by Amy Andrews
Yes, he wanted her. But that was different from love. And, faced with her own mortality, nothing less would do.
She sighed again. ‘Just being realistic.’
Luca shook his head. ‘We’re in a stable position. Air Control has our ELT signal. We just need to wait out the weather and then they’ll get us out of here as soon as they can.’
Mia nodded. Listening to the sure, steady note in his voice, she believed him. ‘I know.’
They finished their chocolate serenaded by the moaning wind and the rhythmic beeping of the monitor. Luca shut his eyes briefly and let his head flop back against the headrest. The fine crinkle of the space blanket sounded like crickets chirping as he shifted to get comfortable, stretching his long legs out into the confined space.
His legs brushed hers and he lifted his head. ‘Sorry.’ He grimaced as he shifted them slightly to one side.
‘It’s fine,’ she murmured.
Their gazes locked and for the longest moment they just sat and watched each other. Luca was the first to break the connection.
‘So…you’ve never seen Swan Lake?’
Mia didn’t say anything for a minute. Then she just shook her head. ‘Have you?’
He nodded. ‘My grandmother adored things like that. Opera was her first love but she enjoyed ballet too. And she insisted we all be well versed.’ He smiled at the memory. ‘She took me and my sisters to Rome when I was twelve because it was playing at the Teatro dell’Opera.’
Mia remembered he’d mentioned having sisters before. She heard the affection in his voice and felt a corresponding ache of longing deep inside. Her life had been far from family outings to the opera and ballet.
‘You have three sisters, right?’
‘Yes.’ He toyed with leaving it at that but was surprised by the urge to confess all. ‘And a brother.’
His accent thickened and Mia heard the regret in every syllable. He’d mentioned he’d been ostracised and she could hear the pain in every husky nuance. How terrible to have lost an entire extended family. Two people had been hard enough.
‘What happened, Luca?’
She’d told him she hadn’t wanted to know. And she hadn’t. But that was before feeling the power of a love so deep that, even now, despite its newness, it was nestling in to her bones, bedding in for the long haul.
Now she wanted to know everything about him.
She wanted to know it all.
Luca hesitated at her soft enquiry, knowing the answer involved a trip down memory lane. And he’d just flown halfway round the world to come back from there. But somehow, with his recent trip back to the scene of the crime and the potentially dire situation they were in, it didn’t seem so confronting.
In fact, it seemed kind of cathartic.
And in this strange metal cocoon, perched in the treetops of an ancient forest, it seemed as if they were the only two people in the entire world. Despite the beeping of Brian’s monitor, the occasional staccato chatter from the radio and the ever-present potential for disaster, the atmosphere was intimate.
Maybe it was the rain—the whole dark, stormy night thing—but somehow the mood was conducive to confidences and deep dark secrets.
And it was Mia. The one woman he instinctively knew would understand. But where did he start?
CHAPTER TEN
MIA watched and waited. She could see Luca was grappling with some demons and she held her breath, hoping like crazy he’d open up to her.
‘I fell in love for the first time…’ Luca paused. ‘The only time…when I was sixteen.’
Mia steeled herself against the jab to her chest. He seemed so definite. So absolute.
He snorted. ‘At least, I thought I had. I think lust or infatuation is probably more appropriate when I think about it now.’
Mia tried to ignore how the spike of jealousy hurt. It was an ancient love affair, for crying out loud!
‘She must have been a hell of a girl,’ she said, forcing lightness to her tone, and turned to look out the window because she couldn’t bear to see what love looked like in his eyes. Not when it was for another woman.
He nodded. ‘Oh, yes. Her family was an old, important family in Sicily and our two families had had a deep and abiding friendship for generations. She was promised to my brother.’
Mia’s gaze snapped back to his. ‘Promised? Like an arranged marriage?’
Luca smiled at her shock. ‘Yes, Mia. An arranged marriage. This is Sicily where the old ways still rule.’
Mia blinked at the strange concept. ‘But…you fell in love with her instead?’
Luca shook his head. ‘As well.’
Oh. Mia felt goose-bumps on her arms as if the wind had found its way in again and blown right up beneath the blanket. There was nothing as heart-wrenching as brother against brother. She hunched into the space blanket a little more with a corresponding ruffle. ‘Ah.’
Luca gave a grim nod. ‘Yes. Ah.’
She quirked an eyebrow. ‘Were there pistols at dawn?’ she joked.
Luca gave a half-smile. ‘No. That might have been quicker.’
Mia sobered. ‘It was bad.’ She wasn’t sure if it was a question or a statement.
Luca nodded. ‘Marissa and Carlos had a tempestuous relationship. He was twenty-three and she was eighteen when the engagement became official. He worked in Rome and was away frequently so Marissa and I hung out a lot. And when they were together they argued frequently then made up again. I think they both loved the drama of it all. And I…’
Luca paused as he remembered how love-struck he’d been. ‘I watched like a desperate puppy from the sidelines. And when she came to me and said that they were done and that it was me she’d wanted all along…I didn’t question her motives. It didn’t occur to me that she would be disingenuous. That I was some pawn to make Carlos jealous.’
Luca shook his head. What a fool he’d been for Marissa. What a stupid, naive fool. He glanced at Mia and marvelled at how little it suddenly seemed to matter.
‘And then Marissa got pregnant and she told Carlos, who she apparently was still seeing, that the baby was mine. She told me it was his and the families came to loggerheads…’ Luca shrugged. ‘It was like the Capulets and the Montagues times one thousand.’
Mia couldn’t really laugh at the joke. She could sense Luca was just skimming the surface and could only begin to imagine the repercussions.
‘So who was the father?’
Luca shrugged. ‘She miscarried and it became a moot point.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Mia murmured. ‘That must have been hard for you. Losing a baby at any stage is difficult.’ She’d been ten when her brand-new baby sister had been stillborn and that had been truly awful. ‘And you were so young.’
Luca was momentarily taken aback. His family had been too angry at the time to acknowledge the emotional impact on him, let alone support him through it. Until today his grandmother had been the only person who had understood how much grief the incident had caused him.
He nodded then paused for a moment to pick up the thread of his story. ‘A massive rift developed between the two families and it was only Marissa and Carlos’s engagement that kept them together. I became the scapegoat.’
Mia felt his pain right down to her toes. And finally she understood his compassion with Stan that first night, a man who’d loved a woman that hadn’t been faithful.
‘But…surely your parents, your sisters…? They’re your family…they’re supposed to love you. No matter what.’
Even as she said it she felt a fraud—her parents had certainly forgotten all about what they were supposed to do, bogged down in the quagmire of their grief and anger.
Luca shook his head. ‘Sicilians don’t forgive very easily and I learned right then and there that love is no guarantee of anything. That any relationship, no matter how strong, can go toxic. I was sent to live with my grandmother in Palermo and as soon as I was out of school I left and didn’t go back.’
&
nbsp; ‘Until this week.’
Luca nodded. ‘Until this week.’
‘Was it hard…seeing them again? Your brother. And Marissa?’ Luca shook his head. It had been a relief. Seeing Carlos and Marissa together no longer hurt. ‘No.’ Mia wished he’d elaborate. Was he still in love with her? But she shied from asking it, too frightened of the answer.
‘Was there any mellowing?’
He shook his head. ‘I was pretty much persona non grata.’
An almighty gust of wind seemed to shake the helicopter and her anger swirled inside the cabin with as much potency. ‘That’s not fair.’
Luca shrugged, looking out the window. ‘Life’s not fair. But I’m very pleased, very grateful to you, that I went. That I got to say my goodbye. Nonna anchored me during a very turbulent period in my life. To my shame, I don’t think I appreciated that till many years later. I was angry for such a long time.’
Mia watched his brooding profile as he seemed transfixed by rain spatter patterns. ‘I’m sure she knew.’
Luca nodded. ‘I hope so.’ He sat staring out at the inclement abyss for a moment before turning to her and saying, ‘I’ve never told anybody this. I’m not really sure why I’m telling it to you.’
All he knew was how right it felt.
Mia gave a small smile. No matter what, she did not want to read too much into such an admission. People were never the same on holiday or just before plunging to their deaths in a helicopter.
It was practically an unwritten law. ‘It’s okay. Near-death experiences tend to encourage confidences.’
Luca chuckled. ‘Maybe you’re right.’ He sobered before pinning her with a speculative stare. ‘Your turn. What makes Dr Mia McKenzie tick?’
He knew there were things, deep-seated things, that made her the wonderful, non-cuddly woman he’d come to think of as naturally as he inhaled and exhaled.
It was Mia’s turn to look out the window as his question made her squirm. She wasn’t so sure she wanted a man who thought every relationship had potential for toxicity to know her deepest, darkest stuff.
‘Same things as everyone else, I guess,’ she hedged.
Luca watched her avoid his gaze. Right…so this wasn’t going to come easy. But he was suddenly desperate to know what made her the woman she was. Why she didn’t stay the night. Why she didn’t cuddle.
Why she was looking anywhere but at him.
‘Okay. Let’s start with an easier question. Why did you become a doctor?’
Mia barely suppressed a snort. How could he know the answer to that question was about as entwined with her baggage as was possible? She glared at him. ‘Why did you become a doctor?’
‘A child nearly drowned in a lake near where my grandmother lived when I was a teenager. I helped revive her. I knew then and there I wanted to be a doctor.’
Of course. Trust Luca to have an answer. She only wished hers was as cut and dried.
Luca leaned forward in his chair, placing his elbows on his knees, and the foil crinkled. ‘Come on, Mia. I told you mine.’
The beeps of the monitor seemed to mock her every thought. Oh, what the hell…
She glanced out the window again. ‘My mother had a baby. A stillborn baby, when I was ten.’
Mia didn’t want to be sucked back to that time but here, in the darkness, surrounded by the fury of mother nature, it seemed impossible not to be. ‘One minute I was going to have a baby sister to dote on. The next minute she was gone. The doctors were so good. Kind and compassionate. Not just to Mum but to me too. I guess I made up my mind then.’
Luca watched her as she stared intently out the window as if the meaning of life was lurking in the treetops. ‘That must have been a hard time in your life. Your parents must have been devastated.’
Mia snorted. ‘You could say things were never quite the same again.’
Luca frowned. ‘They didn’t make it?’
Mia shook her head. ‘My father walked out a few weeks later and found himself another family. My mother took to our couch and zoned out for the rest of my life. Last time I checked, she was still there.’
Things suddenly became much clearer for Luca. The most important man in her life had deserted her at an age and during a time when she’d needed him most. And her mother had been too grief-stricken to fill the gap.
‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured. ‘You were just a child. You didn’t deserve to be abandoned like that.’
Mia could almost feel the intensity of her ten-year-old pain as she stared out the window. She rolled her head to look at him. ‘I hated him for so long.’
Luca shrugged. ‘But of course. You needed him and he wasn’t there for you. Or your mother.’
Mia gave a harsh little laugh. ‘My mother.’ She shook her head. ‘My mother let me believe that he was the bad guy. That he’d found a better family. But she lied to me for years.’
‘Oh?’ Luca frowned.
‘I found my mother’s file when I was a med student working at The Harbour. The baby wasn’t my father’s.’
Mia rolled her head back to face the window. The find had been cataclysmic and still sucked her breath away.
‘I confronted her about it. She admitted that Dad walked out because he’d found out about the baby’s paternity. She didn’t defend herself or apologise for letting me think the worst of him. She just said that I didn’t understand what it was like to be married to a man who worked twenty-four seven.’
Luca watched as a range of emotions flitted across her face. Her emotional fragility after the Stan incident suddenly tightened into crystalline focus. It must have stirred up all those old childhood hurts.
‘Did you…did you contact your father…try and reconcile?’
Mia bit down on her lip—she would not cry. No matter how hard that particular part in the saga had been. No matter how polite and distant her father had been. He’d been hurt too deeply both by her mother and by her own refusal to have anything to do with him over the years.
‘I did. But it was too late…the damage had been done. And he had three little children who adored him. Frankly, I was a painful memory that he’d put away in a box somewhere.’
The rawness in her voice caught him somewhere right in the middle. His solar plexus. His heart? His family’s abandonment of him seemed to pale in comparison. At least he’d been older, more emotionally equipped to deal with it. ‘I’m sorry. That can’t have been a good time in your life. Especially when you were in the middle of your studies.’
Mia gave a little laugh. ‘You could say I went off the rails for a while there. A lot of booze and partying. A lot of hooking up with men who I always thought wanted more but were only out for casual sex. Which led to more drinking.’
Ah, so that’s what she’d been referring to when she’d told him she’d once liked alcohol a little too much. And maybe it also explained her reluctance to get involved in anything more than a one-nighter. Mia had taken firm control of her life.
‘You did well to stop the spiral,’ he commented. Mia nodded. Luca had chosen a good word. She had been spiralling. Into self-doubt and self-loathing. Each new man, each drink, had made her feel more and more sullied.
‘I failed a major exam. Had to resit it. It scared me silly. I suddenly realised that there was no point throwing away my future over a past I couldn’t change.’
Luca nodded. ‘Yes.’ It was a lesson he’d had to learn too. ‘It seems you and I have a lot in common.’
‘Oh?’ Mia quirked an eyebrow as she looked at him again. ‘You got all boozy and floozy too?’
Luca chuckled. ‘No. Well, no more than any other angry young man, I suppose. It took a while to realise that I couldn’t change what had happened. To accept that my family were never going to take me back. But once I did, it sort of freed me a little.’
Mia studied his face. ‘So that’s it, you’re totally Zen with the whole thing?’
Luca smiled. ‘No, not totally. Let’s just say I’m a work in progress.�
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Mia’s heart filled her chest as she smiled back. ‘Guess that makes two of us.’
They smiled at each other for a moment then Brian groaned. Mia checked his pulses as Luca administered another small dose of morphine. And when they sat back down again they settled into a companionable silence, each caught in their own thoughts.
Mia yawned. ‘We should get some sleep,’ Luca suggested.
She nodded. She wasn’t sure if it was the confession or the hour but she was suddenly bone-deep tired. And it seemed like the most natural thing in the world to shut her eyes as the man she loved shut his.
* * *
Mia wasn’t sure what time it was when she woke. Or even what had woken her. But watery daylight lit the inside of the chopper and there was a strange buzzing, crackling noise that she didn’t think was coming from the rustling of the space blanket.
She came fully awake as Luca leapt up, muttering, ‘The radio.’
And then it was all stations go. No time to feel embarrassed about spilling all their private, closely held secrets in the dark or to analyse what opening up to each other meant. To work out where they stood. Or even to retract them.
No time at all.
The weather had settled and the rescue chopper was fifteen minutes out.
Forty-five minutes later, Mia was harnessed to a rescue officer, dangling over the drizzly treetops, looking down at a wrecked helicopter and a calm, solid Luca. Her eyes filled with tears as her heart swelled so large and full it felt like it was going to burst from her chest.
He was everything she’d ever realised she needed. But he’d only ever loved one woman. And maybe he still did. He certainly thought that all relationships had the potential to go toxic.
Just her luck that when she finally fell in love it would be with someone as damaged as herself.
* * *
Luca awoke with a start, vaulting upright. It was dark and he was momentarily disorientated. He’d been dreaming about Mia dangling over a dark, swirling, freezing mist. About her screaming his name as her hand slid from his and she fell.
His heart pounded like a freight train as he realised he was in his room. He glanced at the clock—six-thirty.
