Italian Deception: The Salvatore Marriage / A Sicilian Seduction / The Passion Bargain

‘I am not marrying you,’ Shannon sobbed into his throat as a chorus of shocked gasps ran around the room. She didn’t hear them.

Luca ignored them, his fingers dislodging the clip holding up her hair so the thick, flaming mass uncoiled over his fingers as he pressed her closer. ‘Yes you are,’ he gritted. ‘It is your fate—my fate.’

‘What are you are saying?’ It was Renata who spoke so scandalously.

‘Nothing you would not have heard by the end of today,’ he supplied while Shannon sobbed all the harder, and he wondered how long he had left before he joined her in all of this agony.

‘Then you are a fool!’

‘Si,’ he acknowledged. ‘Tazio, have Fredo bring the car to the door, if you please,’ he requested. ‘I am taking Shannon home.’

He climbed abruptly to his feet with Shannon still clamped to the front of him. ‘Can you stand or do I carry you?’ he asked her.

‘I am not going to marry you.’ Shannon found strength from Renata’s dismay to lift her tear-washed face and burn the words up at him. ‘Look at those pictures, Luca—look!’ she insisted with a wave towards the mantel top. ‘They’re all happy to be marrying each other. Are we happy? Are they happy that you’re even thinking of marriage to me?’

Luca did not look at the row of pictures on the mantel top or the real versions of those people who were clustered around the door. He looked at Shannon; he looked into Shannon. ‘Angelo and Keira will be happy for us,’ he stated. ‘Their daughter will be happy for us when we adopt her into our new family. And you’re—’

Shannon’s heart leapt to her throat, ‘Don’t you dare say it!’ she choked out. ‘I’m not—’

‘Already pregnant with our own precious child?’

The next mass gasp was followed by a comprehensive silence. Mrs Salvatore’s hand still lay against Shannon’s back, but it was removed jerkily.

‘How could you?’ Shannon whispered.

‘It was surprisingly easy,’ Luca mocked her with a look. ‘Are you now going to make Renata’s wishes come true and make a fool of me again?’

Well, are you? Shannon was forced to ask herself. She looked into the wry, slightly rueful face of this man she had loved for so long she couldn’t remember when she began loving him, and thought—No, I won’t do it again.

Her tears cleared away, her shaky composure slipped quietly back into place. Moistening her trembling lips, she turned in the circle of his arms and faced this family she had once felt such a welcome part of but now—

‘Luca and I are getting married,’ she announced in a voice that refused not to shake. ‘I’m sorry if you don’t like it but its wh-what we both w-want.’

‘So we plan to do it next week in a quiet ceremony in respect of our recent loss,’ Luca took over. ‘You are welcome to attend but it is not a duty I expect you to take up if you cannot bring yourselves to wish us well in this.’

No one spoke—no one. There wasn’t a single good luck, God damn you or even a dismissive go to hell, you pair of fools. It was a suffocating, suffocating blanket of perfect silence until—

‘Well, bravo,’ a smooth male voice commended, and Father Michael detached himself from the small group.

He began walking towards them, a tall, slender man with silver hair and a look of a Salvatore etched in his lean face. He paused to touch slender white sympathetic fingers to Mrs Salvatore’s shocked cheek, then continued on until he came to a stop in front of them.

‘I now understand your desire to arrange this hasty wedding service, Luca.’ He smiled as he reached out to shake his hand. ‘This should have happened two years ago, of course, but next week is good. I for one am very happy for you both.’

There were so many hidden messages in what he’d said that it caused a wave of discomfort to shift through their audience. Shannon couldn’t cope. She had taken enough. Fresh tears were throbbing in her throat and she knew she was in danger of falling apart again.

She certainly didn’t need the priest to swing the attention to her. But that was exactly what he did. ‘Welcome to the Salvatore family, Shannon,’ he sanctioned, bringing his hands to rest on her shoulders. ‘Having come to know your sister well over the years, I know how hard she prayed for this to happen.’ He bent to place kisses on both of her cheeks. ‘She can be at peace now, cara,’ he murmured for her ears only. ‘For her sake try to be at peace with it yourself.’

It was then that she knew that Father Michael knew everything. Keira must have confessed all to the priest. Her shoulders shook as the tears threatened to burst forth again and she broke free of Luca’s arms to sink into one of the winged chairs with different hurts, different emotions, all clamouring to take a bite out of her.

Father Michael moved back across the room, gathering Luca’s mother beneath his arm as he went and herding the rest of his subdued flock before him through the door. ‘Take the poor child home, Luca. I will stay and deal with the other business you have pending here,’ were the final complacent words spoken in the Salvatore library for long seconds after the door closed.

‘I can’t believe you did that.’ Shannon broke into the silence.

‘I am having great difficulty believing that you backed me up,’ was Luca’s drawling reply. ‘Here …’ The glass of brandy was retrieved from the reading table and slotted between her fingers. ‘Drink,’ he commanded.

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