An Inheritance of Shame

chapter TEN



‘HOW ABOUT THIS one?’

Lucia glanced at the skintight leopard print minidress Angelo had pulled off the rack and shook her head, laughter bubbling up inside her. ‘It’s not my colour.’

‘Zebra print, maybe?’ He took out another dress and this time she laughed aloud.

‘I doubt there’s been a zebra print dress seen at the Corretti Cup ever.’

‘Always time for a first.’

She shook her head, still smiling, and moved down the rack at one of the city’s most exclusive boutiques, leopard print dresses and all. They’d visited several boutiques this morning, and her nervousness about being in these exclusive shops with their snooty sales clerks and elegant upholstery had dissolved in the glow of Angelo’s smile, the ease of his good humour. She’d forgotten how much fun he could be. It had taken a lot of effort when they were children to make him smile and relax, but when he did…

There was no one with whom she’d rather be.

‘All right, since you aren’t going to go for the animal prints, how about this?’ Angelo had moved to another rack of dresses, these one in various jewel tones. He pulled out a slim sheath dress of sapphire silk, the fabric possessing an icy glow. Lucia drew in a breath.

‘It’s lovely,’ she said hesitantly, because she couldn’t actually imagine wearing it. She couldn’t imagine wearing any of these dresses, leopard print included. She felt like a little girl playing dress up, and at any moment someone was going to come in and bark at her to stop pretending. Stop trying to be someone else.

‘Try it on,’ Angelo urged. ‘It matches your eyes.’

Still unsure, she took the dress from him and went back to the sumptuous dressing room, complete with a chaise and three-panelled cheval mirror.

‘Would you like any help?’ the sales clerk, a tall, blonde woman with cold eyes and spike heels, asked. She’d been gushing all over them ever since Angelo had entered, acting as if he owned the place, but Lucia had a feeling the assistant wasn’t fooled by her.

‘I’m fine, thank you,’ she said, and closed the door.

She knew she should be gratified by such attention, thrilled by Angelo’s wealth and power. Surely most women would be, and she suspected he wanted her to be. Yet while she was proud of what he accomplished, all of it still gave her a sick feeling inside.

Sometimes she felt as if she didn’t know this man of power and prestige who had the world at his feet. She didn’t know how she could fit into his world…how he could love her.

Resolutely she pushed such pointless worries away, at least for the moment, and slipped into the dress, the silk sliding over with a luxuriant whisper. Angelo rapped on the door.

‘Let me see.’

‘Give me a minute.’ With some wriggling she managed to zip up the back, and with a nervous flutter inside she opened the door. Angelo’s pupils flared as he took in the fitted sheath dress ending just below her knee. It was simple, elegant, clearly expensive.

‘Magnifico. We’ll take it.’

‘Don’t you want to ask if I like it?’

His eyes widened with surprise. ‘Don’t you?’

She sighed, chuckled in defeat. ‘Yes, I do.’

‘Then there is no problem.’

‘No,’ she agreed. ‘No problem.’

And there really wasn’t. Why couldn’t she just relax and enjoy all of this, allow herself to be swept along on this luxurious ride? Everything in her resisted it, resisted not just accepting Angelo’s gifts, but acknowledging who he was, powerful, wealthy, entitled. She didn’t want him to change her, but she didn’t want him to be changed either. And she was afraid he already was, afraid Angelo would never be able to love her as she was.

It was an impossible conundrum. They were impossible.

Angelo must have sensed some of what she was feeling, for as they left the boutique and strolled down the glamorous Via Liberta, he said, ‘You’re not happy I bought you the dress.’

‘I wouldn’t say that,’ she hedged, and he laughed dryly.

‘You’d rather I hadn’t, then.’

She grimaced. ‘I don’t mean to be ungrateful.’

‘But you are.’ He sounded amused, but underneath the humour she heard hurt.

‘I don’t need you to buy me things, Angelo,’ she said after a moment, and he glanced away.

‘What if I need to buy them for you?’ he asked quietly. ‘I want to buy them, at least. I want to give you things.’

Lucia stopped on the pavement and turned to face him. ‘Why?’ she asked, and he shrugged impatiently. ‘Why not? I think it is a normal thing to want to do.’ His voice was sharp in self-defence. ‘I want to see you wearing beautiful things. I want to be the one to give them to you.’

It was, Lucia suspected, a way for him to show her he cared. Perhaps the only way he knew how. And if so, she should surely accept it, be glad for it. Yet still she resisted.

‘Here’s a question,’ Angelo said as they continued walking down the street. ‘Why don’t you want me to give you things? Because I’m not sure I understand that.’

She didn’t answer for a long moment. ‘I suppose it reminds me of how different we are now,’ she finally said slowly. ‘How different you are, Angelo.’

He gave her a sideways glance, his rueful smile somehow sad. ‘Do you really think I’m that different? Because from the moment I’ve been back in Sicily I’ve felt exactly the same.’ He drew a shaky breath, his voice low. ‘A ragged boy with a bloody nose and broken dreams.’ He shook his head as if to dismiss the admission, and Lucia’s heart twisted inside her. Didn’t he know that was the boy she’d fallen in love with, not the man he seemed determined to be now, wealthy and powerful, striding through life with arrogant determination?

She opened her mouth to tell him as much, but he was already turning into another shop, this one even more exclusive and expensive-looking, with black velvet cases and diamonds winking in the window.

‘Angelo—’ she said, his name a warning, and he shook his head.

‘You need something to go with the dress. If it makes you feel better, you can return to me anything I buy after.’

After? After the Corretti Cup, or after he was finished with her? She knew she shouldn’t be thinking that way, and yet she couldn’t keep the thoughts from slipping into her mind, sly and insidious. As much as she wanted to, she didn’t yet believe this could last. Perhaps that was why she refused his gifts. She was trying to protect herself, paltry attempt that it was, because she didn’t trust him to love her, not to leave her.

‘Try this.’

While her thoughts had been tangling themselves into knots Angelo had spoken to another snooty shop assistant who had brought out a gorgeous diamond necklace, a dozen glittering square-cut diamonds, each one encrusted with a dozen smaller ones. The thing was intricate, ornate and clearly the most expensive item in the shop.

Lucia shook her head.

‘Just try it on,’ Angelo persisted, and silently she allowed him to fasten the piece around her neck. The stones felt cold and sharp against the fragile skin of her throat, heavy on her neck.

Angelo’s mouth curved in a smile of primal possession. ‘Bellissima,’ he said in satisfaction, and she shook her head again.

‘It’s too much, Angelo.’ Wordlessly she unclasped the necklace and handed it back to him. ‘I’d look ridiculous in it.’ Angelo frowned. She was still trying to distance herself, she knew, still acting out of fear and self-protection, yet she wanted to try. Trust could be a choice. Sometimes it had to be.

She took a deep breath and scanned the display cases. ‘How about that?’ She pointed to a whimsical dragonfly hair clip, its wings winking with diamonds and sapphires.

Angelo’s frown deepened. ‘You’d rather have that?’

She’d rather have nothing, rather have Angelo as the boy she knew and loved rather than this autocratic man who insisted on draping her in diamonds, yet she could hardly articulate that to him now. ‘Yes.’

He gestured to the shop assistant, who took it out of the case. Lucia slid it into her hair, and was gratified to see Angelo’s hard features soften into a smile. He nodded to the assistant. ‘We’ll take it.’

After they left the jewellery boutique they wandered along the waterfront and then into a restaurant that had, Angelo told her, the freshest seafood on all of Sicily.

The mood between them had lightened again, and Lucia revelled in the ease and enjoyment they had in each other’s company. When Angelo was being himself.

‘The neighbourhood could use some improvement,’ she joked as they went inside, for while the restaurant was top drawer it was surrounded by unused docks and abandoned warehouses.

‘The government is planning to regenerate this area,’ he told her as they sipped chilled white wine on a terrace overlooking the harbour. ‘Actually, I’m part of the process. I’ve secured a bid to redevelop a housing estate in the area.’

‘You have?’

He smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners and flashing grey-green. ‘Don’t sound so surprised.’

‘I didn’t realise you had so much business in Sicily.’ He shrugged, averting his gaze, and Lucia couldn’t keep from adding, ‘But you never intend to live here.’

‘Not permanently, no.’

She nodded, accepting, even as she wondered if he simply didn’t see that as a problem for their fledgling relationship. Admittedly, there wasn’t too much to keep her in Sicily any more. Her mother was dead, her father long gone, and what few friends she had weren’t particularly close ones. And yet…

Again, she resisted. Resisted giving more to this man, because she was still bracing herself for the moment when he decided he’d had enough. When he walked away…again.

Firmly she pushed that thought away. She needed to try. Trust was a choice. ‘What made you decide to come back to Sicily after all this time? Just the business opportunity?’

Angelo’s gaze rested on her for a moment, narrowed, shuttered. Then he smiled and took a sip of wine. ‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘Just business.’

They walked along the waterfront for a while after lunch, and then back into the old quarter of the city. The sun was hot overhead and it was pleasant to wander hand in hand through the narrow streets with their crumbling buildings and open-air markets. Despite the elegant, expensive clothes and the pervasive aura of wealth, Angelo seemed like the boy she remembered. The boy she loved.

‘This almost feels like old times,’ she said, only half teasing.

‘Doesn’t it?’ He turned to her with a smile, although she still sensed that guarded sorrow shadowing his eyes, tensing the lines around his mouth. ‘I think you’re the only person I’ve ever been myself with.’ The admission, so quietly made, rocked her, because it was so achingly honest—and because she felt the same. Hope bloomed within once more, more powerful than ever.

‘Me too,’ she said quietly, and squeezed his hand. ‘Me too.’

Angelo couldn’t remember when he’d enjoyed a day more. For a whole day spent in Lucia’s company he’d felt the tightness inside him ease, the emptiness fill. He felt happy. He felt whole.

The realisation terrified him.

He’d told Lucia love was complicated, messy, and it was. He felt it in all of its uncontainable sprawl now, disordering his thoughts, his ambitions, everything. He’d come to Sicily with a simple plan: to ruin the Correttis. Revenge, simple and sweet, served twenty years’ cold. He’d convinced himself it was all he wanted, and yet now…?

Now he wanted this. Her. And not just her, but a life with her, a life he’d never, ever imagined having or even wanting. A life he still could bear to think about only in vague images: a house somewhere, a kitchen with sunlight and a bowl of fruit on the table. A child toddling towards him and loving arms slipping around his waist.

Even those images felt impossibly remote, like fuzzy photographs of another planet. A place he’d never been, and wasn’t sure he could go.

A place he wasn’t sure he should go.

‘Angelo?’ Lucia turned to him with a smile, although he saw the worry clouding her eyes. Always the worry, the fear. He felt it too.

‘I should take you back home,’ he said. ‘I need to get back to work.’

‘I see.’

And she probably did see, all too much. He hadn’t meant it as a brush-off precisely, but it served as one. It was time to get back to the reason why he’d come back to Sicily at all. It was time to focus on what really mattered.

They didn’t speak as he drove her back to Caltarione. As soon as they hit the narrow, dusty streets of the village that time itself seemed to have forgotten he felt himself tense. Resist. He hated this place, hated the memories that came up inside him like the clouds of dust on the road, obscuring everything.

Just like he’d told Lucia, he couldn’t escape that old feeling. Here he was once again that foolish boy, ragged and angry, whom everybody had ignored or dismissed. He felt the frustration boil up inside him along with the determination to not be that boy again. Lucia didn’t seem to want him to be different, but he needed to be. Needed to be someone who would stand up to the Correttis, who would count—

‘Stop here,’ Lucia said softly, and he glanced at her in surprise for they were still at the top end of the village’s main street, at least a quarter of a mile from her house. Then he saw they were outside the church, and realisation slammed into his chest, rocked him to the core.

‘Are you sure?’

She nodded, and he parked the car on the kerb. The air was dry and still as they climbed out of the car, and although he couldn’t see a single person on the narrow, winding street, he could feel the prying eyes, the pursed lips. How many people were peering out at them from behind latticed shutters, recognising him as the Corretti bastard they’d once ignored and reviled?

And how many people recognised Lucia as the woman who had borne his child, people who would never see her as anything else?

Dio, he wanted so much more for her. He wanted to give it to her. Why couldn’t she understand that? Accept it?

He turned to her now, saw her face was pale and set. Before last night he’d never considered what life must have been like for her after he’d left. She would have been pregnant, unwed, alone. In a tiny place like Caltarione life must have been intolerable. His throat thickened and at first words wouldn’t come.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and she turned to stare at him.

‘What for?’

He saw the wariness enter her eyes, her body tensing in expectation. Afraid—of what? That he would let her down now, already? ‘For not being here when you were pregnant. And, I suppose, for not even thinking about how hard it must have been for you in a place like this. Not until you told me.’ She shrugged and he asked quietly, ‘Was it very hard?’

‘It was worth it.’

‘Even though—’

‘Yes,’ she cut him off with a quiet certainty. ‘Even though.’

He felt the thickness in his throat again, the moisture in his eyes. What was happening to him? How had he become this weak wreck of a man, devastated by emotion?

‘Let’s go,’ Lucia said, and she took his hand, her own hand cold in his. Silently she led him around the side of the church and into the cemetery behind, past the older headstones now weathered and worn, some toppled over, to a small garden in the back built into the hillside with just a few small headstones. And there, in the corner, a small rectangle of white marble commemorated his child.

Angelo stared at the few, heartbreakingly simple words. Angelica. Molto amata. Much loved.

He reached out and laid one hand on the marble headstone; it was warm from the sun. He felt tears again, harder this time to ignore. He couldn’t speak; he was slain by weakness. He should have been here. He should have been here for Angelica, for Lucia.

Then he felt her arm slide around his waist and she laid her head on his shoulder, her touch like a healing balm. He took a shuddering breath.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said again.

‘I know,’ Lucia answered softly. ‘But I didn’t bring you here to open up the wounds of the past, Angelo. I brought you here to heal them. To look towards the future.’ She spoke tremulously; he felt her uncertainty.

The future. The future scared him, and he suspected it scared her too. What could a future with Lucia look like? A future with love in it, a life he was afraid of because he didn’t really believe it could ever be his? It never had been before.

The sun had started to sink behind the church and the cemetery was lost in shadows. Angelo turned away from his daughter’s grave.

‘We should go,’ he said, and silently Lucia followed him back to the car.

An hour later, having dropped her off at her apartment, Angelo strode into his office above the Corretti Hotel. He felt restless, edgy, unfulfilled. The afternoon with Lucia had opened up old wounds, new doubts. He craved being with her, even as he hated the weakness of that craving. The need it showed in him, a need that could surely never be filled.

All you were meant to be was a stain on the sheets.

His father’s sneering voice.

You were a mistake, Angelo. It would have been better if you’d never lived.

His grandparents, sighing with weary defeat.

I’m sorry. I should never have had you.

His mother, ashamed and defiant.

No one had wanted him. No one had loved him. He’d learned to live without love, had trained himself not to want it. And now Lucia came once more into his life, with her hope and her love and her fear.

He knew she was afraid he would let her down, no matter what she said. He knew it because he felt it too. Wouldn’t it be easier for everyone if he just stopped now? Admitted it couldn’t work, it wasn’t in him? Wouldn’t it save them both a lot of heartbreak? And God only knew Lucia had had enough, with his own abandonment and the death of their daughter—

‘Signor Corretti? There have been messages.…’

Yanked from his thoughts, Angelo glanced impatiently at his receptionist, a woman who had worked for the Correttis and whom he hadn’t had time to replace, as she half rose from behind her desk.

‘Leave them on my desk.’

He stalked into his office, felt the beginnings of another migraine pulse at his temples. He snatched the scrawled messages on his desk and scanned them, the pain at his temples pulsing harder as he realised what this day had cost him.

A message from one of Corretti Designs’ shareholders, the banker from Milan who was having second thoughts about Luca remaining as CEO. Another message from Battaglia, wanting to speak to him about the regeneration bid. A message from Alessandro Corretti, his unacknowledged half-brother, who wanted to set up a meeting about that same bid.

Angelo dropped the sheaf of messages. One damned day might have set back all his plans. Who even knew what opportunities he’d missed while he’d been dallying with Lucia, chasing dreams he had no right to harbour, not even for a moment?

Dio, he’d been so stupid. So weak.

Resolutely he sat down at his desk and pulled the phone towards him. Any thoughts of Lucia, of love, had deserted him completely, replaced only by cold, hard purpose. This was why he was here. This was what he had come for.

Lucia gazed at her reflection. The dragonfly clip sparkled in her hair, which she’d styled into loose waves. The sapphire blue of the dress glowed against her skin. She wore cheap shoes.

Funny, but Angelo hadn’t thought of that. Neither had she. Dress, check. Jewelry, check. Shoes? A pair of scuffed pumps she’d had for nearly a decade. And as for her underwear…if they ever got that far, Angelo would encounter plain white cotton that had definitely seen better days.

Sighing, she turned away from the mirror.

She wasn’t even sure if any of it mattered. It had been five days since Angelo had dropped her off after their day together, and she hadn’t seen him at all. Hadn’t received so much as a phone call or text message or note. This was all starting to seem horribly familiar. The hope, the dread, the silence.

They hadn’t even lasted a week.

Stop it, she told herself. He’d been busy, of course he had. He was an important man, with important deals to make. She understood that, even if she didn’t like it. Trust was a choice.

Taking a deep breath, she went into the living room to wait for Angelo. His assistant had sent a message earlier that day that he would pick her up at five. Well, here she was. She only hoped he hadn’t changed his mind…about anything. About everything.

At ten minutes past five Lucia started to worry. At quarter past, she began to doubt. And at half past, she felt horribly resigned—and that was when she heard quick footsteps on the stairs and a sharp rap at the door.

She opened the door, saw Angelo’s gaze sweep over her quickly before he looked away. ‘I’m sorry I’m late.’

She nodded, accepting his terse apology even as questions clamoured in her throat. ‘What happened?’ she asked, keeping her voice light, mild, and Angelo just shrugged.

‘A business meeting ran late. Shall we?’ He held out his arm and after a moment’s pause Lucia slipped her hand through it. She could feel the tension vibrating through Angelo’s arm, his whole body. Something had happened. Something was wrong.

That old fear lurched inside her, and she almost pulled away. Almost turned around and went straight back into her apartment. She didn’t want this, hated the sense of clingy desperation that flooded through her, just as it must have flooded through her mother. Justify. Excuse. Appease. And all to keep a man around.

Trust is a choice.

‘Is something wrong, Angelo?’ she asked evenly, and he glanced back at her, his expression sharp and almost hostile until, with effort, he smoothed it out.

‘No, I’m sorry. I’ve been a bit…stressed about work. That’s all.’ He drew her to him, kissed the top of her head. She slid her arms around him, pressed her cheek against his chest so she could feel the thud of his heart. She felt something in him loosen, relax. He sighed softly. ‘You look amazing, you know, and utterly beautiful.’

She felt herself relax too, then. She didn’t need to be so suspicious and uneasy. She had to stop waiting, expecting Angelo to let her down. She leaned back to smile at him. ‘You look pretty amazing too.’

‘And beautiful?’ Angelo said with a quirk of his eyebrow, a faint smile on his lips.

‘Actually, yes.’ Because he was a beautiful man. Long lashes, full lips, high cheekbones. A woman would kill for all of those, and yet Angelo possessed them in an utterly masculine way.

‘Let’s go,’ he said, and linking his hand in hers, he led her downstairs to the Porsche.

They didn’t talk too much as they drove along the coast to the racetrack that held the Corretti Cup. Angelo made a few attempts at small talk, but Lucia could tell he was preoccupied—the tension stealing through him again, his fingers tapping the steering wheel—and she wondered how he felt about attending such a prestigious event, hosted by his cousin. Did he still hate his Corretti relations, even as he defiantly bore their name? It was yet another one of his integral contradictions: the ragged boy, the regal businessman. The Corretti who both hated and claimed his name.

As Angelo drove up to the front of the racetrack, a valet came around for the car, and another opened her door. Lucia stepped out, saw an array of women dressed head-to-toe in designer outfits, sleek and privileged and looking world-weary, while she had her pretty dress, her dragonfly hair clip and her cheap, old shoes.

She swallowed dryly, grateful for Angelo’s steadying presence as he came beside her, slid his arm through hers.

‘What’s the schedule of events?’ she asked as they joined the decked-out throng streaming towards the main entrance of the track. Angelo sidestepped the crowd and headed towards a separate door marked VIP Only. A dark-suited man allowed them to pass without so much as a blink.

You should be thrilled, Lucia told herself. VIP! But she only felt outclassed and uneasy.

‘The main race is first,’ Angelo said, his arm around her shoulders as he guided her down a private corridor to an even more private box of seats. Lucia sat down on a plush chair, watched as a waiter poured them both champagne. ‘And then a champagne reception afterwards.’

‘More champagne,’ Lucia said as she accepted the crystal flute. ‘I’ve never even had champagne before, you know.’

Angelo smiled faintly. ‘See if you like it.’

She didn’t. The taste was crisp and tart on her tongue, not sweet at all, and the bubbles went up her nose. She put her glass down on the marble-topped table between them and resisted the urge to wipe her damp palms down the sides of her dress.

She didn’t like being here. She didn’t like being here with Angelo, who was scanning the different boxes with narrowed eyes, his lips thinned, looking both powerful and predatory.

‘Are you going to place a bet?’ she asked, and he gave her a quick glance and nod.

‘Oh, yes.’

There was something about his grimly certain tone that made her feel even more uneasy. ‘Which horse?’

Angelo paused, then answered crisply, ‘Cry of Thunder to win.’

Lucia didn’t know a thing about horse racing, but from hearing the chatter and gossip in the staff room, she did know that Cry of Thunder was an upstart contender from Spain, a horse that no one was backing because of course everyone wanted Gio Corretti’s Sicilian-bred horse to win.

Everyone except Angelo.

‘Cry of Thunder?’ she repeated after a moment. ‘He’s not likely to win, is he?’

Angelo hesitated for only a second. ‘No.’

‘So why are you betting on him, then?’

He shifted in his seat. ‘There are more important things than money.’

‘Of course there are.’ Angelo’s tone had been repressive, but Lucia couldn’t ignore the deepening unease she felt, prickling along her spine and souring her stomach. ‘But a horserace…betting, gambling…that’s about money, surely? About winning?’

Angelo glanced at her, and his expression was completely unreadable. All the emotion and need, the hope and happiness, she’d once seen in his eyes was veiled, masked. His eyes were flat and dark, the colour of moss on stone. ‘It’s definitely about winning,’ he finally said, which was no answer at all.

A few other guests entered the VIP box then, and Angelo stood as he said hello to several expensive-suited corporate types. Lucia saw one of the women, a sleek brunette, flick a dismissive glance first towards her frivolous hair clip and then at her shoes. She fought not to blush. Damn her shoes anyway. If she’d been trying to fool anybody, she obviously wasn’t. Everyone could see how she didn’t belong here.

And she wasn’t trying to fool anybody, Lucia reminded herself fiercely. This was not her world. She didn’t want it to be Angelo’s world. She wanted to go home.

‘All right?’ Angelo asked, and reached for the champagne bottle to top up her barely touched flute.

‘Yes.’ Lucia smiled tightly. Every muscle in her body ached with tension, and the evening had barely started. She glanced at Angelo, who was leaning forward, his body looking as tense as hers felt. He wasn’t enjoying himself either, she thought suddenly, and she felt a flicker of something almost like relief. Maybe they weren’t so different at all. Neither of them wanted to be here.

They didn’t talk much as more people took their seats and then the race started. Lucia watched the horses, elegantly sinuous, eat up the track, clouds of dust billowing behind them and the sea a sunlit shimmer on the horizon. She couldn’t tell what was going on, but it was over soon enough—and Cry of Thunder had come in fifth. Gio Corretti’s horse had won.

‘How much did you lose?’ she asked, smiling, trying to keep it light, and Angelo shrugged.

‘It doesn’t matter.’

After the race they went with the other VIPs into a glittering ballroom. Tuxedoed waiters passed around yet more champagne as well as chocolate-dipped strawberries, caviar, pâté. Food Lucia had never had before and didn’t really like, although she helped herself to several strawberries. Angelo kept surveying the ballroom, his eyes narrowed as if he were looking for someone. He barely spoke to Lucia, and her unease turned to pure feminine annoyance.

‘Angelo—’

‘Come here.’ He took her elbow, striding forward towards a man Lucia recognised from earlier, Gio Corretti—a son of Benito Corretti, a cousin of Angelo’s.

The man inclined his head slightly in cool acknowledgement and Angelo smiled back, although there was no friendliness or warmth in that curving of lips. He looked hard, unyielding, ruthless. Underneath her hand his arm felt as if it had been hewn from granite, forged from steel.

‘You lost quite a bit tonight,’ Gio remarked as he shook Angelo’s outstretched hand. Angelo’s smile deepened, became even colder.

‘Pocket change, Gio.’

‘Ah.’ Gio Corretti nodded slowly. ‘I see.’

Lucia didn’t see anything at all. The men stared at each other, Angelo cold, Gio chillingly remote. Lucia felt like screaming at them to behave—but of course, to all intents and purposes, they were behaving. No fisticuffs, no hurling of insults. Just this cold, hard, glittering anger. Like the diamonds Angelo had wanted to buy for her, costly and soulless.

‘I’m not the one you’re fighting, you know,’ Gio said quietly, and Angelo’s whole body stiffened as if he’d been jerked on a string.

‘Who said I’m fighting?’

‘Aren’t you?’

‘It’s business.’

‘Some business.’ Gio shrugged, turned away, and Angelo stood there, his whole body quivering with tension, with anger. With hurt.

Lucia could feel it coming off him in waves, knew he felt like he’d been dismissed, rejected by a Corretti. What she saw in Gio Corretti was a grudging respect for a self-made man like Angelo, but Angelo hadn’t seen it.

‘Angelo…’ she murmured, and he shook his head, shrugged off her arm.

‘Let’s go.’

As relieved as she was to get out of there, she didn’t like the way he seemed about to stomp off, pulling her along with him. ‘Don’t you think—’

‘I’ve done what I came to do,’ Angelo said flatly, and reaching for her hand, he led her swiftly out of the ballroom.

They didn’t talk until they were in the Porsche, speeding back towards Palermo, the night inky-black all around them.

‘What was that all about?’ Lucia asked quietly.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Why did you bring me there, Angelo? Why did you go yourself?’ She shook her head, bewildered, uncertain, starting to get angry. ‘You certainly didn’t go because you enjoyed the experience.’

‘Did you?’ Angelo tossed back, and she leaned her head back against the seat.

‘No, not at all. But does that really surprise you? I’ve never—’ She stopped suddenly, and Angelo glanced at her with narrowed, knowing eyes.

‘You’ve never what?’ he prompted softly.

‘I’ve never wanted to be in that kind of crowd,’ she finished, choosing her words with care. ‘Have that kind of life.’

Angelo arched an incredulous eyebrow. ‘You’ve never,’ he stated disbelievingly, ‘wanted more out of life than making other people’s beds, cleaning their damn toilets—’

‘It’s a job, Angelo. It’s respectable, it pays—’

‘There’s more to life than a job.’

‘Oh, yes, there is. There’s love and family and children and happiness.’ Her throat clogged and her chest hurt. She didn’t know how they’d got into this argument, but she had a gut instinct that the only way to get out was to wade through. She swallowed hard. ‘But I don’t think you meant those kinds of things.’

‘No, I didn’t.’ Angelo stared straight ahead, flexed his fingers on the wheel. The night-shrouded landscape passed by in a blur of black. Lucia closed her eyes. She didn’t like where this conversation was going. He didn’t say anything else, and she thought they might spend the entire journey back to Palermo in this stony silence. A question burned in her gut, churned its way up her throat.

‘How much money did you lose?’

‘Does it matter?’

‘I think it does.’

Angelo threw her a quick, irritated glance. ‘Why? I have plenty. And you don’t even like me to spend it on you, so—’

‘It’s not about the money.’

‘What, then?’

She shook her head wearily. ‘Perhaps you should tell me that.’

‘Stop talking in riddles, Lucia—’

‘Then you stop putting me off,’ she retorted. ‘You didn’t bring me to the Corretti Cup as a date, did you, Angelo? You didn’t even buy me that dress or want to buy me those ridiculous diamonds because you wanted to please me or make me happy.’ It was all becoming horribly clear, like wiping the steam from a mirror. Slowly, surely, she could see the whole, awful reflection.

‘Why do you think I did, then?’ Angelo asked in a colourless voice.

‘Because you wanted to show me off. Show yourself off.’ Lucia spoke mechanically; she felt weirdly lifeless, almost as if she didn’t care about it any more. ‘You went to the Corretti Cup to thumb your nose at all the Correttis you still hate, even though it’s been fifteen years since you left. Even though you probably have more money than they do now. That’s why you bet on the losing horse, isn’t it? Just to show you could lose however much money and it didn’t matter.’ More mist cleared; the reflection sharpened. ‘And that’s why you bought the hotel.’ The realisation lay heavily within her. ‘What are you trying to do, Angelo? Ruin them?’

‘Anything that happens to them, they deserve.’

‘They deserve? Does anyone deserve to be ruined? Why are you even angry at them, Angelo? It’s your father you’re really angry at and he’s—’

‘Don’t,’ he said in a low voice, ‘talk about my father.’

‘Why not?’

He let out a low breath and shook his head. ‘I just don’t want to talk about him.’

Lucia sat back against her seat and closed her eyes. She felt utterly drained, her mind numb and empty. She should have thought about this, she realised dully. She should have expected this. She remembered how angry and bitter Angelo had been as a child; had she thought he’d changed?

That was why she didn’t like all this power and wealth, she knew now. It really wasn’t about the money. It was about the reason, the motivation. The revenge. The hard core of bitterness and anger Angelo would never relinquish. How could love flourish in such a heart? How could it even survive?

They’d reached Caltarione, and Angelo pulled up in front of her apartment. Tinny music and raucous laughter spilled out from the bar beneath. Lucia opened her eyes and saw Angelo staring straight ahead, his jaw bunched, his body tense.

‘I don’t even see why any of it matters,’ he said flatly. ‘It has nothing to do with us.’ Lucia just shook her head. She didn’t know how even to begin to explain. ‘Why does it bother you?’ he demanded, his voice harsh now. ‘It’s not as if any of the Correttis have ever done you a good turn, Lucia. Or as if you cared about them—did you?’ His voice hardened in suspicion, and Lucia turned to him slowly.

‘What are you saying?’ she asked in a low voice.

‘Why are you so defensive of the Correttis?’ Angelo challenged. ‘Did one of my half-brothers offer some comfort while I was away—maybe you wanted to be with a real Corretti—’

Lucia didn’t think. She just reacted, reaching out and slapping Angelo hard across the face. He blinked, and she watched an angry red handprint bloom across his cheek.

He reached up with one hand and touched his cheek, his expression one of cold disbelief. Lucia held her breath. She didn’t regret slapping him, not one bit, but she regretted everything else. This whole evening. This argument. The man he’d become.

Angelo held his hand up to his cheek, his expression coldly remote, and Lucia stared back, her chest heaving. Then his face crumpled and he covered it with both his hands as he let out a shuddering breath.

‘Dio, I’m sorry,’ he said, the words coming out on a half-groan. ‘How could I say such a thing to you? I didn’t believe it for a moment.’ He dropped his hands and looked at her with such aching bleakness that Lucia suddenly felt near tears herself. ‘Forgive me, Lucia. Forgive me for everything. I’m such a bastard—a true bastard, and not just one by birth. I’ve treated you terribly. I always have.’ He drew in a ragged breath. ‘I can’t do this.’

She reached out and cupped his cheek, the one still red from her slap. ‘You are doing it, Angelo. Just saying that is more than you’ve ever done before.’

He grimaced. ‘That’s not saying very much.’

‘Still.’ She tried to smile. ‘It’s something.’

Angelo stared at her, his eyes glittering, his chest heaving with ragged breaths. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ he said suddenly. ‘Out of Sicily. Being back here—it makes me someone I don’t want to be. Let me take you somewhere, Lucia—somewhere you’ve never been, away from all of this. Just for a little while.’

‘But my—’ She stopped, because she could not mistake the desperation in Angelo’s voice. She knew, in her own way, she’d been as stubborn as he was, refusing his gifts, refusing to change or even give an inch of her life over to this man. But maybe now they both needed compromise. Escape.

‘Please, Lucia.’

She smiled again and slowly leaned forward to kiss his lips. ‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘Let’s escape.’