An Inheritance of Shame

chapter SEVEN



LUCIA WOKE TO an empty bed. She rolled over on her back, stared at the ceiling and let the memories wash over her. The pleasure of last night, and more surprisingly and poignantly, the incredible intimacy. She hadn’t expected that. She’d gone into the evening expecting a bargain, an exchange of both power and pleasure. This time she’d be the one to want the one-night stand. And the one to walk away.

The trouble was, she didn’t want to.

She rolled onto her side, tucked her legs up towards her tummy. She was an idiot, of course. An absolute idiot to think she could walk away from Angelo. To think that she could want it. She’d loved him since she was seven years old.

And yet she knew, with a heavy, painful certainty, that walking away was her only choice. Angelo wouldn’t want anything else, and she refused to surrender her dignity yet again. This time she would choose first…if he hadn’t already.

Slowly she swung her legs over the side of the bed, felt aches in all sorts of places. A glance at the clock told her it was after eight, and she was due at the hotel in less than an hour. She pushed her hair out of her face and went in search of her maid’s uniform.

Ten minutes later she was dressed, her hair and teeth brushed thanks to the basket of toiletries in the guest bedroom, and resolutely she went in search of Angelo. She found him in the kitchen, slicing fruit, the tantalising aroma of fresh coffee scenting the air.

Lucia hung back for a moment, watching as he moved around the kitchen. He wore another worn T-shirt, this one in heather grey, and a pair of boxers. His hair was tousled, almost curly in the heat, and he looked comfortable, natural, happy. She’d never seen him look so happy before.

And for a second, no more, she let herself imagine that this was real. Lasting. This was their home, their life, a normal morning in a loving relationship. She even, treacherously, allowed herself to imagine their daughter slept upstairs, six years old, with Angelo’s eyes and her dimple.

A longing so intense it felt as if she were being suffocated took hold of her, stole her breath. Shakily Lucia drew another, forced the images back.

This was what was real: work in half an hour and whatever little she and Angelo had shared over. Throwing her shoulders back, she came into the kitchen.

Angelo raised his head as soon as he heard her; Lucia saw the welcoming light wink out of his eyes as he stared at her, his mouth compressing into a hard line.

‘Why are you wearing that wretched uniform?’

She stiffened at the disdain in his voice. ‘Because I’m due at work in less than an hour.’

‘Work?’ He sounded utterly incredulous. ‘I called already. You’re not expected.’

‘You…called?’ Lucia stared at him blankly. Why would he call? Why would he not want her to go to work?

‘Yes, I called. Of course you’re not going to work today.’

‘I’m not?’ She prickled, fought against the treacherous surge of hope his words caused to rise up within her. ‘Why not?’

His mouth quirked in a smile. ‘I think the better question is, why would you?’

‘Because it’s my job and I don’t want to get fired?’

His smile widened. ‘Since I now own the hotel I don’t think you’ll get fired.’

‘Don’t, Angelo.’ Even though she knew he was speaking the truth his words made her cringe. Sleeping with the boss. It sounded so sordid, as sordid as the last time he’d breezed in and out of her life, and left rumours and heartache in his wake.

‘Don’t what?’ He frowned, seeming genuinely confused, and Lucia just shook her head and took a deep breath.

‘I think,’ she said, ‘it would be better—cleaner—if we ended this now.’

Angelo stared at her for a long moment. The frown had gone from his face, just like the smile. He looked utterly unreadable, completely expressionless. ‘Cleaner,’ he finally said, his tone neutral.

‘Yes.’

‘You want to end this now?’

‘I think it would be better.’

He glanced back down at the melon he’d been slicing and arranged the slices on a plate, his long fingers working deftly, his head lowered. ‘I don’t want to end this now,’ he said after a moment, and Lucia’s breath hitched, her heart lurched.

It was more than he’d ever admitted to before, and yet it was so damn little. ‘When, then?’ she made herself ask.

‘Does it matter?’ Angelo glanced up and she saw impatience flicker in his grey-green eyes. Clearly he hadn’t expected this conversation to take so long. ‘Dio, Lucia, after last night—you want to go back to your job? Your life?’

She recoiled, stung by the contempt in his tone. ‘I think you rate yourself a little too highly,’ she managed through stiff lips.

‘I’m saying this all wrong.’ He shook his head, still impatient. ‘Come have breakfast and we’ll talk.’

She glanced at the clock. ‘I don’t really have time—’

‘You don’t have time? Don’t you think this—us—warrants a little more consideration?’

She let out a hollow laugh. ‘There’s never been an us, Angelo. You made sure about that.’

‘It’s different now.’

‘Because you want it to be?’

‘Why are you angry?’ He shook his head, angry now himself. ‘I’m offering you something I’ve—’

‘Never offered before?’ she filled in, her voice hard. ‘So I should grab it with both hands and tell you how thankful I am? Sorry I’m not falling in with your plans.’

His expression shuttered, his jaw bunched. ‘At least come and eat something,’ he said tightly, and brought a tray of fresh fruit and coffee out towards the veranda.

Slowly Lucia followed him outside, wondered why she was so angry. Surely Angelo was doing everything she’d once dreamt about. Incredible sex, making breakfast, wanting to be with her? What was wrong with this picture?

Because she knew instinctively something was.

Outside the day was already hot, the sun beating down, a slight breeze off the sea the only relief. She sank into a chair and mutely accepted the cup of espresso Angelo handed her.

‘So tell me what exactly it is you’re offering, Angelo,’ she said after she’d taken a sip. ‘Why should I take a day off work? What are you suggesting?’

‘I’m not suggesting you take the day off, although I suppose that would be a start.’

‘A start? To what?’

‘To—to us!’ He looked, quite suddenly, furious—although whether with her or himself she didn’t know. She did know, knew with the unshakeable certainty that she’d always possessed when it came to this man, that he still didn’t want to want her. Nothing really had changed except, perhaps, the force of Angelo’s reluctant need.

‘Us,’ she repeated. ‘What kind of us?’

‘Why are you asking all these questions?’

‘Because I want to know what you’re suggesting, Angelo. You’ve been barking out orders since I came downstairs but I still don’t know what you want. A day in bed? A relationship?’

Shamefully her voice trembled on that revealing word, and from the way he quickly averted his gaze she knew it wasn’t that. Never that. He still didn’t want a relationship, something real, with her.

He didn’t say anything for a long moment, just stared out at the sea, his eyes narrowed against the glare of the sun. ‘I don’t want you working like that any more,’ he finally said, and her mouth dropped open before she thought to snap it shut.

‘I don’t know which part of that sentence to address,’ she finally said, her voice thankfully tart. ‘It doesn’t matter what you want, and as for whatever like that means—’

‘On your knees, scrubbing—’

‘Since I’m no longer working for the Correttis, it should hardly matter,’ she snapped. ‘I’m on my knees for you, Angelo.’ And ridiculously she felt a blush heat her face at the suggestiveness of her words, the memory of last night.

Angelo leaned forward, his gaze snapping back to hers, his eyes like molten silver. ‘Didn’t last night mean anything to you, Lucia? Didn’t it change anything?’

She swallowed dryly, memories flashing through her mind, making her blush all the more. ‘I never got a chance to ask you those questions the last time we spent a night together,’ she replied after a moment, ‘but I think I could have guessed what the answers would have been.’

Realisation flared in his eyes and he sat back. ‘Are you saying last night was—was just a repeat of what happened before?’

‘Wasn’t it?’

He didn’t answer for a long moment, just stared at her, his gaze sweeping searchingly over her. ‘Not for me.’

Her fingers tightened on the cup of coffee and she felt the hot liquid slosh over her fingers. Shakily she put it back on the table with a clatter. ‘Just what are you saying, Angelo?’

His mouth firmed, his gaze flicking away before returning to rest on her resolutely. ‘I told you, I don’t want this to end now.’

What a telling phrase, she thought bleakly. Not now, but maybe later. Definitely later. ‘When, then?’ she asked, striving to keep her voice even.

He shrugged, the movement dismissive. ‘I don’t know.’

‘When you want it to be over?’ she surmised flatly.

‘Dio, Lucia, isn’t it enough that I want to be with you? I want to protect you, provide for you. I can give you so much—’

She felt herself go cold. ‘Such as?’

‘Clothes, jewels, a villa, a car—whatever you want!’ He smiled, relief flashing in his eyes, as if he were glad they were finally understanding each other. ‘You don’t have to work as a maid. You don’t have to work at all. You can live here—’

‘And await your pleasure?’

He recoiled, his mouth hardening into a thin line. ‘You make it sound…sordid.’

‘You’re the one doing that, Angelo.’ Her voice trembled and she fought against the absurd yearning she still felt, the temptation to accept even this little. She sat back in her chair and closed her eyes. She felt near to crying, and yet too weary to shed any tears.

‘I want,’ Angelo answered, an edge to his voice now, ‘to be with you. You could stay here,’ he continued, sweeping one arm out to encompass the villa. ‘You could have a maid of your own, an entire staff, clothes and jewels. I’ll buy you a car, whatever one you like.’

‘I don’t know how to drive,’ she said flatly. ‘And I don’t like this villa. I told you that last night. It feels cold.’

He stared at her incredulously. ‘Then I’ll hire a driver. I’ll buy a new villa—you can choose it yourself.’

She shook her head. It wasn’t just the villa that was cold; it was the man himself. She didn’t know this man any more. She might have had the most incredible, intimate sex with him last night, but this morning he was again a stranger.

A stranger who still could only see what he wanted from her and the most expedient way to get it. Forget asking her out. Forget even a normal, caring conversation. Even now, when he was trying to be thoughtful, clearly expecting her to be pleased with these tawdry suggestions. He had no consideration of her feelings at all, and he didn’t even realise it.

Everything in her aching, Lucia rose from the table. ‘I need to go to work.’

‘I told you, they’re not expecting you,’ Angelo snapped. He rose from the table, braced his hands on it. His body was taut with emotion, with anger, his mouth a compressed line, his eyes narrowed. ‘Lucia, I can see I’m saying all the wrong things. I swear to you, I am not trying to make you angry.’

Which somehow made it worse. He didn’t even realise how awful, how offensive, his suggestions were. ‘I know you’re not, Angelo,’ she said wearily, and turned away.

He smacked the table with the palm of his hand, rattling the dishes, the crack of his palm echoing through the still air. ‘Dio, don’t walk away from me! I’m not done talking to you!’

She stiffened at the autocratic bark of his voice. ‘I’m done,’ she said flatly. ‘And unless you intend to order me not to work as my employer, we have nothing more to say here.’

He stared at her, his eyes flashing with fury, his body tight with suppressed rage, and then on leaden legs Lucia turned and walked back into the house and then out the front door.

Angelo watched Lucia walk away from him in a kind of dazed incredulity. He had not expected this. He still couldn’t believe it was happening. She was actually rejecting him.

He drove his fingers through his hair, swore under his breath. What was wrong with the woman? He was offering her so much more than she’d ever had before, so much more than she’d ever had with him. He’d spent most of last night awake with her in his arms, trying to think through his own feelings. His own desires. After what they had shared, he knew he wasn’t ready to walk away. He didn’t think she was either. So he came up with a solution—a solution to give her everything she’d ever wanted—and she refused him?

She was mad.

No, he realised suddenly, the insight causing him to tense, she wasn’t. She was angry, because he hadn’t offered her everything she’d ever wanted. If he had, she surely would have accepted it. So what more did she want?

Swearing again, he strode from the veranda. It took him all of two minutes to ascertain that she’d actually left the villa. Considering the house was miles from so much as a petrol station and she must have known it, the choice to leave on foot was beyond absurd.

Angelo threw open the door of the villa and saw Lucia trudging down the dusty drive. ‘Lucia!’ he shouted, exasperated with her, with himself, with how this whole morning had unravelled. He’d been looking forward to spending the day in bed, or perhaps again in the shower. He’d been anticipating her incredulous, wondering smile when he’d told her he wasn’t walking away.

Instead she was walking away…was that what she wanted? Was this actually some kind of revenge? God only knew he understood about wanting revenge, yet he could hardly believe it of Lucia.

‘Lucia!’ he shouted again, and she stilled. Her head came up, her shoulders stiffened and slowly she turned around. ‘You cannot walk to Palermo from here,’ he called, trying to sound reasonable. ‘If you insist on going into work, then let me at least drive you.’

She folded her arms, didn’t move. ‘Fine,’ she called back flatly.

Realising she was simply going to stand there and wait, Angelo swore again under his breath and went back into the house. He pulled on a pair of jeans and leather loafers, grabbed his car keys and headed out. Lucia was waiting by the passenger door of his Porsche, her expression completely unreadable.

Was this the same woman who had cried in his arms last night, both with sorrow and joy, who had told him about their daughter, who had brought him more physical pleasure than he’d had in years…or even ever?

She looked like a stranger. And she acted like a stranger as she slid into the passenger seat and kept her face turned to the window as he started the car.

‘It is obvious that I’ve offended you somehow with my suggestion,’ Angelo stated tersely as he headed down the drive. She didn’t answer, and he smacked the steering wheel with the palm of his hand. ‘At least talk to me, Lucia.’

‘I don’t think I have anything to say that you’d want to hear.’

That didn’t sound good. Angelo blew out a breath. ‘I want to hear what you’re thinking.’

‘Do you really, Angelo? Or will that just make you angrier, because I’m not falling into line with your plans? I’m not falling into your bed.’

‘You fell into my bed last night,’ he snapped, and then could have cursed himself. Not a helpful observation to make at this point.

Lucia kept her face to the window. ‘I did,’ she said quietly, ‘and I don’t regret it. But that’s all I ever intended last night to be. One night, just as before. I’m not going to be your—your long-term booty call.’

‘That is offensive.’

‘No kidding.’

His fingers clenched the steering wheel so hard his knuckles whitened. ‘You told me that a one-night stand was not something you’d be willing to repeat.’

‘I changed my mind.’

‘And I changed my mind,’ he answered back. ‘So you see, we both can change.’

‘You think you can change?’ She turned to him, eyebrows raised, her tone utterly disbelieving. ‘You think, with this suggestion, you have changed?’

He forced back the instinctive anger at her incredulous, almost sneering tone. ‘You obviously don’t think I have,’ he said levelly.

She shook her head, folded her arms, the stance clearly one of rejection. ‘One night, one week, one month. There’s not much difference, Angelo.’

He pressed his lips together and stared straight ahead. All right, he saw her point, but hell, this was new territory for him. He didn’t do relationships. He didn’t have girlfriends or even mistresses. His entire life he’d been focused on work, driven by success and revenge. He had no time for the messy sprawl of romance or, God forbid, love. Sex had always been a transaction—

And, he realised, he was proposing such a transaction to Lucia now. He’d dressed it up a bit, yes, but essentially it was a business deal. A bargain.

But he didn’t do anything else. This was all he had to offer, and damn it, he wanted her to accept it. It wasn’t, he thought grimly, such a bad deal.

He glanced at her now, saw she’d turned back to the window. All he could see was the smooth, round curve of her cheek, her plaited hair revealing the vulnerable nape of her neck.

He let out a weary breath. ‘Why put a time limit on it, Lucia?’ he said, and although she didn’t turn from the window he saw her mouth curve in the barest of sad smiles.

‘You already did.’

‘I did not.’ He shook his head, denying the judgement he felt from her. What would make her see sense? ‘We didn’t use protection last night,’ he said after a moment. It hadn’t even occurred to him, much to his own shame. ‘What if you’re pregnant?’

He saw her tense, felt it. ‘I don’t think that’s a possibility.’

‘You’re on birth control?’ Absurd to feel jealous if she was, yet he did. Had she had many other lovers?

‘No,’ Lucia said after a moment. ‘But I—I don’t think it’s likely.’

‘And if it is?’

She turned to him, her expression utterly unreadable. ‘You think a pregnancy would force my hand? Make me agree to your…suggestion?’

‘It’s not such a bad suggestion, Lucia.’

‘I think it is.’

‘What do you want? Marriage?’ He injected the word with the contempt he couldn’t help but feel, and he saw hurt flash across her face. Damn it.

‘And if I did?’ she asked quietly.

‘I’m not capable of that. I thought—I thought you knew that.’

Her mouth twisted in something like a smile. ‘You speak as though it’s a chronic condition.’

‘I can’t help who I am, Lucia.’

‘Exactly.’

Frustration bubbled inside him, an unholy ferment of emotion. She was twisting everything he said, taking it completely the wrong way. ‘So that’s it? You’re not even going to give us a chance?’

He heard her draw in a short breath, and knew she was more conflicted, more tempted, than she was trying to act. ‘No.’

‘Dio, Lucia, I think after last night I deserve a little more than that.’

‘Did I deserve more than that, before?’ she answered. She didn’t sound angry though, not the way he felt. She sounded only tired. Resigned, and that made him even more furious. He knew she wanted him. Wanted him as much as he wanted her. Why couldn’t she see the sense in what he was offering?

‘And so I apologised. I told you I knew I shouldn’t have left you like that. God help me, I am trying to make it up to you now. I want to be with you, Lucia. That’s what this is about. I thought—I thought you wanted to be with me.’ He heard a ragged note enter his voice and stared straight at the road, his jaw so tight he felt as if he might break a tooth. He couldn’t believe he was saying these things, much less meaning them.

It felt awful, this helpless confession, like peeling back his own skin. He was raw, vulnerable and completely exposed. And yet still he couldn’t help himself. He had to say these things. He meant them utterly. He wanted more with Lucia. And yet looking at her averted face he knew his more was still less than what Lucia wanted.

I want to be with you. For a man like Angelo, it was a huge confession. She’d never imagined that he would consider last night the start of something. It hadn’t even crossed her mind, because he’d never even hinted at such a thing before. Never remotely wanted it.

And even though it was an amazing admission for him to make, it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough because he didn’t even realise how little it was.

Yet Lucia still felt a longing open inside her, that old, endless ache, and she was so unbearably tempted to snatch his paltry offer with both hands. She would have accepted it before. She would have taken whatever crumb he tossed her way, and forced it to sustain her. It was this understanding of her own weakness that made her stiffen her shoulders, harden her resolve.

She really had changed, and she wouldn’t let herself accept Angelo’s offer of being nothing more than a mistress, even if he hadn’t used that word. Even if he didn’t understand that was what he was suggesting.

‘Lucia,’ he said again, his voice still revealingly ragged. ‘Say something, please.’

She leaned her head back against the seat and closed her eyes. Willed herself not to say yes…yes, she’d do it, she’d take it, just as long as she could be with him. She would not be that pathetic creature again. Surely she’d had enough rejection for one life.

She’d heard how her mother had begged her father to stay, never mind the drinking, the abuse, the other women. Watched her mother spiral down into despair and bitterness in the following years. Did she really want to be like that?

She had no illusions about how little Angelo was capable of. He’d been pushing people away his whole life. Pushing her away. Seven years ago it had been one night; this time it might be a week, a month, perhaps a little longer. And then? He’d push. He’d walk away just as he had before, without a backwards glance. Without even a thought.

‘I did want to be with you, Angelo,’ she said in a low voice, each word formed with painful effort. ‘Once.’

‘And not now?’

She swallowed, forced the single word past stiff lips. ‘No.’

With her eyes still closed, she didn’t see him turn the steering wheel. She just heard the squeal of the tyres and felt her body flung sideways as he pulled the car onto the side of the dusty road. Her eyes flew open and she stared at him in shock, saw his chest rise and fall with ragged breaths as he stared straight ahead.

‘Damn it, Lucia,’ he said, ‘that is not true.’ He turned to her, his eyes blazing grim determination. ‘Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t want to be with me. Right here, look me in the eye and swear on your mother’s grave—no, on our daughter’s grave that last night meant nothing to you.’

Lucia stared at him, opened her mouth. No words came out. She couldn’t say that, couldn’t mean it, and he knew it. ‘What do you want from me, Angelo?’ she whispered.

‘The truth.’

‘Why?’ she burst out. ‘Does it stroke your ego to know how much I loved you once? How much I still love you?’ She saw shock blaze across his face and his jaw dropped. She laughed, the sound high and wild. ‘Yes, I love you. I’ve always loved you. I loved you when we were children, when I waited for you on my doorstep with a damp cloth for your cuts. I loved you when you told me your dreams of leaving Caltarione, all of Sicily, to make your fortune. I dreamt you’d take me with you, and when you left I still dreamt you’d come back for me. And then you did come back for me—’ She broke off, drew in a clogged breath. She was saying so much more than she’d ever intended to reveal, and yet even now she couldn’t believe he’d never known. It had been so appallingly obvious to her.

‘Lucia—’ he said hoarsely, and she flung up one hand.

‘No. I’ll say this now, only now, only once. Loving you doesn’t matter. It doesn’t make a difference, because I know—I’ve always known—you don’t love me back the same way. You don’t love me at all.’ He opened his mouth to say—what? Was he actually going to deny something that was so blatantly, brutally true? ‘You might think you feel something for me,’ she cut him off, ‘and perhaps you do. Affection, attraction, something so paltry it hardly matters. I mean no more to you than one of your cars or villas or perhaps one of your corporate takeovers. Something to be acquired, enjoyed and then discarded. That’s how you’ve always seen me, Angelo.’

Angelo just stared at her, unspeaking. He still looked dazed.

And he obviously had no answer, for after a few silent seconds he put the car into Drive and swung back onto the motorway, all without a word. Lucia leaned her head back against her seat and closed her eyes. Angelo’s silence hurt her far more than she knew it should. Had she actually been expecting him to deny the truth? Hoping for him to insist she was wrong, he really had changed, and he knew now that he loved her?

Fantasies.

Neither of them spoke for the rest of the trip back to Palermo.

Angelo still didn’t speak as he pulled in front of the hotel and waited for Lucia to get out. He was still spinning from what she’d said. All of it too incredible, too much. He felt too much.

And he’d said too much…more than he’d ever admitted before to anyone ever, and she’d thrown it all back in his face. Fury churned through him, along with the shock and the disbelief.

Lucia hesitated as she climbed out of the Porsche, her face still averted, her head bowed. For a second he thought she’d say something—but what? She’d said everything on the side of the road, when she’d told him she loved him and it didn’t matter.

Because he didn’t love her.

He waited until she’d disappeared into the hotel, and then he pulled away from the kerb with an angry screech of tyres.

His mind a haze, he drove through the crowded streets of Palermo and then along the ocean road towards Messina until he found a deserted stretch of beach. He parked the car on a patch of dry grass along the road and tossed his loafers in the car.

He didn’t know how long he walked along the beach, his hands shoved in his pockets, his mind numb. He had meetings to attend, pressure to put on the different Corretti factions. Hell, he had a coup to stage and here he was beachcombing.

Yet still he walked.

I love you. I’ve always loved you.

How could she love him? Nobody loved him. Nobody had ever told him they loved him before. Not his stony-faced grandparents, not his absent mother and certainly not the father who would have preferred he’d never existed at all.

All you were meant to be was a stain on the sheets.

He’d stopped expecting or even hoping for love or anything close to it long ago. He might have suspected Lucia had had some kind of schoolgirl crush on him at one point, but that’s all it had been. It hadn’t been real; it hadn’t been love. It simply wasn’t possible.

And he didn’t love her. He didn’t know how to love, didn’t have it in him. He’d accepted that too, understood that about himself. He hadn’t loved anyone in his life, hadn’t let himself, and so his emotions had atrophied into nothing, an atrophy of the heart. Some might view his lack of love as a weakness or deficiency, but he’d turned it into a strength. If you didn’t love anyone it was easier to focus on work, to live for it. Easier to not care when no one loved you back, easier to walk away.

Except now he didn’t want to walk away. Lucia was the one walking, and the thought filled him with frustration, fury—and fear. Why couldn’t she accept what he’d offered? Why couldn’t it be enough for her? It was a hell of a lot more than he’d offered seven years ago, and yet she still wanted more? From him?

Didn’t she realise he didn’t have any more to give?

Angelo sank onto the sand, his head in his hands. Yes, he realised hollowly, she did, and that was why she’d gone.

He didn’t know how long he sat there, unmoving, his mind retreating into numbness once more. Eventually he stirred, saw the sun was high overhead and realised he’d missed at least one, probably two, important meetings.

Resolutely he rose from the sand. He’d spent enough time thinking about Lucia. She didn’t want to have an affair? Fine, no problem. There were plenty of other women who did, and in any case he’d gone before without women or sex. Work—revenge—had been his companion, his lover, and it would be again.

He didn’t need Lucia.

Seeing her again, he acknowledged, learning about Angelica, all of it had weakened his resolve. Made him want things he knew he couldn’t have. That kind of life wasn’t for him, could never be for him. It was better this way. It would have to be. An hour later he was in the corporate offices of the Corretti Hotel, dressed in a designer suit of grey pinstriped silk, about to confirm a meeting with the shareholders of Luca Corretti’s fashion company, Corretti Designs. He’d been buying up stock in the company for several months now, quietly, unnoticed by the other shareholders and, it seemed, by even Luca himself. He didn’t have enough to stage a takeover like he had with the hotel, but with Luca absent he was going to take the opportunity to put a little pressure on the other shareholders. Hell, maybe they’d even agree to unseat Luca and make him CEO. He already had the hotel after all. It would bring him one step closer to his ultimate revenge.

It was time to think about business—and stop thinking about Lucia, or love. This was why he’d returned to Sicily, what he’d always wanted. His face now set into familiar harsh lines of determination, Angelo reached for the phone.