An Inheritance of Shame

chapter FIVE



ANGELO DROPPED HIS hands from her shoulders and stared at her utterly without expression, his body completely still. Lucia had no idea what he was thinking or feeling. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe he didn’t even care. He certainly wouldn’t grieve their daughter the way she had. He might not even believe her.

His gaze moved over her slowly, as if searching for answers, for weaknesses. ‘Are you saying,’ he asked in a voice devoid of expression, ‘that you became pregnant, after that night? That one time?’ She nodded. ‘You had a baby? A child?’ She nodded again, the words to explain stuck in her throat, jagged shards of memory and loss that cut open everything inside her. He continued to stare at her, hard, first in assessment, and then in acceptance.

She saw the emotions move over his face: first the shock, followed by a flash of anger, and then an understanding. And finally, the most unexpected emotion of all, an eager hope softening his features as his mouth half quirked into an incredulous, tremulous smile. ‘A boy,’ he asked hoarsely, ‘or a girl?’

Lucia closed her eyes against the agonising emotion so apparent on his face. She’d steeled herself for anger, accusations, maybe even disbelief. But hope? Happiness? They hurt so much more. ‘A girl,’ she whispered.

‘But where—where is she?’ She opened her eyes and saw Angelo looking around as if he expected a bright-eyed, curly-haired six-year-old to come bounding up to him with a smile. ‘What is her name?’

‘Angelica,’ Lucia whispered, the word tearing her throat, hurting her.

‘Angelica…’ She saw a smile dawn across Angelo’s face then disappear. His eyes narrowed, the hope fading from them. ‘Where is she, Lucia?’

She just shook her head, unable to speak, to tell him. ‘Where is she?’ he demanded, urgent now, rough. He took her by the shoulders again, stared at her hard, and through the mist of her own tears she saw the bleakness in his eyes, and she knew just as before he already knew.

‘She’s dead.’

She felt Angelo’s fingers clench on her shoulders before he released her and turned away. Neither of them spoke and Lucia drew a ragged breath into her lungs.

‘How?’ he finally asked tonelessly.

‘She—she was stillborn. At seven months. The cord was wrapped around her neck.’ She drew another breath, just as ragged. ‘She was perfect, Angelo.’

Angelo shook his head and made some small sound, his back to her, and she had the sudden urge to comfort him, just as she had many times before. Take him in her arms, draw his head to her shoulder. This time she didn’t move. It was too late for that. Far, far too late.

Slowly he turned back around, his face now wiped of any emotion or expression at all. Lucia remained still, everything in her aching. She wanted him to say something, do something, but he didn’t move or speak.

After an endless moment his gaze fell on the box of treasures she’d left on the sofa. Lucia made one involuntary move towards it, as if she could hide the evidence of her sentimentality. Angelo’s letter, the scrapbook they’d once pored over…

The lock of hair.

His gaze remained steadfastly on that little curl of sadness and then he lifted it to hers. ‘May I?’ he asked, and wordlessly she nodded.

She watched as Angelo took the silky bit of baby hair in his hand and ran its softness between his fingers. He didn’t say anything, and his head was lowered so Lucia couldn’t see his face.

‘Angelo…’ she whispered, although she had no idea what she would say. That she’d never forgotten him? That she’d held their daughter in her arms and grieved not just her precious child but the life she’d thought, for one blissful night, could be hers? That she’d loved him?

And loved him still.

Carefully Angelo returned the lock of the hair to the box. Lucia saw his gaze flick over the other items, but she couldn’t tell if he recognised the scrapbook or letter. Then he looked directly at her, and she could see nothing in his grey-green gaze. It was as hard and unyielding as it had ever been.

‘I should go.’

Disappointment and even despair flooded her, but somehow she managed to nod again. She didn’t trust herself to speak, didn’t know what she would say. He nodded back, in farewell, and then she watched as he strode towards the door and out into the night. Once again he’d left her alone and aching, just as he had before.

Angelo didn’t remember much about the drive back to the hotel. His mind was a blur of memories and thoughts he could not articulate. He kept his gaze focused on the road, but he didn’t even remember driving.

He pulled up to the hotel and tossed the keys to a valet, then strode through the lobby, blind to everyone and everything around him. He rode up the lift up to the penthouse suite and strode through the empty, ornate rooms before ending up in the bathroom, staring at his pale, wild-eyed reflection.

Then he clenched his hand into a fist and punched that reflection as hard as he could. Glass shattered in an explosion of glittering fragments and blood welled up on his knuckles, trickled down his wrist.

Angelo swore and reached for one of the towels—one that Lucia had brought—and pressed it to his bloody fist. What an idiotic, uncontrolled thing to do. Yet even with his hand throbbing he couldn’t regret it. He’d needed some outlet for his rage. His agony.

It was sudden, this grief that overwhelmed him, sudden and utterly unexpected. He’d never felt it before, and yet it was also weirdly familiar. He felt as if he’d been feeling it all his life, suppressing it, hiding it—even from himself.

He hadn’t grieved his mother when she’d left him at six years old, with a careless kiss and a guilty look. He’d seen her again once, when he was thirteen and she’d come home asking for money.

He hadn’t grieved the death of his grandparents, who had taken care of him for his entire childhood and died within a few months of each other when he was eighteen. They hadn’t loved him, he knew that. They’d been ashamed of him, the Corretti bastard nobody had wanted.

He hadn’t even grieved the father he’d never had, the man who had told him, point blank, he’d have preferred for Angelo not to exist at all. And even when Carlo Corretti had died, Angelo had felt…nothing. He’d always felt nothing.

Until now. Now when that surface nothing cracked like the thinnest ice and revealed the depth and darkness of the emotion churning below. Raw, honest, messy grief rose up inside him, threatened to spill out. His eyes stung and his throat thickened with tears and over what? A baby he’d never expected to have? A life he’d never even thought he wanted?

A daughter. A daughter with silky dark hair and his name. Angelo blinked hard.

With the towel still pressed to his hand he crunched across the broken glass and went back out to the living room, stared unseeingly at the city stretched out before him like a glittering chessboard and he was the king.

That’s how he’d seen his life: an arduous journey from pawn to king, strategising and calculating every single move he’d ever made, and all, only to win.

Yet now he felt only loss—unbelievable, unending—flooding through him, filling his emptiness with something far worse. Grief.

Slowly he sank onto a sofa, his hand cradled in his lap. He felt as if he were spinning into a void, with no plans, no thoughts. He had no idea what to do now.

Forge ahead, forget what was behind? Forget this daughter he’d never known, and the woman who had been her mother, who might have been his wife?

Could he forget Lucia?

It was a question he’d never asked himself before. He’d never even thought to ask it; forgetting her had been a given. But now…now he wasn’t so sure.

Now, Angelo thought bleakly, he wasn’t sure of anything.

He closed his eyes, fought against all that emotion surging within him, rising up. Why hadn’t she told him about the baby? And if she had, what would he have done? Could he have changed the awful course of events?

He knew, rationally, that he couldn’t have, and yet still he wondered. Wished even, for a life he’d never thought to have. And as for the future…He knew there was still something between him and Lucia. Whether it was no more than the remnant of a childhood affection that had long since eroded into antipathy or something more, something good he didn’t know. But he intended to find out.

How?

Clearly Lucia wanted him to leave her alone. To forget. And in some ways, it would be easier to forget. To go on as he always had before.

And yet he knew he couldn’t. Wouldn’t. Grimly Angelo stared straight ahead, his bleeding, throbbing hand momentarily forgotten. He wasn’t done here. They weren’t done…no matter what Lucia wanted or thought.

Lucia woke with her eyes feeling gritty and her mouth dry as dust. She’d barely slept, having spent most of the night trying to blank out the memories that kept looping in a relentless reel through her mind. The doctor’s flat voice telling her Angelica was dead. The softness of her daughter’s still-warm skin when she’d held her. The blank look on Angelo’s face last night.

She’d thought—for a single moment, she’d believed—that he cared about Angelica, if not about her. She’d thought, when his back had been turned, he’d been grappling with grief but when he’d turned around again he had looked only blank, as if he’d accepted and absorbed the news in the space of a few minutes, and was now moving on.

Always moving on.

She needed to move on too, Lucia knew, in so many ways. She showered and dressed, plaited her hair and drank a cup of strong coffee. She’d thought she had moved on years ago, had told herself she had. She’d stopped thinking about Angelo, had tried to remember only the good things about their time together as children. She’d thought she’d accepted Angelica’s death, had even told herself that it could be better this way. She hadn’t really had the resources to care for a child, a baby who would be labelled another Corretti bastard from the moment she’d taken her first breath.

A breath she’d never been able to take.

Firmly Lucia pushed all these thoughts out of her mind. She was done with this. Done with grief, with sorrow, with Angelo. She wished he’d never returned to rake up all these feelings inside her, even as she acknowledged with stark honesty that she was still—still—glad he had returned.

She took the bus into Palermo, watched the dust billow into brown clouds along the road and resolutely did not think of Angelo. Of Angelica. Of any of it.

She worked all morning, cleaning bedrooms on the second and third floors, happy to be occupied with hard work. During her break she chatted with Maria, who proudly showed her a letter her son had written from Naples.

‘Will you…Will you read it to me?’ she asked hesitantly, for like many of the housekeeping staff Maria was not a fluent reader.

Lucia nodded and took the thin piece of paper. She’d finished with school at sixteen, but she’d studied hard and she liked to read. The letter was short enough, just a few pithy paragraphs describing his rented accommodation, the job he had in a canning factory. Lucia read it aloud before folding it back into the envelope and handing it to Maria.

‘He sounds like he’s doing well.’

‘Yes. Yes.’ Maria dabbed at her eyes with the corner of her apron. ‘I’m a foolish woman, I know, to carry on so. But he’s a good boy. And he did write. That’s something, yes?’

‘Of course it is,’ Lucia told her, but inside she felt leaden. Angelo had written her one letter, just as short and matter-of-fact as Maria’s son’s, yet she’d treasured it. She’d read it so many times the paper had worn thin in places, and her mother had clucked her tongue and told her not to be stupid, not like she was.

Yet she had been. She’d been so incredibly, utterly stupid about Angelo.

How could she be so again, to think of him? Want him? She’d exhausted herself all morning trying not to think of him, a pointless endeavour since her brain and body insisted on remembering everything she’d loved about him. Still did. The silvery green of his eyes, the colour of dew drops on grass. The sudden quirk of his smile, so rare, so precious. The sure feel of his hands on her, reaching for her, needing her.

‘Do you think he’ll write again?’ Maria asked, and Lucia blinked, focused on the older woman instead of her agonising thoughts.

Swallowing hard, she smiled at Maria. ‘I’m sure he will write.’

Maria nodded and put the letter into the pocket of her apron. ‘I’ll wait,’ she said, and Lucia just nodded, unable to keep herself from thinking, That’s what I did. And even though I don’t want to be, I still am.

By six o’clock she was bone-tired, and outside the air was hot, still and dusty. Her feet throbbed as she walked to the street corner to wait for the bus that would take her back to Caltarione.

Traffic flowed by her in an indifferent stream, cars honking and mopeds weaving around dusty taxi cabs. Lucia was just about to sink onto a bench when a Porsche glided up to the kerb and the window slid down.

‘Lucia.’

‘What do you want, Angelo?’ she asked tiredly. She couldn’t see him very well in the dark interior of the car, no more than the hard line of his cheek and jaw, the silvery-green glint of his eyes. ‘I looked for you at the hotel but you’d already gone. I need to speak with you.’

She shook her head. Surely they had no more to say each other. ‘About what?’

‘About Angelica.’ And just like that her assumptions scattered and her throat went tight. ‘Please,’ he said quietly. ‘I need to know.’ Wordlessly she rose from the bench and slid into the sumptuous leather interior of the car.

Angelo pulled smoothly away from the kerb and they drove in silence down the boulevard towards Quattro Canti, the historic centre of Palermo, its Baroque buildings now gilded in fading sunlight. Lucia watched the buildings stream by in a blur until they were out of the city, and speeding down a dusty road towards Capaci, the sea shimmering in the distance.

‘Where are we going?’ she asked after the silence had stretched on for several minutes.

‘My villa.’

‘Your villa?’ She turned to him in surprise. ‘Why do you stay at the hotel if you have your own villa nearby?’

Angelo lifted one powerful shoulder in a shrug, his gaze still on the road. ‘It’s more convenient to stay at the hotel.’

They didn’t speak again until Angelo pulled up on a long, curving drive and parked in front of his villa. The place was sleek and utterly modern, made of local stone and built into the rocky hillside so it seemed to blend with the landscape. Lucia followed him inside and stood in the centre of the soaring living room; the furniture was all chrome and leather, top-of-the-line and completely sterile.

Angelo tossed his keys on a side table and loosened his tie. ‘Would you like a shower? Or to change?’

She shrugged, although she would have liked to freshen up. ‘I don’t have any other clothes.’

‘That is not a problem. I had some delivered. They’re upstairs in one of the bedrooms.’

Shock had her simply staring for a few seconds. ‘Why would you do that, if we’re just going to have a conversation?’

Now he shrugged, the twist of his shoulders seeming impatient. ‘Why not?’

It wasn’t, Lucia thought, much of an answer, but she didn’t have the energy to question him and the truth was she would kill for a shower. ‘Thank you,’ she said, as graciously as she could manage, and headed upstairs.

She found the clothes in one of the bedrooms overlooking the sea, several shopping bags’ worth from Palermo’s most exclusive boutiques. Pocket change to Angelo, of course, but those few bags contained more clothing than she possessed, and were worth far more than anything she owned.

With a ripple of apprehension she headed into the massive marble en suite and stripped off her maid’s uniform. It felt good to wash away a day’s dirt, but she couldn’t shake the uneasy sense that Angelo wanted more from her than just a conversation.

Twenty minutes later, dressed in the most casual clothes she’d been able to find, a silk T-shirt in pale blue and a matching swishy skirt that ended just above her knee, she went downstairs to find Angelo.

He had obviously showered too, for his hair was damp and curling on his neck and he had changed from his steel-grey suit to a pair of faded jeans and a worn T-shirt in hunter green.

Lucia stood in the doorway of the kitchen and watched him, her breath catching in her chest at the sight of him, the powerful shoulders encased in snug cotton, the flat stomach and trim hips and powerful thighs. He was as beautiful as a Roman statue, and in so many ways just as remote.

Did she really know this man any more? He’d left Sicily fifteen years ago, and she’d only seen him once in all that time. One unforgettable time.

He glanced up, and his eyes seemed even greener as he gazed at her for one long, taut moment before he nodded towards her clothes.

‘They fit.’

‘Yes. I didn’t think you knew my size.’

‘I guessed.’ He gestured to some containers on the counter in front of him. ‘Are you hungry? I realise you probably haven’t eaten.’

She was starving and so she nodded, coming into the kitchen to watch Angelo lift the lids off several foil containers.

‘I’m not much of a cook,’ he said with the tiniest quirk of a smile, ‘so I just ordered from the hotel’s kitchens.’

‘A perk of being the boss, I suppose,’ she said, and although she’d meant to sound light she heard a faint note of bitterness creep into her voice, and she knew Angelo heard it too. He glanced up at her, the expression in his eyes veiled.

‘Does that bother you? Me being the boss?’

She shrugged, a twitching of her shoulders. ‘Why should it?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Well, I don’t know either.’ What an inane, childish conversation they were having. Lucia turned away from the sleek granite worktops and prowled around the open living space. ‘Has anyone ever lived here?’ She had not yet found a single personal item in the entire place, not a book or a photo or even a stray sock. Nothing to tell her more of the man Angelo was now.

‘I’ve never been here before tonight.’

She glanced back at him, shocked. ‘Never? Not even to make sure you liked it?’

‘I had it built to my specifications, and I have an assistant who handles interior decorating. She knows my preferences.’

Lucia ignored that little splinter of jealousy that burrowed into her at the thought of some female assistant who knew what he liked. More than she knew, because she wouldn’t have guessed that Angelo liked such modern decor. She really didn’t know anything about him any more.

So how could she still want him? Love him?

Angelo glanced at her, eyebrows raised. ‘What do you think of it?’

‘You have a beautiful view,’ she said diplomatically, and he let out a short, dry laugh.

‘I see.’

‘It just seems so…sterile. Cold. There’s nothing personal about any of it.’

‘And why should there be? As I told you, I’ve never stepped inside the place until half an hour ago.’

‘And will you live here? Eventually?’

‘No. I’ll never live in Sicily.’ The finality of his words and tone silenced her. He ladled some manicotti and swordfish onto two plates. ‘Let’s eat outside.’

Lucia followed him through the sliding glass doors that led to a wraparound veranda with a stunning view of the sea, the setting sun turning its surface to shimmering gold. The surf crashed far below, sending up plumes of white spray onto the railing.

‘This is amazing,’ Lucia said, gesturing at the view but meaning to encompass everything: the view, the house, Angelo’s life. It was all amazing, and she felt a bittersweet pride at how hard he’d worked and how much he’d accomplished.

How far he’d travelled, so far away from her.

Angelo pulled out her chair and she sat, tensing as he spread a cloth napkin in her lap. His thumbs brushed her thighs and even though he’d barely touched her she still felt an ache of longing spread upwards and take over her whole body.

She tried to ignore it, to force it back, because she knew how dangerous that ache of wanting could be. That ache had deceived her, destroyed her. Made her believe in foolish fairy tales and ridiculous happily-ever-afters, even when she’d known they were absurd. Impossible.

‘You wanted to talk about Angelica,’ she said, smoothing the napkin over her lap once more. That was why she was here, why she’d agreed to come; he deserved to know about his daughter. So she would tell him, and then she would leave. And then, finally, please God, it would truly be finished between them.

Which was what she wanted, had to want, even if everything in her screamed otherwise.

‘Yes.’ Angelo sat across from her, his gaze fathomless in the near twilight. He reached for the bottle of wine he’d brought out along with their plates and with an arch of an eyebrow indicated if she’d like him to pour.

Lucia shook her head. ‘No, thank you.’

Angelo set the bottle back down and reached for his fork. ‘You live alone,’ he remarked as he started to eat. She nodded, wary, and took a forkful of swordfish. It was buttery-soft and tender, almost dissolving in her mouth. ‘What happened to your mother?’ he asked.

Lucia swallowed. ‘She died seven years ago.’ Two months before he’d shown up at her door.

Something flickered in his eyes, although Lucia couldn’t tell what it was. What he felt. ‘I’m sorry. How did it happen?’

‘A heart attack. It was quick.’

‘Sudden too.’

‘Yes.’

‘So you’ve been on your own a long time.’

‘Yes.’ He knew from their childhood that she’d been raised by her mother; her father, worthless drunk that he’d been, had left without a backwards glance when she was eight years old, and her mother had never stopped missing him, never stopped wanting him back. Angelo wasn’t the only one who’d had unfortunate parents.

‘You’ve been working for the Correttis since I left,’ he observed, his tone neutral, and Lucia toyed with her pasta.

‘They pay well.’

‘Did you mother leave you any money?’

‘What little she had.’ She glanced up at him, felt a flash of frustration, maybe even of anger. ‘Why are you asking all this, Angelo? What on earth does it matter to you?’

‘You matter,’ he said flatly. ‘You were the mother of my child, Lucia. I want to know what has happened to you.’

She shook her head. ‘It doesn’t change anything.’

‘I still want to know.’

They ate in silence for a moment, and Lucia felt tension tauten inside her. She might have been the mother of Angelo’s child, but she wasn’t—and never had been—anything else to him. It stung that the only reason he’d sought her out now, had spoken to her again at all, was because he wanted to know about Angelica. And even though part of her was gratified and even glad he wanted to know about their daughter, another part shrank back in desolation that he didn’t care about her.

Still she yearned. Still her stubborn, stupid heart insisted on wanting, on hoping, even when she knew there was no point. No chance.

‘Did you try and tell me?’ he asked after a long silence, his tone still neutral. ‘When you found out you were pregnant?’

‘I tried to try,’ she answered quietly. ‘I didn’t know how to tell you. I didn’t want you to feel guilty or like I’d trapped you into something, but—’ She hesitated, and his mouth twisted.

‘But you were afraid I wouldn’t believe you? Or come back for you?’

She lifted her chin and made herself meet his hooded gaze directly. ‘Would you have?’

‘For my child? Yes.’ He spoke with complete certainty, and Lucia nodded slowly. For his child. Not for her, never for her. She’d never been enough of a reason for him to stay, or even to consider taking her with him. It was that realisation, she knew, that had kept her from writing. She had never wanted to be his burden.

‘In any case,’ she said, trying to sound matter-of-fact, ‘I wrote a dozen different letters and never sent them. I kept telling myself I had time, and then—and then it didn’t matter any more.’ She swallowed past the lump that had formed in her throat. Even now it hurt. Especially now.

‘I wish,’ Angelo said quietly, ‘I could have been there. I would have liked to have seen her, to have held her.’

Lucia stared down at her plate, her half-eaten meal blurring in front of her. She knew if she blinked the tears would fall, and she didn’t want to cry. Not in front of Angelo. Not when every word he said seemed to hurt her in so many different ways.

He wanted to have been there for their baby, not for her. And even though that knowledge hurt, a far worse pain lanced through her at how easily she could imagine him cradling their daughter, loving her. How much of her still yearned for a life that had never been hers—or theirs.

‘She looked just like she was asleep,’ she said, her eyes still on her plate. She cleared her throat, the sound unnaturally loud in the sudden stillness. ‘I held her for a little while.’ She blinked, touched the corner of her eye where a telling moisture had appeared, averting her face so Angelo wouldn’t see.

Still she didn’t think she’d fooled him.

‘Let’s walk,’ he said, almost roughly, and rose from the table. Lucia looked up, blinking rapidly, and then followed him down the twisting staircase that led to the beach.