Page 10 of The Secrets We Keep

She had no reason to think his father wouldn’t sell her back to the person who had tried to kill her in the first place. Lorenzo Bianchi was a heartless son of a bitch.

She jolted at the thought and took a quick step forward. “Your father can’t know I’m alive. If he tells—”

“My father’s dead.” He jingled a set of keys in his pocket. “He killed himself about six months ago.”

“Oh. I didn’t realize. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. We both know what an asshole he was. If he wasn’t, I might have been there to protect you.”

She moved closer, stopping short when he looked sharply away from her. “Or you would be dead along with everyone else. It was comforting to know you were still out there. It helped to picture you happy.”

“There wasn’t happiness without you, Sienna.” He gave a mirthless laugh and scrubbed a hand over his face. “How could you possibly think there was?”

“I figured you’d move on eventually,” she said softly. “Get married.”

That thought sent a stabbing pain through her. It was harder to picture it, harder to want that for him when he was standing so close. She couldn’t remember if she’d seen a ring on his finger at the hotel. She’d been too preoccupied with his hand around her throat and the feel of his body against hers.

“Have that big family we always talked about.”

He surged forward without warning, gripping the back of her neck and hauling her onto her toes. She crashed into the hard plane of his chest seconds before his mouth covered hers. His kiss was hot and demanding, and she melted into it.

Linking her arms around his neck, she pressed tighter against him, groaning softly when his free hand circled her waist and pulled her in until there was no space between them. He slid his tongue along her bottom lip and then nipped it with his teeth, making her shiver.

His hand circled around from the back of her neck to squeeze her throat, gently this time, and he used his thumb under her chin to tilt her head up so he could deepen the kiss. She slid her tongue against his, teasing him until he rewarded her with a groan.

When she slid her hands into his hair, grazing her fingernails along his scalp, he rocked his hips into hers, and she sighed. This was the one thing they’d never needed to work at. Far beyond words, she knew the heart of him.

She’d spent a year mapping him, committing him to memory. The shape of his body, the things he liked, the sounds he made if she touched him exactly the right way.

He trailed a line of kisses along her jaw to her earlobe, tracing the shell of her ear with the tip of his tongue. Goosebumps erupted across her skin, and she moaned softly, tightening her fingers in his hair.

“Luca,” she breathed, wanting more from him, needing more.

Luca froze at the sound of his name on her lips, then backed away so quickly she stumbled forward a step. His eyes slowly traveled her body from head to toe, his breath coming in shallow pants. He stared at her for a long moment and then turned on his heel and left, the door slamming behind him.

Somehow, the absence of him in this moment, that rejection she’d been so keen on avoiding, hurt worse than all those years without him.

Slumping against the counter, she dropped her head in her hands.

This was for the best. Luca would only be a distraction in this. If he knew why she was really here, he’d probably try to stop her. And she couldn’t let that happen. Not even for the possibility of being with him again.

Chapter Six

Luca sat at the far end of the large conference table in Matteo’s newly acquired office building, staring out the window as Matteo and Carina argued. He preferred meeting at home, gathered around the couches in his father’s old study or the dining room table while they ate. Meeting in this glass-enclosed room felt cold and sterile.

Or maybe it was the fact that his world had imploded a few days ago. Seeing Sienna, hearing her voice, tasting her, knowing she was alive when he’d thought her dead for so long, mourned her. It had broken open something inside him, something he’d buried a long time ago.

What he’d read in the papers was nothing compared to her telling of it. And he knew there was more she wasn’t saying. She was too easy to read. She always had been.

He should have asked more questions, pried more answers out of her. About why she was back, what she was planning to do, if she knew who’d done this to her. He should have been cold, clinical, removed.

But from the moment the first tear fell, all he wanted to do was scoop her into his arms and comfort her. To touch her, hold her, soothe her. He wanted to know the bastards’ names so he could tear them limb from fucking limb.

Fingers snapped in front of his face, and he jolted, looking up to see everyone around the table staring at him.

“Enjoying your daydream?” Matteo wondered.

“Sorry, what was your question?” Luca shifted in his seat, ignoring Carina’s searching stare.

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