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Jamie appeared at Lily’s side with two glasses of champagne. ‘It’s far too hot for this ridiculous get-up,’ he complained, looking at Lily’s bare arms with envy. ‘How soon can I take off my jacket and this tie thing, do you think?’
Lily gave him a sympathetic look. ‘I think etiquette would say not until Tom does.’
Jamie groaned, and gave his cravat a vicious tug. ‘Do you think blue blood is a bit colder than normal blood? Like reptiles?’
Lily had just leaned forward to straighten Jamie’s tie when a shadow fell across them and the bright afternoon seemed to darken. She looked up and felt the breath stop in her throat. This was the moment she’d been dreading, the moment she’d been hoping and wishing and waiting for for the last three months. Her fingers froze, clutching the silk of Jamie’s cravat, and her heart hammered crazily against her ribs as she looked up into Tristan’s face.
It was like an Arctic wind in the heat of the soft English afternoon.
‘I think you could be right.’ She stepped back, dropping her gaze. ‘Jamie, have you met Tom’s best man, Tristan Romero? Tristan, this is Jamie Thomas.’
Jamie looked at Tristan and then back at Lily, his mouth opening as realisation dawned.
‘Tom’s…Oh. Right,’ said Jamie awkwardly, clearly wondering whether he should bow in deference to Tristan’s title, apologise for the reptile comment, or punch him for walking out on his sister’s best friend. ‘Well, I was just going to get another drink, so…’
Jamie melted away. And as far as Lily was concerned so did the other guests, the rose-garlanded marquee, the waiters with their trays of vintage champagne, the castle, the lake, the rest of the world. As she stood a few feet away from Tristan, looking into his eyes, nothing else existed but themselves and the history that no one else understood. For a moment, a wonderful, terrible, wrenching moment, Lily thought she saw the pain she carried around secretly inside herself reflected in the intense blue of his eyes.
And then he looked away and the moment was gone.
‘How are you, Lily?’ he said. Courteous, civilised, dutiful.
Of course.
‘I’m fine.’
A lie, but an excusable one. One told with the best of intentions—to save him awkwardness, to protect herself, to make him more likely to consider the question she needed to ask him. And besides, in a relationship built on half-truths and evasions, what difference did one more small deceit make?
‘Good. I’m glad. You’re looking…’ he paused, a frown flickering over his face as his gaze swept over her ‘…as beautiful as ever.’
So he was clearly not averse to lying either. Lily gave a small, painful smile. The connection she thought she had felt a moment ago had completely vanished now and a bleak, frozen continent of unspoken misery lay between them.
‘Thank you,’ she said ruefully. ‘I appreciate your dishonesty. I wish my agent was as good at lying as you are.’
With narrowed eyes Tristan looked out into the distance, away from her. His voice was distant too. Polite.
‘You’re not working?’
She shook her head, holding onto her champagne glass with both hands to keep it steady. ‘Not since the last perfume commercial.’ She laughed. ‘And after that disaster I probably won’t work again.’
‘What happened?’
‘It was the follow up to the wedding one we shot in…in Rome that day.’ Our wedding day. ‘It was the next instalment in the story.’
‘Let me guess,’ he said gruffly. ‘A baby?’
She nodded. ‘I don’t think the director or the crew were terribly impressed with my lack of professionalism.’
‘Dios, Lily—’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said quickly, desperately trying to withstand the annihilating wave of longing that smashed through her as she heard the slight rasp of emotion behind his words. She took a swift mouthful of champagne. ‘I never wanted to be a model anyway. It was something I fell into and I kept on doing it because there was no reason not to. But in the last year everything has changed.’
They both found themselves looking down towards the lake. Tristan felt as if he were tied to a railway track and the train were getting closer. He nodded.
‘Dimitri’s sister,’ she said quietly. ‘I often think about her. Did she have her twins?’
‘Yes. A boy and a girl. Emilia and Andrei.’
She exhaled slowly; a mixture of joy and anguish. ‘Ah. How lovely…’
Tristan’s head jerked round. ‘Lily…’
‘No, really, it’s fine. I’m thrilled for her. I have to get over what happened…move on,’ she said more wistfully. ‘I want to move out of London, try to do something useful. The original charity who asked me to be an ambassador in Africa aren’t keen to proceed at the moment because…because of what happened. They don’t feel I could cope with seeing children suffering just yet, and they’re probably right, but I’m looking into other ways I can be useful to them, and—’
She stopped, aware that she was talking faster and faster in her desperation to get to the point, and finding that now she had she didn’t know what to say. Her head throbbed with dread and hope.
‘Tristan, there’s something else. Something I need your help with.’
He turned back, looking at her blankly. ‘Money? If you’re not working, I’d be happy to help out. We are still married, after all.’
‘No. It’s not that.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Not the money anyway, although the being married part is relevant, I suppose. You see, I want to try to adopt a child. I know it’s very soon after…we lost our daughter…but I feel, deep down, that it’s something I profoundly want to do. I just can’t imagine…the rest of my life…without…’
She was breathing hard, unevenly, trying to hold the tears back. Trying to ignore the voice in her head that whispered, You. I can’t imagine the rest of my life without children and you…
He stood very still, his inscrutable face giving nothing away. ‘How can I help?’ he said tonelessly. ‘Can you do this pri vately? Can I pay?’
She shook her head. ‘Unfortunately even the Romero billions can’t buy what I want,’ she said ruefully. ‘There’s a process—a long, difficult process to go through with social workers and being vetted for suitability, and approval is by no means certain. I don’t want to get turned down. This is my last, my only chance. I want to make sure this happens for me, Tristan.’
A muscle ticced in his cheek. ‘What do you want of me?’
‘I want us to apply together. I think the chances of success will be greater if I’m part of a couple than if I apply by myself—an ex-model from a single parent family with a broken marriage behind her doesn’t look good. I know our marriage was something you never wanted, and neither did I, but I did it for you. And now I’m asking you to do this for me.’
‘Do what exactly?’
‘Continue the pretence that we’re a normal married couple…’ there was a hard, cold edge to her voice now ‘…very much in love. It won’t be easy, but of course privately we can go on as before. You can live your life, have your freedom and I won’t ask any questions. And then at the end of it we go our separate ways.’
Very slowly he shook his head. ‘It’s impossible.’
‘Tristan, don’t say that—’
‘Lily, you must know that it is,’ he said despairingly. ‘We tried it before and it nearly destroyed us both. Living a lie like that, pretending out of some sense of obligation or duty—I can’t do it again.’
A sheet of ice formed itself instantly over Lily’s heart. She felt the blood leave her face. It wasn’t a lie for me, she wanted to shout. I wasn’t pretending to love you. Light-headed, cold with horror, she began to back away as Tristan’s face blurred behind a veil of humiliating tears.
‘OK. I understand…’ she gasped, holding up her hands in front of her as he opened his mouth to protest.
‘Lily, wait!’ he growled. ‘Just listen—’
But at that moment an arm slid round her shoulders and she looked up to see Jamie had appeared beside her. He was looking at Tristan with unconcealed dislike.
‘They’re waiting for you to start the receiving line,’ he said coldly. ‘Although I think that Lily can be excused that ordeal.’ He turned his attention to her, his face softening with concern. ‘Are you all right?’
She nodded, closing her eyes against the tears.
When she opened them again Tristan was gone.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
HELL, thy name is wedding reception.
Sitting at the top table in the swel tering afternoon heat, Tristan gritted his teeth and looked at his still-full champagne glass. He felt as if he were the victim of some sadistic, protracted torture technique designed to test his strength and endurance and will power in every way possible.
The wedding breakfast was over, and as the guests dozed over coffee Scarlet’s father turned over yet another page of his speech. Beside Tristan, Tatiana’s slim thigh, encased in duckegg blue silk, pressed against his.
