Page 29 of The Sicilian’s Deal For 'I Do'

‘Swimming became a form of hell. She’d criticise my body as soon as I emerged from my room. I felt so self-conscious. I mean, your body’s starting to change at that age and that’s hard to get used to, but to have Mum draw my attention to it, as well as whoever else happened to be on the boat, it was excruciating. I stopped wanting to swim. I stopped wearing anything that showed skin. Eventually, I got out of coming on these trips altogether. But that didn’t matter. Whether it was here or at home, Mum never let me forget what a disappointment I was because I wasn’t like her.’

Luca stood, prowling to the edge of the boat, staring out at the sea, his back turned and ramrod straight, his shoulders taut. She found it easier to talk to his back, anyway.

‘My mother is very beautiful and fashion is her favourite hobby. She would bemoan how unfortunate it was that none of her clothes would ever fit me, that they couldn’t be passed down. She’d hoped to have a daughter she could share a wardrobe with, but instead she adopted me, and I was short and round.’ Mia mimicked her mother’s voice then closed her eyes, mortified to be revealing this much to Luca.

He spun around sharply, staring at Mia, his jaw clenched. ‘Mia, you are beautiful. I say that not as a man who’s become obsessed by your body, obsessed with making love to you, but as an objective stranger. When I first met you, I couldn’t get you out of my head. Youknowthat.’

She shook her head, struggling to accept that he’d felt as crazy with lust as she had. And yet, didn’t she have more than enough evidence of that? Everything about his behaviour in the past week demonstrated that his own infatuation was at a fever-pitch level, like hers.

‘It’s hard to explain,’ she said after a beat. ‘It’s not about whether her remarks had any basis in reality, but how they made me feel.’

‘I can imagine,’ he grunted. ‘What kind of bitch goes out of her way to destroy a vulnerable teenager’s self-esteem?’

She lifted her shoulders.

‘I honestly think she meant well. She wanted to encourage me to lose weight—I’m not like her, so much as my biological mother, which makes a lot of sense, really.’

His eyes narrowed. ‘Why the hell should weight loss be any kind of goal?’

She swallowed, and the academic part of her brain knew that he was right, that it was her mother who had been wrong to criticise and undermine Mia. ‘Beauty is important to her.’

‘Mia, listen to me. Let’s set aside for a moment the indisputable fact that you are very beautiful and focus on something else. Would you like to know what I think happened?’

Mia nodded her head once, and Luca came to sit beside her, on the lounger, his body so close she felt his warmth wrapping around her. ‘I believe you went away one year as a little girl and then came back showing the woman you’d become, and your mother was jealous. Because you’re young and gorgeous and suddenly she realised she’d have competition. I have known women like her, who can’t bear to be outshone, even by their own family members. That’s her sickness, not yours. Don’t take on her wounds and make them your own.’

She stared at him as if he were divining a lightning rod, right into her soul. Could this be true? Was her mother actually jealous of Mia?

‘Not only are you beautiful, you shine from the inside out.’ He pressed a hand to her chest. ‘You shimmer with life. Happiness, joy, light and kindness, qualities that your mother could never experience as you do. Do not give her opinions any more room in your head,cara. You deserve better.’

When he said it, she found it so easy to believe. She felt as though a weight she’d been carrying for a million years were lifting off her, as if she could breathe properly for the first time in for ever.

‘It’s not like I care about looks,’ she said, brow scrunching, because she wanted him to understand her. ‘It’s not a question of vanity. It’s—a question of value. Self-worth.’

‘You’ve lost weight,’ he said slowly, as if the words were dredged from deep in his chest. ‘Since our wedding.’

‘There was no wedding.’ She pulled her hand away, the memory of that day incongruous with the warmth and contentment he’d just poured through her. ‘And it wasn’t intentional.’

‘I would hate to think you have been suffering under the misapprehension that what happened that day had anything to do with your appearance, and my lack of desire for you.’

She blanched, shaking her head. ‘Can we really, please, seriously not talk about this?’

‘Mia, it’s important.’

‘It really isn’t,’ she pleaded. ‘In the scheme of things, what I think about this, how I feel, it just doesn’t matter.’

‘To me, it does.’

‘Why?’ she challenged with an urgency that came right from the very middle of her chest. ‘Why do you even care, Luca?’ She stood up, frustrated, pacing to the other side of the deck, staring out at the familiar view, hands clenched around the railing. ‘You’re the one who told me you don’t do serious conversations. So why are you pushing this? Why can’t you just let it go?’ Her voice cracked. ‘Please, would you just let it go?’

‘I will.’ He was speaking to her so softly, gently, as though she were a child. She compressed her lips, frustration making her nerve-endings reverberate. ‘When you’ve explained this to me, I will never speak of it again.’

Her eyes glimmered with mutinous annoyance. ‘That hardly sounds like a victory for me.’

‘Why won’t you discuss it?’

‘Because it’s in the past and because it hurts. Why dredge up something painful?’

‘If it is pain that I caused, then I have a right to know about it.’

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