Page 47 of The Sicilian’s Deal For 'I Do'

‘Don’t.’ She shivered. She trembled. She searched for more words, but ‘don’t’ was the only one she could quickly wrap her tongue around and it tripped from her mouth, over and over. ‘Don’t touch me. Don’t ask this of me. Please, don’t say it again.’

When he took a step towards her, she lifted a hand in the air and said it again. ‘Don’t.’

This time, he listened, eyes sparking with hers, but body still.

She struggled for breath, for thought, but finally, words came to her. ‘What my father has done is stupid and wrong. I cannot fathom how he got into this mess. But I will not agree to your offer.’

‘Why not?’

She shook her head, furious. ‘Do you really not see, Luca? Do you not see how cheap this makes us seem? How demeaning it is to what we’ve shared? You are the only man I’ve ever made love to, the only man who’s ever touched me, and now, all my memories of you, this thing, will be tainted by what you’ve said tonight, by what you clearly think of me.’

She stopped, waiting for him to react to that, to say something, to demur, but he didn’t, so she pushed on, her voice wobbling a little. ‘Do you really think you can buy me? And for what? Some more time? A few more weeks? A month perhaps? And what do I do when it ends? When you decide you are bored of me and leave? How do I pick up my life and go on, knowing that I sold myself to you to save my father’s skin?’

She could see that her words were hitting their mark. His skin paled and his eyes seemed to widen, just a fraction.

‘I am not for sale,’ she reiterated, finally, tilting her chin and glaring at him for the last time.

She’d come here furious and she was leaving devastated—but Mia was just glad she was leaving at all. Another moment of being kissed by Luca and she feared she would have been unable to find the strength to go. It was now or never.

But Luca was not a man to be walked out on. Not ever, and not by Mia. He wouldn’t let her leave. Not without resolving this. Not without...what? He couldn’t force her to stay. He’d offered her more of himself than he’d thought he’d ever freely give another person. For Mia, it turned out, he was prepared to go further out on a limb than he’d even known existed a month ago.

And he’d tried to offer a solution to her pretty significant problem.

What good could come from chasing her?

Perhaps none, but his legs carried him anyway, out of the lounge room and then his front door, onto the street, where the afternoon sun was still bright, the heat of the day powerful.

‘Mia, stop.’ His voice was commanding and strong. Mia’s steps faltered for a moment, but then she pushed on, reaching into her bag as she went, shoulders determinedly square as she dug for her keys.

He went for her car instead, easily identifiable in his street.

‘Stop.’ He almost cursed. Frustration was simmering through him. He couldn’t understand why she was leaving.

‘No.’ Her eyes zipped around the street and belatedly he recalled her fear of being seen with him, of one of her father’s friends spotting them. Well, wasn’t that the point of his suggestion? That they could come out of the shadows?

‘Come back inside,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s hot, and you’re angry. Come and have a drink. A swim. Think about what I’m proposing.’

Her eyes jerked to his, a frown tugging at her lips, and then she shook her head, moving to the driver door of her car. ‘I could think and think and think and never change my mind. It’s not enough, I told you.’

‘Then what is? What do you want, Mia? More money? More clothes? What?’

She stared at him with abject confusion, then paced back to stand right in front of him, her eyes narrowed as she looked up into his face. ‘Please tell me, at what point in time have I ever seemed like the kind of woman who could be bought? Do you believe, for even one moment, that financial considerations would lead me to give myself to you?’

This was coming out all wrong. It wasn’t what he’d meant. Of course their relationship existed separately from any financial deal he made with her father. He simply wanted her to stay.

‘I saw my mother destroyed by a man who wasn’t honest with her.’ His voice was raw. ‘I’m just...trying to tell you what I can give you, so we both know where we stand.’

‘I know where I stand,’ she muttered. ‘And right now, it’s directly opposite an A-grade jackass.’

Pulling on her handbag strap, she looked down the street as an older couple began to promenade the length.

She stiffened, turned her attention back to Luca. ‘I’m leaving now. Don’t follow me. Don’t call me. Don’t... Just let me go.’

Letting her go was important. After all, she couldn’t be any clearer about what she wanted, so what choice did he have? It ran contrary to every fibre of his being, though, and as he watched her drive away, he felt as though he was missing something important, something that he could have said or done to change her mind. But Luca Cavallaro, with all the events that had shaped him into the man he was now, was incapable of recognising the one gift he possessed that Mia wanted—the one thing he could have offered her that would have convinced her to stay. Not for a month, but for the rest of her life.

‘You came.’

Luca had expected Carrick Stone to be frail, but he hadn’t been prepared for just how tiny his father would seem, huddled in the large hospital bed, those sharp eyes following Luca across the room.

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