Page 41 of The Sicilian’s Deal For 'I Do'

His upbringing. The mother he loved and respected but had never felt a warm affectionate love from. The shock of her death. The resilience he’d showed in facing that head-on. The courage in moving to Australia. The despair at breaking up a family, of knowing himself—indirectly—to be the cause of it. His very existence was the death knell to his father’s marriage and his brother’s family.

As for his father, Mia knew she shouldn’t stand in judgement of someone she’d never met, but it was natural to have developed a dislike for the man who’d treated Luca so badly. Oh, Luca didn’t say as much. He spoke sparingly, the details given almost unwillingly, but he’d said enough for Mia to glean a pretty clear picture.

She understood Luca so much better now.

And that was dangerous, because understanding him brought her two steps closer to forgiveness, to true forgiveness, and, without the resentment that she’d become used to, she was terrified of what her feelings might morph into. Suddenly, the simplicity of her life, her future, the plans she’d calmly laid in place for everything she wanted seemed like a house of cards.

Her marriage to Lorenzo was the smart choice. Maybe it wasn’t even really a choice any more? Plans were in motion, guests had been invited, her parents were excited. And, more importantly, the business contracts were being signed, the merger too important to her parents to jeopardise.

For every answer she’d received last night, dozens of questions proliferated through her now, as she looked at her future with the exact opposite of clarity. She could barely see two steps in front of herself, but when she thought of marrying Lorenzo, she felt only a deep, terrifying sense of panic.

And yet, at the same time, she had to acknowledge that whatever feelings she had for Luca, he would never be her future.

He was a lone wolf. Not born that way, but shaped into it by life, and by a self-preservation mechanism that meant he wouldn’t change easily.

Even for her?

She heard the question and squeezed her eyes shut against the dangerous bloom of hope.

This couldn’t go on.

They couldn’t keep doing this.

Because Mia wasn’t an automaton. When she’d first met Luca, there’d been the most overwhelming sense of recognition, as if, here he was, the person she hadn’t even known she’d been waiting for all her life. She’d dismissed those feelings then as a stupid infatuation—he was beautiful and she was totally inexperienced and in awe of his larger-than-life charisma.

She knew him now. She was no longer mesmerised nor intimidated by him. But the sense that he was a complementary part of her wouldn’t shift. With a growing surge of panic, because everything was getting way too out of hand, she crept carefully from his bed and tiptoed out of the room, taking one last peek at his sleeping frame, closing her eyes and trying to steel herself against the gargantuan task ahead.

In his kitchen, she found a notepad and ran her finger over the top—the embossed logo for his company. Even that made her heart beat faster, and love squeezed her insides into a different shape. Because itwaslove.

Love for him, his personality, temperament, his strength, determination, intelligence, all the parts of him. Just as he’d said. She loved. Her heart was his. She saw his complexity, his perfections and failings, and lovedallof them.

‘Oh, God,’ she groaned softly, picking up a pen and writing quickly, ignoring the tears that were threatening.

Dear Luca,

I hope last night helped. I think you know, deep down, what you need to do.

I’ll be thinking of you in Australia, wishing you all the best.

Goodbye.

Love, Mia

She signed it with love because it was true, and because, though she’d never be stupid enough to tell him how she felt, nor to place that burden upon him, it felt like a small victory, a cheating, to be able to put in writing the honesty of her feelings.

But the ‘goodbye’ above it almost hurt her to write.

She stepped out onto the kerb in the early morning sunshine and walked quickly to her car, head bent, determined not to look back. A single glance, a moment’s pause, and she’d lose her will. She had to do this—there was no alternative.

She didn’t consciously make the decision then and there, but by the time Mia arrived at her office, it was with the grim understanding that she absolutely could not marry Lorenzo di Angelo. In fact, she was appalled that she’d ever agreed to go along with the plan. It was as though loving Luca had woken her up to what she deserved in life, to what she’d be denying herself in marrying someone she barely knew and didn’t love, didn’t desire. And she was asking Lorenzo to make the same sacrifice, all for the sake of their family businesses! What a silly, short-sighted decision to make.

Though that explanation gave the thought process a veneer of rationality that wasn’t really behind Mia’s decision. The truth was, when she thought of marrying Lorenzo, of marrying anyone other than Luca, she felt a visceral, stomach-rolling sense of despair.

There were many times in Mia’s life when she’d ignored her instincts and deferred to her parents, but this was not a time for that. She would not marry Lorenzo di Angelo, no matter how embarrassing it was to extricate herself from the situation now. She’d been able to go along with it, just, when she’d thought things with Luca were meaningless and purely physical—though had she ever really believed that? But now that she understood her heart, it would be wrong on every level to marry Lorenzo.

With the decision made, she walked past her own office door and approached her father’s. Her stomach looping in knots as she braced for what was going to be one of the most difficult conversations of her life. She loved Luca Cavallaro, and while she wasn’t foolish enough to hope he might love her back, nor that there was any future for her, that love still deserved better than for Mia’s marriage to another man. And with that in mind, she held Luca in her heart like a talisman, a strength she needed more than anything in this moment.

‘Do you have a second to talk?’

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