Avril continued to study her. ‘There’s something else. You’re not telling me the whole story.’ She clapped a hand to her mouth and gasped. ‘Don’t tell me you fell in love with him? Or—?’ She paused dramatically. ‘He got you pregnant?’
‘Neither of those.’
‘He gave you a nasty disease? Stole your money and your passport? Had a wife?’
‘He was only twenty-one!’
‘So? He might have settled down early. That makes him… thirty-one now,’ she added thoughtfully.
‘And to think you worked that out without a calculator.’
Avril glowered. ‘Tell me.’
Giselle rose and went over to the cabinet of slim drawers and took out the red heart. ‘He gave me this. We were on the island of Murano, where the famous Venetian glass comes from, and we were sitting on some steps at the base of a lighthouse. We’d just eaten a picnic and were waiting for the ferry to take us back to San Marco, the main island.’
‘It sounds so romantic,’ Avril said dreamily.
‘It was.’ Giselle could almost feel the hot sun on her skin, smell the brine, hear the chatter of the people in the bars and cafes behind. Feel his lips on hers…
‘Then what?’
Giselle blinked. ‘He found this in the rocks near the lighthouse. There was no beach, just rocks and pebbles, and not a lot of those. This is my very first piece of sea glass.’
‘And?’ Avril prompted.
‘It’s because of him I knew I wanted to make sea glass pictures.’
‘Is that it?’
‘It’s enough,’ Giselle snapped. ‘If it hadn’t been for Rocco and the sea glass he gave me that day, I wouldn’t be here now.’
‘He who giveth can taketh away,’ Avril murmured. ‘Or something like that. How ironic.’
‘It’s not ironic – it’s awful. You’ll be out of a job too, you know.’ Giselle felt sick. How on earth would she manage if the craft centre closed? Her mortgage was eye-wateringly high, and although she was able to keep her head above water by selling her pictures in the gift shop, if she no longer had that option, where would she sell them? The thought of trawling around all the shops on the island, trying to persuade them to carry her stock, made her stomach churn.
Avril’s expression was equally concerned. ‘I’m going to have to update my CV, aren’t I? Unless…’
‘Unless what?’
‘You could persuade him to change his mind about selling the castle.’
‘How do you suggest I do that?’
‘Make him fall in love with you and beg him to give you the castle as a wedding present?’
‘There isn’t going to be a fairytale ending, you know. He isn’t Prince Charming and I don’t have a glass slipper or a fairy godmother.’ Giselle slumped back in her seat, close to tears again. ‘It’s all my fault. If I hadn’t been late, I might have been able to save Mhairi, and none of this would be happening.’
‘Giselle, you’ve got to stop blaming yourself. Remember that Cal said she’d been dead for at least an hour. If anyone should blame themselves, it’s me.’
Giselle stared at her through watery eyes. Avril’s were equally damp. It didn’t matter what Avril said, Giselle couldn’t shake off her guilt. And now she had an additional load of it to carry: Rocco and his plan to sell the estate.
To think that for all these years she’d been measuring boyfriends and potential dates against an idolised version of a man she’d known for less than forty-eight hours! What a waste. And what a disappointment. They say you should never meet your heroes, and they were right.
She’d thought of Rocco as a romantic, in love with beauty and history, but from the brief chat with him today, he clearly wasn’t interested. For goodness’ sake, he hadn’t even noticed the breathtaking scenery when she’d taken him to the jetty just now!
He was still handsome – more so, if that was possible – and she still felt a visceral draw to him that had everything to do with her hormones and nothing to do with her intellect and common sense, but at least Giselle now knew one thing with absolute certainty: she could never fall in love with anyone who didn’t love Skye, Duncoorie and this wild Scottish loch as much as she did.
Chapter 6
