Page 30 of The Sicilian’s Deal For 'I Do'

‘God, Luca! What do you want me to say? That you not showing up for our wedding didn’t impact me at all? That there were no negative consequences from that day?’ She shook her head to dispel both sentiments. ‘It was a disaster. You humiliated me. Worse, you confirmed every negative feeling I had about myself, every sentiment my mother had ever expressed to me. I felt worthless and unwanted and laughable. A total joke. Is it any wonder I’m a different person now? And I don’t mean physically, I mean all of me.’

She tilted her chin with outraged defiance, hoping he could see the strength and determination that fired from her eyes. ‘I fully believe you had no intention of hurting me, that you didn’t even think about me as an individual, so much as a part of a business deal you no longer wanted any part of, but your actions that day broke me. I swore I’d never admit that to you,’ she muttered. ‘I swore I’d never let you know...’

‘Don’t.’ He moved across the boat, drawing her into his arms. ‘Don’t lie to me any more, don’t hide from me. I deserve to know what happened.’ He drew in a deep breath, eyes swirling with feeling as they stared at each other. ‘You’re right,’ he admitted gruffly, after a beat. ‘I didn’t think of you as an individual. Not really. But I didn’t walk away because I didn’t desire you, Mia. It had nothing to do with that. If anything, how I felt about you, how attracted I was to you, scared the hell out of me. It still does.’

He pressed a finger to her chin and she trembled, his words making no sense and all the sense in the world because this wasterrifying. ‘I walked out on our wedding because of your parents’ actions. Not yours.’

She closed her eyes, hating their past, hating how much she wanted him, how complicated everything was.

‘I worked hard to build my fortune, my life, to get out of the slums of Sicily, to prove to my father that I was more than he’d ever thought, more than the boy he spent twelve years ignoring. It’s never been about money. It’s so much more than that. The idea of someone trying to cheat me out of what I’ve achieved—I was enraged. You bore the brunt of that.’ A frown marred his handsome, symmetrical features. ‘I’m sorry. I wish you had not ended up as collateral damage. If I could undo it, I would. But, Mia? You are beautiful. Now. Then. Always. I’m sorry that your mother’s treatment gave you cause to doubt that, and that my own actions inadvertently—and incorrectly—reinforced her behaviour.’

A tear slid down her cheek as she shook her head, hearing his words but refusing to heed them. Self-preservation was an instinct that died, oh, so hard. But when he kissed her, she let him, and she relaxed into it, because it was just a kiss, it was just sex, it was just physical. Mia’s heart was as locked as ever, and Luca’s was too. This was safe, this was okay, because they knew when they’d stop seeing each other, and go back to their normal lives. Everything was going to be just fine.

‘Mia? How’s England?’

Her skin paled as her dad’s voice came down the phone line. The lie felt heavy in her gut. But then her eyes drifted across the dazzling white sand beach, following Luca’s figure as he ran parallel to the coastline. ‘Oh, fine. Yeah, fine.’

‘Doing pre-wedding shopping?’

Mia clamped her hands together in her lap. The wedding, which she knew to be inevitable, now loomed as a terrifying drop right off the edge of the earth. Certainty about what she was doing, and why, had begun to recede. She knew the wedding mattered to her parents, the company did too, but what about Mia? She wanted freedom from her parents’ oppressive type of love, but was there only one way to obtain that freedom?

‘Dad, I wanted to ask you something,’ she said without answering. ‘Do you have a minute?’

‘I have precisely two minutes before my meeting arrives.’

‘Great, this won’t take long.’ The quicker the better in fact, like ripping off a plaster. She furrowed her brow, tummy in knots. ‘It’s about Luca Cavallaro.’

Silence stretched between them. Saying his name aloud sent a rush of something through Mia—she realised she hadn’t done as much since the wedding day.

‘Bastard of a man. What about him?’

Mia’s cheeks coloured. ‘Did you have any idea, before that day, that he was having...doubts?’

More silence but, this time, Mia was sure she heard it crackle down the phone line. ‘What kind of question is that?’ Gianni spluttered eventually, either truly indignant or doing an excellent job of feigning it.

‘I’m just curious.’

‘Mia, as far as I was concerned, the wedding was going to happen.’

She sighed, frustrated. Someone was lying to her, and as she watched Luca running, she knew who she believed. Luca had hurt her, but he was ruthlessly honest. He wouldn’t say he’d had a conversation with Gianni if it hadn’t taken place. Was it possible her father had misunderstood? Her frown deepened.

‘What is all this about, Mia?’ Gianni asked sharply. ‘That bastard is in the past. Lorenzo is a good man. His family is rich and powerful, the business will be in good hands.’

‘As will I?’ she asked, ice in her veins. How much of this was about the business, rather than Mia?

‘Yes, yes, of course. Now, is that everything?’

CHAPTER SEVEN

WHATWASHEDOING? He felt a slip in the side of the road, a precarious tumble, not only likely but almost happening in that moment. Things with Mia were different from anything he’d experienced, different from what he’d anticipated they’d be. She was like a diamond in one of his father’s stores, with dazzlingly bright eyes and many, many facets. Every time he thought he understood her, she revealed something else about herself. He didn’t think a lifetime would be long enough to properly know her.

But that was for her husband to find out.

Luca tightened his jaw, trying not to think of how that could have been him, if he’d been willing to let the Marini family con him into a worthless business partnership.

He closed his eyes a moment, trying to grab hold of the anchor points in his life, the touchstone moments that informed the man he’d become. The difficulties of his childhood. His mother’s poverty despite her hard work—that had taught him a determination to never be hungry again, to never know the discomfort of a winter without electricity. It had taught him a fierce desire to be so rich money became almost inconsequential. His mother’s death—sudden and abrupt—and whatever trials he’d had before then had seemed ludicrous, because suddenly the carpet had been ripped from beneath his feet, his whole world tumbled and shattered and unrecognisable without the woman who’d been a bookend to his days for as long as he could remember. She was not a demonstratively loving mother. Perhaps the hurts his father had heaped upon her had closed shut her heart, but, despite a lack of obvious affection, she’d been there for him, even when she was exhausted.

He’d missed her like a limb.

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