Italian Bachelors: Irresistible Sicilians

His face a mask of fury, he had stood before her. ‘I am not answerable to you, or Pepe, or anyone. I am your husband and my word alone should be good enough to satisfy any curiosity you may have. Now move aside.’

‘Or what? You’ll manhandle me out of the way?’

He’d raised his eyes to the ceiling and muttered an oath that even Grace with her limited Italian had understood.

Anyone in their right mind would have got out of his way immediately, but no matter how hard her heart had hammered, no matter how frightened she had been, she hadn’t been frightened of him. No, something else had scared her and however hard she had tried to swat it away, it had loomed closer than ever.

When he’d looked back down at her, his features had regained some form of composure. ‘Please, Grace,’ he’d said, his voice surprisingly tender. ‘You are reading too much into this. All brothers argue. The casinos and nightclubs need hands-on running, that is all.’ He had stroked a finger down her cheek. ‘How about I promise to stay out no more than a couple of hours? When I get home we’ll share a bottle of wine and I’ll give you a massage. How does that sound?’

Despite herself, despite knowing she shouldn’t just capitulate, she’d nodded and sighed, pressing her forehead against his chest. Luca’s heart had been hammering as wildly as her own.

‘I worry I don’t know you any more,’ she’d confessed. ‘You’re hardly ever home and when you are, you’re distant with me. And you’re drinking too much—it scares me.’

Wrapping his strong arms tightly around her, he’d buried his face in her hair. ‘You have nothing to worry about, amore. I swear. You know I love you. That will never change.’

Tears had pricked her eyes, fear gripping her stronger than ever. ‘I love you too.’

When he had returned that night, there had been no shared bottle of wine and no massage. Even though her head had ached and her heart had been heavy, she had fallen asleep on the sofa. He’d carried her to their bedroom and helped her undress, then let her sleep, locked in his arms.

In the morning, she had awoken and immediately sat upright, as if she’d been hit by a lightning bolt. He’d already left for work, leaving a sweet note on his pillow for her. He hadn’t been there for her to tell of the vivid dream that had awoken her so abruptly. The dream had brought into sharp focus something that had been hovering in the back of her mind for days, like a wispy cloud that refused to be caught.

She’d dreamt she was pregnant.

* * *

‘Is there a problem?’

Grace jumped. She’d been so lost in the past, the carpet so thick, she hadn’t heard Luca’s approach.

She pressed a hand to her chest and managed the faintest of smiles. ‘Lily’s napping, so I thought I should see if I had anything suitable to wear for the party on Saturday.’

‘I’ll get a member of staff to move everything to the blue room,’ he said, looking past her. ‘But I doubt there is anything suitable to wear in there.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘In the past I was happy to indulge your preference for bright colours but not any more. The party we’re attending is a high-society affair and you will dress appropriately.’

‘You always liked that I dressed differently. Unless you were lying to me.’

‘That was then,’ he said coldly. ‘I was far too indulgent. I have already stated my desire for a traditional Sicilian wife. In future you shall wear clothes I deem appropriate in public.’

‘And what does a Sicilian husband deem appropriate wifely apparel for a party with the cream of Florentine society?’

‘Something demure, elegant and sedate. And not just in her dress but in her manners too.’ He stared at her pointedly.

‘You really are full of it,’ she said scornfully. ‘I would kill to see a man try and tell your mother what to wear and how to behave.’

‘My father would never have told her how to behave because he loved her for who she was. The simple difference is, I do not love you. Your wants and needs mean nothing to me. When you accompany me as my wife you will wear what I tell you and behave as I tell you or you can pack your bags and leave.’

He meant every word. She could feel it.

If she called his bluff and packed, he would arrange a driver to take her to the edge of the estate. Once at the border, that would be it. She would never be allowed back in.

‘In that case, I shall go shopping for the drabbest dress in the world.’ She plastered the biggest, fakest smile she could muster to her face. ‘I’ll do my best to buy a dress that is the epitome of elegance.’

‘Rather than rely on your definition of elegance, I will accompany you.’ He checked his watch. ‘I’ll clear my schedule for the next few hours. We can leave now.’

* * *

The dress on the mannequin had thin straps and a tight buttercup-yellow bodice that narrowed in a V at the waist. Its skirt fell to the knees at the front, the back flaring down to the ankles like a peacock tail, a riot of reds, yellows and oranges. It was so beautifully designed and cut, so fantastically offbeat that Grace couldn’t help but stare wistfully at it.

Luca appeared by her side with a fawning shop assistant. ‘I have selected the dresses I wish you to try,’ he said in the offhand manner he had adopted since they’d arrived at the exclusive shopping arcade.

Leaving Lily with him, she followed another assistant into the plush changing room.

He’d selected four dresses. Like the others she had already paraded herself in, they were all in varying shades of beige. If there was one colour she loathed, it was beige. She remembered on one of their previous, happier shopping trips she had regaled him for a good twenty minutes about why beige was so nondescript it didn’t deserve to be called a colour. Even in her darkest days she would never have contemplated wearing it.

In their marriage’s first incarnation, he had made her feel like a princess whenever they went shopping together, never caring if her preferences were a little offbeat, his only wish for her to feel confident and happy in whatever she chose. This time he dismissed each of her humiliating parades in front of him with a dismissive sweep of his eyes, his attention taken with the fawning shop assistant, who at one point he permitted to hold Lily.

The spike of jealousy that pierced into her chest was so acute she had to fight the urge to rip her child from the assistant’s arms.

‘Lily will need a bottle soon,’ she finally snapped when displaying the fourth dress for him. ‘Will this one do?’

He fixed cold eyes on her. ‘I think it is highly suitable.’

‘Great.’ She bestowed him with a saccharine smile and sashayed back into the changing room. Of all the dresses she had tried on, this one was the greatest antithesis to style. It resembled something her grandmother would wear to a wedding.

She had no choice but to suck it up. She would rather die than be parted from her daughter.

Once the dress was packaged and Luca had paid, he led them to a bustling café for a late lunch.

‘Can’t we go straight home?’ Grace asked, in no mood to spend any more time with him. In three days they would be going on an overnight trip to Florence for the blasted party. She was going to be stuck with him for at least twenty-four hours.

‘You’re the one who said Lily needed another feed.’

Naturally, Lily chose that moment to start grizzling.

Without exchanging another word between them, they ordered. While they waited for their meals, a waiter was dispatched to heat Lily’s bottle.

‘Why do you not breastfeed?’ Luca asked, finally breaking the silence between them.

Rocking Lily on her shoulder, she stared at him. ‘Why?’

‘It surprises me. I assumed you would want to.’

His accurate assumption turned her stomach. In the early days of their marriage they had agreed that having a baby would be something to embark on in the future. Grace had only been twenty-three. There had been plenty of time. Selfishly, they had wanted to enjoy each other first. Even so, she had become rather slapdash about taking her contraceptive pill.

‘Life happens.’

His eyes hardened. ‘Considering I have already missed so much of her life, it is only fair that you fill in the blanks.’

She met his gaze. ‘You think?’

He leaned forward. ‘I want to know everything about our child. Everything. In due course you will tell me, but for now you can start with why you did not breastfeed.’

Grace was interrupted from glaring at him when the waiter returned with Lily’s bottle.

‘Well?’ Luca said, impatient, once the waiter had left them.

‘I couldn’t breastfeed,’ she said flatly, shifting Lily’s position and putting the teat in her mouth. ‘The midwives wanted to help but they were too busy. Nothing we tried worked. I was exhausted, Lily was hungry...’ She shrugged. ‘In the end they had to discharge me because they needed the bed, so Lily and I went home and onto formula milk.’

‘Just think,’ he said, his voice musing but his eyes like a frozen winter night. ‘If you’d had your husband there to take the burden off you, the outcome might have been different.’

‘You’d love to think that, wouldn’t you?’ She shook her head with a grimace. ‘The big hero riding to the rescue of his wife’s underperforming breasts. Tell me,’ she continued, ignoring the throbbing pulse in his temple, which always meant danger, ‘how exactly would you have helped? Unless biology has advanced to allow you to lactate, I don’t see what possible help you could have given me.’

‘I would have been there for both of you. I would have taken care of Lily so you could sleep and recover. Who was there for you, Grace? When you gave birth to our child, who was there for you? Who was there to help you recover?’

Cheeks burning, she gazed down at her guzzling baby.

He leaned forward again. ‘You can justify it all you want but you made the first three months of Lily’s life an unnecessary struggle for you both.’

She turned her head and stared pointedly at their bodyguards who were sitting at the table next to them. ‘Our freedom from you and from them made the struggles necessary. And for all your talk about “being there” for us, don’t think it’s escaped my attention that you haven’t held her yet. Not once. While I’ve spent the morning acting as a prancing clothes horse, you’ve spent your time flirting with the shop assistants.’

‘You sound jealous.’

‘Don’t change the subject.’

‘There is nothing more unattractive than a jealous wife.’

‘And there’s nothing more unattractive than a married man flirting with another woman in front of his wife and baby.’

‘I was not flirting—’

‘And you can’t expect me to believe Sicilian women don’t get jealous,’ she continued, deliberately talking over him. ‘How would your mother have reacted if your father had flirted with younger women?’

‘She would have pulled his testicles off with her fingernails.’ He smiled coldly. ‘But my father adored her, so he never needed or wanted a mistress.’

The waiter arrived with their steaming plates of pasta, suppressing her urge to punch Luca in the face.

She wanted to hurt him. Right then she wanted to make him suffer for everything he had put her through, was putting her through, and everything she would have to endure for the next eighteen years. Unless she found an escape route. Which she would.

While she finished feeding Lily, Luca ate his pasta and caught up on his emails, effectively blanking her out.

‘Have you even spoken to Lily yet?’

He raised his eyes.

‘Have you?’ She carefully placed the baby on her shoulder and patted her bottom.

‘Babies can’t talk.’

‘Have you tried any form of interaction with her?’

His nostrils flared. ‘Lily does not yet know me. I have no wish to upset her.’

‘You were happy to let the shop assistant—a stranger—hold her.’

He shrugged. ‘She asked.’

‘On that basis, you would let any random person who wanted to hold our child have her?’

‘Only the ones I find attractive enough to consider making my mistress.’

She flinched. ‘So you were flirting.’

‘I wouldn’t call it flirting. I would call it auditioning.’

‘You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you?’

‘I take no pleasure from humiliating people. In your case I am prepared to make an exception.’ He took a bite of pasta and cast his eyes back down to his tablet.

‘That’s funny.’

‘What is?’

‘You saying you get no pleasure from humiliating people. In your line of work I would have thought humiliation was a perk.’

That got his attention. He put his fork down. His narrowed eyes captured hers. ‘My line of work?’

‘You’re a gangster. A criminal.’

CHAPTER SEVEN

GRACE COULD HAVE sworn Luca blanched, but, it was such a fleeting expression, one blink and it had gone.

‘I am not a criminal.’

‘Really?’ She made no attempt to hide her disbelief. ‘How would you describe yourself?’

‘I’m a businessman.’

‘Hmm. So it’s normal behaviour for businessmen to live in the Sicilian equivalent of Fort Knox and travel everywhere with armed guards? Is it also normal for businessmen to beat people?’

His eyes had blackened, his nostrils flared. ‘What, exactly, do you mean by that?’

‘Do you remember a couple of days or so before I left you, I went with you to the casino? Do you remember when I walked into the office and that man was in there with you all? Do you remember him? Because I do. Even though you marched me out straight away, I got a good look at his face. I saw that man a few days later in Palermo. Both of his arms had been broken and his face looked as if he’d been in a boxing match against an opponent twice his size.’

While she had no time for Luca’s nightclubs, she’d liked spending time in his casinos, especially the one in Palermo. She’d come to enjoy their nights out there, dining in the à la carte restaurant and playing cards. The night she had been referring to had been their last night out together. She had been playing poker, a game she was good at, but her frequent yawns had got the better of her. She’d wanted to go home and go to bed, preferably with her husband.

Luca had been nowhere to be found on the gaming floor, so she had wandered off to the security offices on the top floor. Being one of the bosses’ wives meant she had access to anywhere she desired.

She had found him in the nondescript office used by the duty manager.

The man in question had been sitting in a chair in the middle of the room surrounded by Luca, Francesco and two men she didn’t know. Those two men, with their broken noses and cauliflower ears, had given her the heebie-jeebies.

She could still taste the testosterone of that office, could still feel the menacing atmosphere that had greeted her when she walked through the door.

All the men had fixed their eyes on her, their surprise that she’d barged in on them palpable.

‘Everything all right?’ she had asked with a naivety she looked back on with disgust.

‘We’re in the middle of a meeting,’ Luca had said curtly, striding over to her.

‘Are you going to be much longer? Only I’m tired and want to go home.’

‘We will not be long.’ He’d taken her arm and ushered her to the door. ‘Wait for me in the bar. I’ll be with you shortly.’

He’d shut her out before she could make a whisper of protest.

She’d stared at the offending door for too long, an uneasiness creeping through her bones to go with the shock of her own husband frogmarching her from the room. There had been something about the man in the chair’s expression that kept flashing through her mind.

When she had challenged Luca about it on the drive home, he’d dismissed the matter, refusing to discuss it.

She’d dropped the subject but the man in the chair had haunted her. The more she’d thought about it, the more convinced she’d become that it had been a pleading terror she had seen in his eyes.

A couple of days later she had walked out of a pharmacy in Lebbrossi and come face to face with him. He’d almost fallen into the road in his haste to get away from her.

She’d watched him hurry away, utterly bewildered. Stuffed in the bottom of her handbag, away from the prying eyes of her minders, had been a pregnancy test.

‘That man was cheating the casino,’ Luca said, finally breaking the silence that had sprung between them.

‘And?’ She was being deliberately facetious. She wanted him to spell it out to her. She wanted to watch him justify breaking the bones of a fellow human being.

‘And here in Sicily we have our own methods for dealing with people who try to cheat us,’ he said coolly. ‘Lessons need to be learned.’

‘That was one hell of a lesson. That poor man recognised me as your wife. I swear he looked as if he’d come face to face with the Medusa.’

‘That poor man stole over a hundred thousand euros from us.’

‘Ooh, yes, I can totally see how that would justify smashing his face in.’ Sick to the pit of her stomach, Grace shook her head. Her tortellini had gone cold but she didn’t care. Her appetite had deserted her.

‘Believe me, he got off lightly.’

‘Lightly? Lightly? What planet are you on? How can you even try to justify—?’

‘Rules are rules, and breaking them merits punishment, as that man knew very well. He didn’t just steal from us, he dishonoured us. He’s lucky I’m a reasonable man and refused to counter a harsher punishment.’

She stared at him open-mouthed. A harsher punishment...?

‘That man had a family,’ he continued. ‘At my insistence we agreed to give him time to repay the money. But we couldn’t let him leave without serving a warning, not just to him but to any other man foolish enough to try and steal from us.’

She shook her head again, trying to make sense of it all. ‘So what you’re saying is, you took me home and made love to me that night, minutes after beating him.’

‘No. I never raised a finger to him.’ The corners of his mouth lifted slightly. ‘I had a wife I wished to take home and make love to.’

‘You might not have raised a finger to him but your hands are still tainted with his blood.’

The half-smile dropped. ‘This isn’t a school playground, Grace.’

‘Isn’t it? From what I remember of school, it was always the bullies who ruled the roost. And you wonder why I ran away from you when I found out I was pregnant? Who in their right mind would bring a child into this life?’

His eyes blackened. It was like looking into an abyss.

Lily had dozed off on her shoulder, for which she would be eternally grateful. This was not a conversation she wanted her daughter to hear even if she was far too young to understand it.

Surprisingly, being in a public place made the whole thing easier. It meant she had to keep a rein on herself. It meant Luca had to keep his control too.

Taking a deep breath, she forced her attention back on him. At moments like this it pained her heart to look at him, physically hurt to recall how deeply she had loved him.

It hurt even more to know that, despite everything he had done, he still had the power to affect her more than anyone. Deep inside her existed an ache to turn back the clock, to have stayed at home that fateful day, to stick her head back in the sand. To be happy again.

But Pandora’s box, once opened, could not be unopened. She had seen that poor man’s face and she had known.

Luca’s secretiveness. The increased security detail that had already been large enough to shame a head of state. His growing reluctance to let her even leave the estate, never mind go anywhere without him. These were all things that had festered but were forgotten about the minute she was with him. When they were together, making love, and she knew she was the centre of his earth, she would forget all her doubts.

She would forget her worries about his drinking and how a glass of Scotch seemed to be permanently welded to his hand. She’d pretend not to see days of unshaven thick black stubble across his strong jawline. She’d pretend not to notice the wildness that resided in his eyes when she caught him in an unguarded moment.

Ironically enough, since he’d found her again, looks-wise it was like being back with the Luca she had married rather than the Luca she had left. But that wildness in his eyes remained. That edge to him that had been there from the start—the same edge she had thought romantic—was as strong as it had ever been. Stronger. His hate for her sharpening it to a point.

The pink line of the pregnancy test had shone brightly. In that split second it had no longer been just her and Luca. A tiny spark of life had resided within her, depending on her.

Denial had no longer been an option.

She’d forced herself to work on autopilot. She’d left without writing a note because trying to say goodbye to the man she loved had ripped her soul into pieces.

She’d run so fast, she’d never had the chance to ask him any of the million and one questions that had pounded in her head. Those questions still pounded.

‘Have you ever used your fists on another man?’

‘Only when it’s been absolutely necessary.’

‘But what do you consider necessary?’

His voice was hard. ‘People who steal and cheat from me. People who would harm my family. People who would try to take my businesses from me.’

‘Have you ever killed someone?’ The question was out before her brain had even conjured it.

For the briefest of moments, his jaw slackened, before all his muscles bunched. ‘How can you ask me such a question?’

‘Because I don’t know you.’ She hugged Lily closer to her. Never had she wished so hard that she’d moved on from Cornwall when she’d had the chance. If that ridiculous apathy hadn’t overcome her she’d likely be living on a remote Greek island away from this madness. ‘You changed, Luca. Once you went into business with that Francesco Calvetti, you changed. The darkness seemed to take you over. I was walking on eggshells all the time, always wondering and worrying over what kind of a mood you were in. I would spend nights in my studio painting and trying to ignore how terrified I was that you wouldn’t come home...’

‘Why would you have thought that?’

‘Because people in your line of work have a habit of not making it home. Except for in a coffin.’

‘My line of work?’ Anger rose in his voice. ‘I am a legitimate businessman.’

‘You’re nothing but a thug,’ she countered flatly. ‘Only I was too blind with love or lust to see it properly.’

A snarl flittered across his face, the pulse in his temple pounding. Pulling his wallet out of his back pocket, Luca rose and threw some euros onto the table. ‘Put Lily in her pram. We’re leaving.’

* * *

Luca had been in bed for the best part of two hours. For two nights, sleep had been a joke. It was worse than when he had first brought Grace home. Try as he might, he could not get her out of his head. Or excise the poison that had spilled from her tongue.

In sheer frustration he threw the sheets off and climbed out of bed. Drawing back the curtain, he stared out of the window at the moonlit view of his estate.

At that moment all was peaceful, the dark rolling hills giving the illusion the vines and olive groves were in deep sleep. He could almost believe he was the only person awake in the whole of Sicily.

Except Grace could be awake too. He’d heard her a while ago, tending to their daughter. She might very well be staring out of her own window, sharing the same view.

His chest tightened and he swallowed away the acid burn in the back of his throat.

She was probably plotting her next attempt to escape with Lily.

She would never succeed. But still she would try.

Her bravery had stood out the first moment he met her. She had trespassed on his land with her best friend. As soon as they had crossed the boundary, an alert had gone out. A camera had zoomed in on the area and they had been spotted. It had been sheer fortune—or misfortune, depending on your take—that Luca had been driving through the estate with his head of security, Paolo, and had been first on the scene. The intruders had been sitting on a picnic blanket, looking as if they didn’t have a care in the world.