took a jerky step backwards, shaken to her roots by what he’d said. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered painfully ‘I didn’t know!’
‘I know that,’ he snapped, still frowning blackly as he swung away again. ‘We are both having to deal with an intolerable situation,’ he said tightly. ‘Needs cross, emotions get out of control. It has to be expected that our priorities will clash.’
Wise words, she acknowledged, if she was able to ignore the fact that she had been so wrapped up in her own grievances and distress she’d allowed herself to forget all of his.
And what were her grievances? she asked herself. So, they’d done the unforgivable last night but both had been guilty of falling into that particular dark pit, greedily assuaging one set of emotions, then overwhelming them with a different set.
Because Luca had pulled away from her afterwards did not mean she could shift all the blame onto him. In fact, while she was being brutally honest here—if he hadn’t pulled away, then she probably would have.
The new silence gnawed at the tension in the atmosphere. She wished she could say something to make them both feel better but she couldn’t think what. He was standing there wearing a rod of iron strapped across his broad shoulders, and his fingers were gripping the worktop with enough power to put dents in to the solid black marble.
‘Sit down again,’ he gritted.
Sit down, she repeated to herself, and looked down at the way her bags were standing at her feet like a childish defiance. Without saying a word she picked them up, turned and left the kitchen. Walking down the hall, she went back into the bedroom, put the bags down by the bed then walked back the way she had come. Fingers fluttered momentarily, coinciding with the deep, shaky breath she took before she pushed open the kitchen door and stepped back in.
Luca was still standing where she had left him, long brown fingers still gripping the worktop like a vice. She wanted to go to him, put her arms around him and show him just how badly she felt for forgetting what really mattered. But instead she crossed to the table and sat down.
And the silence pulsed in her eardrums, it throbbed in her stomach and pulled at the flesh covering her face. Move! She wanted to shout at him. Say something—anything! I’ve said I’m sorry. I’ve made the climb down. I don’t know what else to do!
Maybe he tapped into her thought patterns—he’d always been able to do that. He turned, walked towards the table. The predicted rack of toast was set down in front of her.
‘I will organise a hotel suite for you,’ he announced curtly, then left her alone to swallow the unpalatable fact that her climb down had been a complete waste of time.
An hour later and she was at her sister’s bedside, delivered there by Luca who, once he’d checked on Keira, left again, his lean face scored by the grim task that lay ahead of him, one that would to strip his self-control to the bone.
Tears for them all flooded her eyes as she sat gently stroking Keira’s soft brown hair. She and her sister were so unalike in so many ways, she thought fondly. The colour of their hair, for instance, and the differences in character. Where she was bright and independent and naturally self-confident, Keira had always been shy and unsure of herself. Meeting and falling in love with Angelo had put stars in her eyes and an anxious pallor on her soft cheeks. She could never quite believe that a dashingly handsome man like Angelo could fall in love with a timid little mouse like her. So she’d worked hard all her marriage to make herself feel worthy of her man. It had infuriated Shannon to watch it sometimes. ‘You spoil him too much. He’ll start treating you like a doormat if you don’t watch out.’
But Angelo had remained faithfully besotted to his Irish mouse. It was the mouse who’d taken Shannon by surprise by turning into a sly little fox. ‘Idiot,’ she whispered and was suddenly fighting a battle with fresh tears again.
What followed was a long and hard nerve-flaying day in which Shannon divided her time between Keira and the nursery.
By two o’clock she was beginning to feel drained of emotional energy and was actually glad to be given some respite from her bedside vigil when a team of medical staff appeared and she was ushered away.
She needed some air that did not smell of the hospital. So she bought a sandwich in the downstairs cafeteria and took it with her to eat outside. The sun was bright and the air was cool, fresh—clean. Walking through the neatly laid gardens, she found a bench in the sunshine and sat down, unwrapped her sandwich and tried to empty all thoughts from her head so that she could attempt to eat at least.
Luca tracked her down ten minutes later. Her hair was up scrunched into a twist of narrow black ribbon, and the curve of her slender neck looked disturbingly vulnerable to him. The thought made him grimace because he wasn’t thinking of vulnerable as in fragile, he was thinking vulnerable as in ripe for tasting. His tongue even moistened at the prospect, and he wished that he didn’t have to look at her through the eyes of a recent lover.
But he did. Giving in to his baser instincts might have been a stupid mistake but he was now stuck with the results of it. Last night he had gone a little insane. He had lost control of himself. Two years ago she’d left him, taking his manhood with her when she went. Last night she gave it back to him. He should be pleased. He should be feeling the triumph of retribution and be able to walk away free and whole and ready to get on with the rest of his life, but all he felt was …
Need, greed—it had many names but they all came wrapped up in the same package. He wanted more and no amount of self-aimed contempt was going to change that.
Maybe he should go out and find himself a woman. There were certainly a lot out there more than willing to share his bed. Maybe now that Shannon had released him from his sexual prison he could even do both himself and these other woman some of his old macho justice.
But he didn’t want them; he wanted this one. This red-haired, white-skinned, blue eyed betrayer who made his body sing.
A wry smile played with the tired corners of his mouth as he started walking again. The slight tensing in Shannon’s shoulders as she’d sensed his approach gave that smile a different edge. Love each other or hate each other, they could still tune into the others presence like wild cats sniffing territorial scent.
Stepping around the bench, he paused for a moment to study the strain in her face. Her hair might burn like fire in the sunlight but her cheeks were pale, her eyes too dark and there was a telling hint of hurt about the way she was holding her mouth.
On a heavy sigh, he remembered why it was that he had come to find her. Slipping free the single button holding his jacket together, he sat down next to her with a long sigh.
‘I’m sorry there was no one here with you,’ he murmured quietly. ‘It has been a—tough morning for everyone, I’m afraid.’
She turned to look at him, expression guarded as she looked into his face. He was beginning to look haggard, he knew, and did not bother to hide it. ‘I thought it was tough enough five years ago when we had to do this for my father but …’ He stopped, mouth tightening on words he didn’t want to say but knew in the end that he had no choice. ‘My mother collapsed and has had to be sedated. Renata is finding it difficult to cope. Sophia offered to come here to sit with you but she is needed by Mama.’
‘I understand,’ she returned.
‘Do you?’ Luca wished that he did. It felt as if the
