Together, she and Luca settled Ethan into the seat beside hers, reclining it before tucking a blanket around him and then fastening the seat belt over the top. She kissed his forehead and stroked her fingertips through his hair. Within minutes he was asleep again, despite the juddering of the plane each time they hit another turbulent pocket of air.
Settling back in her own seat, she picked up a magazine and leafed through it. The words were a blur and even the pictures were difficult to focus on, but it was better than resuming her conversation with Luca, which had got too close to things she didn’t like talking about.
Would he think her capable of being a good mother if he knew she’d barely spoken with her own in the last few years? Not that he was in any position to judge. By his own account, he hadn’t spoken with his father in the five years before Franco Cavallari had died. But for all her sins, Rachel Sinclair could hardly be compared to the likes of Luca’s father. She wasn’t inherently bad. She was simply self-absorbed, incapable of seeing beyond the scope of her own needs and desires, too emotionally needy and lacking in courage to believe she could ever stand on her own two feet without a man propping her up. Invariably, it was her insecurities that drove men away.
Annah doubted her mother would ever possess enough self-awareness to alter her behaviour, but at least Annah had learned from her mother’s mistakes. She would never be weak and needy, incapable of looking after herself and her child.
As for divulging the fact that her father was some random guy her mother had slept with after a drunken party when she was eighteen... No. She couldn’t bear to share that mortifying bit of information. Not when it was the one mistake of her mother’s she hadn’t avoided making herself. And to think she had once felt superior on that front. Had sat on her lofty moral high ground and looked down upon her mother’s behaviour with disgust and scorn. Rachel Sinclair hadn’t even made it out of her teens without getting pregnant, while Annah had reached the age of twenty-two with her virginity and her self-respect intact.
And then she’d met Luca and taken a spectacular and rather humbling tumble off her self-appointed pedestal.
To give credit where it was due, Rachel hadn’t said anything snide when she’d learnt of Annah’s pregnancy, but then she hadn’t said anything much at all aside from stressing that she wasn’t in a position to provide any support—which was laughable considering Annah hadn’t lived with her mother since she’d turned eighteen and had pretty much looked after herself since well before then.
No. Her mother hadn’t been there for her at all. It was Chloe and her family who’d helped her during her pregnancy and afterwards, on those rare occasions when necessity and the welfare of her child had demanded she swallow her pride and accept assistance.
She put the magazine down, having reached the end and absorbed not a single word, then picked up another from the pile the flight attendant had left.
She didn’t know where she’d be without Chloe, although she’d half hoped her friend would talk her out of taking Ethan to Sicily. After Annah had recounted the essential parts of her and Luca’s conversation, however, Chloe had chewed on her thumbnail and conceded that perhaps it wasn’t such a bad way forward if Annah wanted to avoid getting the authorities and a bunch of lawyers involved. She’d also assured Annah the boutique would survive without her for a week.
Turning the page of her magazine, Annah sneaked a look at Luca from under her lashes. He’d gone back to his laptop and his eyebrows were scrunched in concentration. Dressed in dark jeans and a pale blue shirt with the collar unbuttoned and the sleeves rolled up his forearms, he looked mouth-wateringly gorgeous.
She skimmed her gaze down his length, all the way to his Italian loafers and back up to the dark film of stubble coating his jaw.
Every part of him looked strong and toned and masculine. His thighs. His arms. His chest.
His chest.
She gripped the magazine and stared blindly at some travel article, her palms tingling as she recalled how that broad expanse of muscle had felt beneath her hands. She hadn’t stumbled against him on purpose, but once she was there she hadn’t wanted to step away.
And neither had he.
She’d felt it in the increased pressure of his hands on her hips. Seen it in the dark glitter of his eyes. Even through her clothing his fingers had left a burning imprint.
She’d wanted him to kiss her again like he had two nights ago at Fendalton Hall.
Heat pulsed between her thighs and she squirmed in her seat. She tried to think about something else and her mind landed on Luca’s revelation about his brother. Her heart surged again with sympathy.
She’d wondered how he’d died, but Luca’s expression had quickly grown shuttered and she hadn’t wanted to pry. And she couldn’t expect him to open up about his family when she wasn’t willing to do so herself.
Which left only one subject on which they could safely converse—their son—and those discussions weren’t going to be easy.
Stifling a sigh, she stopped sneaking looks at Luca and buried her nose deeper in the magazine.
It was going to be a very challenging week.
* * *
They landed in Palermo just before five p.m., by which time Ethan was wide awake and full of his usual vigour. Annah knelt on the floor to slip his shoes back on, glad to be on solid ground again.
‘Are we there?’ he asked.
Luca fielded the question from behind her. ‘Nearly. We’re going to ride in a car now for twenty minutes.’
Ethan huffed out a big sigh. ‘It’s a long way from our house to your house, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, but this next part is more interesting. We’ll drive past fishing villages and beaches. You’ll see more from the car than you did from the plane.’
Ethan’s eyes lit up. He looked at Annah. ‘Can we go to the beach, Mummy?’
She tugged a sweatshirt over his head. ‘Not today, sweetheart,’ she said, helping him work his arms into the sleeves. ‘It’s too late in the afternoon.’
His expression fell. He swung his gaze back to Luca as if hoping his father might offer a more favourable answer.
‘Your mother is right,’ Luca said. ‘But we can go tomorrow—if your mum agrees.’
Ethan brightened. He looked to Annah. ‘Can we, Mummy?’
‘Yes,’ she said, his irrepressible enthusiasm drawing a smile from her. ‘I don’t see why not.’ She pushed to her feet and, grateful that Luca hadn’t contradicted her in front of their son, sent him a quick smile. ‘Thanks.’
‘Of course,’ he said, his gaze lingering on hers until she looked away and busied herself with gathering up her and Ethan’s things.
After they disembarked, an immigration official checked their passports and then they crossed the tarmac and climbed into a big SUV with shiny black paintwork, tinted windows, and a plush leather interior complete with a child’s seat installed for Ethan. Mario, who must have sat in a different part of the plane because she’d scarcely seen him during the flight, rode up front beside the driver, while she, Luca, and Ethan travelled in the back, separated from the men by a dark glass privacy screen.
How the other half lives, she mused, the enormity of the chasm between her world and Luca’s starting to sink in.
A ripple of uneasiness moved through her. Ethan was too young right now to appreciate the perks of his father’s wealth, but what would happen as he grew older? At the tender age of four he loved puppies and ice cream and walks in the woods with his mummy. But in ten years things would be different. Her little boy would be a teenager, his interests more likely to run to fast cars, expensive tech, and pretty girls.
Would Luca buy his way into their son’s heart?
Jealousy fired a hot streak through her chest. What if Ethan decided one day that he’d rather live with his father? What then? If she let him go, she’d lose him. If she tr
ied to stop him, he’d resent her.
‘Look at the boats, Mummy!’
Sucking air into lungs gone painfully tight, she sidelined her thoughts and forced her attention on the scenery. They were passing through one of the fishing villages Luca had mentioned. To their left, pretty pastel-coloured houses huddled against the base of a limestone cliff. On the right, moored to an old stone jetty, a dozen or so small boats rocked gently on the sea, their wooden hulls painted in colourful combinations of blue, white, orange, and green.
Luca was right. The scenery was picturesque—and too lovely to ignore.
After another few minutes they left the coastal road and travelled inland through sun-dappled pine woods and then acres of open countryside. A couple of miles in, the driver turned off the road and stopped before a heavy wrought-iron security gate flanked by a six-foot-high stone wall that ran in both directions as far as she could see.
On the wall, black cast-iron letters spelt out ‘Tenuta Cavallari.’ Cavallari Estate.
The driver reached his arm out and punched a code into a keypad affixed to a freestanding stone column.
And then they were moving again, the vehicle picking up speed as they travelled along a sealed road through a lush landscape of meadows, orchards, and olive groves.
Annah tried not to let her eyes pop.
Or her mouth gape.
She eyed the long, perfectly straight rows of grapevines on the hills out to the east. ‘Do you make wine to sell commercially?’ she asked, swivelling her gaze to meet Luca’s over the top of Ethan’s head.
‘Yes. We export mainly within the EU, plus a small amount to North America. Our chief winemaker has worked for the family for over thirty years.’ He indicated the extensive olive groves on the other side of the valley. ‘We export our olive oils, too.’
Although Annah preferred not to think about her visit to the Cavallari Enterprises offices in London, she cast her mind back and tried to recall what the company specialised in. ‘Isn’t the company’s main business transportation?’
‘Yes. And warehousing.’
‘So the olive oil and winemaking are just side businesses?’
‘They have been up until now. But I intend to expand both operations so they’re competitive with the largest producers on the island.’
She wondered if that was Luca’s way of stamping his mark on the family business. A deliberate move to take things in a different direction than his father had. She looked out across the valley. ‘Where’s the winery?’
‘On another part of the estate. It has its own access so people can buy direct from the cellar door at certain times of the year.’
She turned back to Luca. ‘I can imagine people falling over themselves to hold their wedding receptions or private functions in a setting like this,’ she said, enthusiasm creeping into her voice despite herself. ‘If you offered a venue as stunning as the surroundings, I’m sure you’d have a flood of interest.’
Luca raised his eyebrows. ‘My winery manager said something remarkably similar when he presented his expansion plan recently.’
Annah turned her gaze out the window again, picturing a romantic wedding with the vines and the green hills and olive groves as a backdrop.
Ironically, given she often worked with brides, she didn’t think of herself as romantic. Who had time for romance with a business to run and a child to raise single-handedly? That wasn’t to say she didn’t feel happy for her clients. She did. But a small, cynical part of her always wondered how long each marriage would last. If the couple’s love would be strong enough to weather the inevitable storms of life. Her mother seemed to fall in and out of love at the drop of a hat, although Annah suspected it wasn’t so much the man but the illusion of security and the thrill of being wanted that Rachel Sinclair fell in love with.
Annah’s cynical outlook on relationships horrified Chloe, but Chloe was lucky. She had amazing parents who still adored each other after thirty years of marriage. An older brother blissfully married to his high school sweetheart, their third child on the way.
It was easy to believe in happily-ever-after when you grew up surrounded by it.
Not so easy when your mother was an incurable relationship junkie.
The SUV crested another rise and a stone wall similar to the one at the estate’s perimeter came into view. Annah craned her neck and saw another wrought-iron gate ahead, this one more decorative than the last. It slid open as they approached, and she glimpsed a man on the other side. She peered at him through the window, tension creeping down her spine. Was he wearing a shoulder holster with a gun?
The SUV stopped and the man braced his hands on its roof and ducked his head to speak with Mario. Annah’s chest tightened. She hadn’t imagined it; tucked against the man’s side under his left arm, secured in a leather holster, was a handgun.
A chill swept through her body.
The estate is perfectly safe. Wasn’t that what Luca had told her? Or, if not those exact words, something to that effect?
If it was safe, why was it guarded by armed men?
A gut-churning mix of anxiety and anger turned her body hot and then cold again. She clenched her hands and jammed them under her arms to hide their trembling. She dared not look at Luca in case fury showed on her face and Ethan witnessed it.
The SUV moved again, climbing a long driveway lined with tall cypress trees before stopping in a gravelled courtyard in front of a huge villa.
Annah threw off her seat belt and unbuckled Ethan. She sensed Luca trying to catch her eye but ignored him. Mario opened her door. She climbed out and turned to reach for Ethan, but he was already scrambling out unaided. And then Luca was beside her, his hand brushing the small of her back to guide her forward. Anger and a sizzling awareness of his touch had her spine stiffening. Avoiding his probing gaze, she took hold of Ethan’s hand, anchoring herself with the familiar feel of her son’s little fingers tucked within hers.
At the villa’s entrance stood an older man in a smart suit and two women in domestic uniforms.
‘Annah, this is Victor,’ Luca said smoothly. ‘Our butler and the head of the household staff.’
Victor gave her a pleasant smile and she wondered if he was packing a gun beneath his pinstriped suit. He extended his hand. ‘Welcome, Miss Sinclair.’
Stretching her mouth into something she hoped resembled a smile, Annah shook his hand and managed a polite, ‘Thank you.’
Victor’s attention turned to Ethan and for a moment the man’s expression was utterly arrested. He quietly cleared his throat and leaned down. ‘And this must be Master Ethan.’
Ethan slipped his hand from Annah’s and stuck it out. ‘It’s just Ethan,’ he told the butler, drawing looks of amusement from the adults around him. Even the stern expression worn by the older of the two women softened.
‘Just Ethan it is.’ Victor’s eyes twinkled, but his tone indulged rather than mocked, and it occurred to Annah that everyone here knew who Ethan was. That he was their employer’s son—a Cavallari regardless of what surname he bore—and, as such, would be afforded a certain level of respect.
Victor straightened, then introduced the women. The elder of the two was the housekeeper, Gabriela, who confined her greeting to a courteous dip of her head. The younger woman, Celeste, had a nervous smile but, like Victor, a good grasp of English.
Victor said, ‘Celeste will be your personal maid while you’re here.’
Annah couldn’t imagine why she’d need a personal maid but, not wanting to offend the girl, she kept the thought to herself.
‘Where is my mother?’ asked Luca.
‘She is unwell,’ Victor said. ‘A headache.’ He sent Annah a look of apology. ‘Signora Cavallari asked me to express her regret that she is unable to greet you. She looks forward to meeting you when she is feeling better.’ He looked at Luca. ‘I am afraid she
will not be dining with you this evening.’
Luca’s expression tightened. ‘Very well.’ He turned to Annah. ‘Celeste will get you and Ethan settled into your rooms. What time does Ethan have his evening meal?’
‘Soon.’
He checked his watch. ‘I need to do a couple of hours’ work.’ His gaze lifted to hers. ‘Will you join me for supper once Ethan’s asleep?’
A churlish part of her wanted to say no. To cry off with a headache like his mother had. Or tell him she simply wasn’t in the mood for his company. But she was conscious of his staff listening to their exchange. She nodded. ‘Fine.’
His features relaxed a fraction. ‘Good. In the meantime, let Celeste know if you need anything. If you’d like something specific prepared for Ethan’s meal, tell Celeste and she’ll instruct—’ His gaze darted to a point beyond her shoulder. ‘Ethan!’
Luca’s shout made Annah jump. Heart catapulting into her throat, she swung around. Ethan was frozen in the act of walking towards a large Doberman, his arm raised as if to pat the dog’s head. That the Doberman was on a leash and restrained by a guard, who was already moving to place himself between Ethan and the animal, didn’t lessen Annah’s alarm.
She rushed over and scooped Ethan up. His bottom lip quivered. ‘It’s all right, sweetheart.’ She propped him on her hip, hoping he couldn’t feel her heart pounding furiously against her chest. ‘You’re not in trouble. We just don’t want you to touch the dog. It’s a working dog, not a pet.’ She threw Luca a dark look, strode past him, and spoke to Celeste. ‘Would you please show us to our rooms now?’
The girl’s eyes flicked nervously to Luca and then back to Annah. ‘Sì. Of course.’
She felt the weight of Luca’s gaze pressing on her back like a hot hand as she followed Celeste into the villa. She gritted her teeth against the tingling that raced up her spine. How could her body react when he wasn’t even touching her? She was too aware of him. Too distracted by the sensations he stirred within her. Why else had she lowered her guard enough to let him talk her into bringing Ethan here?
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