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by Diana Hamilton

#2491

The Italian’s Stolen Bride
Emma Darcy

ISBN: 978-1-408-94001-3

THE ITALIAN’S STOLEN BRIDE

© Emma Darcy 2005

First Published in Great Britain in 2005

Harlequin (UK) Limited

Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR

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About the Author

Emma Darcy’s life journey has taken as many twists and turns as those of the characters in her stories, whose popularity worldwide has resulted in 60 million books in print.

Born in Australia, and currently living on a beautiful country property in New South Wales, she has moved from country to city to towns and back to country, sporadically indulging her love of tropical islands with numerous vacations.

Initially a teacher of French and English, she changed her career to computer programming before marriage and motherhood settled her into a community life. Her creative urges were channeled into oil painting, pottery, designing and overseeing the construction and decorating of two homes, all in the midst of keeping up with three lively sons and the very busy social life of her businessman husband.

A voracious reader, the step to writing her own books seemed a natural progression and the challenge of creating wonderful stories was soon highly addictive. With her strong interest in people and relationships, Emma found the world of romance fiction a happy one. Currently, she has broadened her horizons and begun to write mainstream women’s fiction.

Her conviction that we must make all we can out of the life we are given keeps her striving to know more, be more, give more, and this is reflected in all her books.

Contents

About the Author

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER ONE

‘REMEMBER Skye…Skye Sumner…’

It was a shock to hear the name, falling from his brother’s lips in a laboured whisper. Luciano Peretti frowned at the dark anguish in Roberto’s eyes. Why speak of her now? Why waste any time at all on her when time was so precious?

In a few minutes Roberto would be wheeled out of this intensive care cubicle for the surgery that might or might not save his life. A fifty-fifty chance, the doctors had told the family. Their parents were out in the waiting room with the priest and Roberto’s wife because of his brother’s request to speak to him alone, and it seemed crazy to bring up Skye Sumner—an old wound between them that Luc had long since set aside for the sake of family harmony.

‘Water under the bridge,’ he muttered, wanting to dismiss whatever lingering guilt Roberto felt over the betrayal involved. ‘Forgiven and forgotten,’ he added for extra assurance.

‘No, Luc.’ It obviously pained him to speak but the determination to get out what he wanted to say demanded respect for the effort. ‘I lied. It wasn’t Skye…in the photos. She was never with me…like that. I set it up…to get her out of your life.’

Not Skye?

Luc’s whole body clenched in denial. It couldn’t be true. It was too…monstrous! Yet why would Roberto make such a statement, a confession of such destructive deceit, unless he wanted—needed—to clear his conscience?

And if what he said was true…Horror swept through Luc’s mind, unlocking a sealed compartment of memories, letting loose the ghosts of intense hurt and fury, images of the damning photos that had driven him to cut Skye Sumner out of his life. Roberto having sex with her, the raspberry birthmark on her thigh, the long blonde hair streaming across the pillow, the distinctive bracelet—three circles of white, rose and yellow-gold—around her wrist.

Her face—the incredibly appealing face with joy always sparkling in vivid blue eyes, the sexy full-lipped mouth that had so many different smiles, the fascinating dimples that came and went—had been hidden by Roberto’s head, bent low as though he was whispering something in her ear, but Luc had not doubted it was Skye. The hair, the long lissome legs, the birthmark, the bracelet…

Apart from which, Roberto had backed up the evidence, admitting to a playboy dalliance with her, belligerently stating he’d seen Skye first, and why shouldn’t he have her when she was willing?

Willing to laugh with Roberto, flirt with him…Luc had dismissed it as just light-hearted fun between them, glad that Skye had felt comfortable with at least one member of his family. He’d actually felt grateful to his brother…until the photos had blasted him into a different reality.

Blinded by the unbearable images, he’d seen no reason to suspect a set-up, no reason to accept Skye’s wild denials, no reason to believe her explanation that she’d mislaid the bracelet, then miraculously found it, no reason to think anything but she was a two-timing slut who’d enjoyed having both brothers.

‘Why?’ The word croaked from his throat—a throat that had tightened from a wild melee of surging emotions. ‘I loved her, Roberto.’

He rose to his feet, hands clenched, barely able to contain the violence erupting in him. If his brother wasn’t half-dead already, lying in front of him as white as the sheet covering his broken body…

‘Why?’ he cried again, struggling to understand such—such malignance. From his own brother whom he’d trusted…trusted ahead of Skye…because he was family and family honour meant his word was his bond. ‘What satisfaction could it have given you? Destroying my love for her…’

Stabbing me so deeply in the heart, I’ve never let any other woman into it.

‘Dad wanted her out.’

A judgement Luc had flouted.

‘Not suitable.’

A ruling made.

A sad irony glittered through the pain in Roberto’s eyes as he struggled to spell out the rest. ‘He had Gaia…picked out for you.’

Gaia Luzzani, who had never sparked one bit of sexual interest in Luc. Gaia, whom Roberto had married, earning their father’s approval and placing himself to eventually take over the Luzzani multi-million dollar construction business—a business that complemented the Peretti property development company. The irony was that the grandchildren so eagerly anticipated by both Italian families had not been born. Gaia had suffered two miscarriages so far, and if Roberto died…

‘I was…jealous of you, Luc. The oldest son. The favoured son. I wanted Dad…to turn to me…have confidence in me…’

Luc shook his head, not knowing what to answer. His mind was spinning, trying to put the pieces together. ‘Doesn’t matter,’ he growled, dropping back onto the chair under the weight of crushing despair.

Life had moved on. Six years had passed and there’d be no getting back with Skye. She wouldn’t have a bar of him after the way he’d brutally dismissed everything she’d said, rejecting everything she was.

And facing him was his brother who might die in the next few hours. What good would it do to rail against him when his thinking had been dominated by their father…their conniving, determined to get his own way father!

Luc brought his own will to bear on what had to be done now—let his brother be at peace with himself before the operation. He took a deep breath and spoke soothing words. ‘I’m sorry if I made life difficult for you, Roberto…being the first son.’

‘Not your fault.’

The struggle for more breath was dreadful to watch. Smashed ribs, so much internal damage from the car accident…it was a wonder Roberto was still alive. And conscious.

‘Got to tell you—’

‘You’ve said enough,’ Luc cut in tersely, wanting to block out thoughts of Skye and determined to save his brother any more extreme distress. ‘It’s okay. I’ll deal with it.’

‘Listen…’ His eyes begged patience.

Luc waited, hating having to watch Roberto dragging up the effort to say more.

‘Skye…was pregnant…’

‘What?’ Luc’s mind reeled again. His memory of her denied any sign of pregnancy and she certainly hadn’t told him there was any chance of one. She’d been on the pill. Yet the certainty in his brother’s eyes made Luc question, ‘How do you know?’

‘Her stepfather came to Dad…with proof.’

‘Why not to me?’

‘He was…after money.’

‘Did he get it?’

‘Yes. I don’t know if Skye…had the child…but you might have one…somewhere, Luc.’ Tears filmed the pain and his eyelids closed over them as he heaved for more breath and choked out, ‘I leave none.’

‘Don’t give up, Roberto!’ Luc commanded. ‘Don’t you dare give up! You’re my brother, dammit, and I don’t care what you’ve done or not done!’

A faint smile tilted his mouth. ‘I liked it…when we were kids…and you were the leader, Luc.’

‘We had a lot of fun,’ he gruffly agreed.

‘Sorry…the fun…got lost.’

‘We can have more together, Roberto,’ Luc promised, fighting the finality he felt coming from his younger brother. He reached out and grasped his hand, willing his own strong life-force into the broken body on the bed. ‘You’ll make it through the operation. I won’t let you die on me.’

The faint smile lingered.

The hospital orderlies came to take Roberto to the operating theatre. Luc had to let go, get out of the way. He found himself hopelessly tongue-tied, wanting to say more, yet floundering in the face of imminent separation…possibly final separation. It was Roberto who spoke the last words between them.

‘Find…Skye.’

CHAPTER TWO

SKYE enjoyed walking her five-year-old son home from school. Matt was always bubbling over with news of what he’d done: the activities in the classroom, praise he’d received from the teacher, games he’d played with his new friends. Today he was bursting with pride at having shown off his reading skills, having been asked to read a story to the whole kindergarten class.

‘What was the story about?’ she inquired.

‘A rabbit. His name was Jack and…’

Skye smiled as he recounted every detail of the story for her. Matt was so bright, so advanced for his age. She had worried about him fitting in with other five-year-olds who had yet to learn what he had somehow absorbed just through her reading bed-time stories to him every night. But he was still very much a little boy at heart and loved having play-mates.

It was now a month since he’d started school—no tears from him at having to leave his mother for most of the day. Excitement had sparkled from his lively blue eyes as he’d waved her goodbye, more than ready to charge straight into the new adventure of a bigger world for him. So far it was proving a very happy one.

Much to her relief.

It wasn’t easy being a single mother with no-one close to advise her or simply listen to her concerns. Matt seemed well adjusted to their situation. In fact, he’d coped extremely well with it, rarely pestering her when she was working with clients. Though now he was at school with children from normal families…what was she going to say when he asked about his father? As he inevitably would.

For so long there had just been the two of them. Matt didn’t remember his grandmother, who’d died only eighteen months after he’d been born. And Skye herself had been the only child of an only child—no aunts or uncles or cousins. Her pregnancy, having the baby, caring for her mother through the bouts of chemotherapy that had proved useless in the end…the friendships she’d made at university had just dwindled away. Then setting up her massage business…no time for making social contacts.

If she’d gone out to work…but she hadn’t wanted to leave Matt to a baby-sitter or put him in day-care. He was her child. Best to work at home, she’d thought. However, it had been a very closeted life these past few years. A lonely life.

Now that it was opening up for Matt, she should start re-thinking her own situation, look at other options for her future, maybe complete the physiotherapy course she’d had to drop, put herself in the way of meeting a possible husband, a father for Matt.

They turned the corner into the street where they lived and Matt instantly broke off his school chatter, pointing excitedly as he cried, ‘Wow! Look at that red car, Mummy!’

Her gaze had already jerked to it. A red Ferrari—instantly recognisable to her, having been driven around in one by Luc Peretti. It was like a stab to her heart seeing it here, opening up painful memories, especially as she’d just been thinking about a father for Matt.

‘Could we get a car like that?’ he asked, clearly awe-struck by its brilliant colour and racy style, as she’d once been.

‘We don’t need a car, Matt.’

Nor could she afford one. Paying the rental on their small, two-bedroom cottage, plus living expenses, ate up most of her income. What she saved was emergency money. In fact, given that this neighbourhood was very modest real estate, and relatively cheap because of being under the flight-path to Mascot Airport, she wondered why such a classy and extravagant car was parked in their street.

‘Other Mummies pick up their kids from school in cars,’ Matt argued.

Skye grimaced at the all-too-true comment. The comparisons were starting. She tried emphasising the positive side of their own situation. ‘I guess those kids don’t live so close to school, Matt. We’re lucky, being able to walk and enjoy the sunshine.’

‘It’s not so good when it rains,’ he pointed out.

‘I thought you liked wearing your yellow rain boots.’

‘Yes, I do.’

She smiled at him. ‘And splashing in puddles.’

‘Mmm…’ His gaze darted across the street to the red Ferrari. ‘But I like that car, too.’

Skye rolled her eyes to the seductive object of little boys’ dreams and shock ripped through her, thumping into her heart, halting her feet, making her stomach contract with tension. The driver’s door was open and the man emerging from the car…it couldn’t be, her mind reasoned frantically.

Then he turned his head, looking directly at her, and it was. It was Luc Peretti! No mistaking those distinctively carved features, the hard handsome maleness of that face, the riveting, heavily lashed, dark eyes, the thick black hair dipping with a wave at his right temple, just as Matt’s did.

Matt!

A wave of panic churned through the shock. Had Luc somehow found out she’d kept her baby—the money given to her not used for an abortion? But why look for a child who—in Luc’s mind, she thought savagely—might not even be his? Not Roberto’s, either, given he believed she was a bed-hopping slut.

He half-turned to close and lock the car door. Maybe she was panicking for nothing. One look…She and Matt were the only people walking nearby. He could have been checking them out before leaving his high-class car—harmless people, just a young mother escorting her son home from school.

She didn’t look eye-catching with all her hair drawn into a single plait down her back, no make-up apart from a touch of pink lipstick, unremarkable clothes—just white cotton slacks and T-shirt, which she wore to work in. He might not have recognised her at all, might have parked in this street for some other reason entirely, not because she lived here.

‘Mummy?’

She tore her gaze from Luc Peretti to look down at her son. ‘Yes?’

‘Why are we stopped?’

Because I’m frozen with fright.

Skye quickly drew in a quick breath and came up with, ‘I’ve just remembered I’ve forgotten something.’

‘What?’

‘Something…I meant to do for a client. I’ll do it tomorrow,’ she said, desperately temporising as she frantically willed Luc Peretti to be walking away from them, setting her free from this dreadful inner angst.

‘Better put it on your list,’ Matt advised, grinning at her habit of making careful lists for everything. ‘Then you won’t forget.’

‘I’ll do that as soon as we get home.’

‘Well, come on.’ He grabbed her hand to urge her forward again.

Skye forced her feet to move. She had to look, to see where Luc Peretti was now. The jolt to her heart was worse this time. He was crossing the road to their sidewalk, watching them, his face set in grimly determined purpose. If Matt hadn’t been tugging on her hand, Skye might have stopped dead again. As it was, she felt weirdly disembodied from her legs which kept pumping forward, matching her son’s steps.

There was no avoiding a confrontation now, she told herself. Luc Peretti was clearly intent on one. Having reached the sidewalk, he moved straight to the front gate of their house and stood there waiting for them, his gaze trained on Matt as they walked towards them.

Looking for some likeness to himself, Skye thought, the panic rising again, making her dizzy with turbulent fears. The Peretti family was so wealthy. If Luc decided to make a claim on Matt…and God knew she’d had experience of them playing dirty, getting some woman to look like her in the photos, stealing her bracelet and returning it so she’d be wearing it when Luc came to accuse her…accuse her and dump her for an infidelity she’d never committed.

Ruthless people.

Cruel people.

Callous people, uncaring of the lives of others.

She fiercely told herself Luc couldn’t be sure Matt was his child. Yes, he had olive skin, very dark hair and long thick eyelashes, but he also had her blue eyes, her mouth, and certainly her more sunny personality. Luc would have to get a DNA test to be sure. Could she refuse it, fight it?

‘Do you know that man at our gate, Mummy?’

No point in denying it. Luc was bound to address her by name. ‘Yes. Yes, I do, Matt.’

‘Can I ask him for a ride in his red car?’

‘No!’ The word exploded from the volcano of fear inside her. She instantly halted and dropped into a crouch, turning Matt for an urgent face-to-face talk. ‘You must never get in his car. Never go with him anywhere. Do you hear me, Matt?’

Her vehemence frightened him. She could see him trying to understand and her heart ached for the simplicity of their life which was being so terribly threatened.

‘Is he a bad man?’ His voice quavered, reflecting her alarm.

Was Luc bad? She had loved him once, loved him with an all-consuming intensity that had made his disbelief in her integrity totally devastating. Even now she couldn’t bring herself to say he was bad, though he’d let himself be deceived by his family, making himself one of them, against her.

‘You just mustn’t go with anyone unless I say it’s all right. No matter how much you want to, Matt.’ Her hands squeezed his anxiously. ‘Promise me?’

‘Promise,’ he repeated, troubled by her intensity.

‘I’m going to give you the door-key now. When we get to the front gate, you go straight inside and wait for me. Have your milk and cookies. Okay?’

‘Are you going to talk to the man?’

‘Yes. I’ll have to. He won’t go away until I do.’

Matt shot a frowning look at Luc. ‘He’s big. I can call the ’mergency number for help, Mummy.’

She’d taught him that—a necessary precaution since she was the only adult in the house and if something happened to her…Skye tried to calm herself, realising Matt was picking up on her fear, wanting to fix what he sensed was a bad situation.

‘No, there’s no need for that,’ she assured him. ‘I’ll only be a few minutes.’ She took the door-keys out of her pants pocket and pressed them into his hand. ‘Just do as I say, Matt. Okay?’

He nodded gravely.

She straightened up and they resumed their walk, hands tightly linked, mother and son solidly together. And let no one try to separate them, Skye thought on a savage wave of determination.

Luc had shifted his gaze to her, a dark burning gaze that made her pulse race and her inner muscles quiver. She lifted her chin high in a proud defiance of his power to affect her in any way whatsoever. The time had long gone when she had giddily welcomed him into her life, when she had so completely succumbed to his many seductive attractions.

He was big in Matt’s eyes but in Skye’s, that translated to powerful…tall, broad-shouldered, slim-hipped, a strong muscular physique with not an ounce of flab anywhere. He had the kind of perfect masculinity that automatically drew a woman’s attention, looking strikingly sexy in any clothes, especially none at all.

He was wearing black jeans, no doubt with a designer label. A black sports shirt showed off the impressive width of his chest and the bared strength of his forearms. One hand was gripping the top of her gate, as though ready to block any escape from him.

He had no right to. No rights at all where she was concerned. And he still had to prove he had any paternal right to Matt. She glared furious independence at him, shifted her gaze pointedly to the trespassing hand, then back to him with a belligerent challenge. He dropped his hold on her property, moving the offending hand into a gesture of appeal.

‘Could I have a word with you, Skye?’

The deep timbre of his voice struck more painful memories, how he’d used it to make her believe he loved her, intimate murmurs in bed, reinforced by how he’d touched her, kissed her. A flood of heat raced up her neck and scorched her cheeks—shame at having let him remind her of how it had once been between them.

She kept a safe distance, halting a metre away from him, a blazing demand in her eyes. ‘Please move aside from the gate. I’ll stay and have a word with you but my son needs to go inside.’

He opened it before stepping back, giving Matt free passage. ‘I’d like you to introduce us,’ he said, smiling down at the boy that might be his, pouring out all his Italian charm in case it was.

Steel shot up Skye’s backbone. ‘He’s my child. That’s all you need to know.’ She released Matt’s hand and nudged his shoulder forward. ‘Go on now. Do as I told you.’

He obeyed, at least to moving past the opened gate. Then he stopped and turned, delivering his own childish challenge to Luc Peretti. ‘Don’t you hurt my Mummy!’

Luc shook his head, a surprisingly pained look on his face. ‘I didn’t come to hurt her. Just to talk,’ he answered gently.

Matt glared at him a moment longer, then glanced uncertainly at Skye who gestured for him to leave them. Much to her relief, he did, running up the front path to the door. She watched him unlock it and close it behind him before she looked back at the man who had no right to be here. No moral right. And he had to know it!

‘What do you want to say?’ she clipped out, hating him for what he’d put her through, was putting her through now with this intrusion on their lives.

‘He’s my child, too, Skye,’ he stated with not the slightest flicker of uncertainty in the darkly burning eyes.

‘No, he’s not,’ she retorted vehemently, needing to sow doubt, to make him leave them alone.

‘I’ve seen a copy of his birth certificate,’ he started to argue. ‘The date alone…’

‘No father was named on it,’ she whipped back. ‘I wrote unknown. After all, I was a bed-hopping slut, remember?’

He flinched at the hit. ‘I was wrong about that.’

She raised a derisive eyebrow. ‘A bit late to revise your opinion, isn’t it?’

‘I’m sorry. I should have believed you, Skye. You weren’t the woman in the photos. I know that now.’

She wrenched her gaze away from the glittering apology in his. It didn’t change anything. Nothing could change the deep, bitter hurts of the past, the grief, the hardships, the loss of all he’d taken from her on that one life-shattering night. And she would not let him soften her up with a facile apology.

Regathering her defences against the insidious attraction that could still tug at her, Skye swung her gaze back, hard and straight. ‘How do you know it?’ she mocked. ‘Your brother was a starring player in those photos. Who better to believe?’

His jaw tightened. The expression in his eyes clouded, taking on a bleak distance. ‘My brother…died…a month ago.’

Roberto dead?

So young?

The shock of Luc’s flat statement completely smashed Skye’s concentration on rejecting him as fast and as effectively as she could. An image of Roberto Peretti flew into her mind—a head of riotous black curls, wickedly flirtatious eyes, teasing smiles backing up his playboy charm, not as tall nor as solidly built as Luc, not as strikingly dynamic, but with a quicksilver energy that had instant appeal. She had liked him, laughed with him, but as far as serious attraction went, he’d always faded into insignificance beside Luc.

Roberto had been fun.

Until she’d seen him in the damning photos.

That reminder swiftly brought Skye back to her current crisis. ‘I’m sorry for your loss, Luc,’ she said stiffly. ‘But it has nothing to do with me.’

‘You were on his conscience just before he died. His last words were about you, Skye,’ he said quietly.

So Roberto had confessed the truth, removing the totally undeserved stain on her character. And, of course, Luc would believe his brother’s deathbed confession. ‘It makes no difference,’ she muttered.

‘It does to me,’ he shot at her.

‘You don’t count,’ she flung back. ‘You ceased to count for anything in my life a long time ago.’

He grimaced, sucked in a deep breath, then slowly nodded. ‘Fair enough.’ The concession was swiftly followed by more resolute purpose. ‘But the fact of your pregnancy was kept from me until Roberto revealed it. And I now know there is a child to consider. Our child, Skye.’

‘No. Mine!’

Everything within her revolted at any claim of possession from him. His ignorance of her pregnancy had no bearing on Matt’s life—the life she had given Matt—the life the Peretti family had wanted to snuff out, along with all involvement with her.

Luc gestured an appeal for reason. ‘DNA tests can prove—’

‘Have you spoken to your father about this?’ she cut in, needing to know if Luc was acting alone, without the backing of the very powerful and wealthy Maurizio Peretti. The threat he embodied was bad enough, but if he had his father’s approval to make this approach…

‘It’s none of his business,’ came the terse reply.

‘He made it his business,’ Skye corrected him, relieved to be able to use her last piece of ammunition against any claim on Matt. ‘Your father paid out a thousand dollars for an abortion. He killed your child, Luc.’

‘No!’ He shook his head, appalled at the accusation. ‘He wouldn’t do that. He’d never do that.’

‘He did. So don’t think you can resurrect a paternity issue six years down the track. My son is my son. I chose to have him.’

‘Skye—’ an anguished appeal in his eyes ‘—I had nothing to do with any of this.’

She hardened her heart against him. ‘Yes, you did, Luc. You didn’t believe me. You accepted what your family told you. Go back to them and the life they planned for you. You’re not wanted here.’

The gate was still open.

He was clearly in shock over what she had revealed.

Skye took the chance he wouldn’t try to stop her. With bristling dignity she stepped past him, closed the gate behind her without so much as a glance at him and proceeded up the path to the front door, her ears alert to any sound that might indicate pursuit, her heart pounding hard with the fear of not making good her escape.

Matt had left the key in the door for her.

Good boy! she thought in fierce relief.

Her whole body was tense, expecting a call or some preventative action from Luc, but it didn’t come. She unlocked the door, moved into the protective shelter of the house and closed out the man who should never have re-entered her life.

It wasn’t fair.

It wasn’t right.

Luc Peretti could only bring her more grief.

CHAPTER THREE

LUC barely controlled a burning rage as he drove up the grand carriage loop to the neo-Gothic mansion his father had bought at Bellevue Hill. Twenty million dollars he’d paid for it five years ago, and he could probably sell it for thirty now, given its heritage listing and commanding views of the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge.

Twenty million for a piece of personal property.

Next to nothing for a grandson!

Paid off, Roberto had said. That hadn’t added up to Luc when the private investigator had found Skye and her son living in a cheap rental at Brighton-Le-Sands. She hadn’t even completed her physiotherapy course, working as a masseur to make ends meet. No car. No credit rating. No evidence of a nest-egg account anywhere.

He’d wondered if she’d torn up his father’s cheque, scorning to take anything from a family who’d made her out to be little better than a whore. Her whole demeanour this afternoon had been stamped with steely pride, determined on rejecting anything he offered. Their child was her son. Hers alone. Sold to her for a thousand dollars—a measly thousand dollars!

Luc still could not bring himself to believe his father had paid her that sum for an abortion. Such an act was totally against Italian culture and Maurizio Peretti was nothing if not traditionally Italian. He might want an unwanted bastard child to disappear, especially if it could become a glitch in the Peretti-Luzzani master plan, but demanding its life be ended?

No.

Nevertheless, Luc was determined on confronting his father with the accusation, given Skye’s belief in it.

He’d lost her—lost five years of his son’s life—because he hadn’t believed her. He was not about to repeat that mistake. Let his father answer for what had been done. And not done. Maybe then the truth could be pieced together.

He brought the Ferrari to a crunching halt at the front entrance to the huge sandstone home. Forty-five rooms, he thought derisively, more than enough to house a large extended family in the grandeur his father’s ambition demanded. Roberto would have obliged with the desired grandchildren, but Roberto was dead and his childless widow had returned to the bosom of the Luzzani family for comfort. The nursery rooms were empty. So many rooms empty.

Luc felt the emptiness echoing all around him as he walked down the great hall to the sitting room his mother favoured. She was occupying her usual armchair, dressed in mourning black, drowning her sorrows with Bristol Cream Sherry as she watched the early evening news on television.

‘Where’s Dad, Mamma?’ he asked from the doorway.

She didn’t turn her head. In the dull flat tone that characterised her every utterance since Roberto’s death, she answered, ‘In the library.’

No interest in him. No interest in anything. Luc doubted she even heard or saw the news being reported. None of it impinged on her very protected life. But great wealth could not protect against miscarriages nor accidental death. Nor could it provide solace for the loss of her beloved younger son and all his life had promised.

He left her and moved on, bent on pursuing his own needs which were far more imperative right now. Besides, he remembered only too well his mother had not approved of Skye. If she had been in on the conspiracy, too…Luc gritted his teeth against the wave of violence that churned through him.

The machinations that had taken place behind his back were a dark ferment in his mind—a ferment he had to contain while he listened and observed, weighing whether he could even keep on being involved with his parents. Certainly, in Skye’s mind, his family was the enemy to any future he might forge with his son. And she had no reason to think otherwise.

He entered the library without giving a courtesy knock on the door. His father sat at a magnificent mahogany antique desk, tapping at a pocketbook computer he carried with him everywhere, probably checking up on any movement in his investments. His agile brain kept track of an incredible array of figures which he could rattle out at any pertinent moment.

Luc had always admired his father—a formidable go-getter who knew what he wanted and went after it, using every resource he could pull into play. Maurizio Peretti had friends in politics, friends in the church, friends in many high places, all of them impressed by what he could do for them, and, of course, the occasional favour was asked and given in return.

But it wasn’t just his accumulated wealth that impressed them. It was his business acumen and a charismatic presence that shouted leadership quality; the tall, powerful physique, the almost mesmerising intelligence in the commanding dark eyes, the thick thatch of wavy iron-grey hair, the hawkish nose, and the mouth that never spoke rubbish.

He looked up from his notebook, surprise and pleasure instantly lightening the air of deeply focused concentration. ‘Luciano! Glad you came by! Have you spoken to your mother?’

Family first…Luc’s mouth curled in black irony. He’d give his father family! He crossed the room in a few quick strides and tossed the large envelope he carried onto the desk. ‘Something requiring your immediate attention, Dad,’ he drawled.

His father frowned at the disrespect implicit in Luc’s manner. ‘What is this?’ he demanded curtly.

‘Photos. Remember the photos you presented to me six years ago?’

The frown deepened. ‘Why would you keep them?’

‘I didn’t. These are new photos, Dad.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘You will. Since you seem reluctant to look at them, let me help.’ Luc snatched back the envelope, ripped it open, removed its contents and slapped the photos one by one, face up, across his father’s desk. ‘Skye Sumner with my son,’ he declared in bitter fury. ‘My son who is now a schoolboy. My son whose first five years of life I have missed because I did not know of his existence. Look at him, Dad!’

The passionate outburst drew no more than a shuttered glance at the photos and a stoney-faced defence. ‘How do you know it is your son?’

Luc’s arm flew out in a fiercely dismissive gesture. ‘Don’t come at me with that.’ He drew himself up in towering contempt. ‘Roberto confessed to your indecent conspiracy against Skye on his deathbed. He told me about the pregnancy, told me you’d paid her off. Don’t even start denying it!’

His father’s mouth compressed into a thin line of distaste. He sat back in his antique studded leather chair and viewed Luc through narrowed eyes, eyes that were weighing options for dealing with this crisis. ‘Surely, in hindsight, you realise she was an unsuitable wife for you,’ he stated unequivocally.

‘Don’t go there, Dad,’ Luc warned, hard ruthless steel in his own eyes. ‘You’ve lost one son. You’re very close to losing another.’

‘I did what I thought was best for you, Luciano,’ he said, attempting a tone of appeasement. ‘You were blindly infatuated—’

‘I’m here to give you one chance—’ Luc held up his index finger for pointed emphasis ‘—one chance to answer Skye’s accusation that you paid her off with a thousand dollars to have an abortion.’

‘That’s a lie!’ He exploded up from his chair, hurling his hands out in furious counter-challenge. ‘You see what a scheming little bitch she is, trying to turn you against me? I paid out one hundred thousand dollars, with more to come when it was needed!’

‘Then why doesn’t she have any money?’ Luc bored in. ‘Why is she living in borderline poverty?’

‘She must be hiding it.’

‘No, she’s not. Trust me on this. A thorough investigation has been done. There is…no money! In fact, she has no support whatsoever. Her stepfather did a flit while she was still pregnant. Her mother died of cancer when the baby was only eighteen months old. She was left with nothing but old furniture and she has survived—with my son—by building up a modest massage business.’

‘Massage,’ his father jeered, his eyes flashing a filthy interpretation of that profession.

Luc’s hands clenched. He barely held back the urge to smash his father’s face in. ‘Remedial massage,’ he bit out. ‘A natural offshoot from the physiotherapy course she was doing at university when I knew her—a course she didn’t—couldn’t—complete with neither the money nor support needed to go the distance. So the evidence—the evidence, Dad!—is all against your having paid her off with anything more than the thousand dollars Skye claims.’

His father bristled with offended dignity. ‘You doubt my word?’

‘I have every reason to doubt your word where Skye Sumner is concerned,’ Luc fired at him point-blank, not giving a millimetre.

His father’s chin lifted aggressively. ‘I can prove the money was given. And more to come.’

‘Then start proving it!’

‘The papers are at my solicitor’s office.’

‘Call your solicitor. Get him to bring the papers here. Show them to me…before you have the chance to cook up more lies behind my back.’

For several tense moments the air between them was charged with Maurizio Peretti’s fierce pride and Luc’s explosive mistrust—a mistrust that Maurizio finally realised could destroy everything between them. He reached for the telephone and began dialling.

Needing to put a cooling distance between himself and his father, Luc moved over to one of the tall, narrow, lancet windows which gave a limited view of the east garden. Limited views was not only a problem with the old-fashioned architecture of this house. The limited view his father had of Skye Sumner was deeply offensive to him, especially since she’d been innocent of the damning sins manufactured against her. He wasn’t sure he could ever forgive his father for that. If the solicitor couldn’t bring proof of some caring…

‘John, I’m sorry to break in on your evening but this is an emergency. I need the Skye Sumner file and I need it now.’

Silence while the other man spoke.

‘Yes,’ his father replied tersely. ‘I’m at home. Bring it here as soon as you can.’

End of conversation.

Luc didn’t turn around. He had nothing more to say to his father at this point and the tension inside him needed some calming. Seeing Skye in the flesh today, being in touchable distance of her…it wasn’t only his son he wanted. Had he ever stopped wanting her?

It had driven him mad, seeing her with Roberto in the photos, thinking of her giving his brother what he’d believed was all his, only his, the gift of herself in loving abandonment. Somehow he had to persuade her she could trust him with that gift again. Somehow…

‘A trust fund was set up for the child’s support and education,’ his father stated, the leather of his chair creaking as he resumed his seat behind the desk to wait for the solicitor’s arrival.

If that was true, there could not have been an instruction to abort the child. Not from his father. Yet Luc would not disbelieve Skye. So where had the instruction come from? Had one of his father’s underlings decided that cutting corners would be the best result for his boss?

‘All she had to do was apply in writing for funds to become available,’ his father went on tersely, hating being in a defensive position.

‘Then why didn’t she?’ Luc challenged, not bothering to even glance over his shoulder.

No answer to that.

Luc deduced the solicitor had told his father the file had not been re-opened since it had first been set up. It was the only answer that made sense of what he knew about Skye’s life. Certainly she was not aware of any trust fund.

There was a drumming of fingertips on the highly polished desk. Then came the first line of counterattack to the accusation of irredeemable guilt where caring for a grandchild was concerned.

‘I dealt with the stepfather. Everything was worked through him. You said he did a flit before she had the child. If what you say about her circumstances is true, he must have scammed the money and never told her about the trust fund.’

The stepfather…neatly removing all responsibility from himself. But not blame, Luc thought viciously. None of this would have happened without his father’s controlling hand behind it.

‘Then you made a huge mistake of judgement in trusting him, didn’t you?’ he mocked. ‘As well as not caring enough to check up on what was happening to my child.’

‘Luc…’ It was a brusque appeal, looking for some foothold on a meeting ground where he could twist around to regain some credibility.

‘Let’s wait for the file to arrive. That might…’ He half-turned to stare long and hard at the man who had interfered so intolerably with what should have been. ‘…might…’ he bit out warningly, ‘…go some little way to restoring a viable relationship between us.’

‘You’re my son. What was done was done for—’

‘Don’t say for me. You weren’t thinking of me. Nor Skye. Nor our child. You were thinking of what you wanted. When you stop thinking of what you want and start respecting what I want, perhaps we’ll have something to talk about.’

‘I’m giving you what you want. I called John to bring you the proof…’

‘Step One.’

His chin came up aggressively. ‘What is Step Two?’

‘You will immediately start revising your attitude towards Skye Sumner. If you speak once more of her in any kind of deprecatory manner, I will walk out and I won’t come back.’

He grimaced but didn’t argue. ‘Is there a Step Three?’

‘Step Three is full acceptance of her and our son in my life. That means no undermining act behind my back. And believe me, I’ll know about it if you so much as raise a finger to interfere between us again.’

A giving gesture was waved. ‘If you want to take an interest in the boy…’

‘Not just the boy. I intend to do everything within my power to persuade Skye Sumner to marry me.’

Shock cracked the facade of appeasement. ‘Surely there’s no need for that.’ The words whipped out of him. ‘I can understand about the boy…’

The violence Luc had held in check erupted, his body jerking into action, his legs closing the distance between them so fast, everything was a blur except the need to punch home his point. His fist crashed down on the desk, making his father flinch back in his chair.

‘Understand me!’ His eyes blazed unshakeable resolution as he reinforced it with all the turbulent passion stirred by the situation. ‘Skye Sumner should have been my wife. I want her as my wife. And I will have her as my wife.’

CHAPTER FOUR

NOTHING felt safe anymore.

Skye told herself that was another reason why she had to meet Luc Peretti this morning. Ever since the solicitor had come, showing her all the legal documents and the private investigator’s report on her stepfather, she had been feeling the power of the Peretti family closing around her, squeezing for a claim on Matt. She had to find out what their aim was—the end goal.

Right from her first encounter with Luc two weeks ago, she’d been afraid he wouldn’t just walk away. Now she knew he’d confronted his father and moved relentlessly to demonstrate how terribly deceived she’d been by her stepfather. But that didn’t make the Peretti family right in what they’d done, she argued to herself.

Her pulse kicked in shock as she glanced at the clock and saw it was already nine-thirty.

She had to get moving.

A last check in the door mirror of her bedroom showed she had eaten off some of her lipstick, probably from nervously chewing at her lips. Her hand was shaking as she quickly replenished it. Stupid to worry about her appearance, she thought. It didn’t make any difference to what would happen.

Luc’s mother would probably sniff her disapproval of the cheap cotton sundress she wore, but she wasn’t meeting Luc’s mother and never would again. It had been the hottest summer on record in Australia and even though it was now mid-March, the weather still hadn’t cooled. She had a half-hour walk ahead of her and the sundress should keep her from feeling overheated and sticky at the meeting with Luc.

She’d pulled her long hair into a clip at the back of her neck and she quickly jammed the wide-brimmed straw hat on her head, slid her feet into comfortable sandals, grabbed her sunglasses and handbag, and left the house, her heart fluttering uncontrollably over having to deal with the man who knew he was Matt’s father.

At least, he hadn’t asked for Matt to accompany her. In fact, there had been no threatening pressure attached to his request for a meeting, as relayed by the solicitor. The choice of time and place had been hers and it was to be just the two of them.

The request had seemed reasonable, the meeting necessary, given the dreadful fraud her stepfather had perpetrated, including forging her signature on some papers, using her pregnancy to extort the awesome sum of money from the Peretti family.

One hundred thousand dollars!

Her mind still boggled over it.

And the cheque Luc had written to cover the loss of it was burning a hole in her handbag. It had been attached to all the other papers the solicitor had left with her, but she couldn’t keep it. Firstly, the money had been stolen by her stepfather, not by Luc. Just because it was irrecoverable didn’t make it right for her to accept full replacement of it.

Besides, if she was to stick to her independent stance, she had to return the cheque, and meeting Luc was the most direct, most telling way to accomplish it. She had to make it clear to him that she hadn’t asked for money and didn’t want it now. None of it. No way could she use the trust fund. It would tie Matt to the Peretti family, and she didn’t believe that was a good connection for him at all.

Tainted money.

Better not to owe the Peretti family anything.

She could manage to bring up Matt by herself.

Skye bolstered this determination with every step she took towards the meeting place—the waterfront park, directly across from the Brighton-Le-Sands Novotel Hotel, a public area which she could check out before showing up. It was just on ten o’clock—her stipulated time—when she reached the hotel and hurried up to the first floor to take the overhead walkway spanning the busy coast road to the park. From there the whole area could be scanned.

She spotted Luc instantly, seated on a park bench under the shade of one of the Norfolk pines that skirted the shoreline. His head was turned towards the long runway at Mascot Airport where big jets were constantly landing or taking off. One arm was casually hooked over the back rest of the bench, making him look relaxed.

Skye certainly wasn’t. The tension gripping her nerves was so bad, she paused to take several deep breaths, trying to calm herself. It was important to appear cool and confident, not get rattled. It was totally irrelevant that he was still the most attractive man she’d ever met, still able to tug at her physically. Luc Peretti and everything related to him had to be ejected from her life. With this resolution firmly fixed in her mind, she forced herself to walk on.

His gaze swung to her as she descended the steps on the park side of the walkway. Although her thighs started quivering, her legs kept carrying her down, driven by sheer willpower. He stood up, waiting by the park bench, watching her approach, his dark brilliant eyes keenly observing everything about her.

She was glad she’d armoured herself with sunglasses. Not only did they hide her thoughts and feelings, but they allowed her to return his scrutiny without being obvious about it. Again he was wearing casual clothes; beige cotton slacks, a loose cotton knit top in white and beige, V-necked, short sleeves—very smart, undoubtedly expensive, but not intimidating.

Skye surmised he hadn’t come to throw his weight around. Or were the clothes another deception, meant to put her off-guard while he set up the big guns to attack her position?

His mouth twitched into a sensual little smile, making her acutely conscious that her sundress left a lot of flesh bare.

Was it possible he still found her desirable?

Her stomach curled at the thought.

Worse—her pulse-rate zoomed into overdrive as his smile widened and his eyes warmed with pleasure.

‘Good to see you again, Skye,’ he said with what seemed genuine sincerity.

Her mind jammed for a moment, then spun with wild speculation. Was this manner aimed at winning her compliance with whatever he wanted? Did he think she could forget how he’d spurned her? Casting her out of his life on the very night she’d meant to tell him she was pregnant with his child!

A surge of anger spilled into a bitter outpouring. ‘I can’t say it’s good to see you, Luc. I only came to return your cheque. To place it in your hands personally so it can’t get mislaid or misappropriated or mis…anything else.’

She started fumbling with her handbag, desperately eager to get the zippered compartment open, extract the cheque, get rid of the burden of Peretti money.

‘Skye, you’re owed child support for the past five years,’ he argued in a gentle, soothing tone. ‘The law courts would award it to you.’

‘I don’t want it. I didn’t ask for it,’ she gabbled. The wretched zipper had stuck. ‘I didn’t know my stepfather had gone to your family for money until he handed me the thousand dollars for…for…’

‘Yes, that was very clever of him, handing over enough money to convince you it was meant for an abortion. Which, of course, neatly tied off the scam for him. No child. No more interest from the Peretti family. No comeback for him to worry about.’

Luc rolled off his interpretation of the situation so fast, Skye was distracted by how closely it matched her own anguished reasoning. She stopped struggling with the zipper to stare at him. ‘You believe me?’

‘Without a doubt,’ he assured her.

Which instantly played havoc with her heart. If only he had believed her against his brother and those terrible photos…

‘It’s abundantly clear that your stepfather saw the opportunity to milk the situation for all he could get, intending to feather his own nest,’ Luc went on, reminding Skye he was working off evidence this time, as well.

His belief in her word meant nothing!

Easy enough to deduce the truth from the investigator’s report, which had supplied the date when her stepfather had left Sydney, flitting off to the Gold Coast in Queensland. It had also stated the money had been gambled away and her stepfather’s current credit rating was not only nil, but criminal charges were pending over embezzlement at the used car yard where he’d worked as a salesman.

Her stepfather!

Skye burned over the rotten deception he’d played.

‘At least he isn’t my real father,’ she flashed at Luc. ‘I don’t have to live with him like you do yours.’

Maurizio Peretti had also played a rotten deception, keeping the news of her pregnancy from Luc, intent on feathering his nest with the right kind of woman for his precious son.

Skye resumed tugging at the zipper, telling herself it was stupid to be affected by anything Luc said. He had probably moved on to relationships with women who were far more compatible with his family. Which would make his father’s judgement ultimately right.

‘My father has been made very aware of my feelings about his past actions on my behalf,’ Luc answered grimly. ‘He knows not to interfere between us again.’

‘I just don’t want him or you or anybody employed by your family to interfere with me,’ Skye said fiercely, finally getting the zipper open, removing the cheque and thrusting it at Luc. ‘Take back your blood money. It won’t buy me or Matt.’

He shook his head, leaving the cheque hanging from her hand. ‘It wasn’t meant to buy you, Skye. It was meant to contribute what a father should, at least in financial support, towards his child’s upbringing.’

‘I’ve managed without it all these years and I much prefer to keep it that way.’

‘It wasn’t right that you had to manage alone,’ he strongly demurred.

‘Do you think this makes anything right, Luc?’ she mocked savagely.

‘It can help.’

‘No. We occupy different worlds and Matt belongs in mine. It won’t be good for him to have that line blurred by your money. I won’t have it. Please…take it back.’

Again he shook his head.

Frustrated by his refusal and hating even the feel of the paper representing an obscene amount of money, she ripped it into pieces, marched over to a nearby litter bin and dropped the fragments into it, determined on making the point that he couldn’t buy into his son’s life.

‘Money corrupts,’ she flung at him as she wiped her hands of its touch. ‘We both have firsthand knowledge of that, don’t we, Luc?’

‘It can, but it doesn’t have to,’ he argued. ‘It can be used to good effect. Which was what it was meant for.’

Maybe…maybe not. Skye knew she wasn’t prepared to risk finding out how good the intentions were behind so much money. She walked back from the litter bin, feeling lighter and more self-assured. ‘I can manage without it,’ she said with confidence. ‘I’ve proved that already. Matt is a happy, well-adjusted little boy. He doesn’t need—’

‘You’re not thinking of him,’ Luc sliced in, an aggressive note of accusation warning her he was going on the attack now that she had destroyed the money link he’d tried to forge. No more soothing. ‘You’ve made this choice because it’s what you want,’ he threw at her.

‘I’m his mother,’ she retorted, ramming home the close relationship he’d never had with their child. ‘I know what’s best for him.’

‘Like my father knew what was best for me?’ he shot back, bleak mockery in his eyes.

The challenge and the expression behind it gave Skye pause for thought. It was true she was reacting to her previous experience with the Peretti family, not wanting anything to do with them, not wanting Matt to have anything to do with them, either. But was she doing right by…their son?

Her gut feeling was yes.

Or was that fear talking—fear of becoming involved in something she might not be able to control.

Controlling the path of his son’s life was what Maurizio Peretti had been about in breaking up her relationship with Luc. Was she heading the same way herself with Matt, making decisions for him she had no right to make?

‘Can you honestly say, six years down the track, that your father didn’t know what was best for you?’ she asked.

‘Yes, I can,’ Luc replied without hesitation. His eyes bored into hers with searing intensity as he softly added, ‘I lost you. And I lost five years of my son’s life.’

The different tone, and the mountain of feeling behind it, shook Skye into protesting, ‘But you must have met other women who were more…more compatible with your family.’

‘Oh, yes.’ His mouth curled cynically. ‘I’ve had many suitable women paraded in front of me. Not one did I want to take as my wife.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I couldn’t feel with them what I’d felt with you, Skye.’

‘That’s gone,’ she said defensively, frightened of him sensing her vulnerability to the strong attraction that should have died…but hadn’t.

He didn’t reply. He simply looked at her, making her skin crawl over the lie she had spoken. But she would not take it back, couldn’t afford to take it back. How could she ever trust him again with her heart?

‘Yes, what we once had is gone,’ he finally agreed, the regret in his voice hitting her hard as he added, ‘And the fault was mine in not believing your word against Roberto’s. It’s true we’ve occupied different worlds and that, too, was part of it. You might have come after me to pursue the truth if I’d been more accessible to you.’

No. She’d been too crushed to attempt a fighting pursuit. The memory of how he’d looked at her, how he’d spoken to her, how he’d rejected her so utterly…even now, everything within her cringed from it. And knowing his family was behind the deception had added immeasurably to her sense of absolute defeat. Luc was right about that.

He cocked his head consideringly. ‘I wonder how you would have reacted, shown photos of your sister—if you had one—on top of a man who looked like me, a man who was wearing a distinctive watch which you’d given me, and had a very personal identification mark—a man your sister swore was me. Would you have believed my denial, Skye?’

It was difficult to think herself into the turn-around scenario but in fairness to him, she tried to focus on it. Would she have believed a denial, knowing how attractive he was—rich, handsome, any woman’s dream? Would she have believed he was hers and hers alone, given a sister’s sworn word—and photographic evidence—that he’d been intimate with her, too? Wouldn’t her insecurities about his family background have whispered to her that he was arrogantly having fun with both sisters?

‘The difference is…I would have fought the accusation, far beyond what you did,’ Luc said quietly, a wry sadness in his eyes. ‘Though I certainly don’t blame you for not trying. The simple truth is I had the resources to fight and you didn’t. Which was what my family counted on. You didn’t have the power or the money to find the photographer or the woman who looked like you, to prove your innocence. So my family won. And we lost something very special. I lost most of all. What we had together…and my child.’

Regardless of the heat in the air around them, her skin broke out in goose-bumps…as though ghosts of what might have been were wafting over the graveyard of their love. The poignant sense of loss squeezed her heart unbearably. She wrenched her gaze from his and stared out at Botany Bay, fiercely telling herself this was all water under the bridge. They couldn’t go back. They couldn’t change anything. And what they once had was gone. They were different people now. Time and experience had moved them even further apart.

‘Is it fair for you to insist I keep losing, Skye?’ he appealed.

‘You made a choice,’ she cried, fighting not to be drawn into making emotional concessions. Steeling herself to maintain a shield around the vulnerability he could still touch, she swung her gaze back to his. ‘Do you think I’m ever going to forget your choice, Luc?’

‘No.’ He heaved a rueful sigh. ‘I was hoping you might understand it.’

‘I do. I always did.’

‘And possibly…forgive it?’

‘That, too.’

‘Then…?’

‘It’s an issue of trust. I don’t want you or your family anywhere near my son. I don’t trust any of you to be fair. If you’d been fair to me, Luc, you would have investigated Roberto’s claims. You admit you had the resources to do so.’

‘Yes, in hindsight, I wish I’d done that. It makes me even more conscious of the need to be fair now. What good purpose would it serve to alienate you…the only parent my son has known? And clearly loves.’

Her chin lifted in pride. ‘Matt and I do have a very special closeness. Why can’t you just leave us alone, Luc? You walked away from me. Walk away from him, too. Go and forget we even exist. We’ll all be happier that way.’

‘No.’ His chin lifted in hard aggression and the sudden gleam of ruthlessness in his eyes sent a shiver down her spine. ‘I will not remain the loser where he is concerned. I’ll fight for visitation rights if I have to. I’ll drag this whole business through the lawcourts if I have to, and I will spare no one along the way. I don’t care what it takes. I will be part of my son’s life.’

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