Italian Bachelors: Irresistible Sicilians

He had only a snapshot of time to register her white-faced shock before the wet warmth on his shoulder demanded his attention. Pulling the top of his jacket aside, he winced as a burn of pain went through him. His disbelief at the red fluid seeping through his white shirt was nothing compared to his shock when he finally comprehended that the distant ringing in his ears was not an echo from the gunshot but the wails of a baby.

* * *

She had shot him.

Dear God, she had shot him.

Through her ringing ears she could hear Lily’s distant wails, a noise that seemed as far away as the moon.

She had shot him.

Her hand flew to her mouth and Grace could do nothing but stare at the blood seeping out of Luca’s right shoulder.

He stared back at her with a look that could only be described as stunned.

On legs that didn’t belong to her, she hurried to him. Her cold blood chilled further. Up close, the wound looked even worse. She reached out a hand, pausing before she could touch him.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she said dumbly, trying to clear her head of the drum banging loudly in it. ‘I’ll get something for the bleeding.’ Her stomach churning, Grace rushed to the tall cupboard. She pulled out the same basket in which she had stored that monstrous gun and grabbed some tea towels.

Lily’s cries became more distressed, the piercing sound penetrating the thick walls of the cottage and striking through Grace’s heart.

Dear God, what was she going to do?

Could Luca even hear the cries? Or had the shock of being shot deafened him just as it had temporarily dulled her own senses?

He had sat down at the table. His olive skin had paled considerably, the dark stubble across his jawline pronounced.

This was the closest to vulnerable she had ever seen him.

She leaned over to place a clean towel against the wound. His uninjured hand shot up and grabbed her wrist. ‘What do you think you are doing?’

‘Trying to stem the blood flow.’

He ground his teeth together and leaned forward so their faces were just inches apart. ‘I am quite capable of tending to my own injury. Leave it with me and tend to the baby you are hiding upstairs.’

CHAPTER TWO

AT LUCA’S MENACINGLY delivered words, all the blood running through Grace’s veins plunged to her feet.

White light flickered behind her eyes before she caught a waft of warm, minty breath and an enormous shudder ran through her.

‘Are you in immediate danger?’ She managed to drag the question out, jerking her wrist against his grip.

‘No.’ If anything, his hold tightened.

‘Then let go of me.’

Those midnight eyes flashed before he sprang his fingers open like a remote-controlled robot.

In a murky daze, she climbed the stairs and walked into the bedroom she shared with her twelve-week-old daughter.

Lily lay flat on her back in her cot. Her thin arms were struck out like a starfish, her little legs kicking in all directions, her cute face scrunched up and bright red. Grace had no doubt that if her tear ducts had developed, Lily’s cheeks would be soaked.

Scooping her out of the cot, she brought her to her chest and breathed in her daughter’s sweet, innocent scent. ‘Oh, Lily, I’m so sorry,’ she choked out, swaying gently as she tried to soothe her. ‘Your mummy has done a terrible, terrible thing.’

The implications hit her with the force of a tsunami. As she patted Lily’s bottom and murmured words of comfort, her mind raced.

She had shot Luca. She had actually shot someone; a living person. She had caused physical harm to the man she had once loved, the same man who now knew of the existence of her child.

Inhaling Lily’s scent brought some control to her careering thoughts, and the fogginess clouding her brain began to abate.

Under no circumstances could she let the shock of all that had just occurred control her actions. She needed to take control, now, before it was too late.

Too late?

Who was she trying to fool? Of course it was too late.

What did she expect? That Luca would take her shooting him and hiding the existence of their child on the chin and walk away?

And she’d so nearly got away with it.

She’d managed to get hold of the gun only a couple of months ago, when she had been unable to sleep for fear of Luca’s men finding them and tearing Lily away from her. She had seen the evidence of what her husband was capable of, evidence that burned her retinas and flourished in her nightmares.

The threat of prison if she were caught with an illegal firearm had not deterred her from purchasing it. She’d got it from the son of the farmer she rented the cottage from, a young man with a few unsavoury acquaintances. She hadn’t cared where it came from; she was safer with it. Lily was safer with it. Knowing it was in the house allowed her to sleep. Sometimes.

Luca’s men were always armed. And they were dangerous. Prison had seemed preferable to falling into their clutches.

They were also stupid. She had outwitted them before when she made her escape. She could outwit them again.

Except Luca had come for her personally, something she had not anticipated. She had imagined him like a king in his castle, waiting for his soldiers to bring his erring queen home, so she could be locked in the tower for the rest of her days.

Luca was not stupid. Luca was the sharpest person she had ever known, which made him infinitely more dangerous than his lackeys, and much harder to outwit.

Some sixth sense had been nagging at her for weeks that it was time to move on. Why, oh, why had she not acted on it sooner?

Prison did now loom dark. Not a traditional cell of iron bars and a tiny slot for a window, but a towering pink sandstone nightmare.

Lily finally stopped whimpering. Soothed and snug, she fixed her trusting, night-blue eyes on her mummy.

Her mummy, Grace reminded herself. This was not just about her—this was about her innocent, dependent child. The first time she had held her alone, away from the ears of midwives and obstetricians, Grace had made her daughter a promise. She had sworn she would keep her safe.

She had sworn she would never let her fall into the hands of the dangerous gangster that was Lily’s father.

* * *

It was amazing how long Grace was able to drag out washing and dressing into a pair of faded jeans and a long, thick purple jumper. By the time she had changed Lily’s nappy and generally fussed over her, a whole hour had gone by. She would have dragged things out even longer if Lily hadn’t started to grizzle, no doubt hungry for her bottle.

Mentally bracing herself, Grace straightened her spine and carried her daughter downstairs and into the kitchen.

‘You took your time,’ Luca said from his seat at the table. He had removed his shirt. A short, rotund man was tending his shoulder, his bald head bowed in concentration. With a snap she recognised him as Giancarlo Brescia, the Mastrangelo family doctor. His presence should not be a surprise. Luca rarely travelled anywhere without him. People who lived by the sword and all that.

‘I’m surprised you didn’t send one of your goons up to keep watch,’ she retorted, averting her eyes.

She didn’t know what she found the most disturbing: his naked torso or the bloodstains marring his smooth skin. Some had matted into the swirls of black hair covering his chest. Dimly she recalled the many happy hours lying in his arms, breathing in his musky scent, splaying her fingers through the silky hair. Once upon a time, it would have taken a crowbar to prise her away from him.

‘Believe me, you are going nowhere,’ he said, his voice like ice.

‘That’s what you think.’

He laughed. A more mirthless sound she did not think she had heard. ‘Do you really think I will let you disappear again, now, when I know you have had my child?’

‘Who said she was yours?’

An animalistic snarl flittered across his handsome features but he remained still, the needle penetrating his flesh making any movement on his part risky. ‘Do you think I would not recognise my own blood?’

She shrugged with deliberate nonchalance and sidled past him to the fridge, keeping a tight hold of Lily. She caught sight of the bloodied bullet laid oh-so-casually on the table and winced. She winced again to see the doctor expertly sew Luca’s olive skin back together.

Luca followed her gaze. His nostrils flared. ‘It lodged in a bone. There shouldn’t be any permanent damage.’

‘That’s good,’ she said, blinking away her shock at the physical evidence of his wound. Thank God she hadn’t eaten breakfast. It would likely have come back up. She needed to keep a level head. Needed to keep her control.

She could not let guilt eat at her, and as for compassion...what compassion did Luca ever show his victims?

Turning her back to him, she pulled a bottle of formula out of the fridge and popped it in the microwave. She took a deep breath and punched in the time needed. The microwave sprang to life.

‘Sorry to disappoint you, but she’s not yours.’

The silence that ensued felt incredibly loaded, almost as if her lie had sucked all the air from the room, making her chest tight and her lungs crave oxygen. She could feel the burn of his eyes piercing the back of her skull, sending prickles of tension racing across her skin.

The microwave pinged, startling her. Was it always so loud?

She removed the bottle and shook it.

Lily must have caught the scent of milk because she started to whimper again.

‘Shh,’ Grace whispered. ‘You can have it in a minute. Mummy needs it to settle first.’

Finally, unable to bear the tension another second, she tossed a glance over her shoulder.

Luca’s eyes were fixed on her, his face tight, his features a curious combination of fire and ice.

The doctor had finished stitching the wound together and was cleaning the blood off his shoulder.

Smothering another retch, she sucked in more air in an attempt to stabilise her queasy stomach.

‘Is your conscience playing up?’ Luca asked, raising a mocking brow.

‘No.’ She turned her face away, the heat from another lie stinging her cheeks.

‘No? It should be.’

‘If anyone should have a troubled conscience, it is you.’ She snatched up the bottle. ‘I’m going to the living room to feed my daughter. Shut the door behind you when you leave.’

Not bothering to look for his reaction, she strode out of the kitchen. In the small living room she turned the television on and settled on a squishy sofa.

Since Lily had been born, Grace had become addicted to daytime television. And evening television. And nighttime television. The trashier the programme, the better. Concentrating on anything with any depth had become impossible.

She switched the channel to one of those wonderful talk shows featuring a dysfunctional family spilling its dirty laundry to a braying audience and a patronising host, and the incongruity of the situation almost made her laugh.

She could imagine herself on that stage, trying to justify shooting her own husband. Trying to justify a lot of things. Like ignoring all the signs that the man she loved was nothing but a gangster.

But love had blinded her. Or should that be lust? A combination of both that should have overwhelmed her in its intensity had instead been embraced. Without a second thought, she’d opened her heart wide enough to allow Luca to step right inside and burrow deep into her soul.

She had graduated art school full of the wonder of all life had to offer. Together with her best friend Cara, they had travelled Europe, visiting many of the architectural wonders in the continent.

Sicily was magical. She had fallen in love with the island and its gregarious inhabitants. Its more nefarious history had only added to the romantic ideal she had conjured.

Cara, an outdoor lover, had dragged her along for a hike over the mountainous terrain close to Palermo. They had followed what they joked was the longest fence in the world, a fence that kept outsiders from properly appreciating the most beautiful vineyards in the whole of Europe. When they had come to a gap in the fence they had assumed—wrongly—that it gave them a right of way. As luck would have it, the gap had led into an open meadow with the most spectacular views either of them had been privileged to see. Cara had been aching to paint it, so they had opened their picnic blankets out and set up; Cara with her watercolours, Grace with her sketchbook and pencils.

She had barely made a scribble when a black Jeep tore up the hill and screeched to a stop beside them.

That was when she had met Luca.

He had got out of the Jeep and walked towards them, a gun in his hand.

She should have been terrified. He had been dressed all in black, and her mind had immediately gone into an overdrive of images of swooping vampires and flesh-eating ravens.

While Cara had sensibly turned into a gibbering wreck, Grace had been entranced. It was as if she had inadvertently stepped into a movie shoot and the head vampire had come out from his coffin to greet them.

Looking back, she could hardly credit that she had been so blasé about a man with a gun, but she hadn’t felt the slightest shiver of physical danger. She’d been so naïve she had assumed all Sicilian men carried guns. Fool that she was, she’d thought it all somewhat romantic.

Inexplicable tears filled her eyes and she blinked them away, sniffing loudly, disturbing Lily, who was busy guzzling her milk. The poor little mite was unaware her happy little life had irrevocably changed.

Footsteps sounded down the hall, followed by the sound of the front door closing.

She held her daughter ever tighter. She would rather die than be parted from her.

Somehow she didn’t think Luca had been the one to leave the house.

Her intuition was bang on the money.

He strode into the living room as if he had every right to be there. His chest was still bare; a large white bandage had been placed over the wound on his shoulder, his arm resting in a sling.

He made straight for the television and turned it off.

‘I was watching that.’

His nostrils flared. Not taking his eyes off her, he reached into his back pocket and produced two passports.

Blood rushed to her head so quickly it made her dizzy. Her hold on Lily tightened as she watched him, chills crawling up her spine.

Slowly, he waved the passports at her before sliding them back into his pocket.

‘Lily Elizabeth Mastrangelo.’ His words were monotone yet utterly remorseless. ‘Her date of birth puts her at twelve weeks old.’

He might be injured but he still exuded the latent danger she had once found so exciting.

Why did he have to loom over her so? At five feet eight Grace was taller than the average female but next to Luca she always felt tiny.

Why, oh, why had she not moved on sooner? She had got back into physical shape relatively quickly. Obviously if she was comparing her recovery with that of a supermodel who managed to get back into her itsy-bitsy knickers within days, then she had been a failure.

In reality she had been fit enough to move on a month ago.

So why had she dragged it out?

Where had this abnormal lethargy come from?

Why had she not run the moment she had been fit enough?

‘How dare you go through my handbag?’ she said, dredging the words from a throat so arid it hurt to speak.

His eyes flashed. ‘I have every right. You stole my child from me.’

Somehow she managed to grind the words out. She would not let him win. Not without a fight. ‘She is not your child. I had to name you as her father because we’re married.’

‘Yes, she is.’

How she longed to slap the arrogant certainty from him.

‘You did not have the opportunity for an affair and, besides, you loved me. Our sex life was incredible.’

A deep flush curled inside her, scattered memories of being wrapped in his arms, naked, his hard strength...

‘Loved being the operative word,’ she said, a little more breathlessly than she would have liked. ‘Loved, as in past tense. Lily is not your child.’

She refused to acknowledge his mention of the S word. The nightmares of the past ten months had been too great for her libido to do anything but wave a white flag. The only ache had been in her heart. And only in the dark early hours, when the world slept, did her heart acknowledge the aching absence within it.

Luca came before her and dropped to his haunches. The movement caused a fleeting wince to contort his features. The twisting sensation in her belly tightened. Being incapacitated in any form was anathema to him. She could have shot him a dozen times and he would still have the same vital, energising presence.

‘Bella,’ he said in a voice that was far too silky for comfort, ‘she has the Mastrangelo hair. And you were still married to me when you conceived her. I know for a fact you did not cheat on me...’

The tension cramping inside her suddenly exploded and she met his gaze with wild eyes. How stupid was she to think for a single second he would even contemplate Lily being someone else’s? Luca was so insufferably arrogant the thought of his wife cheating would be as likely as the moon being made of Stilton.

And how stupid was she to have named him as the father on the birth certificate?

‘It’s a bit hard to have an affair when your own husband has a tracker in your phone to monitor all your movements, and assigns two bodyguards to chaperone every single movement and report on anything the tracker fails to pick up.’

Lily had finished her bottle. She stared up at Grace, startled to hear her mother’s raised voice.

Luca’s lips formed a tight white line. Still on his haunches, he tilted forward. ‘So you admit she is mine? You admit you wilfully kept my daughter’s existence a secret?’

Forcing her voice down to a lower, calmer tone so as not to distress Lily, Grace stared at him with all the venom she could muster, willing him to feel every syllable that came from her lips like a punch to the gut. ‘Yes. I hid her existence from you, and do you know what? I would do it again. Lily deserves better than to know of the monster who created half her DNA. You might be the sperm donor but I am her mother. She does not need you. And neither do I.’

* * *

The poison in Grace’s voice cut through him, as sharp as a dagger.

Luca had taken one look at Lily and known she was his. He could not say where this certainty had come from but there been no shadow of doubt in his mind. She was his.

He was a father.

Now his detestable wife had admitted the truth, he should feel relief. Instead, a raging burn was working its way through his system, a burn he was struggling to contain.

He would never have imagined such poison being uttered from the lips of his wife, a woman who always saw the best in people and always looked for the humanity in the face of evil.

He had never imagined she would look at him as if he were the Antichrist itself.

His guts rolled as he watched her lift their child onto her shoulder and rub her back, her movements gentle and loving.

The pain in his shoulder was immense. Once they were safely in the air he would take the painkillers Giancarlo had tried to get him to consume. Taking them would likely dull his reactions. Right now he needed every wit about him.

Unable to look at Grace a second longer, he got to his feet. ‘I’m giving you half an hour.’

‘For what?’ she asked tightly, rubbing her nose into their daughter’s thick black hair.

‘To pack. Anything not packed will be left behind.’

That hateful venom came back into her voice. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

‘You think not?’ On legs that felt heavier than usual, he paced the small room. Somehow she had managed to cram a treadmill, an exercise bike and a rowing machine inside the tight confines. No wonder she had lost all her baby weight. No one looking at her would guess she had recently given birth. This, from the woman who had once told him with a straight face that she was allergic to exercise. ‘I am not giving you a choice.’

‘There is always a choice.’

Abruptly he stopped pacing and stared at her, making no attempt to hide his loathing. ‘This is how we are going to play it: In exactly thirty minutes we will leave this place and return to Sicily.’

He took a breath.

Little more than an hour ago, he had been unaware Lily existed, unaware he was a father. Her thin eyelids were shut, displaying thick black Mastrangelo eyelashes.

His chest constricted, memories of his early childhood suddenly flooding him. His first memories. Waking up one morning at the age of three to find his parents missing. He remembered Bettina, his favourite maid, who was often given the task of watching over him, being red with excitement. His mother had gone to hospital to have the baby. He could still feel the eager anticipation he had experienced at that moment. Even clearer in his mind was the memory of his parents arriving home with the baby, his mother’s pale, tired joy, his father’s beaming pride. They had sat Pepe in Luca’s arms on the sofa, and taken pictures of the small brothers together. He had been full to bursting with happiness.

Lily was the image of the baby Pepe had been.

This was his daughter.

And Grace had hidden her from him.

He looked at his wife. Her eyes were hollow, sunken, as if she hadn’t slept for ten months. He was glad. Her guilt should not have allowed her any sleep.

‘You call me a monster,’ he continued, dropping his voice so as not to disturb the sleeping child. ‘Yet I am not the one who vanished without a letter of goodbye. I’m not the one who decided her child would be better off without a father and conspired to keep me out of her life. And you have the nerve to call me a monster?’

Her clenched jaw loosened but her eyes remained unblinking as she said, ‘I would do it again. In a heartbeat.’

Blood rushed straight to his forehead, colouring his thoughts, making his skin hot to the touch.

She had not the slightest remorse, not for anything. He could punish her, severely. He could snatch Lily from her arms and banish her from their lives and she wouldn’t be able to do a single thing about it.

He could. But he wouldn’t.

Luca had loved his parents equally but it had been his mother to whom he had gone with his cut knees and scrapes, his mother who had kissed his bruises better, his mother for whom a thousand hugs would never be considered enough.

Grace loved Lily. And Lily loved Grace. Already the bond between them was strong. It would take a heart of stone to break that bond.

Children needed their mothers and he refused to punish Lily for her mother’s sins.

No, Grace’s punishment would be of a different nature.

Blackness gripping his chest in a vice, he stalked towards her and bent over to speak in her ear. He could smell her fear through the clean scent of her skin and it gladdened him. He wanted her to fear him. He wanted her to curse the day she ever set foot in Sicily.

‘You will never have the chance to take her away from me again. Lily belongs in Sicily with her family. You should consider yourself lucky I believe babies thrive better with their mothers or I would walk away with her right now and leave you behind to rot.’ He paused before adding, deliberately, ‘I would do it in a heartbeat.’

* * *

Grace closed her eyes tightly and clamped her lips together, trying desperately hard not to breathe. Luca’s breath was hot against her ear, blowing like a whisper inside her. Tiny, tingling darts jumped across her skin, fizzing down her neck and spreading like a wave; responses that terrified her with their familiarity.

Her lungs refused to cooperate any longer and she expelled stale air, inhaling sweet clean oxygen within which she caught a faint trace of an unfamiliar cologne.