is big enough.’
That it certainly was.
‘Er, well, thank you.’
‘I do not require your gratitude,’ he said, a touch frostily. ‘I want to be involved in her care. Besides, it gave you a chance to catch up on some needed sleep.’
She stared at him, too shocked that he’d done something for her partial benefit to speak.
‘Which is why our trip to Florence tomorrow could not come at a more opportune moment,’ he continued. ‘It will do you good to have some space. I’m guessing you’ve not spent much time apart from her since she was born?’
‘Of course I haven’t.’ Other than her one visit to her cottage studio, she had never been parted from their daughter. She could only tolerate Lily being in the next room by leaving the adjoining door wide open. Which was why it shocked her that she had been able to sleep so deeply. Was it because she knew Lily was in Luca’s care...?
He had cared for her beautifully. That much she had to acknowledge. Though she didn’t want to. When she looked at Luca she wanted to know she was looking at a bastard, not at a man with the capacity to tend for a young baby on instinct alone.
And now she needed to take Lily back to the nursery and get her ready for the day. And that meant taking her from him. It meant having to get close to his naked chest— Please, God, let him at least be wearing a pair of boxer shorts.
As ridiculous as she knew it to be, she had to practically drag her legs over to his side of the bed. Holding her breath, she leaned down and took Lily from his arms.
‘What are your plans for the day?’ he asked as she took a step back.
‘We’ll probably go for a walk.’ It was on the tip of her tongue to question why he asked, but she stopped herself in time. The last thing she wanted was for him to invite himself along.
Unsurprisingly, his eyes narrowed with suspicion. The only time in the whole of their marriage she had voluntarily gone for a walk and not been badgered into it had been the day she left him. ‘Another walk?’
She shrugged. ‘It’s not for me, it’s for Lily. She needs fresh air and I really can’t have a SWAT team accompanying us if we leave the estate. Yesterday was bad enough.’ The day before, she had taken Lily into Palermo for some Christmas shopping. She hadn’t visited the discreet arcade Luca had taken her to to buy the vile dress, but went to a proper shopping centre and market. It had been so crowded her bodyguards had been tripping over the heels of her feet to keep up with them.
‘The minders I have assigned to you are discreet.’
‘About as discreet as a herd of cows dressed in pink tutus.’
His lips twitched. ‘I’m sorry if you find them an inconvenience,’ he said without sounding the slightest bit apologetic, ‘but as I have explained to you countless times, they’re for your safety.’
‘Absolutely.’ She nodded with faux sweetness. ‘It was much harder to tolerate when I thought you were a legitimate businessman and an overprotective bear. But now I know it’s all because you’re worried one of your victims will get vengeance by going for me and Lily, it makes your attitude so much easier to sympathise with.’
The humour vanished from his face. He climbed off the bed and stalked towards her, a furrow running down the centre of his brow. He wore nothing but a pair of snug black boxer shorts. All the breath in her lungs expelled in a rush.
Luca, virtually naked, was as stunning a sight as if he had been fully nude. He was the only person for whom she had ever wished she were more proficient in sculpture, his body deserving to be immortalised on something even more substantial than canvas.
‘My business activities have nothing to do with my security provisions other than in respect of the scumbags it occasionally forces me to associate with. There are no victims.’
She averted her gaze from the wonder that was his body and forced herself to meet his eyes. That was no safer place to look, his eyes holding her like a magnet. No matter how hard she tried to look away, she could not.
This physical weakness for him enraged her and she could feel angry colour stain her cheeks. ‘You can tell me this until you’re blue in the face, but nothing is going to convince me you are anything but a gangster.’
Luca’s rage was like a tight coil. She could see it in the way his muscles bunched under his smooth skin.
Her breath hitched.
‘You are lucky you can use Lily as a shield,’ he said, his silky voice menacing, ‘or I would be forced to silence your vicious tongue.’
‘That sounds like a threat.’
‘Not at all, bella. As you should know, I never make useless threats, only promises. If you keep challenging me I will have no option but to shut you up the only way I know that works with you.’
‘Oh, yes? And how’s that, Gangster Boy?’ Why was she antagonising him so? Why could she not simply keep her mouth shut and walk away?
He studied her for an age, the fury in his eyes dispersing and being replaced by a gleam that frightened her a whole lot more than mere anger. Suddenly she was all too aware of the shortness of her nightdress—in her rush to find Lily she’d forgotten to put on her dressing gown.
His olive throat moved; his magnificent chest rose.
She could hear the heaviness of her own breathing, knew he was close enough to hear it too. He was too close. She could smell the musky scent of his skin...
‘By kissing you.’
‘Now you’re being ridiculous.’
He took another step towards her, stopping just short of touching her. But it was enough. The heat of his naked skin so close to hers was enough to make her traitorous body, already wholly aware with her skin tingling and her blood thick and warm, spring alive.
‘Ridiculous?’ His voice dropped to a murmur. ‘Do you not remember how good it used to be between us?’
She shivered, unwanted yet, oh, so potent images of just how good they had been together flittering in her head. ‘I thought you were on the hunt for a mistress.’
‘So did I.’ His eyes were stark with a desire she recognised from old, his voice barely audible. ‘But you are the only woman who can make me hard with a single look. And you want me too—I can see it in your eyes. I know you, Grace. And I know when you want me. If Lily wasn’t in your arms we would already be on that bed screwing each other’s brains out.’
The air thickened with the same tightening as in her core. Struggling for oxygen, she fought to make her vocal cords work. ‘Don’t say another word. You can keep hunting because there is no way I’m ever sharing a bed with you again. I don’t want you—I hate you.’
She turned on her heel and fled, hurrying all the way back to the hateful blue room, a room she loathed almost as much as she loathed her husband. She let the door shut with a slam.
Holding Lily to her, she sat on the bed and waited for her thundering heart to slow to at least near normal
