famous red carpet which slithered down the steps of the Festival Theatre like a scarlet snake. Oh, yes. A snake. Lots of those around at the Cannes Film Festival.
At the back of the building lay the fabled promenade of La Croisette, where lines of palm trees waved gently in the soft breeze. Beyond foamed the sapphire-edged waters of the Mediterranean, into which the evening sun had just set in a firework display of pink and gold. But, despite the warmth of the May evening which caressed her bare shoulders, Jennifer couldn’t stop the tiptoeing of regret which shivered over her skin.
Memories stayed stubbornly alive in your head, and you couldn’t stop them flooding back—no matter how hard you tried. She’d been in Cannes with Matteo during that first, blissful summer of their ill-fated romance, and she associated the whole dazzling coastline with him. Matteo had introduced her to the South of France and the heady world of films—just as he had introduced her to white wine and orgasm. Everything in life she thought worth knowing he had taught her.
‘You okay, Jen?’ came the gruff voice of her publicist, Hal, who—along with an assistant, had been shadowing her like a bodyguard all day, as if afraid that she wouldn’t actually turn up for the screening of her film tonight. And, yes, she’d been tempted to hide away in the luxury of her hotel room—but you couldn’t hide from the world for ever. Sooner or later you had to come out—and it was better to come out fighting!
Weighted by her elaborate blonde hairstyle, Jennifer dipped her head so that her low words could be neither lip-read nor heard by the crowds who were pushing towards her from behind the barrier ropes.
‘What do you think?’ she questioned softly. ‘I’m being forced to parade in front of the world’s media and pretend I don’t care that my husband has been flaunting his new lover.’
‘Hey, Jennifer,’ said Hal softly. ‘That sounds awfully like jealousy—and you were the one who walked out of the marriage, remember?’
And for good reasons. But she knew it was pointless trying to explain them. People like Hal thought she was mad. They had told her in not so many words that she couldn’t expect a man like Matteo to be faithful. As if she should just be grateful that he had cared enough to put a shiny gold band on her finger. Well, maybe her expectations were higher than those of other people in the acting world, but she wasn’t about to start lowering them now.
‘It’s just harder than I thought it would be,’ she murmured.
They’d only split six months ago, and yet already the press had started describing her as ‘lonely’ and ‘unlucky in love’—because, unlike Matteo, she had not fallen straight into the arms of a new lover. Maybe it was different for women. Didn’t they say that men recovered more quickly from a break-up?
Her pride had been wounded and she wasn’t sure she was ever going to be able to replace the man who had been her husband—though that was what the world seemed to want. She just wanted to get through this first public appearance at the world’s most famous film festival—then surely anything else would be easy-peasy. Please God, it would.
‘Jennifer!’ screamed the crowd again.
‘Don’t even attempt to sign autographs,’ warned Hal. ‘Or there’ll be a riot!’
‘You mean there isn’t already?’ she joked.
‘That’s better,’ Hal murmured approvingly. ‘Just keep smiling.’
But as Jennifer began to slowly mount the staircase she heard different voices, which somehow managed to penetrate the clamour of her fans. The clipped, intrusive tones of professional broadcasters. Here we go, she thought.
‘Hey, Jennifer—have you met your husband’s new lover yet?’
‘Jennifer! GMRV news! Any plans for a divorce?’
‘Jen—are the rumours that Sophia is pregnant true?’
Pregnant? Surely that must be some kind of cruel joke? Jennifer gripped onto her sapphire silk clutch-bag so hard that her knuckles showed up white, but then she automatically relaxed them just in case a camera should pick up the tell-tale tension.
‘Jennifer—how do you feel about seeing your husband here tonight?’
At first Jennifer thought that she must have misheard the last statement—her ears playing tricks with her and plucking a wrong note from out of the sea of sound. Matteo wasn’t here tonight—he was miles away, in Italy, and she had agreed to attend the Festival because she had known that. They hadn’t seen each other in months, and Jennifer was still emotionally wobbly. She wasn’t naïve enough to think that their paths would never cross, but had just hoped that it would be without an audience. Especially so soon.
Like a child swimming in choppy waters and searching for a life-raft, she looked round at Hal—but the sudden frozen set of his shoulders made her tense with a terrible growing suspicion.
She tried to catch his eye, but he was steadfastly refusing to meet her gaze. And then the press pack were closing in again, and Jennifer’s gaze was drawn upwards, as if compelled to do so by some irresistible force.
Until she saw him—and her ears began to roar as the world closed in on her.
It couldn’t be. Please, God—it just couldn’t be.
But it was. Oh, it was—for there was no mistaking the dynamic presence that was Matteo d’ Arezzo.
Jennifer felt sick and faint—but somehow she sucked in a slow breath of oxygen and managed to keep the meaningless smile on her face as she gazed in disbelief at the man who was standing at the top of the red carpet, surrounded by a small bunch of sychophants—as if he were king of all he surveyed.
His Italian looks were dark and brooding, and his body was lean and honed and shown off to perfection in the coal-black dinner suit. Legs slightly parted, his hands deep in the pockets of his elegant trousers, his casual stance stretched the material over his thighs—emphasising their hard, muscular shafts…leaving nothing about his virile physique to the imagination. Long-lashed jet eyes glittered in the olive-gold of his face, and they flicked over her now in a way which was achingly familiar yet heartbreakingly alien.
Jennifer’s heart contracted in her chest. It had been so long since she’d seen him. Too long, and yet not long enough.
And women were screaming his name.
Screaming it as once she had screamed it, in his arms and in his bed.
Matteo.
She felt like a mannequin in a shop window—with the look of a real person about her, but a complete inability to move.
But she had to move. She had to.
The cameras would be trained on both faces. Looking for a reaction—any reaction, but preferably one which would provide the meat for a juicy story.
She willed some warmth into her frozen smile and began to walk up towards him, thanking her impossibly tight silk dress for the slowness of her steps.
It was a walk which seemed to go on for ever. The roar of the crowd retreated and the blur of their faces merged, and as she grew closer she could see the dark shadowing of his jaw and the cruel curve of his lips. Men like Matteo did not grow on trees, and his outrageous beauty and sex-appeal often made the casual observer completely awestruck. Well, he would not intimidate her as he had spent his life intimidating the studio. He was her cheating ex-husband—nothing more and nothing less—and she needed to take control of the situation.
She lifted her head as she reached him. ‘Hello, Matteo,’ she said coolly.
To see her was like being struck by lightning, and Matteo could feel the hot rods of desire as he saw the creamy thrust of her breasts edged by silk as deeply blue as the ocean. He tensed, his mind racing with questions as he stared down at his estranged wife.
Che cosa il hell stava accendo?
But his face stayed unmoving, even though his groin had begun