Run Rosie Run (10 page)

She did indeed. But was that a hurt sort of jealousy she saw in his eyes? Seriously?

She took a sip of her coffee and told herself to be careful, very careful.

‘Josh is lovely. She could do worse.’

‘Yeah, well you should have seen what she was wearing,’ he snarled in a way that had Nico’s cup pause on its way to his lips.

Bronte shot her husband a warning look.

‘Hot?’ she asked.

Alexander flashed her a dark look that made her bite down hard on the inside of her cheek.

‘Smoking,’ he growled and then frowned as she topped his coffee.

‘What’s a toxic bachelor?’

She blinked at the change of subject.

‘It’s a man who’s very set in his ways and has probably left it too late to find a partner because he finds it impossible to compromise and let another into his life. Why do you want to know?’

The hint of temper in his eyes nearly made her laugh out loud.

‘Just something I heard someone say and wondered what it meant, that’s all.’

Her brother she realised was sulking.

Nico’s laughing eyes caught hers.

Bronte knew better than to show too much interest or Alexander wouldn’t be seen for dust. With him the key to receiving more information was to act as if she could care less.

She rose.

‘Well, some of us don’t have a day off. I need to jump in the shower, dress the kids.’

‘Need help?’ Alexander asked.

‘Sure. You take Sophia and I’ll get sleeping beauty.’

Later, Bronte and Alexander sat in the garden under the sunshade.

Luca was sound asleep and Sophia was dozing on a blanket on the grass next to her brother.

The rumble of lazy bees bumbling from one plant to the other was the only sound in the calm of the morning. A gentle breeze made a couple of plastic windmills stuck into plant pots spin crazily. Enjoying the peace and quiet, Alexander relaxed properly for the first time in days.

‘It’s been a while since I hung with just you,’ he said.

Bronte looked up from her laptop, eyed him over her glasses.

‘You work too hard. When are you moving into the barn?’

‘I’ll make a start next week. The kitchen’s nearly finished. Just waiting for the granite countertops.’

‘Is moving into your own home, finally settling down, the reason for thinking of a dog?’

Perhaps it was?

He shrugged.

‘Might be.’

‘Have you had a fight with Rosie?’

Now he frowned and spoke the truth,

‘I’ve no idea what the hell I’ve done. But she’s angry with me. Any ideas?’

Her eyes met his and he read anxiety.

‘Someone’s hurt her,’ his sister said.

Now he sat up.

‘A guy?’

She nodded.

‘She’s refusing to tell me who.’

Alexander pointed a finger.

‘See? That’s just not right. She tells you everything.’

‘She used to.’

He saw the hurt.

‘Things were bound to change between you after you married Nico and had the kids.’

‘I know that. But this is different. She’s trying to put on a brave face. His name is Simon and he’s an airline pilot.’

She’d had a secret affair? Rosie?

The ache of need in his belly for her was joined by something dark, something that felt like jealous possession and he didn’t like it. Not one little bit. The little witch.

‘She did make a crack about a night of hot monkey sex, but I thought she was joking.’ And he hadn’t followed his intuition that something was wrong with her. His brain flicked through a mental file of airline pilots. ‘Can’t say the name’s ringing any bells. Which airline?’

‘No idea.’

‘Rank?’ he snapped.

She shrugged.

‘She says he’s a captain, kept odd hours.’

‘Hmm. Maybe long haul.’

Bronte sent him what passed for a smile.

‘Rosie can’t keep a secret from me. It’ll come out eventually.’

He nodded, that was very true.

But something was off about the whole thing and Bronte was worried, stressing about it.

Well, he’d just make a few casual enquiries, find out who the bastard was. His head of security’s brother worked at Heathrow.

But his sister was giving him big eyes in a way that warned him to be careful. If she got wind he had feelings for Rosie, the whole thing might blow up in his face.

He told himself to just calm the hell down.

‘How’s Nico coping?’ he asked in an attempt to deflect attention away from Ms Rosemary Gordon.

His sister took a big breath.

‘He’s okay. We’re flying out late tomorrow night. I’ve managed to persuade him to take a week’s break in Lake Como. Gabriel, Julia and the kids are coming too. He needs to spend time with his brother.’

Alexander knew Nico’s relationship with Gabriel had gone through its rough spots. But seeing how Bronte and his best friend managed their marriage, their relationship, their lives made him realise again how much he was missing by not having a special person in his life.

Actually he did have a special person in his life.

He frowned now as his temper spiked and he tried to think everything through in a logical manner.

Apparently she was suffering from a broken romance? And why hadn’t he heard about it? The local gossip’s spooky radar would have nailed the vehicle, type and registration number of any guy sleeping with Rosie within hours.

And she hadn’t looked heart broken last night, had she?

Anything but.

So it had been a secret romance?

But then that didn’t sit right with him either.

Why would Rosie keep it a secret?

‘Who’s idea was this?’

High in the hills above Ludlow Hall, Rosie caught her breath sucking air painfully in and out of her lungs. With deep loathing in her heart she eyed the steep incline directly ahead of her, which resembled the north face of the Eiger.

Silver ponytail bouncing on top of her head, Bronte, wearing shorts and cross trainers, bounded up the incline like a freaking gazelle.

Turning at the top she rested her hands on long thighs and grinned, hardly even out of breath. Cow.

‘Yours. And you told me not to listen to your whinging and moaning. If I was your friend, you said, I’d be behind you one hundred percent to become a lean, mean, fighting machine.’

Rosie knew it was pathetic, but she pouted.

Sweat trickled between her breasts, down back of her T-shirt into the dip between her buttocks.

Why oh why had she worn a thong to go power hiking?

‘I can’t,’ she whined. ‘There isn’t a part of me that doesn’t ache.’

Emerald eyes sparkling Bronte jogged on the spot, poetry in frigging motion.

‘You need pull on your big girl panties. Take a deep breath and run up on your toes. Come on, Gordon! Chop chop, get with the programme!’

After a couple of unladylike expletives, Rosie dug in and ran up the hill.

At the top she bent double, air wheezed through her teeth and she sucked it into screaming lungs.

Her calf muscles sent subliminal messages of exquisite pain into her brain.

‘I can’t go on. I can’t do it.’

Still jogging on the spot and looking as fresh as a freaking daisy, Bronte stared into her sweaty face.

At that moment Rosie truly hated her.

‘Where does it hurt?’

‘I’m wearing a thong. It’s killing me.’

Bronte’s brows flew into her hairline.

‘Ouch! Take it off,’ she told her, looked around. ‘There’s no one here. I’ll keep watch. Go behind those bushes.’

Rosie pulled off her rucksack, handed it to her friend and trudged up the embankment.

The shrub hid her from the waist down.

She stripped.

The way she was feeling, she’d need to be evacuated out by helicopter. All this pain for a pert bum and toned legs. And for what? She pulled on her shorts and heaved a lovely sigh of relief.

Bronte was now jumping on the spot.

The woman was a machine.

‘Better?’ she asked. ‘No blisters?’

As she stumbled down, Rosie sent her a filthy look that made her friend grin.

‘I’m not going to check my bum for blisters in broad daylight.’

She shoved the satin and ribboned thong into the back pocket of her shorts, took her rucksack from Bronte.

‘Bend over. I’ll check it for you.’

‘Har, har.’

‘What are friends for?’

Rosie pulled on her rucksack which held water, a protein drink and power bar. She’d have given anything for a Cadbury’s crème egg or three.

‘We’re on the home stretch now. It’s downhill all the way,’ Bronte informed her helpfully.

‘Tell me it’s all going to be worth it. Tell me you can see a difference.’

‘That bottom is taut and toned. I’ve no idea why you think there’s something wrong with it?’

‘I’m thirty in one year and one month. And according to my nutty mother my biological clock is ticking.’

‘You don’t look it. And I don’t look it either. We’ve got good genes,’ Bronte bragged shamelessly and handed her a stick of sugar-free gum.

Chewing thoughtfully, Rosie had to agree, neither of them looked their age and wasn’t that part of the problem? Much to her friend’s amusement, when shopping in town, twice Rosie had been hit on by sixth formers from the local High School. Life didn’t get more embarrassing than that. And Alexander had laughed so hard she’d wanted to punch him.

Since Bronte didn’t know any other speed, they moved at a fast clip.

Well, at least the worst was over and the view from up here was worth the pain. A sea of green rolling hills lay before her with the river meandering through it like molten silver alongside Ludlow Hall. It looked fabulous. At six-thirty on a balmy summer’s evening, the heat was beginning to ease. A lovely soft breeze cooled boiling cheeks as she tightened the scrunchy on top of her head.

It was on days like this she toyed with idea of cutting her hair. She could do with a change of image as well as a change of scene. The heavy stone of guilt still lay deep in her belly. Twice she’d gone to ring Alexander to apologise then chickened out at the last moment.

The trouble was she needed to bite the bullet and grow a backbone.

Christ, she was thinking in clichés, again.

‘You’ve plenty of time to have a family,’ Bronte said, jolting her back to the present.

‘Not according to my mother. Tick tock, tick tock. Do you think I’d make a good mother?’

‘Yes,’ her friend said without a moment’s hesitation.

‘I’ve been feeling broody,’ Rosie admitted.

‘Yeah?’

‘Hmm.’

Now Bronte nudged her shoulder.

‘Got something you want to tell me?’

Rosie grinned, nudged her back.

‘Nope. I just need to find the right man.’

‘You do if you want a baby. It’s Boo. She’s enough to make any woman broody. I don’t think I’ve come across a sweeter child.’

Bronte slanted her a look.

‘Don’t let one bad experience put you off. You’re not going to meet anyone if you don’t actively go out and find him.’

Rosie slanted the look right back.

‘Easy for you to say, Mrs Ferranti.’

‘True. But I went through plenty of heartache before I found Nico.’

‘I wish you would share him,’ Rosie said in a hard-done-by whiney voice. ‘Why can’t you give him to me one night a month. Be a pal, I’d do it for you.’

‘Not a chance, sister.’

‘I wish he had a cousin or a brother who wasn’t deliriously happily married.’

Steps synchronised, they marched down the woodland path.

‘Talking of gorgeous Ferranti men, how are they holding up?’ Rosie asked, referring to the upcoming funeral in Rome.

‘They’re talking, which is a good thing. But Nico’s taken it hard.’

‘Give him a big hug from me.’

‘I will.’

But Bronte was frowning now.

Recognising the face, Rosie wondered what was coming.

‘You need to put Simon behind you. No bells and whistles with Josh?’

So they were back on the subject of her love life.

The woman never knew when to give up.

And the lies just kept on coming.

‘He’s a lovely guy,’ Rosie said in a noncommittal tone. ‘We’re sort of taking it slow.’

She hated this.

Lying to her best friend was killing her, but Bronte would be sure to tell Nico that Rosie and Josh didn’t have the buzz and Nico would tell Alexander who was too much in her business and that had to stop.

She needed to put an end to his dropping in whenever he felt like it too. Perhaps it might be better to wean herself off the addiction that was Alexander Ludlow rather than going cold turkey.

She tuned back in to Bronte who was saying,

‘I don’t know what’s holding you back? He’s hot.’

‘You’re not supposed to notice hot men. You’re a happily married woman.’

‘Doesn’t mean I’m deaf, dumb and blind.’

How could she say,
‘Simon is actually your brother. That’s why I’m leaving. But it will kill me to leave you and Nico and the kids and the business and my home.’

How to tell the truth?

The question tortured her.

‘Do it,’
her conscience yelled.

‘No way,’
the devil whispered in her ear.

For a second she actually debated whether or not to tell Bronte, to unload the burden of guilt and lies, but movement at the back of Alexander’s sprawling barn conversion set well back from the hotel caught their attention and the moment passed.

A tall, slim man eased out of a dusty Land Rover.

‘Hey, speak of the devil and what a lovely devil he is,’ Bronte purred low in her throat, elbowed Rosie in the ribs. ‘You know, for the woman who virtually pushed me into Nico’s arms, you are holding back and I cannot understand why. The best way to get over heart ache is to have fun with a lovely guy. Josh looks like a man who’d give you a good time.’

Her friend has a point.

‘Hey, Josh!’ Rosie yelled.

Wearing soft jeans worn at the seams Josh was all tanned, and golden and gorgeous. He wore heavy work boots and a loose striped cotton chambray shirt rolled up to his elbows.