and out of close contact with the hate of his life. He had never been more relieved as he was when he saw the lights of the private airport where his plane was waiting for them. He needed some space—air to breathe that wasn’t tainted with the scent of this woman.
The hire-car parking bay was under cover. Getting out, he directed Shannon to the departure lounge, then headed off in the other direction to officially hand back the car keys. By the time he went looking for her, she had removed her hat and coat and was standing in front of the departure lounge viewing window watching the rain pelting down from the sky.
Five feet eight was fairly tall for a woman, but next to him Shannon felt small, frail, delicate. Tonight as he paused to study her slender legs encased in denim and the pale sweater she was wearing he could detect a new fragility in the slender lines of her figure. It was a frailty caused by vulnerability and fear, and realising it made him feel the worst kind of lout for letting his feelings towards her get the better of him.
Smothering the urge to heave out a self-aimed angry sigh, he decided to make it easy on both of them and give her a wide berth. Walking over to the bar, he ordered a stiff drink then remained leaning there staring down at it without drinking, unaware that Shannon had watched his reflection in the window, every grim step of the way.
He hates being here with me as much as I hate him being here, she was thinking heavily, and wished she understood why knowing that caused such a terrible ache deep down inside. She didn’t love him—didn’t even want to be near him any more, so she was glad when he remained by the bar instead of coming near her—wasn’t she?
Forcing her eyes to focus further out into the night, she concentrated on watching the rain hitting the airport lights with almost enough power to smash the glass, while the wind buffeted madly at everything. And inside she prayed fervently that the weather would clear so they could be on their way to what really mattered.
Keira, her beloved Keira, the new baby—and poor, poor Angelo.
Maybe the fates decided to take pity on them because half an hour later Luca appeared at her shoulder. ‘They think there is a hole coming in the storm,’ he informed her. ‘If we can board and be ready, then we might be given the chance to get away from here.’
Getting away sounded so good to her that Shannon instantly turned and went to collect her belongings from the nearby chair where she had placed them. Shrugging into her coat, she pulled on her hat while Luca pulled on his coat. Five minutes later and they were walking side by side yet a million miles apart in every other way.
Magically, halfway to the Salvatore jet the rain suddenly stopped, the wind died away and glancing up Shannon saw the stars appear through a hole in the scurrying clouds. The break in the weather helped to lift some of her fears about Keira. She was going to be all right, Shannon promised herself firmly—willing it to be so.
‘Choose a seat and belt yourself in,’ Luca instructed as soon as they entered the plane. ‘I am going to check with my pilot.’
Even as he finished speaking he was disappearing through a door at the other end of the cabin and a flight attendant appeared to take her outdoor things. The man must have known that this was no pleasure trip because his expression remained sober, and once he had quietly suggested the best place for her to sit in the plush cream leather interior he disappeared, leaving her to make herself comfortable in peace.
Two minutes later the plane left the ground and shot towards the star-scattered hole in the clouds. An hour after that and Luca hadn’t put in an appearance. Deciding he was deliberately keeping out of her way the same as he had done in the airport departure lounge, Shannon finally felt able to relax the guard she’d been keeping on herself, and almost immediately felt her eyelids begin to droop.
Maybe it was for the best if she slept through some of the journey, she consoled herself after trying to fight the urge for a little while. It might feel as if she was abandoning some kind of vigil she had been maintaining for her sister, but common sense told her that stuck up here she couldn’t be more helpless if she tried to be.
So she let herself go, dreamed of her Keira’s familiar light laughter and of sweet-smelling babies. She held her vigil there in her dreams, where everyone was whole and healthy and no dark forces came to disturb the beauty of it.
Luca sat watching her for a while, feeling oddly disturbed by how peaceful she was. She used to sleep like this, he recalled. Lying so quiet and still beside him that he’d sometimes had to fight the urge to lean over her and check that she was still breathing. A foolish notion when he had been holding her in his arms and could feel her living warmth pulsing softly against him.
Dio, stop thinking about it, he told himself and pushed his head back into the seat cushion, then closed his eyes and tried to relax. But ugly scenes began playing on the backs of his eyelids, forcing him to open them again.
Angelo—Angelo … He shifted restlessly. Men didn’t weep. He wanted to weep. He wanted his brother back so he could let him know one last time how much he meant to him.
Tears began to burn like acid. He got up, hurried down the length of the cabin, then turned to pace restlessly back again. This had been the worst day of his life and it still was not over. He felt as if he had spent the day travelling the world carrying bad news like the grim reaper. He’d broken the news to his mother, to his sisters Renata and Sophia, then taken their disapproval with him to fly to London to break the news to Shannon. Now here he was flying home again with his passenger, who clearly found escape in sleep a better option than staying awake to talk to him.
Did he want to talk to Shannon about anything? he asked himself suddenly.
No, he did not.
Did he want her to wake up?
No, to that question too.
He paced away again, then turned and grimly made his way back to her side. She still hadn’t moved a single eyelash. Her face was relaxed but very pale. Her lips were together, soft and flushed with their usual rose-like bloom, but if she was breathing through her nose then he could see no evidence of it, no hint that her breasts were moving up and down.
Don’t be a fool, man! he told himself harshly. You know how she sleeps—you know! Yet still he found himself leaning over her to place light fingertips against her pale cheek.
Shannon came out of her haven of sleep to find Luca standing over her. He was so close she could feel his breath on her face. Their eyes clashed, two years shot away with the force of a gun crack and she was looking into his face as it had once looked minutes after his loving, one that had shattered her for ever. She saw anger, the contempt and dismay. She saw eyes turned black with the same emotion that had been driving him and felt the full wretched impact of hurt surge up once again.
Tears flooded into her eyes. ‘I hate you,’ she choked and struck out at him on impulse with a trembling clenched fist.
‘Hate?’ he echoed and caught the fist before it could land, closing it inside an iron grip. ‘You do not understand the meaning of the word,’ he bit back harshly. ‘This, cara, is hate—’
With a tug he yanked her up against him, aiming her mouth up to his so that they collided, and he smothered her shrill cry of protest with the demanding thrust of his tongue. He kissed her in anger, he kissed her in punishment, but it was the heat of his passion that set her struggling wildly to break free. An arm snaked around her waist and she found herself standing with the front of her body clamped to his. Her fist was released so that he could claim the back of her head and maintain the
