‘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 directio
ns, 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.
What a Sicilian Husband Wants Page 2
