‘I want to dance with the sexiest woman here and show them she’s mine.’

‘I’m not yours. Only in name.’

Even as Grace spoke the words she knew them to be a lie. Luca had imprinted himself indelibly onto every one of her senses.

He leaned into her and spoke into her neck. ‘You will always be mine.’

He felt so warm, his touch penetrating her skin and dancing into the very fabric of her being. The stars that resided in the midnight of his eyes gleamed, holding her gaze, trapping her in their depths.

He brushed his lips against her neck, nipping at the sensitive skin. ‘Dance with me.’

Luca was like a drug to her. She could survive without him, but it was like breathing air with only a fraction of the usual oxygen.

She hated him.

She loved him.

The two sides were interchangeable.

The only constant she felt was desire. And she was sick of fighting it and pushing it away. There could only ever be one outcome.

‘Yes,’ she breathed, ‘I’ll dance with you.’

THE IRRESISTIBLE SICILIANS

Dark-hearted men, with devastating appeal!

These powerful Sicilian men are bound by years of family legacies and dark secrets.

But now the power rests with them.

No man would dare challenge these hot-blooded Sicilians …

But their women are another matter!

Have these world-renowned Sicilians met their match?

Read Luca Mastrangelo’s story in:

WHAT A SICILIAN HUSBAND WANTS March 2014

Read Pepe Mastrangelo’s story in:

THE SICILIAN’S UNEXPECTED DUTY April 2014

And look out for Francesco Calvetti’s story

coming soon!

What a Sicilian Husband Wants
Michelle Smart

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MICHELLE SMART’s love affair with books began as a baby, when she would cuddle them in her cot. This love for all things wordy has never left her. A voracious reader of all genres, her love of romance was cemented at the age of twelve when she came across her first Mills & Boon® book. That book sparked a seed and, although she didn’t have the words to explain it then, she discovered something special—that a book had the capacity to make her heart beat as if she were falling in love.

When not reading, or pretending to do the housework, Michelle loves nothing more than creating worlds of her own featuring handsome, brooding heroes and the sparkly, feisty women who can melt their frozen hearts. She hopes her books can make her readers’ hearts beat a little faster too.

Michelle Smart lives in Northamptonshire with her own hero and their two young sons.

Recent titles by the same author:

THE RINGS THAT BIND

Did you know this book is also available as an eBook? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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For Luke with all my love.

Contents

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

EPILOGUE

EXCERPT

CHAPTER ONE

GRACE REACHED THE bottom of the stairs and padded barefoot to the alarm on the wall. Working on autopilot, she punched in the code and disabled it along with the sensors running throughout the ground floor. Only once had she forgotten to deactivate it. She had still been half asleep, little more than a zombie. By the time she had walked into the kitchen, the house was making more noise than a dozen hen parties trapped in a large room consuming vast quantities of Jaeger Bombs.

She switched the kettle on and yawned loudly.

Coffee. That was what she needed—a strong dose of caffeine and a good blast of sugar.

While waiting for the kettle to boil, she pulled back the insulating curtains covering the back door and peeked through the pane of glass. Bright early-morning sunlight temporarily blinded her. Squinting, she was greeted with the sight of a thick layer of frost covering the garden. It made her skin feel cold just looking at it. She dropped the curtain sharpish.

Still shivering, she turned to the kitchen table and switched the laptop on. Leaving it to boot up, she made her coffee, adding a huge dollop of milk to cool it down quicker. She brought the mug to her lips and was about to take her first sip when the doorbell rang.

A chill that had nothing to do with the cold outside swept through her, seeping into her bones.

Every hair on her body stood to attention.

Her heart crashed against her ribs, the motion strong enough to unbalance her and slosh hot coffee over her hand and fingers.

She winced and muttered an oath, but the slight scald did her good. It snapped her to attention.

Shoving the mug on the counter, spilling more coffee in the process, she wiped her smarting hand on her dressing gown and strode to the tall cupboard in the corner. She pulled out a wicker basket, burrowed a hand under the pile of tea towels and reached for the small, cold handgun.

The doorbell rang out a second time.

The laptop now booted and ready to use, she clicked on the icon that connected to the live feed from the four surveillance cameras covering the perimeter of her house. The screen split into quarters. Only the top right-hand frame showed anything out of the ordinary.

She didn’t recognise the small figure wrapped in the thick parka, woolly hat and matching scarf. The woman’s knees were springing slightly and she clutched a large bag to her belly, no doubt trying to keep warm in the icy conditions.

Torn between a hard-wired wariness towards strangers and feeling sorry for the freezing woman, Grace walked cautiously down the narrow hallway and drew back the heavy curtain covering the front door. The muffled shape was opaque through the frosted glass panel. Holding the gun securely behind her back with her right hand, she fumbled open the three sliding locks, unlocked the deadbolt and loosened the safety chain. Only then did she turn the lock and pull the door one and a half inches, the exact amount of slack given by the chain.

‘Sorry to bother you,’ the woman said, her teeth chattering. She raised her phone. ‘My car has broken down. Can I borrow your phone to call my husband, please? I can’t get a signal on my mobile.’

Not surprising, Grace thought. Most of the mobile networks struggled for a signal in this small Cornish village. Luckily, her landline worked fine.

She perused the stranger for longer than was polite. The woman was a good four inches shorter than Grace and, beneath the thick clothing, only a slight thing. What she could see of her face was red from the cold.

Rationally she knew this stranger could not pose a threat. Even so...

Even so, her mind raced as she thought of a whole posse of reasons as to why it was impossible to let her in to make her call and then offer the hospitality of warmth from the ever-constant cast-iron cooker in the kitchen.

Much as she knew she should slam the door in the stranger’s face and direct her to the farmhouse at the top of the drive, she could not bring herself to be so uncharitable. It would be at least another ten-minute walk for the poor thing.

‘Hold on a sec,’ she said, shutting the door. She stuffed the gun into the deep pocket of her dressing gown, a place she knew topped the list of most stupid places to hide a firearm. She had no choice but to place it there.

Stupid, paranoid mind. You’ve been hiding for too long. Can’t even open a door without expecting an ambush.

She unlocked the chain and opened the door.

‘Thank you so much,’ the woman said, stepping straight in and stamping her feet on the welcome mat to shake off the early-morning frost clinging to them. ‘I was starting to think I’d never find civilisation. The roads around here are dreadful.’

Grace forced a polite smile and shut the door behind her. The cold had already rushed into the heavily insulated house. A cold, uneasy feeling swept through her, a feeling she disregarded.

‘The phone’s right here,’ she said, indicating the landline on the small table by the front door. ‘Help yourself.’

The woman lifted the receiver and made her call, pressing a finger to her ear and speaking in a low murmur.

The conversation went on for a good few minutes. When she finished, the woman put the receiver back on the cradle and smiled at Grace. The smile didn’t quite meet her eyes. ‘Thanks for that. I’ll get out of your hair now.’

‘You’re welcome to wait here for your husband,’ Grace said, hating the thought of anyone being outside in such awful conditions.

‘No. I need to go. He won’t be long.’

‘Are you sure? It’s horrid out there.’

The woman backed up to the front door and reached for the handle. ‘I’m sure. Thank you.’ She opened the door and headed off down the driveway without so much as a goodbye.

Perplexed, Grace stared at the rapidly retreating figure for a few seconds before shutting the door and relocking it.

She shivered.

The hairs on her arms were standing to attention again.

It took a few beats before she recognised the coldness in her bones as a warning and not a pure physical reaction.

Something was off...

Standing stock-still, she strained her ears. The only noise she could detect was the thundering of her own blood careering through her at the rate of knots.

Stupid, paranoid mind.

All the same, something about the stranger’s demeanour played on her mind. As she padded back to the kitchen, all she could think about was the way the woman had rushed off...

The shock of the doorbell ringing a short while earlier was nothing compared to the floor-rooting terror of finding the tall, darkly handsome man in her kitchen, a man flanked by two gorilla-resembling goons.

‘Wait in the car for me,’ he said to them, not taking his eyes off Grace.

The goons left immediately, departing through the back door, the same door that had been locked just ten minutes earlier...

‘Good morning, bella.’

Bella. The way that one particular word tripped off his tongue like a caress paralysed her. The drumming in her heart was instantaneous, a memory flickering back to life at the first sound of his voice. A beautiful, velvety rich voice with a heavy Sicilian accent that made his English sing.

The drumming became a loud pump. The paralysis was replaced with a fizzing energy that cleared her head of the fog that had filled it. Without taking her eyes off him, she slid her hand into her pocket and pulled out the gun.

‘I’m going to give you five seconds to get out of my house.’

Only by the tiniest flicker of a thick black eyebrow did Luca react to having a gun aimed at his chest. His firm lips twitched as he lazily placed his hands in the air. ‘Or what? You’ll shoot me?’

‘Don’t move,’ she snapped, her eyes widening as, hands held aloft, he took a step towards her. ‘Get back!’

It could almost be described as humorous that Luca, unarmed, was utterly unfazed while she, holding a lethal weapon in her hands, was cold with fear.

She doubted he had ever felt a solitary jolt of fear in his life.

She must not let panic control her. She had always known this day would come. Mentally and physically she had prepared for it.

‘I said get back.’ She tried to steady her grip on the gun but her hands were trembling so hard she had to use all her concentration to keep the aim straight.

‘Is this how you greet all your guests, bella?’ He cocked his head to one side and took another step towards her, then another, his deep-set eyes not moving from her face. At some point she had forgotten how mesmerising they were, how the thick black lashes framed eyes so dark she had once believed them to be black. Only upon the closest of inspections could a person see they were in fact a deep, dark blue, like a clear summer’s night. And once you knew their colour you never forgot.

How vividly she recalled the first time she had seen those eyes close up. That had been the point when every cell of her body had come alive. That had been the point she had fallen helplessly in love.

But that had been a long time ago. Any love she felt for him had died ten months ago when the truth about him could no longer be denied.

‘Only the uninvited ones.’ Deliberately she made a big show of slipping the safety catch off the gun. ‘I will tell you one last time, get out of my house.’

He had inched close enough for her to see the pulse in his temple throb. She had to get him out of the house right now.

‘Put the gun away, Grace. You have no idea how to handle such a dangerous weapon.’

* * *

Having a gun pointed at him had not figured in any of the welcomes Luca had been expecting. His heart thundered beneath his chest and, while he did not believe she would shoot him, the last thing he wanted was to panic her into doing something beyond either of their control.

He could hardly credit that he had found her. Finally.

As soon as he had positively identified her photo, he had boarded the jet kept on permanent standby for this very purpose, and travelled straight to England.

Grace’s face was void of expression. ‘You have no idea what I’m capable of handling. How did you find me?’

Somehow he managed to quell the spike of rage her toneless words provoked. She could be speaking to a stranger for all the emotion she conveyed. ‘With great difficulty. Now put the gun down. I only want to talk to you. Nothing more.’

She made no attempt to hide her incredulity. ‘You came all this way and went to all this trouble just so you could talk to me? If you just wanted to talk, why not knock on the door like a normal person rather than get a stooge to distract me so you can break in through the back door?’

‘Because, my clever, deceitful Grace, you have led me on a merry dance around Europe. You have gone to incredible lengths to hide from me.’ So successful had she been in keeping one step ahead, he’d been ready to believe she had a magic portal to vanish with whenever he got too close. Even before he’d verified the picture was truly her, he had insisted his men keep a close watch on the house with instructions to follow her if she went anywhere. Just in case. He would not let her slip through his fingers again.

‘I haven’t led you anywhere. If I had wanted you to find me I would have given directions.’ Keeping hold of the gun with her right hand, she wiped her left down the side of her thin dressing gown, the movement pulling it open.

Her detachment was all on the surface.

A heavy thickness settled in his blood. The long pyjama bottoms and matching vest top showed off her slender, almost androgynous figure beautifully. Yet there was something softer than he remembered about her physique, a softness not matched in the coolness of her unwavering hazel eyes.

His mouth ran dry. Wetting his lips with his tongue, he continued to scrutinise her.

She had changed so much. If he had crossed her in the street he would have likely not recognised her. This, undoubtedly, had been her intention.

He had almost disregarded the photo. It had been taken mere minutes after his men arrived and strategically placed themselves out of sight of her security cameras. She had left the house for a few moments to collect her post from the box at the bottom of her driveway, bundled up in a thick, shapeless coat. They had managed to fire off a couple of shots before she had gone back inside but only one had captured part of her face.

The angle of her head had caught his attention. As he’d studied it closely a flicker in his belly had ignited. It was Grace. It was the same angle she always tilted her head when thinking, the same angle she would strike when standing in front of a large canvas with a paintbrush in her mouth. Of course, in those days, her hair had been long. And blonde. Not the short, red pixie haircut she now sported. It was a style he should find abhorrent but on Grace he found strangely compelling. Sexy.

Very sexy.

‘How was I supposed to know you didn’t want to be found?’ he asked coolly. ‘You left without a word to me or anyone. You didn’t even have the courtesy to leave a note.’

‘I would have thought my silence made it clear.’

Her silence had spoken volumes. But how could he not search for her? He would have searched for ever.

This was the woman who had promised to love and honour him until death did they part, not until...

That was the precise problem. He had no idea why she had simply vanished from his life.

And he could hardly credit he was now standing less than ten feet from her.

‘You didn’t take any of your clothes.’ She hadn’t taken anything. She had gone for a walk on the estate, climbed over the fence that marked the perimeter and vanished.

‘Your goons would have been suspicious if I’d wandered through the vineyard with a ruddy great suitcase.’

Was that really sarcasm he detected in her voice? From Grace?

‘I knew you would try to find me. That’s why I have a gun—to stop you or your men from forcing me to return. Because I tell you now, I am not setting foot in Sicily again. So, unless you want to learn for yourself how good my aim is, I suggest you leave. And put your hands back up where I can see them.’

For a moment all he could do was stare in disbelief. ‘What the hell happened to you?’

This was not the happy-go-lucky artist he had known and loved, the woman who had always looked at him with such happiness. He had long been accustomed to women looking at him with lust—devotion even. No one could ever accuse Grace of something as insipid as devotion yet she was the only woman who had ever made him feel her world was a better, happier place just for him being in it. She was the only woman who had ever made his world a happier place for being in it.

By contrast, this woman’s eyes conveyed nothing but cold, hard contempt. It was like looking into the eyes of a stranger.

The wife he knew did not exist any more. Not for him. Maybe she was the same old Grace when in the company of friends. Maybe she could still warm a cold room with a smile.

But not for him.

Her icy voice broke through the sudden haze clouding his vision. ‘You know what they say: marry in haste, repent at leisure. Well, I have done nothing but repent since I left you.’

Long-ago uttered words floated back to him. ‘I love you more than anyone or anything. I belong to you, Luca. We belong to each other.’

His stomach heaved. He sucked in air through his nostrils, breathing deeply to quell the nausea lining his throat.

This was not his wife.

He should turn around and walk away but he deserved answers.

And he would have them. If he had to tie her to a chair for a month he would get the truth out of her.

‘I’ll ask you one more time—how did you find me?’ She repeated her earlier question through gritted teeth.

‘With the help of your friend’s phone.’

For the first time her composure dropped, her jaw slackening. ‘Cara?’

‘Yes.’

‘I don’t believe you. Cara would never betray me.’

‘She didn’t. Her phone did. You called her on it shortly after you left me.’

Her face whitened. ‘She would never have given it to you.’

‘No,’ he agreed, experiencing a surge of satisfaction at having broken through her cool façade. ‘I regret that underhand methods were used to obtain it from her, but once we had it in our possession it was simple enough to find your number and, from that, your location.’

He made it sound so straightforward. Instead, his initial jubilation at getting her number had been doused. Her network provider had no way of getting a fix on her—her phone was not being used, had likely been thrown away or destroyed. Another dead end. Or so it had seemed until a week ago when it had unexpectedly sprung back to life. Luckily, he’d paid someone from the network to keep a watch on the number in case a miracle occurred.

It seemed miracles did happen.

‘Does Cara know what you did?’

‘I don’t know.’ He didn’t care. What he did care about was the way Grace’s hands were shaking. Shaking hands and guns were not a good combination. ‘Give me the gun or put it down.’

‘No.’ She raised it higher, her eyes widening. ‘I’m not putting this down until you leave. Get out of my house.’

‘I’m not going anywhere, so you might as well put it down.’ He kept his tone calm and took a step towards her.

‘Get away from me,’ she said, stepping back, her voice rising. ‘Don’t come any closer.’

‘We both know you won’t shoot me.’ He lowered one of his raised hands and extended it towards her, the tips of his fingers closing in on the barrel of the gun.

‘I said get away from me!’ Her words came out as a screech and were immediately followed by the loud tone of his phone ringing out in his pocket.

Like a tightly coiled spring suddenly released, Grace jumped at the sound.

In the confines of the small cottage, the noise of the gun was deafening, loud enough to distract him from the bee sting on his right shoulder.

They stood in frozen silence until Grace’s chest shuddered and she dropped the gun to the stone floor. It landed with a loud clang, the only noise apart from the ringing in his ears.

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

* * *

She had shot him.

Dear God, she had shot him.

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

She had shot him.

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

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

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

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

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

Dear God, what was she going to do?

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

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

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

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

‘Trying to stem the blood flow.’

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

CHAPTER TWO

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

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

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

‘No.’ If anything, his hold tightened.

‘Then let go of me.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Too late?

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

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

And she’d so nearly got away with it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘That’s what you think.’

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

‘Who said she was yours?’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She removed the bottle and shook it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘No? It should be.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That was when she had met Luca.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Her intuition was bang on the money.

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

He made straight for the television and turned it off.

‘I was watching that.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So why had she dragged it out?

Where had this abnormal lethargy come from?

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

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

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

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

‘Yes, she is.’

How she longed to slap the arrogant certainty from him.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * *

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

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

He was a father.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘There is always a choice.’

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

He took a breath.

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

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

Lily was the image of the baby Pepe had been.

This was his daughter.

And Grace had hidden her from him.

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

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

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

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

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

He could. But he wouldn’t.

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘I hate you.’

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER THREE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Donatella. Luca’s mother.

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

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

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

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

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

Grace clenched her teeth together and glared at him.

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

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

The situation was hopeless.

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

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

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

She crossed her arms and pursed her lips together.

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

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

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

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

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

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

His eyes were cool. ‘I will.’

‘You’ve only got one arm.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Steeling herself, she stepped over the threshold.

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

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

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

And now she was little more than his prisoner.

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

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

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

‘Thank you.’

‘And Lily; such a beautiful name.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘You appear shocked.’

She hadn’t heard Luca approach.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Her belly churned at the images playing in her head.

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

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

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

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

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

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

She couldn’t breathe.

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

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

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

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

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

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