Italian Bachelors: Irresistible Sicilians

One thing she had always been able to take heart from was that he would always join her if he was in Sicily. Wherever she slept, he would seek her out. Always. She would wake to find herself wrapped in his arms. Invariably, they would make love and she would tell herself that everything between them was fine.

She was certain she had left the bed unmade.

The bathroom was dusty but clean, relatively tidy, her toothbrush and other toiletries on display where she had left them. A quick peek in the laundry basket revealed the tatty jeans and paint-splattered jumper she had last worked in.

Her bittersweet trip down memory lane was interrupted when she heard the front door shut.

‘Hello?’ she called, hurrying to the stairs. About to step down, she paused when she saw Luca leaning against the front door staring up at her.

‘What do you want?’ They were alone for the first time since he had found her. Now there was no Lily to temper the tone of her voice for, she made no attempt to hide her hostility.

The first thing she noticed was his lack of a sling. Dressed in black jeans and a light blue sweater, his arms folded across his broad chest, his jawline covered in dark stubble, he carried a definite air of menacing weariness.

‘We’ve been invited to Francesco Calvetti’s birthday party in Florence next Saturday,’ he said without any preamble.

‘Why’s he holding it in Florence?’ Francesco Calvetti was as big a gangster as her husband. It was only after Luca had invested in a couple of casinos and nightclubs with him that the cracks in their marriage had appeared and he had begun to change...

‘He bought a hotel there. I’ve accepted the invitation for us.’

‘It’s far too short notice.’

‘I wasn’t asking your opinion on the matter. I was telling you.’

‘And what about Lily?’

‘I have spoken to my mother and she has agreed to care for her overnight.’

‘Absolutely not.’ No way was she going to leave her baby to attend that man’s party.

‘I have also seen the local priest about having Lily baptised,’ he continued as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘I have booked her in for the first Sunday of the new year.’

‘Well, that’s telling me,’ she said, stomping down the stairs. ‘We can argue about the christening in a minute. I am not leaving Lily to attend a silly party.’

‘It is not a silly party. It is an important event that you will attend as my devoted wife.’

The way his eyes burned into her left Grace with no doubt as to the meaning laced in his words.

Devoted wife.

Luca might have abandoned the idea of displaying togetherness in front of his family but this did not extend to the wider world.

She would be expected to accompany him and act the docile, dutiful wife.

She would be expected to play the role of lover to a man she hated with every fibre of her being. The consequences of failure would be harsh. Banishment from her daughter’s life.

‘Am I at least allowed a say in the christening? Or is Lily’s entire future to be decided by you?’

His nostrils flared. ‘That all depends.’

‘On what?’

‘On whether your opinions concur with mine.’

‘So that’ll be never, then,’ she threw at him bitterly.

‘Consider yourself lucky to be here and able to voice an opinion,’ he said, his tone a low, threatening timbre. ‘It’s a sight more than you gave me.’

‘It’s a sight more than you deserved,’ she spat. ‘Now, unless there’s something else you want to tell me, you can leave.’

* * *

Luca clenched his fists by his sides at her defiance, at the folded arms crossed over the slender waist, her hair sprouting in all directions. Since they had returned, the red dye had faded, her natural honey blonde coming through.

He didn’t know if he wanted to wrap his hands around her throat or kiss the defiance from her face.

She had been home for six days. In all that time he had tried to block her from his mind but she was still there, festering in his psyche. He didn’t want to exchange one solitary word more than was necessary with her. Simply looking at her deceitful face made his stomach clench.

‘I am not yet ready to leave. You owe me some answers.’

Her striking features contorted into something feral. ‘I don’t owe you anything.’

Every sinew in his body tightened. When she turned her back on him and walked to her workbench, he had to fight the urge to wrench her round and force her to look at him.

‘You damn well do. One minute you were there, the next you were gone. No letter, no phone call, nothing to let me know if you were dead or alive.’

She turned around, leaned against the bench and rolled her eyes. ‘Steady on, Luca—you make it sound as if you were worried about me. Surely a heart is needed to feel worry?’

It was the dripping cynicism that did it for him. The sheer lack of remorse. The implication that her selfish, unrepentant behaviour was somehow his fault.

All the rage he had been smothering since he found her exploded out of him, consuming him in a fury that accelerated when he found his tongue to speak.

‘Worried about you?’ he said, his words coming out in a raging flow. ‘Worried about you? I thought you were dead! Do you hear me? Dead! I imagined you lying cold on a verge. I pictured you cold in a mortuary. For two weeks I could not sleep for the nightmares. So no, I wasn’t worried about you. It was much worse than that.’

For a moment he thought he caught a flicker of distress on her face before her now familiar insouciance replaced it. ‘I apologise if I caused you any distress...’

Slam!

Without conscious thought, the desperate need to purge the storm of emotions acted for him and he punched the wall.

‘You haven’t got a clue, have you?’ he raged. ‘I thought we were happy. When you went missing, I thought you’d been kidnapped but when I received no ransom I thought you had been killed. I called your mother, I called Cara—neither of them had heard from you. Or so they said. It never crossed my mind you would do something so wicked as to up and leave without a word.’ He threw his arms out, ignoring the pain in his shoulder, ignoring the throb in his fist. ‘You didn’t just leave me, you left everything, all your work, all your clothes...’

In the midst of his fury he saw how white she had become, how she clung to her workbench as if she depended on it to keep her upright.

Taking a deep, ragged breath, he fought for control and forced his voice to adopt a modicum of calm. ‘Two weeks after you went missing, your bank statement arrived. I opened it and found every euro had been transferred into a new account the same day you disappeared. Do you know how I felt then?’

Slowly, she shook her head.

‘Elated. Suddenly there existed the possibility you were alive. Until then it hadn’t even occurred to me to check the safe for your passport.’ When he had discovered it missing, the relief had been so physical he had slumped to the floor and buried his head in his hands, sitting there for minutes that had felt like hours, his usually quick brain taking its time to process the implications. But once he had processed them...

He had dug up all her bank statements and read them in detail. Apart from the odd splurge on painting materials, Grace had hardly touched the allowance he gave her. Over a two-year period she had accumulated more than two million euros.

Had she been planning her escape from the start?

Whatever the reason, his wife had saved enough money to start over.

From then, it had been a case of following the money trail. Luckily for him, money—his money—was able to lubricate the tightest of lips and within a day he had been in Frankfurt. Unluckily for him, he had been a week too late. She had already gone. It had taken another four months for him to find her latest location but he had been too late then too.

In the meantime, Pepe had come up trumps with Cara’s phone, through which they’d determined what they had good reason to believe was Grace’s number. That same number had remained inactive until barely a fortnight ago.

‘You put me through hell,’ he said flatly. ‘I would have gladly traded my life for yours and you let me believe you were dead. Now tell me why I don’t deserve some answers.’

‘I was going to leave you a note,’ she said. For the first time he detected a softening in her voice. ‘But I couldn’t risk you coming home early and finding it before I had a chance to leave Sicily. I knew you would never let me go.’

‘What kind of a monster do you think I am?’ he asked, throwing his arms back in the air. ‘That argument we had before you disappeared? Was that the cause of it?’

‘No! That row—as horrible as it was, I would have forgiven it in time...’

‘So tell me! When, exactly, did I frighten you so much that you believed I would stop you doing anything?’

‘That’s just it! You never let me do anything.’ She threw her own arms in the air. ‘You promised I could exhibit my work in Palermo and it came to nothing—every time I found the perfect venue you found the perfect excuse to keep me from buying it. I wasn’t allowed to drive my own car, I had to travel everywhere with armed guards—I couldn’t even buy a box of tampons without one of your goons hovering over me. I would insist he stay outside the shop door but I couldn’t be certain he didn’t have his binoculars out spying on me, ready to report back to you.’

‘My men were assigned for your own protection, not to spy on you,’ he roared. ‘They were there to keep you safe. This isn’t England. You knew when you married me that you were marrying into—’

‘I most certainly did not! I took you at face value. I thought everyone in Sicily carried guns for their personal protection. If I had so much as suspected the kind of monster you really were...’ Her vicious tongue suddenly stopped, her eyes widening, fixing on his shoulder. ‘Luca, you’re bleeding.’

Sure enough, when he followed her line of sight down to his shoulder, a dark stain had appeared. Immediately he became aware of the accompanying ache.

Now he was aware of it, his knuckles throbbed too.

Grace stared for a moment longer, then turned and dragged a paint-splattered chair over to him. ‘Sit down and take your top off,’ she ordered in short, clipped tones. ‘I’ll get the first-aid kit.’

‘Stop trying to change the subject,’ he said. With all the bitterness and acrimony flying around, a sour taste had formed in his mouth. ‘You were about to explain what you find so abhorrent about me.’

White-lipped, her jaw clenched, she sank to her knees in front of a small cabinet. ‘You’re hurt,’ she said as she rummaged through it. ‘My home truths won’t mean a thing if you bleed to death. Let’s sort your wound out first.’

Yes, he was hurt. Heartsick and nauseated with a chest so tight it was difficult to draw breath. ‘You are the last person I want tending to any of my injuries, now or ever.’

A small green bag with first aid written on it whipped over and landed by his feet.

‘If you want to bleed to death like a stuck pig, be my guest. Or, if you want to be an adult about it, let me take a look at your wound.’

She stood before him, hands on hips, glaring at him. He had always known she had proper backbone but its strength had only become fully apparent since he found her.

An image flickered in his hammering brain of his wife facing off against their teenage daughter. Would Lily inherit her mother’s independent streak? How often would he have to step in as peacemaker when they faced off to each other?

That was if they lasted that long. At the rate he and Grace were going they would be lucky to see the new year in without killing each other. He could feel the fury that resided in her as clearly as he could feel his own.

He inclined his head and then carefully removed his sweater and shirt.

With brisk efficiency, Grace picked up the first-aid kit and brought another chair over to sit opposite him.

She tilted her head and studied him. ‘You’ve torn the stitches.’ Unzipping the kit bag, she removed a square foil package and ripped it open with her teeth. ‘Keep still.’

Her head bowed in concentration, she used the antiseptic wipe to clean the blood with her right hand, her left hand resting lightly on his thigh to steady herself.

His senses filled with the fragrance of her shampoo tickling his nose. The trace of turpentine that had become more elusive the longer she had been gone was there too, more pronounced than it had been in months.

Being back in her studio with her filled him with emotions he could not begin to comprehend.

How he had loved watching her paint, watching the deep concentration she applied to her art. She would cut out the world from inside her head so all that remained was her and the canvas that became an extension of herself. If he was home, he would bring his laptop to the studio and work while she painted. For the most part she would be oblivious to his presence, but every now and then she would turn her head and bestow him a beaming smile that left him in no doubt how happy she was to have him there with her.

Even before she disappeared he had missed those times, but the running of the casinos and nightclubs had taken him away from home more frequently than he would have liked, especially in the evenings.

‘I like what you’ve done to your hair.’

She stilled and raised her eyes. ‘I thought you would hate it.’

‘Is that why you cut it so short? To spite me?’

‘Partly. Mostly it was to make it harder for you or anyone searching to recognise me. Every time I moved on I would cut a little more off and change the colour.’

‘It’s just as well I found you when I did or you would have ended up looking like a Tibetan monk.’

She laughed, but it sounded forced. ‘Yes. I might have ended up in a proper working monastery. You would never have found me then.’

‘Probably not.’ He expelled a breath. There was something incredibly soothing about the way she tended him, her fingers gentle and unrushed. He closed his eyes as he felt the now familiar hardening in his groin.

He did not want to want her.

He shouldn’t want her.

But dear God he did.

‘The bleeding’s stopped,’ she murmured. ‘I’ll put a clean bandage on it but I think you should get the doctor to check it out, just in case.’

He didn’t want to hear the concern lacing her voice.

Her eyes creased in concentration as she carefully placed the bandage over the wound but there was now something less assured about her movements, a faint tremor in her fingers, a shallowness to her breathing. He recognised the sound. Its familiarity was akin to pouring petrol on a flame.

His hands clenched into fists but this time it was not anger he was fighting. It was desire, the desire to run his fingers through that short crop, to trace her cheekbones and the softness of her skin.

Grace cleared her throat. When she spoke her voice was husky. ‘All done. Let’s take a look at your knuckles.’

She lifted her eyes to meet his and for an instant he was thrown back in time to a place where nothing had existed for them but each other. There was the light sprinkling of freckles across her long nose, the same freckles he had been determined to count every last one of, the small beauty spot on her left cheekbone and the tiny childhood scar above her top lip that was the result of an accident with barbed wire. A thousand memories filled him and the desire to press his lips to hers and capture a taste of that remembered honey sweetness came on the verge of consuming him.

Only the ring of his phone saved him.

Those memories were from a different life when he had been a different man and Grace had been a different woman.

Now she was poison.

Shoving his chair back, he got to his feet and dug his stinging hand into his pocket. ‘Ciao.’

He sighed as he listened to his PA explain about a production problem in the bottling factory.

‘I need to go,’ he said once he had ended the call. ‘We will finish this conversation another time.’

Grace opened her mouth then closed it. Then opened it again. He braced himself for the anticipated insult she was certain to throw at him. The only thing she threw at him was another antiseptic wipe.

‘For your knuckles,’ she explained tightly. ‘And make sure you see your doctor about the wound.’

For the briefest of moments he caught the desolation in her eyes before she straightened and turned her back on him.

Outside in the fresh air he took a moment to compose himself.

If his phone hadn’t rung he would have kissed her. And one kiss would never have been enough. He would have wanted all of her.

Swearing under his breath, he strode back to the monastery.

He would not be a slave to his libido. He would master it until he found a mistress who would serve as an outlet for it.

Yet no matter how hard he tried to envisage this mythical woman, the only image that came to his mind was that of his wife.

CHAPTER SIX

GRACE STEPPED INTO the master bedroom with a real sense of trepidation. It was the first time she had been inside it since the day of her return. There was no denying this room was now very much Luca’s territory.

Puffing air through her bottom lip, she walked straight to the door that housed her old dressing room and flung it open.

That sense of walking into the past hit her again. The rows of clothing were exactly as she had left them. All that wonderful colour.

She hadn’t bought anything colourful since she left Sicily. Part of that had been because she had known his goons would be searching for a woman who wore vivid colours. The main part had been because the lightness in her heart had darkened and she had subconsciously bought clothes that had reflected that darkness. It had been the same darkness that had killed all her creativity.

Would the light ever return?

Had Luca been through her dressing room in her absence, looking for clues as to where she had gone? When he’d finally realised that she’d left him, had he been tempted to throw all her clothes onto a bonfire?

His mother had said he’d kept all her possessions in case she returned to collect them.

No matter how hard she tried to push the image out of her head, all she could see when she closed her eyes was the agony etched across his features when he described the effect her disappearance had had on him.

The raw emotion that had resonated from him had almost sliced her in two.

Surely he didn’t really need it spelled out why she had left? Who in their right mind would knowingly bring a child into such a dangerous world? It was different for him. Luca had been born and raised in it. To him, it was normal.

That had been made abundantly clear two days before she’d left.

* * *

She’d been in her cottage painting. For the first time ever, the smell of the turpentine she used to clean her brushes and thin her paints had made her queasy. Truth be told, she’d been feeling nauseous for a few days, had assumed she’d picked up a bug. Her usual boundless energy had deserted her too, so she’d decided to call it a day and get an early night.

She hadn’t even opened the door to their wing when she heard the shouting.

Luca and Pepe often rowed but this had been a real humdinger of an argument, vicious, their raised voices echoing off the walls of the corridor surrounding Luca’s office. A loud smash had made her jump back a foot.

For an age she had stared at the office door wondering whether she should go in and defuse whatever was going on between them or leave them to get on with it. There was always the risk she could walk in to them throwing stuff at each other and inadvertently get caught in the firing line.

Before she could make up her mind, the door had flown open and Pepe had stormed out, almost careering into her.

He’d stopped short. ‘Sorry. I didn’t know you were there.’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ she’d said. ‘Is everything okay?’

A stupid question. Even if she hadn’t heard them argue, one look at the thunder on her brother-in-law’s face would have answered it.

‘Ask your husband,’ he had replied curtly.

When he had left their wing, he had slammed the door hard enough for her to feel sorry for its hinges.

She’d entered Luca’s office and found him pacing in front of the window, a glass of Scotch in his hand. A large trail of coffee stained one of the white walls, a smashed cup on the carpet below it.

‘What’s the matter?’ she’d asked. ‘Who’s been throwing inanimate objects at the wall?’

He’d spun around to face her, his features contorted in the same thunderous expression as Pepe’s.

‘I thought you were in your studio,’ he’d snapped.

Unused to having that tone of voice directed at her, she’d flinched.

‘I’m sorry,’ he’d muttered, shaking his head. ‘It’s been one of those days.’

‘I heard you arguing with Pepe. What was that about?’

‘Nothing important.’

‘It must have been important that way you two were shouting at each other. And smashing things.’ Deliberately, she had kept her tone even, hoping it would be enough to defuse his rage and calm him down enough to talk to her.

‘I said it was nothing important.’ He had downed his Scotch then pulled his jacket from the back of his chair and shrugged his arms into it.

‘Where are you going?’

‘Out.’

‘Out where?’

‘I have business to attend to.’

‘It’s nearly ten o’clock.’

‘My business does not conform to office hours.’

‘So I’ve noticed.’

His gaze had snapped to her. ‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Your long hours used to be here, on the estate, with me. Since you went into partnership with Francesco, I hardly see you, not properly.’

‘I’m part owner of two casinos and a handful of nightclubs,’ he’d said, speaking through gritted teeth. ‘They are nocturnal businesses and need hands-on management.’

‘I am well aware of that.’

‘Then what are you complaining about?’

‘I’m not complaining.’ Then her voice had shaken. There had been something so...feral about him at that moment, a wildness that wasn’t just due to his unshaven, dishevelled appearance. Luca was usually so perfectly groomed. ‘I’m worried about you. You’re working too hard. It’s not good for you...’

‘I shall be the judge of what’s good for me,’ he had interrupted with a snap. ‘You work long hours yourself.’

‘And when I’m tired I stop, as I have this evening. You’re working yourself into the ground and you’re drinking too much. You’ve been stressed for weeks. Months. Look how you were with me at the casino last night...’

‘I’ve apologised for that.’

‘I know, but I still don’t know what was going on...’

‘Nothing was going on and I would thank you to stop harping on about it!’ His voice had risen to a shout. Before she’d had time to blink, he’d swept all the contents of his desk onto the floor where they landed with a clatter.

She had stared at him with wide eyes. Her heart had hammered beneath her ribs. ‘What is wrong with you?’

‘How many times do I have to tell you to stop interfering?’ he’d shouted. ‘My business dealings are none of your affair.’

‘Of course they are—we’re married.’ She’d always known Luca had a temper on him but it had never been directed at her before; not like this. But she would not back down. Not this time. ‘I’m your wife, not a child. You used to talk to me about everything but now you won’t confide in me at all, not about anything, not the business, not your argument with your brother, not anything.’

He’d thrown his arms in the air. ‘I don’t have time for this, bella. I need to go.’

‘Why?’ She had backed against the door to block his exit.

‘I’ve already told you. I have work to do.’

She had folded her arms across her chest and said the words she’d longed to say for months. ‘No. I want you to stay at home tonight and talk to me. I want you to tell me what the hell’s going on in your life that is turning you into a stranger.’