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Navarre laughed. ‘I’ve never really thought about it, but, yes, I believe that I do.’
When he smiled like that the power of his charisma rocketed, throwing him into the totally gorgeous bracket, and he made her heart hammer and her breath catch in her throat. ‘Yes, I’ll marry you,’ she told him in French.
‘You’re an artist. I believe you will like living in Paris.’
He made it all seem so simple. That first visit he insisted on meeting her mother and her partner over dinner the following night at a very smart hotel. At first mother and daughter were a little stiff with each other, but at the end of the evening Susan Baxter took Tawny to one side to speak to her in private and said, ‘I’m so happy it’s all working out for you that I don’t really know what to say,’ she confided, tears shining in her anxious gaze. ‘I know you were annoyed with the solution I suggested but I just didn’t want your life to go wrong while you were still so young. I was afraid that you were repeating my mistakes and it felt like that had to be my fault—’
‘Navarre’s not like my father,’ Tawny cut in with perceptible pride.
‘No, he seems to be very mature and responsible.’
The word ‘responsible’ stung, although Tawny knew that no insult had been intended. She was too sensitive, she acknowledged ruefully. Navarre would not walk away from his child because he had grown up without the support of either a father or a mother and only he knew what that handicap had cost him. For that reason he would not abandon the mother of his child to struggle with parenthood alone. Acknowledging that undeniable fact made Tawny feel just a little like a charity case or an exercise in which Navarre would prove to his own satisfaction that he had the commitment gene, which his own parents had sadly lacked. It was an impression that could have been dissolved overnight had Navarre made the smallest attempt to become intimate with his intended bride again … but he did not. The pink diamond was placed on her engagement finger again, for real this time around, but his detached attitude, his concentration on the practical rather than the personal, left Tawny feeling deeply insecure and vulnerable.
Bee and Sergios offered to stage Navarre and Tawny’s wedding at their London home and under pressure from Tawny, after initially refusing that offer Navarre agreed to it. He then rented a serviced apartment for Tawny’s use and at his request she immediately gave up her job as a waitress and moved into the apartment while he returned to Paris. From there he hired a property firm to find them an ideal home in London and she spent her time doing viewings of the kind of luxury property she had never dreamt she might one day call home.
Only days after Tawny told her other half-sister, Zara, that she was getting married, Zara arrived in London for an unexpected visit, having left her children, Donata and her infant son, Piero, at home with her husband outside Florence.
‘Does this visit now mean you aren’t able to come to the wedding next week?’ Tawny asked, surprised by the timing of her sister’s trip to London. ‘I know it was short notice but—’
‘No, I just wanted the chance to talk to you alone before the wedding,’ Zara completed with rather tense emphasis.
Drawing back from her half-sibling’s hug, Tawny frowned. ‘What’s up? Oh, my goodness, you and Vitale aren’t having trouble, are you?’ she prompted in dismay, for the other couple had always seemed blissfully happy together.
Her dainty blonde sister went pink with discomfiture. ‘Oh, no … no, nothing like that!’ she exclaimed, although her eyes remained evasive.
The two young women settled in the comfortable lounge with coffee and biscuits. Tawny looked at Zara expectantly. ‘So, tell me …’
Zara grimaced. ‘I truly didn’t know whether to come and talk to you or not. Bee said I should mind my own business and keep my mouth shut, so I discussed it with Vitale, but he thought I should be more honest with you.’
Tawny was frowning. ‘R-right … I’m sorry, I don’t understand.’
‘It’s something about Navarre, just rumours, but they’ve been around a long time and I don’t know whether you know about them or even should know about them.’ Her tongue tying her into increasingly tight knots, Zara was openly uncomfortable. ‘I wouldn’t usually repeat gossip—’
Tawny’s spine went rigid with tension. Zara was a gentle kind person, never bitchy or mean. If Zara felt there were rumours about Navarre that Tawny ought to hear, she reckoned that they would very probably be a genuine source of concern for her. ‘I’d like to say that I don’t listen to gossip, but I’m not sure I could live without knowing now that you’ve told me there’s something you think I should know about my future husband.’
‘Now remember that I’m married to an Italian,’ Zara reminded her uneasily. ‘And for many years in Italy there have been strong rumours to the effect that Navarre Cazier is engaged in a long-running secret affair with Tia Castelli … you know the Italian movie star …?’
CHAPTER NINE
TAWNY who had literally stopped breathing while Zara spoke, relocated her lungs at the sound of that name and started to breathe again.
‘My goodness, is there anyone on this planet who hasn’t heard of Tia Castelli?’ Tawny asked with her easy laugh. ‘Are there rumours about Navarre and Tia having an affair? Truthfully? When I saw them together—’
Zara leant forwards in astonishment. ‘You’ve already met Tia Castelli? You’ve actually seen her with Navarre? The word is that they’re in constant contact.’
Tawny told her sister about her appearance by Navarre’s side at the Golden Awards and her encounter with Tia and her husband, Luke.
‘Surprising,’ Zara remarked thoughtfully. ‘I should think if that there had been anything sneaky going on Navarre would have avoided their company like the plague.’
‘Navarre has known Tia for years and years. He worked for the banker that handled Tia’s investments—that’s how they first met,’ Tawny explained frankly. ‘Tia is very flirtatious. She expects to be the centre of attention but she’s perfectly pleasant otherwise. I think you’d best describe her as being very much a man’s woman.’
‘So, you didn’t notice anything strange between her and Navarre? Anything that made you uncomfortable?’ Zara checked.
All Tawny felt uncomfortable about at that moment was that she did not feel she could tell Zara the truth of how she had met Navarre and become his fiancée, because she and Navarre had already agreed that now their relationship had become official nobody else had any need to know about their previous arrangement. But it did occur to her just then that the night she had met Tia Castelli, she had been no more than a hired companion on Navarre’s terms and he had had less reason to hide anything from her. He had been very attentive towards Tia, almost protective, she recalled, struggling to think back and recapture what she had s
een. And Tia was an extraordinarily beautiful and appealing woman. Tawny wondered if she was being ridiculously naive about their relationship and could not help recalling Luke Convery’s annoyance at his wife’s friendship with Navarre. No smoke without fire, she reasoned ruefully. It was perfectly possible that Navarre and Tia had been lovers at some point in the past.
‘Now I’ve got you all worked up and worried! I should’ve kept quiet! Why is Bee always right?’ Zara exclaimed guiltily as she tracked the fast changing expressions on the younger woman’s face. ‘She would never ever have mentioned those stupid rumours to you.’
