by Donna Alward
“It will have to wait.”
Mari heard Luca speaking into the telephone. His eyes remained fixed on her and she tried tucking the hair that had come loose back behind her ears. She must look a fright. His voice came again. “I’m sorry, but I’m in the middle of something more important right now. You’ll have to take care of it. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
He hung up the phone and came back, sitting on the table again and taking her hands in his. “I’m sorry about that.”
She was still trying to absorb the fact that he’d put off whoever it was to look after her. “If you need to go, it’s fine. I’ll be okay.”
“You’re not okay. And it can wait. Right now looking after you is my priority.”
Never, not once in her life had anyone said those words to her. Never had anyone put her first. But Luca—driven, workaholic Luca—had just put off whoever had been on the other end of that call. She licked her lips, unsure of where to start.
“Today I forgot all the things I learned from counseling and only felt the fear, the responsibility. If only I’d done something differently it wouldn’t have happened. I…” She swallowed, having difficulty going on. “Oh, Luca, I thought I was far beyond that. I worked so hard and all of a sudden it was like no time had passed at all. And then you were there. I was so glad to see you.”
“He put his hands on you. I couldn’t allow that.” He lifted his other hand and grazed her cheek with his fingers.
“In that moment I was trapped, back seven years ago. That day…” Her voice faded away for a moment. It was all in the police report. It was in her medical files after she’d gone through intensive counseling. But she’d never willingly offered it to someone who hadn’t been paid to hear it.
“What happened that day, Mariella?”
His voice encouraged her, invited her. After all he’d done, telling him seemed the next logical, if difficult step.
“I had moved out, and felt torn because on one hand I had left my mum behind. On the other I was away and safe. Mum had called and had said she was finally leaving him.” Mari realized her eyes were bone-dry; she must have cried herself out earlier. She remembered being so relieved, so happy that her mum was getting away. Happy at the thought that maybe, just maybe, they could start building a relationship. “I said I’d come and help. But when I arrived, he’d gotten there first. Caught her packing her bags and when I found her she was bleeding, unconscious on the floor, with a broken arm and a cracked skull. Her clothes were strewn everywhere, slashed to ribbons.”
“Dio Mio.” Luca’s low exclamation drew her out of the memory.
“It happens, Luca, far more often than it should.”
She put her other hand over his. Telling him was sapping her strength but it needed to be said. Perhaps she could finally be free of it. Perhaps with Luca beside her, she’d stop blaming herself. Perhaps Robert would lose his power over her for good.
“He found me there, grabbing the phone to call the police. He ripped it from my hand and started in on me. By the time it was over, my mum was still unconscious and I had a concussion, broken ribs and internal injuries from where he—” Her voice broke a little. “From where he kicked me over and over. He left us there, Luca. Left us to die. But the postman noticed bloody handprints on the front door and the stair railing. He called the police and the rest is history.”
“Only it’s not history.” He gently tipped up her chin with a finger. “Nothing like that can ever completely go away, can it. Oh, Mari.” He lifted her hands to his lips and kissed the backs, his eyes closing. She stared at the way his lashes lay on his cheeks, the tender way he cradled her fingers. Where had he come from? How was it that he was here, exactly what she needed, at exactly the time she needed him?
“I am so sorry. No one should ever go through something like that.” He whispered the words against her fingertips.
And then he leaned forward and touched his lips to hers.
She went into his embrace willingly, their knees pressed together between the sofa and table. He was strong, and somehow a barrier between her and the ugliness of her past. When she was with him she was the Mariella she’d always wanted to be, free of the hold Robert Langston had held over her for so many years.
The kiss was soft, tentative, sweet. She hadn’t known he was capable of sweet.
She hadn’t known she was capable of love, but here it was. She loved Luca. And being completely out of her depth, she had no idea what to do about it.
“And now he’s out of prison…are you afraid he’ll come after you? What about your mum?”
His voice drew her back into the present. “The authorities keep me up-to-date while he’s on probation. Of course I think of it, and wonder if he hates me for my part in sending him to jail. But I can’t let myself think of it too much or it becomes overwhelming. I spent too many years looking over my shoulder. And it’s not one of those things you ever really get used to.”
“And what about your mother?”
Mari shook her head. “I don’t speak to my mum that often…there seems to be a wall between us now. I don’t even know where she’s living. I…” Mari cleared her throat. “A part of me still wonders how she could have let it happen. How she could have stayed with a man who beat her. Who beat me. Why didn’t she try to get out?”
She looked up at Luca. “What kind of mother hurts her own child that way? What kind of mother doesn’t put the welfare of her child ahead of everything? There have been times I’ve thought about the home I want, the children I might have someday. Could I put them through that? I know I couldn’t. I’ve tried to understand it, but I just can’t. The only thing I can come up with is that she was too afraid to do anything else.”
Luca shook his head. “I don’t know, either. I barely remember my mother myself.”
“You said she left you and Gina. That must have been difficult.”
“I only remember feeling like we never mattered.” Mari’s eyes widened at the loathing in his tone. “She left us when I was a boy. My dad raised Gina and me.”
He stood up and walked over to the window.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured, “That must have been horrible for you. Did your dad ever remarry?”
He cleared his throat. “It’s not important, Mari. It was a long time ago. And it was nothing compared to what you went through. Nothing.”
He spoke with such vehemence that she knew he was hiding his own hurts.
And for a moment, she forgot about herself and wondered about the boy he’d been, and how he’d suffered in his own way. Perhaps that silver spoon he’d been born with didn’t gleam as brightly as she’d thought. How she wished she could help him as he’d helped her today.
How had this happened?
She’d fallen in love with Luca Fiori, and it was the one sure thing to break her heart. Luca cared for her, yes. She knew that. But love? By his own admission, Luca didn’t do love.
She had to take a step back. This baring of souls—well hers, anyway—was all well and good, but even she wasn’t fool enough to believe there was a happy ending in all of it. Luca didn’t live here. He didn’t belong here. He belonged at his villa in Italy with his family and the Fiori empire and what was happening between them now was a blip in their lives. Necessary, perhaps, but still temporary. How could she tell him her true feelings?
She stared at his back, trying to puzzle it out but not getting very far. Perhaps she was just raw from everything that had happened. What if these feelings were just a byproduct of a process she should have gone through years ago? It would be foolish to make this into more than it was, and Mari was smart enough to know her perspective was skewed.
“You’re categorizing.”
Luca’s voice reached her. He hadn’t turned back around, but stared out into the growing darkness.
“I can practically hear your mind working, Mari. Please don’t. Just let things be.”
Mari rose and went to the window, standing behind him. She
wasn’t sure anything would be the right move, so she simply did what she felt like: she put her arms around his body and pressed her cheek into the warmth of his back.
Luca swallowed against the lump that had formed in his throat. Anything he’d gone through as a child was nothing, nothing compared to the hell that Mari had experienced. He tried to picture her on a floor, battered and bruised, and couldn’t. It seemed too wrong, too horrific. What sort of man did that to another human being? To a woman he was supposed to love?
And yet, here she was, somehow comforting him.
“It’s snowing,” he murmured. Soft flakes fluttered past the balcony railing, settling on the ground in intricate patterns. He was reminded of his grandmother’s lace and wondered what she’d think of this mess he’d got himself into.
Why was it that people hurt the ones they were supposed to love? He knew he couldn’t let Mari do this alone, yet it brought back memories he hated, ones of comforting Gina when their mother had abandoned the family. Nonna had always been there to help. What would she say now, if she could be here?
He knew exactly what she’d say and he didn’t like the answer. She’d tell him to stop holding a grudge and forgive.
Mari sighed against his back and he closed his eyes. What a day they’d had. He was glad now that he had handled Reilly the way he had. If this was what Mari was carrying deep inside, a physical response would have only frightened her more.
Today he’d thought only of Mari. And that wasn’t good.
Mari did not need a man like him. She needed someone she could rely on. Someone who could give her stability and security and make a home with her. She’d even mentioned it, the longing for a home and children. That wasn’t his life, it never had been. He’d always been the Fiori heir, the one everyone assumed would step into his father’s shoes one day. And he kept fighting against it.
He looked at the reflection of the suite in the glass doors. There was nothing personal here, no pictures, no trinkets, nothing to make it a home and that was how he lived his life. It was what it was. It was the world he inhabited.
He’d forget about her, eventually.
But with her arms around him, the only thing he wanted to do was lift her in his arms and hold on.
And he’d come as close to admitting his feelings as he ever would.
“Stay tonight, Mari.”
Her head lifted from his back and it felt cold where it had been warm a second ago.
“Luca, I…”
“Not in my bed.” For once in his life this had nothing to do with sex. He turned, wanting her to understand how he couldn’t say the words. “Just…stay. I’d only worry about you if you went home. You can have the bed. I’ll sleep on the sofa.”
“What you did for me today, Luca, no one’s ever done anything like that for me before. I can’t impose on you further.”
“You’re not imposing.”
For a long moment their gazes clung. Words hung unspoken.
“Wait here.”
He disappeared into the bedroom and returned with a T-shirt. “I don’t have pyjamas to lend you.”
She took the T-shirt. “Thank you.”
She disappeared into his room, and he heard the bathroom door shut behind her. When he didn’t hear anything after several minutes, he decided he should check on her.
She was in his bed, the duvet pulled up to her chin. Her blotchy cheeks were relaxed and her eyelashes were smudges against her cheeks. She’d fallen asleep before he could even ask if she was hungry.
He’d let her sleep. And when she woke he’d make sure she was all right.
And then, somehow, he’d find a way out of this mess.
Mari woke to sunlight filtering through the bedroom window. Pushing her hair out of her face, she realized she was in Luca’s bed, the smell of his cosmetics faint in the sheets and sounds of him tinkering in the suite filtering through.
She’d spent the night. And she hadn’t given a thought to going home or to Tommy…she could only hope he’d used the dog door on the porch.
Mari checked her watch: 9:00 a.m. Oh my God. She’d slept straight through, with none of the nightmares that had haunted her lately. Any lingering thoughts were crowded out by the knowledge that full-day staff were in the hotel and she only had yesterday’s clothes to dress in. She should have used her head last night.
But nothing about yesterday had been about logic or sense.
“Good morning,” Luca said from the doorway to the bedroom.
She scrambled up to a seated position. “Luca, I’m so sorry. I slept…”
“Here all night,” he finished, a smile on his lips. His elbow leaned casually against the door frame. “Slept nearly fifteen hours.”
“I must have been more tired than I realized.” He was acting like this was normal, for Pete’s sake! And seeing him brought back everything that had happened yesterday with a vengeance. Including kissing him, crying on him, realizing she loved him…
And in the silence she felt a blush creep up her neck and bloom in her cheeks. Somehow she had to get out of this situation with a modicum of grace. In the bright light of day it was clearer than ever that revealing her true feelings would be a mistake. She just needed time to figure out exactly what was what.
“I think that sleep might have been a long time coming,” he replied lazily.
A knock sounded at the door. Mari lifted her eyebrows in his direction. He merely shrugged.
“You grew restless a while ago. I ordered up breakfast. You must be starving…you didn’t have any dinner.”
He opened the door while Mari hastily pulled on her clothes, jamming her hair back into the clip she’d worn yesterday. As she came out of the bedroom, one of their staff wheeled in a cart adorned with silver domed trays.
“Thank you, Geoff.” Luca handed a bill to the server who nodded, then smiled in Mari’s direction.
Mari frowned as the door shut with a quiet click. “I don’t want this getting around the staff. What are they going to think of me up here in your suite?”
“You’ve been here before.”
“Not looking like this. Not coming out of your bedroom.”
Luca moved the cart closer to the dining table. “Don’t worry, I’m used to it. It always blows over.”
Mari’s mouth clamped shut. Luca was used to these situations. She was not. If he was trying to put the morning in perspective, he was doing a stand-up job.
“I’m sorry about yesterday. I shouldn’t have unloaded on you.” She felt obligated to apologize. Suddenly there seemed to be a new awkwardness between them. Now that it was over and done with, perhaps he was feeling embarrassed at being privy to all her secrets. She couldn’t say she blamed him.
A shadow crossed his features.
“It’s fine. It’s good that you did. I imagine it feels better to have it out. I understand, Mari, I really do.”
Why was he acting so differently? Yesterday he’d held her hand and she’d told him her deepest troubles. He’d leaped to her defense and he’d held her in his arms as she’d cried. Now…God, now he was treating her like she was one of his flings. One of the women he kept on his arm.
Her mouth soured. She’d thought she’d been right to put her trust in him, but his casual treatment of her this morning was a letdown. She’d wanted to mean more to him. Which was silly because she already knew in her heart they had no future. He’d come right out and said so. He didn’t do love.
“Come, eat. You must be starving.”
“I need to go home and change.” Mari stood and smoothed her slacks.
“There’s no need. I had some things sent up from the boutique. You’re welcome to use the shower here.”
Mari gritted her teeth.
He was treating her like…like nothing monumental had ever happened between them! He was taking charge and deciding what she’d do and when. And damn it, she was done being on anyone’s timetable!
He lifted the lid on a platter. The smell of Fren
ch toast reached her nostrils, the tantalizing scent of vanilla and cinnamon and maple. Her stomach growled. In all the uproar, she hadn’t eaten last night. It would serve him right if she sat and ate the whole serving!
“I would have thought that privilege was one reserved for your affairs,” she remarked caustically, putting her hands in her pockets and clenching her fingers tightly.
She’d told him everything last night, everything about Robert and her fears and today he treated her as a polite stranger. There was only one explanation.
It had been too much. Her baggage was too much for him and it had been foolish to think that Luca could handle it. As much as she’d wanted to believe in him, she’d expected far more than he could give. She wasn’t sophisticated and uncomplicated. She was a mess and he was politely backing away.
She could hardly hate him for it. Even if his cool treatment of her this morning stung. She longed to simply flee, but somehow she knew she had to handle this with some sort of dignity and composure. It would only be more awkward later if she ran out. They still had to work together for the time remaining in the renovations.
Luca ignored the voice inside that told him to knock it off. He looked at Mari and could only see her face last night as she told him about her stepfather. He’d had to help her. He’d wanted to.
But now, in the bright light of day, he needed to step back. This felt too much like a relationship and he wasn’t prepared. The last time he’d been involved with a woman deeper than a dating level, he’d let it interfere with work, too. He’d fallen for Ellie, had trusted her. He’d told her that he loved her. Only that time he’d discovered it wasn’t him she wanted at all, but his Fiori connection. The Fiori name almost seemed a curse to love, and he wasn’t willing to put his heart out there again.
So these feelings for Mari weren’t supposed to have happened at all. Their kisses shouldn’t have happened. His eyes remained cool even though he knew she was right. This was exactly what he would have done for a woman the morning after, and the truth of it stung. “That’s a bit low.”
