amber didn’t tell her anything?’

‘Amber had every intention of telling her and tried to, but she found it too hard to break her mum’s heart and her promise to you.’ Stella held his gaze. ‘You should never have made her lie for you. She’s gone through hell covering your arse. She’s been angry and frustrated at Fern for not seeing what she thought should be obvious. Were you really meaning to come out here to ensure Amber kept her mouth shut? How on earth did you think you were going to do that? Manipulate her like you do Fern? Emotionally blackmail her?’

‘Don’t you dare speak to me like that.’ His voice was ominous, his hand still rammed against the wall, his breath hot on her face.

‘I can and I will,’ she said with a steeliness that she hoped wouldn’t betray how much she was shaking inside.

‘She’s going to hate you for what you’ve done.’

His words were like a punch to the gut, but she knew them to be true. ‘Maybe so, but it was the right thing to do, to own up and tell her. It’s her choice now what she does with that information. She knows the truth.’

‘I thought we had a good thing. Why the hell spoil everything?’

Stella studied the face of the man who was as familiar as her own reflection. For so long, her feelings about Paul had been such a jumble, a weird mix of lust, hate, perhaps love, sometimes disgust, at what they’d done behind Fern’s back. She’d get a message from him and her heart would flip, but whether from excitement or fear, she wasn’t sure. The other night on the yacht when he’d sent explicit messages and pictures she’d given in to her darker feelings for him, the lust that had remained since she was a teen. Looking at him now, she knew how the thought of that made her feel, how much she hated herself for betraying the trust of her friend, how much she didn’t want to be anywhere near him in that way ever again. It really was over.

Stella slipped out from beneath his arm. She could sense the anger simmering off him. She was glad Jacob and his dad were just outside. Her marriage may have failed but Rhod was a good dad and she knew he’d be there for her if she ever needed him.

‘When we get back home,’ she said, once she’d moved far enough away to the pool room door, ‘I don’t want you contacting me again. You understand.’

‘You’ll come back for more. I know you too well.’

‘No you don’t, and I won’t. You need to concentrate on your wife and stop disrespecting her.’ She faltered for a moment, taking in his clenched jaw, stocky shoulders and buff arms. He left her feeling cold. ‘Good luck when Fern gets hold of you.’

Rage soared through her as she escaped. She darted round the side of the pool room, not wanting to face Jacob or Rhod. She needed a moment on her own.

Paul was everything that was wrong about the men she normally ended up with: self-centred, laddish, still behaving as if they were twenty instead of in their forties with kids, wives and responsibilities. Not all men were like that or behaved in the way Paul did; she had plenty of friends who’d married decent guys. Maybe she was drawn to men who she knew, one way or another, would eventually break her heart if she let them get too close. With Paul, she’d been part of the problem, having a fling with him, knowing full well he was married to the one person she truly cared about, the one person in her life who was like family. She was closer to Fern than she was to her own parents and she’d let her down in the worst possible way.

As she went the quiet way around the villa to her room, she vowed to somehow make it up to Fern. She couldn’t change what she’d done, but Fern had to come out of this mess stronger and happier for it. Stella knew that Fern would be better off without Paul, she just needed her to believe it.