She half-expected to find Lucia lurking along the corridor, revelling in her triumph over Dante, wanting to gauge how much trouble she had caused, but it was empty of any other presence apart from theirs. Tension tore at her nerves as they waited for the nurse to let them in to be with Marco. She fiercely wished there had never been any deception, yet without it, there would not have been this time with Dante. This final hurdle had to be crossed…somehow.
The door opened. Dante ushered her to the chair at Marco’s bedside. He stood just behind her, one hand resting on her shoulder in a show of togetherness. His grandfather lay still, his eyes closed, his face so gaunt and grey, her heart instantly went out to the old man who clearly had little time left in this world. He’d always been kind to her and she desperately wanted to treat him with kindness in these last hours of his life.
‘I’m here, Marco,’ she said softly.
A little smile curved his lips. ‘Good girl!’ he murmured, then slowly lifted his eyelids, turned his head on the pillow and looked directly into her eyes. ‘Now tell me, my dear…who are you?’
For one paralysing moment, she thought he had lost the power to recognise people. Then she realised there was no dulling of intelligence in the knowing dark eyes that sought the truth from her, and shock pummelled her again.
Marco knew she wasn’t Bella.
She had no idea when he had come to this conclusion. Maybe he had suspected it from quite early on, given that he had accepted the sketchiest details of Antonio’s life in Australia without probing for more. Maybe the fact that she and Dante were lovers had clinched it for him. The grandson he knew so well would not have slept with his first cousin.
A huge sense of relief swept through her as the burden of deception was lifted. She would not be breaking Dante’s trust to speak the truth now. He’d asked her to give his grandfather whatever he wanted.
‘My name is Jenny Kent,’ she said openly and honestly.
They were the words she should have spoken in the hospital when she’d woken up from the coma. Dante’s fingers dug into her shoulder with bruising strength. Was he appalled at her confession? It was too late to take it back. Besides, it was right to give up the truth. Marco’s eyes told her it was right.
‘I was Bella’s friend,’ she went on. ‘Neither of us had family and we became like sisters. I shared her apartment and she lent me her Italian name so I could work in the Venetian Forum. I’m sorry, Marco, but she was the one who died in the car accident, and the authorities mistakenly identified her as me.’
The whole story poured out, from convincing herself that taking on Bella’s identity for a while would not harm anyone to Dante’s insistence that she come to Capri in Bella’s place. ‘…because he loves you, Marco, and he couldn’t bear to tell you Antonio’s daughter was dead, too. I hoped I knew enough about Bella’s life to…to satisfy you…but I can tell you now—’ she leant forward earnestly ‘—your grand-daughter was a wonderful person, generous and kind, endlessly curious about everything, more fun than I am and I wish she had been alive for you.’
He lifted his hand to wave aside her concern, dragging in breath to speak. ‘You…you are more important, Jenny.’
‘Me? But I’m no one,’ she protested painfully.
‘Listen to me…’
The rasping urgency in his voice silenced her. It hurt to watch him summoning the strength to speak, the effort it took to deliver what he wanted to say. All she could do was respect his request for her to listen and hope that Dante wasn’t hating her too much for spilling out his part in the deception. Maybe she should have taken all responsibility for it herself, as she had once planned to, but then he would still be guilty of sleeping with a woman he believed to be his first cousin. Better that he hear the truth.
Her heart ached with the knowledge she had just ended her time with him. Jenny Kent had no part to play here. When the helicopter arrived with Roberto and Sophia, it could take her away, out of the Rossini family where she had never belonged, out of Dante’s life where she wouldn’t belong, either.
Marco wheezed in another deep breath and said, ‘I saw your feelings for Dante…in the portrait.’
No, no, no, her mind screamed. She’d tried so hard to hide them. For his grandfather to point them up in front of Dante now…
‘I put it together then,’ he went on. ‘No family likeness…your reticence about Antonio…so many careful reservations…Dante, too watchful…’
So soon, Jenny thought, anguished over being seen as a fraud almost from the very beginning.
‘Why didn’t you say, Nonno?’ Dante asked, his voice gruff with the emotions coursing through him.
Marco’s gaze lifted to his grandson. He struggled to reply. ‘I wanted her to stay…to observe the connection between you…to see if you would come to feel for her…what I felt for my Isabella. To have a good woman at your side, Dante…sympathetic, strong, caring, sharing. I wished that for you, my boy…more than I wished for a grand-daughter I’d never known.’
Tears welled into Jenny’s eyes. This was a dying man’s dream, wanting to believe his beloved grandson would be happily settled with a good woman in the future. It wasn’t going to happen. Not with her. As much as she would love to be at Dante’s side for the rest of her life, she knew his involvement with her was only a pro temps thing, bound up in sexual pleasure and secrecy, but she remained silent, unable to bring herself to tell Marco that. It was up to Dante to speak the truth this time.
But he said nothing and Marco reached out to her. ‘Give me your hand, Jenny.’
She did, desperately blinking the tears away so she could meet his gaze without blurred vision.
‘I want you to know…you’ve been very good for me.’
The tears welled again. She couldn’t stop them.
Marco pressed her hand gently. ‘You do love Dante, don’t you?’
Such a direct question…Dante’s voice in her head, telling her to give the answers his grandfather wanted, his hand squeezing her shoulder again. ‘Yes,’ she choked out. It was the truth anyway.
Marco’s breath whistled out on a long sigh. He sucked in again. ‘Don’t waste time, Dante. Marry her soon.’
Marry?
‘I will, Nonno,’ came the strong promise.
The blank shock in Jenny’s mind receded at the quick realisation that Dante was giving the answer Marco wanted to hear.