‘WILL YOU KEEP still a minute?’ Orla rebuked with a shake of her head. How was she supposed to fasten her sister’s wedding dress if she didn’t stop jigging on the spot?
‘I’m trying,’ Aislin protested.
‘Try harder. These clasps are fiddly. Breathe in.’
Aislin gave a theatrical intake of breath.
Using all her limited strength, Orla hooked the second tiny clasp. Excellent. Only another fifteen of the blasted things to go. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to wear a bra?’
‘It’s a strapless dress.’
‘Then wear a strapless bra. What will you do if the dress falls down and your boobs start wobbling for all of Sicily’s high society to admire?’ If there was one thing Orla was envious of, it was her sister’s magnificent bosom. Orla barely had a handful to waste.
‘It’s a bespoke dress. It’s not going to fall down.’
She hooked the third clasp. ‘I don’t get why you won’t let the designer hoist you into it.’
‘She’s around if we need her.’
‘But she’s used to doing this. Her fingers work. My fingers are useless.’ Fourth hook clasped, Orla blew out a puff of air from the exertion.
‘Untwist your knickers and chill. Anyone would think you were the one getting married.’
‘Aren’t you the slightest bit nervous?’
‘Nope.’ Through the reflection of the full-length mirror, Orla saw the beaming smile spread over her sister’s face. And well she should smile. Not only was Aislin marrying the love of her life, but she’d discovered a month ago that she was pregnant.
That the man Orla’s sister was marrying happened to be Orla’s half-brother—Orla and Aislin had different fathers—was, to her mind, only further cause for celebration.
She just wished they were marrying in Ireland, not here in Sicily. She was certain the deterioration in her coordination was down to the knots of dread in her stomach. Or were they knots of excitement?
All she knew for certain was that the beats of her heart had steadily increased in tempo and density in the weeks leading up to the wedding and now that she was finally in Sicily, there was an anticipation...or dread...that something was going to happen.
It was close to four years since Orla had been in Sicily on her futile mission to meet her father. A serious car accident six months after her return to Ireland had left her with major memory problems. Time had healed most of the holes in her memory but the period from Sicily to the accident itself remained stubbornly locked away.
She knew her wish to meet her father had gone unfulfilled only because Aislin had told her so and because every time Orla thought of Salvatore Moncada she wanted to cry. She’d shed a bucket of tears when she’d learned he’d died a year ago but even during that mammoth crying session was the feeling that she was crying for more than the father she’d never met.
She comforted herself that she’d gained a brother, Salvatore’s son, Dante. He was technically a half-brother, as Aislin was technically her half-sister, but Orla had never been able to see it like that. You didn’t love someone in halves. You either loved them or you didn’t. Aislin was only three years younger than her so she had no memories of life without her. Aislin was her sister and they would fight to the death to protect each other.
Dante, who Aislin had found for Orla and fallen in love with for herself, had only been in their lives for four months but it felt as if he’d been a part of it for ever.
Aislin’s phone buzzed. ‘Can you get that?’
‘Okay, but don’t move. If the clasps pop open I’m not redoing them.’ She still had a dozen of the ruddy things left to hook together.
She strode to the suite’s dressing table, grabbed the phone, handed it to Aislin and then got back to work on the dress.
‘It’s a message from our dear mother.’ Aislin spoke in an unnaturally high voice.
A shiver ran up Orla’s spine and her fingers fumbled on the delicate clasp she’d only just gripped hold of. ‘What does she want?’
‘To wish me luck.’
She snorted. ‘How big of her.’
‘Now, now, don’t be like that. You know it isn’t easy to jump on a plane to be there for your youngest daughter’s wedding.’
‘True. It’s not as if her daughter’s fiancé is a billionaire who’d offered to pay for a private jet to fly her over or anything.’
‘And it’s not as if she hasn’t seen her daughters in, what? Seven years?’
‘Or never met her only grandchild.’ Finn, Orla’s precious three-year-old son, her miracle of life, currently napping in one of the suite’s bedrooms under the watchful gaze of a nurse, had never set eyes on his grandmother.
She met Aislin’s stare through the reflection of the mirror and they burst into peals of laughter.
The sisters had long ago learned that the best way to keep the anger and pain of their mother’s actions at bay was to laugh and treat it all as one big joke. If they didn’t laugh there was a good chance they would never stop crying.
‘I suppose you should be grateful she remembered,’ Orla pointed out dryly.
‘I’m brimming with gratitude.’
She sniggered before confiding, ‘I’m dreading meeting Dante’s mother.’ Orla’s conception had been the catalyst for Dante’s parents’ divorce twenty-seven years ago.
‘Don’t be. I told you, she has no animosity towards you.’
‘But she sounds terrifying.’
‘She’s hilarious. When Dante told her she was going to be a grandmother the first thing she said was that she didn’t want to be known as Nonna.’
‘What will she be called?’ Another two clasps were hooked in quick succession.
Aislin cackled wickedly. ‘Nonna!’
‘Is she here yet?’ ‘Here’ being the magnificent luxury hotel nestled on a cliff overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea that Dante had hired the entirety of for the weekend.
‘She’s going straight to the cathedral with Giuseppe.’ Giuseppe was Dante’s latest stepfather, Immacolata’s sixth husband. ‘Now stop whittling.’
Before Orla could make a cutting retort, there was a knock on the door. A moment later a member of the hotel’s staff walked into the suite carrying a huge bouquet of flowers in a vase.
‘Compliments of the owner,’ he said in careful English.
‘How lovely.’ Aislin clapped her hands in delight. ‘Please, put them on the windowsill and, please, thank Mr Valente for me.’
Valente?
For no reason she could imagine, the hairs on the nape of Orla’s neck lifted and her gaze flew to the door that concealed her napping child.
When they were alone again, Aislin met Orla’s eyes again in the reflection of the mirror. ‘Have you met the owner of the hotel yet?’
Now the hairs on her arms lifted too.
‘Should I have?’ she asked nonchalantly, even as she ground her bare feet into the soft, thick carpet and ice raced up her spine.
Orla had arrived the day before but Finn had been exhausted from the journey, so they’d dined in the suite together rather than join the other early arrivals for the evening meal. By the time Aislin had joined them, both she and Finn had been fast asleep. Her sister had crawled into the bed with her, just as she’d done throughout their childhood. It had been a bittersweet moment for Orla, waking to find her sister asleep beside her. Her baby sister would never share her bed again.
Aislin shrugged but there was a shrewdness in the reflecting stare that sent the ice already in Orla’s spine spreading through her limbs. ‘Tonino’s one of Dante’s ushers—they’re old friends. Their fathers were friends too.’
Orla’s fingers tightened reflexively. Her chest tightened. The room began to swim around her...
‘Ouch!’
Aislin’s squeal pulled her sharply back into focus and Orla suddenly became aware that her nails were digging into her sister’s back. She whipped her hand away...and pulled the clasp she’d had hold of away with it.
Tonino Valente stood by the huge entrance doors and waited for the last guests to file into the baroque cathedral.
The groom, Dante, was at the altar mopping his brow with a handkerchief.
He could laugh to see his old friend acting like this, but propriety forced him to bite his cheeks and smother it.
Who would have thought Dante Moncada, the biggest player of them all, would be standing at the altar sweating with nerves as he awaited his bride? Out of their gang, which decades before had ridden round Palermo on scooters desperately trying to look cool and impress the girls, Dante had always been the one who’d vowed never to settle down. Tonino had been the only one to assume he would one day marry and yet here he was, the last bachelor of their gang left on the shelf.
He’d almost married once. He’d even gone as far as to book this same cathedral before fate had stepped in in the form of an Irish temptress and turned his life inside out with one locking of eyes.
Strangely, Dante was himself marrying an Irishwoman. Tonino had only met her the once, fleetingly, a stunning redhead who had transformed his old friend into a smitten lovesick fool.
What was it with Irishwomen, he ruminated, that they could turn a Sicilian man’s head so completely?
His own Irishwoman... Well, that had been an extremely short romance. But intense. Incredibly intense. And then she’d left without saying goodbye. Not a word. Just packed her bags and left. When he’d called, he’d found himself unable to get through—she’d blocked his number.
Her cruelty in the manner she’d ended things had been breathtaking.
He could hardly believe that four years on he still thought about her.
A commotion outside the entrance had him striding outside to help a young couple struggling to manoeuvre a wheelchair-cum-pushchair that had a small child in it up the cathedral steps.
‘You’re with the bride?’ he asked in Sicilian then repeated in English once they were inside and out of the late-afternoon heat. The ushers had all been warned the bride’s nephew had mobility issues. A special place at the front of the cathedral had been set aside for him so he could have an unrestricted view of the ceremony. An usher would be required to wait with the child until the bridal party arrived and his mother, the chief bridesmaid, could take over. Tonino guessed the job had become his.
‘We are,’ the young woman confirmed proudly, her Irish accent strong. ‘I’m Aislin’s cousin Carmel, and this is my husband Danny. This young man here is Finn.’
‘He’s Aislin’s nephew?’ he clarified, just in case there was another wheelchair-bound small boy coming.
‘Yes. Aislin and the others left the hotel right behind us so will be here any minute.’
Figuring he should introduce himself so as not to scare the child, he got down on his haunches and looked at him.
Dressed in a miniature suit that matched the groom’s, the boy couldn’t be much older than a toddler. He had a shock of thick black hair and equally dark eyes...
There was something about his eyes that made the words Tonino was about to say stick in his throat.
After a drawn-out beat, he conjured a smile. ‘Hello, Finn. I’m Tonino. I’m going to take you to the front of the cathedral to wait for your mummy.’
He was rewarded with a wide smile that displayed a row of tiny white teeth.
Straightening, Tonino took the handles of what was clearly a specially made wheelchair and pushed the child down the wide aisle to his designated space. Finn immediately spotted Dante at the altar and flung his arms out as if reaching for him.
Dante grinned and hurried over to crouch on his haunches before him just as Tonino had done. Finn’s skinny arms wrapped around his uncle’s neck. ‘Carry,’ Finn demanded in a strong Irish accent.
‘Soon,’ Dante promised. ‘I need to marry Aunty Aislin first.’
‘Then carry?’
‘You bet. Now be a good boy and wait for your mummy. Tonino will look after you until she gets here.’ Dante kissed his nephew’s cheek and ruffled his hair then made his way back to his place at the altar.
Tonino was used to small children. His brother had two, his sister had just given birth to her third. Mobility issues aside, there was nothing about this child that should capture his attention and yet... There was something about him...something familiar. Something that made his skin prickle and his heart pound.
‘How old are you, Finn?’ he asked through a throat that had run dry.
The little brow creased before he held three fingers up.
‘You’re three?’ he clarified sceptically. The boy was tiny.
A nod.
‘You’re almost a man.’
The tiny white teeth flashed at him again.
An audible change amongst the congregation caught their attention. The little boy craned to look around him. ‘Mummy!’
The bridal party had arrived.
The beautiful bride made her way down the aisle arm in arm with her proud father, identical beams on their faces. Behind them, holding the long train of the bride’s dress, were two adorable little girls walking either side of a slender brunette in a long, ancient-Greek-style dusky rose bridesmaid dress. Her face was turned to the child on her left and so hidden from Tonino’s sight.
‘Mummy!’ Finn called out again, this time loud enough for the whole congregation to hear.
The pounding in Tonino’s chest ramped up in speed.
And then he caught full view of the brunette’s face and his heart stopped beating altogether.
Orla held on to the train of Aislin’s dress as if it were life support. She could do nothing to stop her legs trembling.
Tonino Valente. The name she’d spent three years desperately trying to remember. Aislin had uttered his name and in that instant a light had switched on in Orla’s brain. If she hadn’t ripped the tiny clasp from Aislin’s dress she might very well have fainted, but the panic over ruining the hundred-thousand-euro dress had been equal to the shock of recognition at Tonino’s name.
The flurry of activity that had followed, the hunt for the designer, who’d eventually been found in the hotel bar and who’d given Orla more evil eyes during the fixing of the clasp than she’d previously received in her lifetime, the arrival of Sabine’s daughters—Orla’s fellow bridesmaids—and the arrival of Aislin’s father... Suddenly the suite had been crammed with people and she’d been forced to get a grip of herself.
This was the biggest day of her sister’s life. Aislin had put her life on hold for three years for Orla and Finn. Orla would never have been able to bear the scars that marked her body inside and out without her sister’s steadfast support. More than support. Aislin had raised Finn for the first eighteen months of his life, been the first to realise he wasn’t developing as he should, the one there every single day of Orla’s rehabilitation.
And now it was Orla’s turn to support her sister; her protector, her best friend, her guardian angel made flesh. This was Aislin’s day.
Sick dread continued its steady drum as they moved closer to the altar and she had to use all her concentration to keep the train of Aislin’s dress stretched out and keep control of the little bridesmaids by her side, both of whom were merrily waving at the packed congregation as if they were royalty. She hardly dared look away from them in case she found the dark brown stare that had haunted her dreams.
Could it really be him?
It had been almost four years. All they’d shared was one night. Or was it two? Or three? Or more? She wished she could remember but her memory had as many holes in it as a lump of Swiss cheese. Many of the holes had closed with time and the lost memories had returned but everything to do with Tonino and her time in Sicily remained blurry snapshots. She knew they’d met at the hotel she’d checked into during her fruitless attempt to meet her father, but that had been her only concrete remembrance...apart from his face. She remembered that handsome face vividly. Every time she’d pictured it, she’d had to suck in a breath of air to counteract the lance of pain that had accompanied it and blink away tears she’d had no clue from whence they had come.
‘Mummy!’
Her son’s voice broke through the fog of fear in her head.
Stretching her cheeks into a smile, she finally had a clear view past her sister to the spot at the left of the altar where she’d been promised she and Finn would sit.
The smile froze, half formed.
A tall, dark, utterly gorgeous man sat beside Finn. His black stare was fixed directly on her.
Her stomach plummeted. Thick heat pulsed and swirled through her head, dizzying her.
She had no recollection of Aislin’s father handing the bride to the groom, no recollection of the two small bridesmaids leaving her side, no recollection of her feet taking her to her son. All she remembered from taking those steps was the blazing heat that suffused her entire body and the feeling that she could fall into a dead faint from the shock.
The man watching over her son until she could take her place beside him was Tonino. Finn’s father.