WHEN GRACE AWOKE, she checked the time on her bedside clock and almost fell out of bed in shock.
Throwing the covers off, she jumped out and raced into the adjoining nursery, completely skipping the blurry-eyed, lots-of-yawning routine the morning usually brought.
The cot was empty.
Pressing a hand to her racing heart, she gnawed at her bottom lip and forced her frantic brain to calm down and think.
She checked in the small fridge she’d had placed in the corner of the room. Instead of the two made-up bottles of Lily’s milk she’d put in there before going to bed, there was only one.
Still chewing on her lip, she headed off along the corridor. Was it possible Luca had heard Lily call for her breakfast while she had slept through it? Surely not? Her bedroom adjoined the nursery, and her maternal biology was primed to hear her baby’s cries.
The door to the master bedroom was ajar. She tapped on it lightly. Getting no response, she tapped again then pushed it open.
Rooted to the floor, all she could do was stare, wide-eyed.
Luca was asleep on the edge of the ultra-king bed. Lily lay on her back next to him, bang in the middle, wearing a sleep suit Grace was certain she hadn’t been wearing when she’d put her to bed. A pile of pillows had been placed neatly along the other edge, sandwiching Lily between them and Luca. On his bedside table sat an empty baby bottle.
Heart in mouth, she swallowed away the compulsion to climb in with them, stood for an age unable to tear her eyes away.
Her presence must have disturbed him, for Luca raised his head. ‘What time is it?’
She cleared her throat. ‘Nine o’clock.’
As he sat up she noticed how careful he was not to use any sudden movements that could wake Lily. All the same, the baby stirred and kicked her little feet out.
Now fully upright, his black hair mussed, Luca reached for Lily and cuddled her to his bare chest. From Grace’s vantage point she could see the wound on his shoulder—the wound she had inflicted—was healing well, now a dark red scar. It made her stomach roll to know every time he looked in a mirror and saw that scar, he would be reminded of the time she had shot him.
At the same time fresh guilt was kicking in, her mouth ran dry as she experienced a pang of envy, not that Lily had evidently accepted him without question, but envy that he held her so tenderly.
How Grace had loved to nestle into that broad chest...
‘What time did she wake up for her bottle?’ she asked, pushing all thoughts of nibbling at his nipples and running her fingers through his black silky hair from her mind.
‘A couple of hours ago.’ He yawned widely.
‘I never heard her.’
‘She fell asleep not long after you went back to bed, but as soon as I put her down she woke up and started crying. I didn’t want her to wake you, so I decided the best thing to ensure you got a decent amount of sleep was to bring her to bed with me.’ He shrugged nonchalantly. ‘The bed is big enough.’
That it certainly was.
‘Er, well, thank you.’
‘I do not require your gratitude,’ he said, a touch frostily. ‘I want to be involved in her care. Besides, it gave you a chance to catch up on some needed sleep.’
She stared at him, too shocked that he’d done something for her partial benefit to speak.
‘Which is why our trip to Florence tomorrow could not come at a more opportune moment,’ he continued. ‘It will do you good to have some space. I’m guessing you’ve not spent much time apart from her since she was born?’
‘Of course I haven’t.’ Other than her one visit to her cottage studio, she had never been parted from their daughter. She could only tolerate Lily being in the next room by leaving the adjoining door wide open. Which was why it shocked her that she had been able to sleep so deeply. Was it because she knew Lily was in Luca’s care...?
He had cared for her beautifully. That much she had to acknowledge. Though she didn’t want to. When she looked at Luca she wanted to know she was looking at a bastard, not at a man with the capacity to tend for a young baby on instinct alone.
And now she needed to take Lily back to the nursery and get her ready for the day. And that meant taking her from him. It meant having to get close to his naked chest— Please, God, let him at least be wearing a pair of boxer shorts.
As ridiculous as she knew it to be, she had to practically drag her legs over to his side of the bed. Holding her breath, she leaned down and took Lily from his arms.
‘What are your plans for the day?’ he asked as she took a step back.
‘We’ll probably go for a walk.’ It was on the tip of her tongue to question why he asked, but she stopped herself in time. The last thing she wanted was for him to invite himself along.
Unsurprisingly, his eyes narrowed with suspicion. The only time in the whole of their marriage she had voluntarily gone for a walk and not been badgered into it had been the day she left him. ‘Another walk?’
She shrugged. ‘It’s not for me, it’s for Lily. She needs fresh air and I really can’t have a SWAT team accompanying us if we leave the estate. Yesterday was bad enough.’ The day before, she had taken Lily into Palermo for some Christmas shopping. She hadn’t visited the discreet arcade Luca had taken her to to buy the vile dress, but went to a proper shopping centre and market. It had been so crowded her bodyguards had been tripping over the heels of her feet to keep up with them.
‘The minders I have assigned to you are discreet.’
‘About as discreet as a herd of cows dressed in pink tutus.’
His lips twitched. ‘I’m sorry if you find them an inconvenience,’ he said without sounding the slightest bit apologetic, ‘but as I have explained to you countless times, they’re for your safety.’
‘Absolutely.’ She nodded with faux sweetness. ‘It was much harder to tolerate when I thought you were a legitimate businessman and an overprotective bear. But now I know it’s all because you’re worried one of your victims will get vengeance by going for me and Lily, it makes your attitude so much easier to sympathise with.’
The humour vanished from his face. He climbed off the bed and stalked towards her, a furrow running down the centre of his brow. He wore nothing but a pair of snug black boxer shorts. All the breath in her lungs expelled in a rush.
Luca, virtually naked, was as stunning a sight as if he had been fully nude. He was the only person for whom she had ever wished she were more proficient in sculpture, his body deserving to be immortalised on something even more substantial than canvas.
‘My business activities have nothing to do with my security provisions other than in respect of the scumbags it occasionally forces me to associate with. There are no victims.’
She averted her gaze from the wonder that was his body and forced herself to meet his eyes. That was no safer place to look, his eyes holding her like a magnet. No matter how hard she tried to look away, she could not.
This physical weakness for him enraged her and she could feel angry colour stain her cheeks. ‘You can tell me this until you’re blue in the face, but nothing is going to convince me you are anything but a gangster.’
Luca’s rage was like a tight coil. She could see it in the way his muscles bunched under his smooth skin.
Her breath hitched.
‘You are lucky you can use Lily as a shield,’ he said, his silky voice menacing, ‘or I would be forced to silence your vicious tongue.’
‘That sounds like a threat.’
‘Not at all, bella. As you should know, I never make useless threats, only promises. If you keep challenging me I will have no option but to shut you up the only way I know that works with you.’
‘Oh, yes? And how’s that, Gangster Boy?’ Why was she antagonising him so? Why could she not simply keep her mouth shut and walk away?
He studied her for an age, the fury in his eyes dispersing and being replaced by a gleam that frightened her a whole lot more than mere anger. Suddenly she was all too aware of the shortness of her nightdress—in her rush to find Lily she’d forgotten to put on her dressing gown.
His olive throat moved; his magnificent chest rose.
She could hear the heaviness of her own breathing, knew he was close enough to hear it too. He was too close. She could smell the musky scent of his skin...
‘By kissing you.’
‘Now you’re being ridiculous.’
He took another step towards her, stopping just short of touching her. But it was enough. The heat of his naked skin so close to hers was enough to make her traitorous body, already wholly aware with her skin tingling and her blood thick and warm, spring alive.
‘Ridiculous?’ His voice dropped to a murmur. ‘Do you not remember how good it used to be between us?’
She shivered, unwanted yet, oh, so potent images of just how good they had been together flittering in her head. ‘I thought you were on the hunt for a mistress.’
‘So did I.’ His eyes were stark with a desire she recognised from old, his voice barely audible. ‘But you are the only woman who can make me hard with a single look. And you want me too—I can see it in your eyes. I know you, Grace. And I know when you want me. If Lily wasn’t in your arms we would already be on that bed screwing each other’s brains out.’
The air thickened with the same tightening as in her core. Struggling for oxygen, she fought to make her vocal cords work. ‘Don’t say another word. You can keep hunting because there is no way I’m ever sharing a bed with you again. I don’t want you—I hate you.’
She turned on her heel and fled, hurrying all the way back to the hateful blue room, a room she loathed almost as much as she loathed her husband. She let the door shut with a slam.
Holding Lily to her, she sat on the bed and waited for her thundering heart to slow to at least near normal levels, berating herself for her stupidity.
Thank God she’d had Lily in her arms. There had been a moment when her fingers had itched to slap him while her lips had tingled to kiss him.
To do more than kiss him.
Why had she not had the good sense to take Lily back to her room immediately, without striking up a conversation with him, without antagonising him?
Deep down, she knew why.
Seeing Luca and Lily together had disturbed her on so many levels she’d had to fight, lest the softening in her bones became a permanent thing.
They had looked so...so...perfect together. Seeing them like that... The guilt had almost split her in two.
Then, when Luca had woken, his defences against her down, his hatred still sleeping, he had looked exactly like the man she had married.
She didn’t want to remember anything good about him. She didn’t want to remember how convinced she had once been that he would make a fantastic father, even if his offspring would be unable to breathe without his knowledge.
He had been more of a father to Lily in one night than her own father had been to Grace in her entire lifetime.
It had been hard enough to leave Luca the first time. How easy would it be to leave if Lily fell in love with him too? She had to remember the man he had become by the end of their marriage. The man she had run away from.
She cast her mind to the cheap phone currently stuffed in a pair of boots in her wardrobe.
She didn’t know how it could help in her escape plan but just having something that was hers and untraceable felt precious.
If Luca found it, she would be thrown out on the streets. It made no difference that he still wanted her. That was just chemistry. He didn’t love her. He would cast her out as if she were nothing more than uneaten food.
She couldn’t quite believe she’d been able to acquire it. She hadn’t gone shopping with the intention of buying a phone—her only intention had been to buy her mum and Cara a Christmas present each; something to let them know how special they were to her. To make amends.
Not that Billie thought there was anything to make amends for. When she’d spoken to her mum, it was as if she’d never been away—Billie had made some appropriate-sounding noises of relief and appropriate squeals at being a grandmother before discussing, in great detail, her latest commission. By all accounts Grace’s dad was somewhere in Africa with no plans to return any time soon. If he knew or cared that she’d been missing, she didn’t know. And she didn’t ask. Some questions were better left unasked.
Cara’s reaction to Grace’s reappearance had been somewhat different. Other than a couple of vague text messages, her best friend was being decidedly elusive. She couldn’t blame her, not after she’d been so flippant about Cara’s fright the day they’d first met Luca. Cara had been the one with the sense to be frightened of a man with a gun. And somehow Cara had been the one tricked into giving up her phone so the secrets contained within it could be revealed.
Her three bodyguards had been glued to her side for the whole trip until she had come to a bustling market. One stall had sold scarves. Out of the corner of her eye she had noticed a row of cheap phones behind the busy seller’s table.
Snatching the opportunity, she had grabbed a scarf, given the pram to her bodyguards and dived into the throng. When she had reached the front of the table, the crowd thick behind her, she could only hope her guards didn’t have X-ray vision. She’d quickly wrapped the phone inside the scarf and, acting as casual as a woman whose heart rate had quadrupled could, placed her purchases in Lily’s large baby bag.
She could only pray Luca never found it.
* * *
Luca knocked on the door to the blue room. He was confident that, given a little more time, he would start thinking of it as Grace’s room. He was also confident that, given a little more time, he would stop thinking of the master bedroom as their room.
He ignored the thought that he’d had well over ten months to stop thinking of it as theirs.
When there was still no response, he pushed the door open. Neither Grace nor Lily were anywhere to be found. A small suitcase lay closed on the bed, the dress he had bought her draped over it as if it had been thrown there without any thought. The fancy box it had been perfectly folded into at the boutique had been thrown in the waste bin.
She hated that dress. Really hated it. It had given him a perverse pleasure buying it for her, knowing she would have to obey his wishes and wear it. He had seen it as a fitting punishment for a woman who thrived on colour and light, one of many punishments she would have to endure.
Turning to leave, he caught sight of his reflection in the full-length mirror and stopped short, suddenly certain he had seen a pair of horns sprouting from his head. He blinked to clear the image.
It was just him. Luca.
Not the monster Grace was adamant he had become.
For a moment though...
What did she see when she looked at him?
Did she really see a man with horns on his head?
An image of his tiny, defenceless daughter floated into his head. Lily was an innocent, dependent on the adults who cared for her. She had no voice.
But one day she would. One day she would be old enough to form her own opinions. If she was anything like her mother, those opinions would be contrary to his. Would his daughter look at him and see a monster, an ogre...?
Another, equally powerful thought occurred to him.
What would his father say if he could see him now?
His father. The man who had gone to such great lengths to leave the old life—indeed had taken the final necessary steps mere months before his great heart had failed.
Would his father see a monster too? Would his father understand the route he, Luca, had taken? Would he understand his need to strike out on his own, to step out from under Pietro Mastrangelo’s shadow and do something for him, to form partnerships and invest in businesses that were nothing to do with family, or vineyards, or olive groves?
When his father had died, all of Luca’s dreams of founding his own business empire had died a death with him. He’d had to step into the breach. There had been no other choice, unless you considered letting the estate fall to ruins a choice.
His mother had fallen to pieces. His brother had been about to head off to university. None of the uncles or aunts in his family had been in a position to help, not for any substantial length of time.
That had left him, Luca, to bury his own grief and step into the breach. With one hand he’d learned the ropes while the other hand had been busy keeping at bay the vultures, led by Salvatore Calvetti, who would snatch the estate from them.
For thirteen years he had done nothing but push the estate onwards, investing surplus profits into new vineyards and olive groves across Southern Europe and beyond, new bottling plants, new everything, in the process making the Mastrangelos billionaires.
For thirteen years he’d done his duty.
It was only seeing the world through Grace’s enchanted eyes that had propelled him to get out of the rut he hadn’t even known he was in.
Francesco Calvetti had been as relieved at the death of his father, a man who would as soon slit your throat as give you the time of day, as Luca had been. Salvatore’s death had freed them both, and it had allowed them to rekindle their old friendship. Like Luca, Francesco was ready to take a different path and strike out on his own.
Along with a chain of international restaurants Luca had bought out in his own right, he and Francesco had invested in a couple of casinos and a handful of high-end nightclubs together. That these particular investments required a management technique that differed from his usual management style had not been something Luca had considered before laying his cash on the table.
Once he had understood it, however, he’d gone along with it with little more than a shrug. And if Francesco had embraced these techniques with an enthusiasm that proved more than a little of Salvatore lived on in him, then so be it. This was the way of the world here. It was how his own father had once been forced to conduct business. It was a method Luca understood. He was not averse to using his fists and other weapons to protect himself and his property, had employed numerous tactics throughout the years to keep Salvatore and his henchmen at bay. This situation was no different: you did what was needed to be done to protect your investments and if that meant sending a physical warning to thieves and swindlers, then so be it.
He would never pretend to like it. There were days when, if he was being honest with himself, he would admit that he despised it. He would never pretend it didn’t require a strong stomach, but Scotch was a good settler. Especially a couple of large Scotches.
His father might not be happy with his eldest son’s choice of investment and even less happy with his choice of business partner, but surely he would understand. Wouldn’t he...?
The acidic churning in his guts answered that question for him.
And what would Pietro say if he knew his firstborn son was forcing his own wife to wear a dress she hated out of a perverse sense of punishment and revenge? Would he understand that...?
‘What do you want?’
Grace stood in the doorway, Lily in her arms, glaring at him.
‘I wanted to remind you that you’ll need to be ready to leave after breakfast tomorrow.’
She rolled her eyes and walked past him, placing Lily on the centre of the bed. Immediately their daughter stuffed a foot in her mouth.
‘Where have you been?’
‘Running through some stuff with your mum about Lily’s routine.’ She sat on the bed and placed a hand on the baby’s belly.
‘Any problems?’
‘No. She’s all good to go.’
Which is more than you are, he thought. Grace looked wan. ‘Are you feeling all right?’
‘Me?’ She smiled tightly. ‘I’m absolutely fine. On top of the world. Leaving my daughter for the first time fills me with nothing but joy.’
He raised a brow at her sarcasm.
‘What?’ she demanded. ‘That’s what you want to hear, isn’t it? Take some of the guilt away.’
‘I don’t feel any guilt about leaving her with my mother.’ It was one of the only things he could think about without feeling as if a heavy weight were slowly crushing his insides.
‘Well, you should.’
If he hadn’t recognised her belligerence as a mask, he would have left her to stew. Except her hands were trembling and she was blinking too rapidly to be doing anything other than fighting tears.
As much as he hated her, witnessing her trying so hard not to cry tore something in him.
Stepping over, he sat on the bed next to her and took her hand. It was cold.
‘I don’t feel any guilt because I know my mother will take the utmost care of her. Lily will be spoiled rotten—if she wants caviar in her milk I promise my mother will provide it.’
The tiniest hint of a smile played on the corners of her lips. ‘I know. I know. It’s just...’
He waited for her to continue. ‘It’s just what?’
She pulled her hand away and gazed at Lily. It hadn’t escaped his attention that, apart from her initial glare, she refused to look at him.
‘Florence is so far away.’ She sighed. ‘Maybe it would be easier if the party was in Lebbrossi or Palermo; places we can nip back from quickly if anything were to happen...’
‘Nothing is going to happen.’
‘It might.’
‘Grace, look at me.’ When she kept her focus on Lily he repeated his command, catching her chin with a finger and forcing her attention. Her hazel eyes were bright with unshed tears. ‘I’ll arrange things with the aviation authorities in Florence so that, in the case of an emergency, we can take the jet back to Palermo at any time necessary.’
‘Can you do that?’
‘Yes.’
‘But if we’re flying from the main airport, aren’t we supposed to select an advance time slot and—?’
‘I’ll fix it. It will not be a problem.’
She continued to look at him dubiously.
‘Does this solution not ease your mind?’
‘Only if you promise not to use intimidation or violence to get your own way.’
He should be affronted that she would think such a thing of him. Yet he could not blame her. Grace was the sort of person who would rather rescue a bug than kill it. Any form of violence was alien to her way of thinking—even if he went through everything about his business ventures and partnership in detail, and explained why things were the way they were, she would never understand. He’d known that from the start, within days of buying into that first casino, when the first man had been foolish enough to steal from it and Francesco’s men had been set upon him. He’d known Grace would never accept it or understand the necessity behind it.
There were times he struggled to accept and understand it himself. There had been many a time when only the stiffest of Scotches had allowed him to blur the images that played behind his retinas and dulled the nausea that lined his stomach.
Rubbing his thumb along her soft cheek, he said, ‘The only asset I will use to get my own way will be of a monetary value.’
‘You can afford it,’ she said with what could almost be called a smile.
There was nothing he could say to that. He could afford anything his heart desired. Apart from Grace’s heart, the sly voice came back at him.
In the beat of a second his head began to pound with the sound of a thousand drums.
Her eyes held his, a softness in them he hadn’t seen for so long he had forgotten how amazing it felt to be on the receiving end of it. The hazel in them melted and darkened while her lips parted. Her chest rose and fell sharply, colour heightening her complexion as she held the gaze binding them together.
Dio, but if she wasn’t the most beautiful woman on the planet. Was it any wonder he was having such trouble finding another woman to hold his interest for longer than the blink of an eye when he had married the most desirable of them all? Her small breasts jutted through the tight green cashmere sweater she wore. Unthinking, he raised the hand not stroking her cheek and cupped one, sucking in a breath as an enormous jolt surged through him.
Her eyes widened, her own shallow breaths hitching. She raised a hand in turn and brought it to his face where it hovered, not quite touching him, before a pained, almost desperate look crossed her features.
She blinked and shook her head, the softness and desire gone, replaced with the hard wariness he was becoming far too accustomed to. Her full lips, which for a few brief moments he had been about to shape his mouth against and plunder the hot sweetness within, tightened.
She turned away and got to her feet. ‘Can you leave us now? Lily needs a bath and I need to write a list for your mum.’
He stared from his wife to his daughter, his head pounding, his heart aching with as much force as the throbbing between his legs. ‘Can I bathe her?’
She twisted her head to look back at him. ‘You?’
‘I’ve missed so much of her life.’ For once there was no accusation in either his tone or his meaning. ‘I meant what I said before. I want to be a proper father to her.’
He was certain she would refuse. And when she did? Then he would accept her decision. Grace was Lily’s mother. He’d made half her DNA but he would have to earn the right to be her father.
To his surprise, she inclined her head, a wry smile forming on her lips. ‘If I were you, I would change into something more waterproof. She has a tendency to splash.’
‘I’m sure I’ll be fine.’
Twenty minutes later, he regretted not taking Grace’s advice. He would never have believed someone so small could make so much mess. Lily’s plump legs had kicked most of the water out of the baby bath. The floor was soaked. He was drenched, his bespoke trousers ruined.
When Grace poked her head round the bathroom door she did nothing to hide her smirk before disappearing again.
Unlike the night before, when he’d had Lily sleep with him and a lack of proper winding on his part—or so he had learned from his mother when he confessed the incident to her earlier—had made her throw up, he had little trouble putting her nappy on and dressing her. This time it only took three attempts before he was satisfied the fiddly poppers of the romper suit were properly done up.
Only when Lily was settled in her cot, her belly full and properly winded by Grace, did he leave them.
He shut the door and expelled a long breath, taken aback at the physical wrench leaving them caused.
Putting his daughter to bed, his wife by his side...something inside him had shifted. He couldn’t pinpoint what, exactly, but he knew he needed to speak to Pepe before he and Grace flew to Florence the next day. He also knew his scheduled meeting with Francesco Calvetti before the party would have a different agenda from the one Francesco was expecting.