to understand about her own thoughts and actions during the pregnancy, desperately trying to remember, even undergoing hypnosis to unlock the crucial hidden memories.
The most crucial memory of all, the identity of Finn’s father, had now been unlocked but there was still a heap of others to bring to light.
As soon as the photos were done and the bride and groom had ridden off to the hotel on their horse-drawn carriage, Orla latched onto Aislin’s friend Sabine and used her as a shield while she wheeled Finn to their waiting car.
She unstrapped him and carefully lifted him into her arms. He was small for his age and light in weight but it wouldn’t be long before her still-weak muscles would struggle to carry him any distance. She would carry him for as long as she could physically manage. She’d missed out on so much of his short life, days and nights spent aching to hold her baby, days and nights spent hating the body that had entrapped her in a living hell, fighting with every breath to get herself well enough that she could at least live under the same roof as her child.
Once Finn was secured in his car seat, she hurried to the other side and slid in beside him.
Only when the driver pulled away did she turn her head to look out of the window.
Tonino was staring straight at her, not a flicker of emotion on his handsome face.
Mercifully sat at the top table, Orla watched the seven-course wedding meal unfold around her in the hotel’s enormous ballroom decoratively adorned with balloons and glitter. She had been seated on the top table beside Aislin’s father, the man who’d been Orla’s stepfather from the age of three for the grand total of two years. Aislin had so many of Dennis O’Reilly’s characteristics that being in his company was usually a joy. A humble man who’d been treated atrociously by their mother, he’d always treated Orla with great kindness on the occasions she’d seen him after the divorce.
Today though, she couldn’t relax long enough to find the usual enjoyment she would have found being next to him.
This was hands down the most luxuriant and glamorous wedding she’d ever attended. The food was the most delicious she’d ever eaten, the wine in her glass the nicest she’d ever sipped; even the water had a purity to it she’d never tasted before. She could take no pleasure from any of it.
To her misfortune, Tonino had been placed to the left of the top table, facing her. Every time she glanced in his direction, she found his cold stare on her. It never failed to send a shiver up her spine.
Something different raced up her spine whenever she caught sight of the stunningly beautiful blonde woman with eyes like a cat seated to the right of the top table. Orla was certain she wasn’t imagining the death stares being thrown by her, which were far more potent than the daggers she’d received from Aislin’s wedding-dress designer.
She knew this woman. But from where? And why did she want to hide under the table to escape her?
Her torrid thoughts were interrupted when Dennis got to his feet, tapped his glass for attention, and pulled out a sheet of paper.
Much merriment ensued. Even Orla found her lips pulling into an unforced smile to see the Sicilian guests’ bemusement. Dennis’s accent was so thick and he spoke so quickly they probably struggled to understand him. The Irish contingent understood him perfectly and heckled liberally. Only one brave strapping teenager dared heckle Dante when it was his turn to speak, though, and was rewarded with a slap from his pint-sized mother, which had Sicilians and Irish alike laughing.
After the speeches were done and copious toasts had been made, there was an hour of free time. Many of the guests disappeared to their rooms to change for the evening party. Most of Tonino’s table stood too, but the tiny easing in Orla’s chest at the fact that he might leave the ballroom tightened again when, eyes locked, he strode towards her.
Fear scratched at her throat. She wasn’t ready for this. She needed to make sense of the unfolding memories before the confrontation that had to happen occurred.
Fate stepped in in the form of Dante’s glamorous mother, Immacolata, who Aislin had been right in saying held no animosity towards Orla. Immacolata pounced on Tonino when he was barely three feet from the table.
Snatching the opportunity to escape, Orla hurried to her feet and took hold of Finn’s wheelchair. I’m taking him to the suite, she mouthed to Aislin.
Are you okay? Aislin mouthed back.
She nodded vigorously. ‘I need to get his walker.’
Luck shone on her again when a handful of her cousins’ small children bounded over and loudly insisted on accompanying them.
Guarded by an army of children barely out of nappies—the bridesmaids tagged along too—Orla took Finn to their suite.
Leaving Finn’s nurse to keep order over the sugar-loaded kids, she stepped out onto the balcony alone. Familiar scents filled her airwaves and, slowly, the vertigo-like feeling that had cloaked her since she’d heard Tonino’s name that morning lifted.
She gazed out at the Tyrrhenian Sea darkening under the setting sun. The Sicilian aromas weren’t the only things stabbing at her memories.
She craned to her left and squinted, trying to spot the run-down beachside hotel she’d stayed in when she’d met Tonino…
Whether it was seeing Tonino again or being back in Sicily she couldn’t say, but the locked-away memories that had eluded her since she’d woken in hospital were slowly taking substance in her mind, but it was all still a jumble.
Sophia!
That was the cat’s-eyed, dangerous-looking woman’s name. Sophia. She’d confronted Orla…but about what?
Stupid brain, work!
A squeal of laughter from the suite shook her from the reforming jumble of memories. The evening reception was about to start. She had to be there.
She got her army of children together and, the nurse carrying Finn’s walker, they trooped out of the suite and down the corridor.
Into the lift they all piled. Seconds later they reached the ground floor, the doors opened and the excitable kids burst out like a spray of rubber bullets.
Orla’s brief amusement died when she noticed the imposing figure propped against the wall.
Tonino pulled himself away from the wall he’d stood against while waiting for Orla to reappear. All the hotel’s stairs and elevators exited at this corridor. She could not escape without him seeing her.
Or her seeing him.
When she appeared, the little colour she had on her milky-white complexion drained away.
Let her feel fearful. Let her take in her surroundings and know there was no escape from him, not here in his own hotel where he had staff posted on every exit into the grounds, ready to notify him should she decide to escape further than her suite.
He stood right in front of her, but it was not his deceitful ex-lover he addressed.
Crouching down, he held out a hand to the child he strongly suspected was his own, and not only because of the uncanny resemblance between them.
Orla had been a virgin. He remembered the flame of colour that had stained her cheeks when she’d told him that and had to fight back the memory snaking through his blood of the first time he’d made love to her.
‘Hello, Finn. Are you having a good time?’
Finn nodded vigorously. He strained forwards but the straps of his wheelchair stopped him leaning too far.
‘And do you like your suite?’
He was rewarded with a blank stare.
‘Your room,’ Tonino clarified. ‘Do you like your