Page 31 of The Sicilian’s Deal For 'I Do'

And then, his world had changed again, when a lawyer had arrived in a smart grey suit, with an even fancier grey car, and bundled Luca into the sweet-smelling interior—lollies and air freshener—and taken him to the airport, where he’d boarded a large jet and been flown to the unfamiliar, sticky and hot landscape of Sydney, Australia.

He’d hated his father immediately.

He’d hated him even more when he came to realise that he had a brother just three months older. At twelve, Luca was mature enough to understand what that meant. He’d been conceived while his father’s wife was pregnant with Max. His father had cheated—on his mother, and also Max’s mother.

Was it any wonder the marriage dissolved? But not simply and quietly, as the word ‘dissolved’ might have implied. It was a wreck. A total implosion, with sparks and flames and detritus and collateral damage in the form of two young boys who were forced to watch on and listen to it all, who would be shaped for ever by the visage of two grown-ups going out of their way to be as hurtful and angry with one another as they possibly could be.

All of these moments had shaped Luca, had informed his outlook on life, family, relationships. His trust was hard won, but Max had earned it.

Their early relationship had been difficult. Naturally. It didn’t help that their father had almost seemed to delight in setting the boys against one another, in fuelling a competition between them. But competition had somehow turned to mutual respect, then to the realisation that they had far more in common than they didn’t, and that their differences could, if used in tandem, unite them, strengthen them.

Somewhere along the way, they became a pair.

Except in one vital way: Luca swore he would never touch one cent of the Stone fortune, and he hadn’t. To this day, his wealth was a by-product of his own work, his sweat, strength, daring, guile and genius. He’d worked harder than anyone he knew to rise to the top, to prove to his father that he didn’t need him. Or perhaps that he shouldn’t have ignored him, for the first twelve years of Luca’s life. A deeply buried sense of worthlessness, of having been unwanted by his father, was hard to shake, and Luca had learned the best way to conquer that vulnerability was to never need anyone again.

He couldn’t be hurt if he stood completely on his own, a pillar of autonomy and strength, a man utterly untouched by concern for another.

But Mia...

He dragged a hand through his hair, eyes blinking open and landing immediately on her, where she lay on the sun lounger, body a deep caramel, hair like gossamer silk so his fingers itched to reach out and touch her.

Mia was not his concern, he reminded himself emphatically. This week was an aberration, a rare moment of indulgence that he’d get out of his system and be done with. He didn’t need her. He didn’t need anyone.

But that didn’t mean he didn’t want to fix something inside her that he suspected he’d helped break. Moving quickly, he reached for his phone and placed a couple of calls, a sense of something like pleasure building in his gut as he imagined her reaction, when she realised what he’d done.

‘What is all this?’ Mia stared at the bags and bags and bags with a knotty feeling in her stomach.

‘You didn’t have time to pack clothes,’ he reminded her, gesturing to the bags as if it were nothing.

But Mia read the labels and knew that the island of things on her bed constituted an investment of tens of thousands of dollars, probably more like hundreds of thousands. Particularly when her eyes alighted on a small burgundy bag at the front with gold swirling writing that saidStone. His family’s jewellery stores were amongst the most prestigious in the world. And the most expensive.

‘Luca...’ Her voice faltered as she turned to face him, ambivalence on her delicate features. ‘This is too much.’

‘It’s just fabric.’

That was so like him, to simplify this gesture down to the nuts and bolts.

‘I hate shopping,’ she said with a shake of her head.

‘This isn’t shopping. Someone else has done that for you.’

‘Who?’

‘Does it matter?’

‘I’m interested.’ She moved to the bags out of idle curiosity, pressing one apart with her fingertips.

‘An assistant.’

‘You had your assistant buy me clothes?’

‘Why not?’

‘I just—’ She furrowed her brow. ‘I’m just confused. I don’t understand why you’d do this.’

‘Am I not allowed to gift you something?’

‘This isn’t something. It’s many somethings, and it’s extravagant and...’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I’ll feel strange keeping them after this week.’

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