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.’
‘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.’
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.
But was it morning or evening?
And what bloody day was it?
He flopped back against the mattress, taking deep breaths, forcing himself to calm down. It was just a dream.
A really bad dream.
Mia was safe. Brian was safe. They were all safe.
Mia … he’d lost track of her in the whirlwind that had descended on them the minute they’d set foot on the helipad at The Harbour. Whisked away for tests and debriefing and questions from all kinds of different official people and dozens of people dropping by to wish them well. When he’d finally been told he could go, there’d been no sign of Mia and Evie had told him that she’d taken Mia home and tucked her into bed.
His first instinct had been to go to her. But he’d checked it. She needed to sleep. Just because she’d opened up to him, didn’t negate that they’d both been through a trauma and been up most of the night.
So he’d headed for his bed too. And despite his conviction that his speeding mind wouldn’t allow him respite, the combination of the jet-lag and adrenaline had him out for the count within minutes of his head hitting the pillow.
But now he was awake. Wide awake. And he knew why. He knew why with every thud of fear still echoing in each heartbeat. He knew why he was dreaming about Mia. Why the overwhelming panic and despair at losing her—in the crash, in his dream—had woken him from deep and utter exhaustion.
He was in love with her.
He’d foolishly thought that they were just a casual thing. That they were having a bit of fun. Some great sex, a distracting flirtation.
But obviously his brain hadn’t been listening.
Because while his body had been enjoying itself he hadn’t realised his emotions had become involved. That their entire relationship had been based on a series of emotional connections—interlocking, weaving them together.
Stan and the emotional tumult of his case—for both of them—had been the first connection. Being held at knifepoint had been the catalyst for their initial sexual liaison. Sure, he’d dismissed it as a very nice, very surprising turn of events. But it hadn’t been the uncomplicated one-off he’d been fooling himself it was.
It had occurred after a highly charged emotional incident.
And then later, when they’d worked together to save Stan’s life, they’d forged an even deeper bond.
His grandmother’s death had ramped it up a little more. Forced them to an even deeper level of emotional intimacy without him even knowing it. She’d been there to comfort him. To hold him. To tell him to get his butt on a plane and go to her funeral.
That had been more than just sex, no matter what she’d said.
For heaven’s sake, she’d stayed the night. She never stayed the night. She didn’t even cuddle.
And then there was last night. Sharing that near-death experience and then opening up to her, like he’d never done before. Unburdening all the ugly things about his past he never spoke about. Listening to her as she’d unburdened hers.
He’d been pretending it was casual. Having a great time with hard and fast sex, indulging in the physical to override anything deeper. But somewhere along the way it had become more than that.
For him anyway.
He loved her. And it didn’t frighten him. He didn’t want to run from it like he had in the past. Maybe returning to Sicily had laid some ghosts to rest. Maybe it was almost dying in that helicopter crash. Maybe it was Mia almost dying in that helicopter crash.
But he wanted to live. He wanted that grand love poets had written about. And he wanted it with Mia. His scarred, scared Mia.
He didn’t want to live another day without it.
Mia woke to a terrible racket. She’d been so tired when Evie had finally dragged her home and pushed her into the shower, not even thoughts of Luca had been enough to keep her awake as she’d collapsed naked into bed.
It took her a moment to realise the racket was coming from the front door. ‘Go away,’ she groaned as she dragged the pillow over her head and shut her eyes again.
‘Mia? Mia! Open up!’
Mia sat up as the voice registered. Luca?
‘Mia!’
Luca’s urgent tone penetrated the fog of fatigue. She was throwing back the covers and pulling on a robe before her sluggish brain even registered her purpose.
‘Mia!’
‘Coming!’ she called as she hurried out of her bedroom, tying the robe firmly at her waist, half tripping over a discarded shoe on the way.
Why on earth was he pounding her door down? Her heart rat-a-tat-tatted in time to the knocks as it romanticised his presence. But she doubted he was knocking like a madman to tell her he loved her. More likely the building was on fire.
Which made her unaccountably grouchy.
She reached the door and snatched it open. Her breath caught in her throat. He stood before her in track pants and a hoodie, his feet stuffed into thongs, his hair rumpled, that stubble still peppering his jaw, a blanket mark reddening one cheekbone.
The man had never looked sexier.
‘Where’s the fire?’ she snapped, because it was that or do something really silly like invite him into her bed.
She’d meant it when she’d told him they couldn’t keep sleeping with each other. She couldn’t love him and only have some of him. Know that he was waiting for the whole thing to go toxic.
Luca took in her tousled blonde hair and the outline of her breasts beneath her gown and smiled. ‘You look good,’ he murmured appreciatively.
Mia gripped the door at the lust she saw glittering in the deep brown depths of his eyes. ‘I sure hope you didn’t wake me for that.’
Luca smiled. ‘Can I come in?’
‘Luca,’ she sighed. She was not going to be sucked in by that sexy smile.
‘Please.’ He spread his hands. ‘Just for a moment.’
Mia almost shut the door on him. She was tired and at a really low ebb. Didn’t he know she wanted nothing more than to curl up in bed with him and sleep for a hundred years?
Why didn’t he just leave her alone?
Hoping she wouldn’t regret it, she stood back and inhaled as he passed. She hadn’t meant to but he smelled so good she let his aroma wrap around her like a warm cloak. She stood by the closed door, arms folded, as he strolled to the centre of her lounge room.
Luca turned to face her. She seemed remote. Both physically and emotionally.
That didn’t bode well.
He took a step towards her. ‘I figured out why I told you all that stuff last night.’
Mia regarded him warily. She hoped he hadn’t figured out why she’d told him her stuff. The only way she could keep her dignity here was to hide her feelings. ‘Really?’
He took another step. ‘I’ve known somewhere deep inside for a while that you understood me, truly understood me, and I thought that it was just our family issues, our unhappy pasts uniting us in a way that few people could relate to.’
Mia nodded. She’d recognised him as a kindred spirit almost from the beginning.
‘But it’s more than that, Mia. You got under my skin, sneaked up on me when I wasn’t looking. I was fooling myself that we were just keeping it casual but I was wrong.’ He raked a hand through his already rumpled hair. ‘I’ve been walking blindly down this track towards you all along and it’s only now that I see what’s really happening.’
Mia’s heart started to thump erratically in her chest. What was he saying? That his toxicity sensors were twitching madly? That he was getting too close and it was time to get as far away as possible? ‘Oh? And what’s that?’
‘I’m in love with you.’
Mia didn’t say anything for a moment. She didn’t move. She didn’t breathe. In fact, she was pretty certain her heart even stopped for a few beats.
‘Mia?’
‘What about Marissa?’ she blurted out, because that was way simpler than the crash of other thoughts and emotions that were churning inside her.
‘Marissa?’
‘You said she was the only woman you ever loved.’
Luca frowned. ‘I was sixteen. And infatuated. That wasn’t love. I knew that the moment I saw her in the church in Palermo last week. I was a boy with a crush. What I feel for you … in here …’ Luca patted his chest. ‘It’s a thousand times deeper, wider, stronger. You’re the one I want to talk to, make love to, wake up to.’
Luca watched her face as she grappled with the news. She looked like she was fighting it. Trying to come up with ways to block it out. Block him out. He covered the distance between them until he was standing within touching distance.
‘I know that you think you can’t do this—have a relationship with someone. That it’s not you. That you’re not the sleeping-over type …’
‘Me?’ Mia scoffed, arms still firmly crossed. ‘What about you? Aren’t you afraid this will go toxic too? Because I’m not going to get involved with someone who’s waiting for me to slip up or who’s out the door at the first sign of trouble wearing a gas mask.’
Luca, buoyed by the concession that she might actually be thinking of getting involved with him, placed his hands on her shoulders and rubbed his thumbs against the polar fleece of the thick robe.
‘I’m not saying that this doesn’t scare me, that it’s not new territory, but as you said last night I can’t let an unhappy past, one that I can’t change, ruin a chance at a happy future. Neither of us can, Mia.’
Mia felt tears well in her eyes. This couldn’t possibly be true, could it? Could he actually love her back?
‘Oh, Mia,’ he murmured, drawing her against him. ‘Don’t cry, Mia. I love you.’
Mia shut her eyes tight as his accent washed over her like syrup and she allowed herself a moment to inhale the essence of him. Less than two months ago she hadn’t even known this man. Just last night she’d realised the utter depth of her feelings for him. And realised he couldn’t love her back.
Could she have been wrong?
‘This is just the near-death experience talking.’
She tried to break out of his grasp but Luca held her tighter. Her voice was muffled against his shirt but he heard every word.
‘No, Mia, no.’ He eased her gently back. ‘It may have been the jolt that removed the blinkers from my eyes, but this isn’t sudden. I’ve known deep inside, deep in my heart since that night in the on-call room, that you were special. That you were more than just another woman.’
The sincerity in his eyes and in his husky accented voice called to her on a primal level. She laid her head back on his chest as she allowed the possibilities to bloom. ‘I thought we were going to die last night and that I’d never get the chance to love you.’
Luca hugged her close as her words sang like an opera in his heart. ‘You love me,’ he said.
He’d hoped, he’d wondered, he’d wished. But to hear her say the words meant more than his next breath.
‘I didn’t want to,’ Mia murmured.
Luca chuckled as he stroked her hair. ‘Well, it’s just as well we don’t always get what we want.’
‘Oh, Luca.’ She pulled back and looked into his eyes, oozing love and joy. ‘I love you so much, I couldn’t bear anything to happen to us.’
Luca placed a finger across her mouth, shushing her, knowing what she was thinking. ‘I’m not your father, Mia. And you are not Marissa. We’re us and we won’t make the same mistakes.’
And then he lowered his head and drifted the sweetest, softest kiss across her mouth she’d ever experienced. Her eyes fluttered closed and she sighed.
‘Promise?’ she murmured against his lips.
Luca chuckled. ‘Promise.’