Marco paced the room, back to the window where he gazed out at the snarl of traffic. ‘We’ll wait.’ He wanted to see Sierra’s face when the will was read. He wanted to see the expression in her eyes as realisation dawned of how much she’d lost, how much she’d sacrificed simply to get away from him.
‘If it pleases you, signor,’ di Santis murmured and Marco did not bother to answer.
Thirty seconds later the outer door to the building opened with a telling cautious creak; di Santis’s assistant murmured something, and then a knock sounded on the office door.
Every muscle in Marco’s body tensed; his nerves felt as if they were scraped raw, every sense on high alert. It had to be her.
‘Signor di Santis?’ the assistant murmured. ‘Signorina Rocci has arrived.’
Marco straightened, forcing himself to relax as Sierra came into the room. She looked exactly the same. The same long, dark blond hair, now pulled back into a sleek chignon, the same wide blue-grey eyes. The same lush mouth, the same tiny, kissable mole at its left corner. The same slender, willowy figure with gentle curves that even now he itched to touch.
Desire flared through him, a single, intense flame that he resolutely quenched.
Her gaze moved to him and then quickly away again, too fast for him to gauge her expression. She stood straight, her shoulders thrown back, her chin tilted at a proud, almost haughty angle. And then Marco realised that she was not the same.
She was seven years older, and he saw it in the faint lines by her eyes and mouth. He saw it in the clothing she wore, a charcoal-grey pencil skirt and a pale pink silk blouse. Sophisticated, elegant clothing for a woman, rather than the girlish dresses she’d worn seven years earlier.
But the inner sense of stillness he’d always admired she still possessed. The sense that no one could touch or affect her. He’d been drawn to that, after the tempest of his own childhood. He’d liked her almost unnatural sense of calm, her cool purpose. Even though she’d only been nineteen she’d seemed older, wiser. And yet so innocent.
‘Signorina Rocci. I’m so glad you could join us.’ Di Santis moved forward, hands outstretched. Sierra barely brushed her fingertips with his before she moved away, to one of the club chairs. She sat down, her back straight, her ankles crossed, ever the lady. She didn’t look at Marco.
He was looking at her, his stare burning. Marco jerked his gaze from Sierra and moved back to the window. Stared blindly out at the traffic that crawled down the Via Libertà.
‘Shall we begin?’ suggested di Santis, and Marco nodded. Sierra did not speak. ‘The will is, in point of fact, quite straightforward.’ Di Santis cleared his throat and Marco felt his body tense once more. He knew just how straightforward the will was. ‘Signor Rocci, that is, your father, signorina—’ he gave Sierra an abashed smile that Marco saw from the corner of his eye she did not return ‘—made his provisions quite clear.’ He paused, and Marco knew he was not relishing the task set before him.
Sierra sat with her hands folded in her lap, her chin held high, her gaze direct and yet giving nothing away. Her face looked like a perfect icy mask. ‘Could you please tell me what they are, Signor di Santis?’ she asked when di Santis seemed disinclined to continue.
The sound of her voice, after seven years’ silence, struck Marco like a fist to the gut. Suddenly he was breathless. Low, musical, clear. And yet without the innocent, childish hesitation of seven years ago. She spoke with an assurance she hadn’t possessed before, a confidence the years had given her, and somehow this knowledge felt like an insult, a slap in his face. She’d become someone else, someone stronger perhaps, without him.
‘Of course, Signorina Rocci.’ Di Santis gave another apologetic smile. ‘I can go through the particulars, but in essence your father left the bulk of his estate and business to Signor Ferranti.’
Marco swung his gaze to her pale face, waiting for her reaction. The shock, the regret, the acknowledgement of her own guilt, the realisation of how much she’d chosen to lose. Something.
He got nothing.
Sierra merely nodded, her face composed, expressionless. ‘The bulk?’ she clarified quietly. ‘But not all?’
At her question Marco felt a savage stab of rage, a fury he’d thought he’d put behind him years ago. So she was going to be mercenary? After abandoning her family and fiancé, offering no contact for seven long years despite her parents’ distress and grief and continued appeals, she still wanted to know how much she’d get.
‘No, not all, Signorina Rocci,’ di Santis said quietly. He looked embarrassed. ‘Your father left you some of your mother’s jewellery, some pieces passed down through her family.’
Sierra bowed her head, a strand of dark blond hair falling from her chignon to rest against her cheek. Marco couldn’t see her expression, couldn’t tell if she was overcome with remorse or rage at being left so little. Trinkets, Arturo had called them. A pearl necklace, a sapphire brooch. Nothing too valuable, but in his generosity Arturo had wanted his daughter to have her mother’s things.
Sierra raised her eyes and Marco saw that her eyes glistened with tears. ‘Thank you,’ she said quietly. ‘Do you have them here?’
‘I do...’ Di Santis fumbled for a velvet pouch on his desk. ‘Here they are. Your father left them into my safekeeping a while ago, when he realised...’ He trailed off, and Sierra made no response.
When he realised he was dying, Marco filled in silently. Had the woman no heart at all? She seemed utterly unmoved by the fact that both her parents had died in her absence, both their hearts broken by their daughter’s running away. The only thing that had brought her to tears was knowing she’d get nothing more than a handful of baubles.
‘They won’t be worth much, on the open market,’ Marco said. His voice came out loud and terse, each word bitten off. Sierra’s gaze moved to him and he felt a deep jolt in his chest at the way she looked at him, her gaze opaque and fathomless. As if she were looking at a complete stranger, and one she was utterly indifferent to.
‘Is there anything else I need to know?’ Sierra asked. She’d turned back to the lawyer, effectively dismissing Marco.
‘I can read the will in its entirety...’
‘That won’t be necessary.’ Her voice was low, soft. ‘Thank you for my mother’s jewels.’ She rose from the chair in one elegantly fluid movement, and Marco realised she was leaving. After seven years of waiting, wondering, wanting a moment where it all finally made sense, he got nothing.
Sierra didn’t even look at him as she left the room.
* * *
Sierra’s breath came out in a shudder as she left the lawyer’s office. Her legs trembled and her hands were clenched so tightly around the little velvet pouch that her knuckles ached.
It wasn’t until she was out on the street that her breathing started to return to normal, and it took another twenty minutes of driving out of Palermo, navigating the endless snarl of traffic and knowing she’d left Marco Ferranti far behind, before she felt the tension begin to unknot from her shoulders.
The busy city streets gave way to dusty roads that wound up to the hill towns high above Palermo, the Mediterranean glittering blue-green
