Uncovering Rose (The Sinful Secrets #4)

Chapter 1

DAN

Lights flicker as I walk down the boarding tunnel, luggage in one hand, phone pressed to my ear with the other. My heart thumps against my ribs, faster with each step. “I’m leaving England now. I’ll be in Rome in about three hours.”

“Is Dom with you?” Riccardo, my cousin, asks.

“Nah, he’s staying home working, plus he’s all loved up with a redhead called Poppy.” My lips quirk into a grin as I think of my brother wrapped around Poppy’s finger.

Riccardo snorts. “Isn’t it about time you found yourself a woman?”

“Not me. My heart’s a block of ice and I plan on keeping it that way. No distractions. No drama. Just how I like it. No woman is worth that kind of chaos.”

Riccardo chuckles down the phone. “Keep telling yourself that, cugino.”

A hint of jet fuel filters in from the cool air outside, making me nauseous. “I gotta go. I’ll see you soon.”

“I’ll have a car waiting for you at the airport.”

“Great. See you then.” I cancel the call and slip my phone into the inside pocket of my suit jacket. I pop a piece of gum in my mouth and the strawberry flavour bursts on my tongue, giving me something to focus on besides my impending doom.

The light up ahead is anything but welcoming.

My stomach turns as if I’m on a rollercoaster.

I rarely fly, but Riccardo insisted on me coming out for his sister’s wedding.

Plus, my other cousin Matteo is flying in from the States next week.

Hopefully, this will be the last trip I take for a while, killing two birds with one stone.

Moisture gathers on my brow. I clench my fist around the handles of my holdall. The threshold’s only a few feet away. I should’ve taken a Valium, but I need a clear head on foreign soil.

“Good morning, sir. Welcome aboard flight R606,” a flight attendant says in a familiar voice as soft as a petal.

My chest tightens. My gaze floats from her black patent shoes over her skin-coloured tights. A skirt hides her knees, covering thick thighs. A belt pinches her waist between generous hips and even fuller breasts, all outlined by a dusky pink uniform.

But it’s those lips that steal my breath away. Lips I’ve kissed a hundred times or more and a thousand times in my dreams.

“Rose?” Any remaining air is sucked from my lungs as I say her name out loud. My head pounds like a warning siren. This woman froze my heart almost fourteen years ago. Now her icy blue eyes stab me in the chest as she blankly stares at me as if we never knew each other.

My mouth parts as I wheeze in the thick air between us. Does she not remember the night we made love, the pink roses I would send her that matched the colour of her cheeks, and the secret rendezvous we’d have away from prying eyes?

“I’m sorry, sir.” She taps her silver name badge with a perfectly French tipped nail. “I’m Grace.”

I scan the metal badge. “Grace?” Blonde hair peeks out from under her hat and I’m questioning my sanity.

My Rose was a brunette. And her family has enough money that she wouldn’t need to work.

And she certainly wouldn’t be working as a flight attendant.

But when I glance back into Grace’s eyes, memories of Rose come flooding back like a tidal wave threatening to pull me under her spell and drown me once and for all.

“Yes, sir. Grace Finch.”

It’s the impending flight and returning to Rome that’s playing tricks on my mind. That has to be it. “I’m sorry, miss. I thought you were someone I knew.”

She gives me a wide smile, pushing her cheeks up, making her eyes sparkle with a hint of sadness. Her hand reaches out and holds my arm over the cotton jacket, but I still feel the electricity surge through me from her touch. “Maybe we knew each other in a previous life.”

Her mask slips for a millisecond, and I see a glimmer of the woman I knew. Her hand snaps away as if she felt the spark too and her lip twitches before stretching back into a fake smile.

We lock eyes for a beat too long, the pulse in my neck throbbing like I’ve run a marathon. It feels like another lifetime when we were together, but the pain is as raw as it ever was.

A passenger behind me clears his throat, breaking my trip down memory lane.

She jumps right back into flight assistant mode. “Do you have your ticket, sir?”

I reach into my jacket pocket and hand her my boarding pass with a trembling hand. “Here you go, little bird.”

Her fingers brush mine, sending a spike of electricity through my limb. She scans the ticket. Her eyes narrow. Just for a second. Then she says through a tight jaw. “Welcome aboard, D’Angelo Bianchi.”

She eyes me again, this time with annoyance.

“Business seats are towards the front.” Her voice tighter now, her fake smile a fraction more forced.

“Please place your luggage in the overhead locker and review the safety instructions in the seat pocket, sir.” She hands back the boarding pass as if it’s laced with poison and gestures towards the front of the plane.

I nod and move forward, walking down the aisle to find my seat. My holdall’s never felt so heavy, my hand aching from clenching the handles.

Fuck.

I knew it was her. It has to be her. She can change her name, even her hair, but she can’t erase the memory of her locked in my head. She may be older with a fuller figure, but the eyes don’t lie.

Settling into my seat, I pull out my phone and text Dom.

Are you up?

My foot jitters, making my leg shake as I grow more impatient. The fucker’s probably too wrapped up in Poppy to bother looking at his phone.

I tap the call button and let it ring a few times. Come on, pick up the fucking phone.

“You better be dying or on fire,” Dom groans as he answers, his voice groggy from sleep. “It’s barely sunrise.”

“I think I may have died. I’m seeing fucking ghosts.”

Furniture creaks as if he’s sprung to life. “You on the plane?”

“Yeah.” I grip my knee to stop my leg from shaking.

“Is it the haunting memories of the accident again?”

I inhale a deep breath, trying to ground myself in the present. “Worse. It’s Rose.”

Silence stretches between us and the line crackles.

“You mean Rose Conti, our enemy’s daughter?”

I keep my voice low, checking my surroundings. “She’s working on this flight. Except she’s blonde and calling herself Grace Finch.”

“Shit.” Dom sounds more awake now. “You sure it’s her?”

“I’d bet my left nut.”

“Not the right one?”

I quirk a grin. “Left’s the lucky one.”

“All right, what do you want me to do?”

“Run the name. See when she changed it, where she’s been. I need to know everything. She acted like she didn’t recognise me.”

He huffs. “She didn’t recognise you? Mate, maybe you’ve aged worse than you think. Or maybe you’re hallucinating again. Pre-flight jitters.”

I clench my fist and stretch out my fingers. “It’s her. I can feel it.”

“You psychic now?” There’s a smile in his tone. “Don’t tell me—you feel it in your balls.”

I roll my eyes. “I’m hanging up.”

“Wait, wait! Fine, I’ll dig around. Text me the details. Grace Finch, right?”

“Yeah. And Dom?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.” My brother may be a pain in my arse, but he’s never let me down yet.

“No worries. Just… be careful. You’ve got history with this one.”

“Yeah. History, scars, and maybe a shot at closure.” I run a hand over my face, hoping I can get some fucking closure.

“Or another round of trauma.” Dom chuckles down the phone.

“We’ll see.” I cancel the call, text over the details, then place my phone in my trouser pocket and shrug off my jacket, needing to cool down. My fingers fiddle with the overhead air conditioning and I relax into the seat, wiping my brow as it blows cool air onto my face.

I chew, slow and steady, the gum the only thing keeping me from losing my shit completely. The nausea is still raging in my belly, but now the impending flight is not the main cause.

Rose, or Grace, carries on directing passengers as they board the plane, keeping her cool and professionalism, unlike me.

One heated glance from her and I’m a fucking mess.

I lean my head back and close my eyes, slowing down my breathing and counting to five.

Twelve years in the army and ten years in espionage and it’s a woman to bring me to my fucking knees.

“Sir?” A soft voice has me opening my eyes, but it’s not her. “Are you all right?”

“No. Can you ask your colleague to bring me a hot towel, please?”

A hot towel?

I wipe my top lip and curse myself inwardly for being so fucking pathetic.

“I can get that for you, sir.” She gives me a warm smile, but it’s not her I want. “I need to talk with your colleague. Please.” Rose may be like a thorn in my side, but I’m a glutton for punishment and now I have her in my grasp. I can’t let her go again.

The girl nods. “I’ll see what I can do, sir.”

I lean back in the seat, inhaling the cold air from the blowers. I know it’s a recipe for germs, but it’s the only thing keeping me cool.

“You asked for me?”

I peel open my eyes to Rose in the aisle next to my seat , a wrinkle between her eyebrows as she studies me. Heat billows in my chest as if her gaze has melted the ice around my heart and set it alight.

“Are you all right?” She folds a hot towel in her hand. “You’re burning up.”

I take it from her and dab my forehead. “I’ll be fine once we’re in the air. It’s just takeoff that gives me bad memories.”

“As soon as we’re in flight, I’ll get you a drink to take the edge off. Would you like a water or anything before takeoff?”

“I have a bottle of water.” I hand her the towel back.

Her touch soothes me as she presses it against my cheek. “Try to relax. I won’t let anything happen to you.” She places the towel onto the tray and turns around.

I reach out and grab her wrist. “Rose.”

She turns around with a smile. “It’s Grace, sir.”

“Thank you,” I say, but she’s already walking away.

She can call herself whatever she likes.

But she’ll always be my Rose.

The one whose thorns stabbed me in the back.