Italian Bachelors: Irresistible Sicilians

She forced her features to remain still, forced her chest to breathe in an orderly fashion. But she had no control over her heart. It jumped at the first inhalation and then pounded painfully beneath her ribs, agitating her nauseated stomach.

Luca wore one scent. He was not a man prone to vanity. Changing his cologne was not a triviality that would come on his radar.

She blinked the thought away. His mouth was still at her ear.

‘You see, bella, you do have a choice,’ he said, speaking in the same low, menacing tone. ‘All I want is my daughter. Her well-being is all that matters to me. You can choose to stay in this cheap cottage, alone, or you can choose to return to Sicily with me and Lily, as a family.’

‘I will never be part of your family again,’ she said with as much vehemence as she could muster. ‘I will never share your bed...’

He interrupted her with a cynical laugh. ‘Let me put your mind at ease on that score. You have borne me a child. I have no need or desire to share a bed with you again. No, I will take a mistress for my physical needs. You will become a good Sicilian wife. You will be obedient and defer to my wishes in all things. That is the price you must pay if you wish to remain a part of Lily’s life. And you will endure it with the grace that should be your namesake.’

‘I hate you.’

He laughed again, a repulsive sound completely at odds with the deep, rip-roaring laughs she remembered. ‘Believe me, you could not possibly hate me more than I hate you. You stole my child from me and, as you know, I am not a man who forgives people who act against me. But I am not a cruel man—if I were, I would take Lily and leave you behind without a second thought. Just as you would do to me.’

All she could do was stare at him, her heart, her pulses, her blood all pumping so hard her body trembled with the force.

He straightened to a stand, keeping his eyes locked on her. ‘The choice is yours. Come to Sicily with me and Lily, or stay behind. But know this—if you stay, you will never see Lily again. If you come with us and then decide to leave, you will never see Lily again. If you come with us and I feel your behaviour is not befitting the role of a good Sicilian wife and mother, I will personally escort you off the estate and—’

‘And I will never see Lily again,’ she supplied for him dully.

He flashed his white teeth at her and inclined his head. ‘So, we have an understanding. Now it is time for you to make up your mind. What is your choice to be?’

CHAPTER THREE

GRACE DID NOT think she had ever felt as nauseous as she did when the reinforced four-by-four came to a stop before the imposing electric gates. Two on-duty armed guards nodded at them respectfully as they drove through and into the Mastrangelo estate.

As they travelled along the smooth drive, cutting through rolling vineyards and verdant olive groves, the familiar scent of Sicilian nature at its crispest pervaded the air, flooding her with bittersweet memories.

After the freezing climate of Cornwall, a part of the UK that tended to have mild winters but was suffering from a particularly acute cold spell, the freshness of Sicily in December was a sharp contrast. The sun had yet to set, the brilliant cobalt sky unmarred by a single cloud. Her thick winter coat lay sprawled across her lap, her jumper warmth enough.

She turned her mind to her mobile phone and silently cursed.

She cursed the heavy snowstorm that had engulfed the south-west of England the previous week and made the roads so treacherous. If Lily hadn’t needed to attend the local doctor’s surgery for her three-month inoculation, she would never have attempted the journey. But she had. For safety’s sake she had recharged the phone she had bought in Frankfurt for emergencies, and taken it with her on the hazardous bus journey, not dreaming that to do so would set in motion the wheels enabling Luca to find her. She had switched it back off the minute she returned home to her rented cottage.

She cursed that she hadn’t dumped the stupid phone the moment she ended her brief calls to her mother and Cara all those months ago. She’d been in Amsterdam, waiting to catch a flight to Portugal. She’d reasoned that if Luca could trace the calls then good luck to him tracking her down at Schiphol Airport. She’d called her mum’s landline but Cara only had a mobile phone. To play safe, she had advised Cara to destroy it. To play even safer, upon landing in Portugal she had hired a car and driven to Spain.

What she couldn’t curse was using the phone in the first place. Her mum and Cara would have been the first people Luca contacted about her disappearance. After two weeks on the run and no contact, the guilt had been crippling her.

She looked at him now, sitting in the front passenger seat, his head turned to the side by the window. Such was his stillness she wondered if he had fallen asleep, dismissing the thought almost immediately. He had power-napped on the jet back home but his naps always evoked images of a guard dog sleeping with one ear up. He would not properly relax until he was safe inside his home.

As much as she hated him and everything he represented, Grace cursed herself too. The more she thought about the past wasted month, time she should have used moving herself and Lily to a remote Greek island as she had intended, the more she wanted to give herself a good slap.

She had watched her fill of gangster and mobster films in the ten months since fleeing Sicily, had read everything she could get her hands on about them too. Know your enemy had become her mantra. She had known the second Luca found her he would not hesitate to have her dragged back to Sicily. As she had learned, it was the way of his world, where women were little more than possessions.

Which again begged the question, why? Why did she not move on when she had known the longer she stayed, the greater the trail she would be creating for him to find her? Even using Lily’s inoculations as an excuse was no good—she’d had over a week since then to get her act together.

After a couple of miles they reached a larger wrought-iron gate, this one with guard shelters either side, both of which had monitors connecting to the larger security station in one of the estate cottages. From this point onwards, the ground was alarmed. Anyone who stepped onto the land triggered it, the boffins in the cottage using their technology to zoom onto the intruder. In all the time she had lived there the system had only been activated by large animals.

The head of security, Paolo, came out of the left shelter to greet Luca, tipping his cap as they exchanged a few words. When he spotted Grace in the back he nodded respectfully before returning to his station.

So he hadn’t lost his job. She could not begin to describe her relief. As the person in charge of all security on the estate, losing the boss’s wife was definitely on the ‘do not do’ list.

She leaned forward and rested a hand on the shoulder of Luca’s seat. ‘Thank you for letting Paolo stay in his job,’ she said quietly.

He turned his head. ‘If you mean the fact you were able to waltz out of the estate without an escort, then rest assured, I never blamed him for that.’

‘I didn’t waltz. I walked.’ She had walked through acres and acres of vineyards and miles of arable land until she had found the field she was looking for. It was the same field she had inadvertently trespassed onto with Cara the day she first met Luca. The broken section of fence they had originally slipped through had long been mended. It took little effort to climb over it. It had felt prophetic, like coming full circle.

‘I saw the footage. You looked as if you were going on an early-evening stroll. There was nothing in your demeanour to suggest you had no intention of returning. I give you credit, bella. You are a wonderful actress.’

Her coolness had been external only. As soon as she was off Mastrangelo land and no longer subject to scrutiny from the multitude of spying cameras, she had dumped the tracker-installed phone Luca had given her into a hedge and run, all the way to the nearest town. From Lebbrossi, she had taken a taxi to Palermo and caught the first flight off the island. That the first flight had been to Germany had been neither here nor there. If anything, it had done her a favour. It had made Luca’s job of tracking her down difficult from the outset.

The drive veered to the right. As the four-by-four turned with it onto the straight she caught her first glimpse of the pink sandstone converted monastery. The late-afternoon sun beamed down, bathing it in a pool of warm light, setting off the brilliance of the simple architecture.

They drove through an arched entrance and into the courtyard, which the monastery wrapped around in a square.

No sooner had they stopped when the heavy oak front door flew open and a petite, raven-haired woman appeared.

Donatella. Luca’s mother.

Throughout the journey back to Sicily, Grace had thought with varying degrees of emotion about her mother-in-law.

Donatella had never conformed to the stereotype of the traditional fire-breathing monster-in-law. If a little distant, she had treated Grace with nothing but courtesy and respect. All the same, Grace had never been that comfortable in her company, had always felt if Donatella had been able to choose a wife for her son, she would have chosen someone with traditional Sicilian values. The kind of woman Luca had sworn he never wanted her to be because he loved her exactly as she was. The type of woman he now wanted her to become.

She had no idea what kind of welcome she could expect from her.

Impeccably dressed as always in a smart skirt, blouse and elegant scarf, Donatella stepped into the courtyard.

Luca undid his seat belt before turning to face Grace. ‘Remember my warning, bella. Now would be a good time to start channelling your inner Sicilian wife.’

Grace clenched her teeth together and glared at him.

With a flare of his nostrils he turned back and exited the car.

Her husband did not make empty promises. If she didn’t live up to his expectations she would be torn from Lily’s life without preamble or ceremony, and without any hope of appeal.

The situation was hopeless.

She hadn’t called the police for assistance in England because they would have arrested her for possession of an illegal firearm, grievous bodily harm and God knew what other charges.

She could forget about assistance here in Sicily. This was Luca’s territory and all the important people were in his pocket.

Grace tried to open her door but the child lock had been activated.

She crossed her arms and pursed her lips together.

As Luca and his mother conversed, both kept darting glances at the car. No guesses what they were talking about.

Taking a deep, steadying breath, she gazed down at Lily, who was fast asleep in the baby seat next to her. The poor thing was worn out, having spent the entire flight screaming, her ears no doubt affected by the air pressure. Grace had wanted to wail along with her. At that moment she would love nothing more than a chance to open her lungs and scream every ounce of frustration out of her.

Luca had defeated her. Despite all her efforts, he had won and now, unless she thought of an escape route, she was consigned to live in this medieval prison for the next eighteen years.

‘I’ll think of a way to get us out of here,’ she promised quietly, rubbing a finger over Lily’s tiny hand. ‘And this time we’ll go somewhere he’ll never find us.’ Outer Mongolia sounded nice.

His conversation over, Luca walked back to the car, opened her door, then strolled round and opened the door on Lily’s side.

‘I’ll get her out,’ she said, unclipping the seat belt.

His eyes were cool. ‘I will.’

‘You’ve only got one arm.’

‘But I still have all my faculties.’ He had the baby seat out before Grace had shut her door.

He carried the seat over to his mother, whose hands flew to her cheeks, a purr of pleasure escaping from her throat.

Grace could hardly bear to look. Donatella took the baby seat from him and carried her granddaughter inside.

Luca reached the front door and paused, staring at Grace impassively. ‘Are you coming in or do you plan to spend the evening outside?’

Nodding sharply, she clutched Lily’s baby bag to her and followed him inside.

It had been only ten months since she had last been in the converted monastery but as she took in the surroundings it felt as if she had been away for a lifetime.

With an enormous sense of déjà vu twisting in her stomach, she walked a step behind him down the wide main corridor, her boots crunching on the redbrick floor.

Luca was about to step into the large family room, one of the only communal rooms in the entire building, when he came to an abrupt stop. Tension emanating from him, he rolled his head back to stare at the ceiling before taking a long, deep breath. He swallowed. ‘I have things to do.’

She caught a flash of eyes that burned before he turned and walked away.

For the beat of a moment, her lips parted to call him back. Being alone with his mother for the first time since running away from her son was infinitely more frightening than handling his gorilla-like lackeys.

Steeling herself, she stepped over the threshold.

All the decoration, paintings, furnishings...everything was exactly as she remembered it. As if time had stood still.

But of course, time had not stood still. Her own life had simply accelerated. She had lived a decade in less than a year.

The first time she had been in this room she’d been on top of the world, the happiest woman in existence. At the time she could never have foreseen that the beautiful walls would start to suffocate her. She certainly could not have foretold that the man she would marry would change with such speed, and that the gun she assumed he carried around for personal protection would take on a completely different meaning.

And now she was little more than his prisoner.

Donatella had removed Lily from her car seat and was cradling her, a look of pure bliss on her perfectly made-up face.

Lily’s eyes were open. If she was perturbed to be held in the arms of a stranger, she made no show of it.

Donatella’s shrewd eyes flickered to Grace. ‘She is beautiful.’

‘Thank you.’

‘And Lily; such a beautiful name.’

‘Thank you,’ she repeated, wondering if there had been a more excruciating, incongruous experience in the history of the world.

Luca’s warning played over and over in her mind. Under no circumstances could she intimate she was there for any reason other than devotion. But it would help if she knew exactly what he had told his mother about her sudden reappearance in their lives and about the fact of Lily.

‘It’s getting late. I need to get Lily settled and into bed,’ Grace said, not wanting to be stuck in an interrogation that was surely forthcoming and for which she didn’t know the correct answers.

Her mother-in-law’s eyes flashed before the lines around her mouth softened. ‘Please, Grace, let me enjoy my first grandchild for a little longer. I have only just learned of her existence.’

A big stab of guilt twisted in her stomach. Reluctantly, she nodded. ‘How about if I go and get our stuff unpacked and then come back for her?’

Donatella’s grateful smile twisted the guilt a little more. ‘That sounds perfect.’

Traipsing back up the corridor, Grace opened the door that led into the wing she had shared with Luca and took another step into the past.

This time all traces of the past really had been eradicated.

The only familiar item was a large family portrait on the wall, the last photo of the Mastrangelos taken before Pietro, Luca’s father, had so tragically died. It had been taken at Luca’s graduation. The pride shining on Pietro Mastrangelo’s face was palpable. And who, she reflected, would not be proud of such a family? There was Luca, the eldest son, whose serious expression was countered by the amusement in his eyes. Next to him was Pepe, Luca’s younger brother, whose air of mischief was not countered by anything. Then there was the composed, elegant Donatella. There was no pride on her face. Donatella radiated serenity. These men were her pride.

A mere two months after the picture had been taken, Pietro had died of a heart attack. The mantle of head-of-family had passed to his eldest son, Luca, a role he had now held for sixteen years.

Slowly she walked through the reception room and began opening the doors of all the rooms that made up their quarters. The vivid colours and delicate murals she had painted in each of the rooms had been painted over in drab, muted tones; the furniture they had chosen together replaced with bland, masculine replicas.

It was not until she opened the door to the master bedroom that her throat closed.

The walls she had spent literally scores of hours painting to create an erotic woodland, filled with beautiful cupids and lovers entwined, had been painted over. The walls she had been so proud of and conceived with such love and hope were now covered in a drab cream. They might never have existed.

Out of everything that had happened that day, this was the one thing that brought her closest to tears.

‘You appear shocked.’

She hadn’t heard Luca approach.

Her chest rose and she blinked rapidly, fighting the burn in her eyes before turning to face him. ‘Not shocked,’ she lied. ‘More surprised.’

‘You are surprised I would paint over the reminders of you?’

She went to tuck her hair behind her ear, an old habit she still couldn’t break even though her hair had been cropped for months.

‘I had no wish to sleep surrounded by lovers when my own wife had run away.’

‘So you didn’t change it because your new lover didn’t approve?’ Where that question came from, she was not quite sure, but the scent of his new cologne had wafted back under her nose.

Had he found a lover who had bought him this new scent?

Had this lover lain in his arms, in this very room, happy to drift into sleep with this scent imprinting on her senses?

Her belly churned at the images playing in her head.

Luca’s eyes narrowed. ‘I do not think you are in a position to ask me anything like that.’

She shrugged to display fake nonchalance at the subject. ‘I couldn’t care less who you’ve been screwing. As far as I’m concerned, the day I left we both became free agents.’

A large, warm hand reached out and cupped her shoulder. Even with one arm out of order, he trapped her against the wall with such efficiency she had no time to think, let alone resist. ‘I do hope you’re not implying that you’ve been with other men since you left me?’

‘It would be none of your business if I had. Now let go of me.’ Apart from his hand, none of his body touched her. But she could feel him. That heat that radiated from him; she could feel it. It warmed her, penetrating her skin, heating her veins. The way it always had.

The moment she had met him she had experienced the most incredible charge. It was as if she had been hit by a bolt of lightning. Whenever she was with him the charge would glow red-hot. While their marriage deteriorated, the bedroom had remained the one area in which they remained wholly compatible.

In all the time they had been apart she had not thought about sex. Not once. Protecting herself and her baby had consumed her. In the cold of night she had missed sleeping next to his warm, solid presence, but the actual sex was something she never thought about. Never allowed herself to think about. Assumed it had all been extinguished.

She couldn’t breathe.

The extinguished charge that had flickered as if awakening from a deep sleep since he broke into her house came roaring back to life, and for the maddest of moments she longed to be taken into his arms, feel the firm warmth of his lips upon hers and his body harden...

‘It is my business,’ he contradicted silkily, his face square in front of her, forcing her to look into the fire spitting from his eyes. ‘You are still my wife and Lily is my daughter. I have a right to know if you have allowed another man to act as her father.’

His breath was hot on her face, all her senses responding like a sweet-deprived child handed a bag of chocolate.

She twisted her head to the side. How she wished she could tell him tales of scores of lovers she had enjoyed in their time apart. ‘There hasn’t been anyone else.’

‘Good.’ He traced a finger down her turned cheek. ‘And so there is no room for doubt, know that if you screw another man I will throw you onto the street. You won’t even have time to forget to write a note.’

CHAPTER FOUR

LUCA RELEASED HIS hold and took a step back, taking in Grace’s heightened colour and the indignation ringing out from her eyes.

He had touched her soft cheek, inhaled her clean, feminine scent, and for the shortest of moments he had experienced a softening in his chest and a hardening in his groin.

Of all the women in all the world, what the hell had possessed him to marry this one? At that moment, he could not recall a single rational reason.

Fantastic sex and an unwillingness to let her out of his sight had been the primary reasons. If he had slowed down a little and comprehended that marrying a free-thinking artist might not be compatible to his way of life, he would surely have kept their relationship to that of lovers. His mother and brother had both warned him of the dangers. He had curtly told them to mind their own business.

He had been smitten. He had fallen head over heels in love, unable to imagine his life without her. Only when she had his ring on her finger had he been able to relax and thank God for bringing her to him. But only after they had signed on the dotted line did he fully comprehend how difficult it would be keeping safe a woman who refused his protection and refused to take his entreaties to be careful seriously.

Well, now she would be given no choice. All that mattered was the well-being of his daughter, and Grace would damn well have to put up with the rules he laid down.

Her breaths were coming in short, shallow bursts. Her eyes were fixed on him, an odd combination of hate and desire pouring out of them. He understood the combination.

Once he had loved her.

Now he despised her.

And after everything she had done, he still desired her.

His sling dug into his collarbone and he welcomed the distraction it provided. She was like poison, an intoxication that had embedded into his bloodstream for which an antidote had yet to be found. ‘Would you like me to tell you something amusing?’

‘Not particularly.’

‘You will like this. You see, bella, my search for you was just that—a search. All I wanted was to hear in your own words the reason you left me. You took the coward’s way out and I wanted an explanation. Nothing more. I would have left you alone to live your life.’

‘Yeah, right,’ she stated flatly.

‘Yes, that is right.’ He shook his head with more savagery than intended. ‘You should have told me about the pregnancy. I am a reasonable man. We could have come to an agreement.’

‘You? Reasonable? The only agreement would have been on your terms and would have meant me moving back to Sicily.’

‘If that is what you choose to believe then go ahead. As you did not take that route the outcome is something you will never know.’ He would not give her the satisfaction of knowing she was right but not for the reasons she thought. He’d imagined that all he’d need was five minutes alone with her before she begged to return to Sicily, to return to him. Any other outcome had been incomprehensible.

Such foolish imaginings.

Not that it mattered. Grace was his wife. She belonged to him.

He turned to the door, ready to open it and escort her out of the room. This was all too much. It hurt to even look at her.