Page 48 of The Sicilian’s Deal For 'I Do'

‘You sound almost as surprised as I feel.’

Luca was rewarded by the hint of his father’s smile. As a teenager, he’d wanted to impress his father, for a time, until he’d realised it was almost impossible.

‘I am glad.’

Luca nodded once. A thousand feelings were bubbling inside him and yet there was a pervasive numbness too, a lack of feeling he’d been navigating ever since Mia had walked out of his life. Because if he let himself feel anything, it would overwhelm him. He knew that. Self-preservation had kicked in. He didn’t think about her, he didn’t talk about her, he sure as hell didn’t think about her impending marriage to Lorenzo di Angelo, because that thought made him want to set the world on fire.

‘Sit.’

Even now, Carrick’s voice was commanding. Luca lifted a single brow, contemplated refusing, then bowed to his better nature, moving to the leather chair near the top of Carrick’s bed.

‘How are you?’ Luca asked, even when the answer was a foregone conclusion.

‘Brilliant. Fit as a fiddle,’ Carrick said, eyes sparking with his dry sense of humour, so now it was Luca who found a vague smile tightening his mouth. ‘Max told you about the state of my affairs?’

Luca dipped his head once, so he didn’t see Carrick’s hand reach out, wasn’t aware of the gesture until his long, pale fingers curved around Luca’s forearm.

‘I want you to have it. I want you to be a part of the business.’ He hesitated. ‘I’ve wanted that for a long time, son. I just didn’t know how to explain.’

‘You’ve told me,’ Luca said quietly, the touch on his arm strangely soothing.

‘That is not the same as explaining.’ Carrick paused to cough. Luca waited, his heart tightening at his father’s evident pain. ‘When you walked out on me, on us, I was so angry, Luca. I was angry and hurt. My pride was hurt. You were my son and I had offered you everything I possessed, but you didn’t want it.’

Luca’s jaw tightened. There was such familiarity in that sentence, such an overlap with how Luca had been feeling lately, that he couldn’t help but sit up straighter. Perhaps Carrick mistook that for a gesture of withdrawal because he pulled his hand back, settled it in his lap.

‘It took me a long time to realise that it was my fault. Blaming you was easier.’ He laughed softly, shook his head, but there was sadness in his face. ‘But I was wrong. I didn’t know how to be with you. I never did. You’re different from Max. Max I held as a baby, watched learn to walk. I know I messed up there, too, but I was never afraid of him like I was you.’

‘Afraid of me?’ Luca repeated.

‘You arrived so angry. So sad and angry. You blamed me for everything.’

Luca bit back his rejoinder: that Carrick had deserved it. And out of nowhere, he heard Mia’s words, her voice so soft against his ear but so loud inside his heart that he started.

‘People aren’t just good, or just bad.’

Luca had simplified things to a fault by casting his father as a villain. As a teenager, he’d seen only his father’s errors, but hadn’t extended compassion to the toll circumstances must have taken on Carrick. He’d never shown it to the boys, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t felt it.

Luca reached out, put a hand on his father’s and shivered, because for a moment he felt as though Mia were with him, guiding his hand, filling him with compassion and understanding. Her wisdom had changed him. She had changed him, in so many fundamental ways.

Something clogged his throat. He looked away, angling his face until he had a better grip on his emotions.

‘I know I have no right to ask.’ The words were gruff. ‘And I know you have your own business.’ A sound, a garbled noise. ‘I am very proud of you, Luca. I have tried to tell you that so many times over the years but pride always held me back. I am glad I got to say it before—the end.’

Luca’s eyes felt sore. He ran a hand over them.

‘If you do not want your share of the company, sign it over to Max. He knows there is a possibility of that. But I hope—we both hope—you will consider stepping into your birthright. It would mean...everything to me.’

The emotions that were strangling Luca were too profound to unravel. He simply nodded, because he didn’t trust his voice to speak.

Allegedly, it was winter in the northern tip of Australia, but it felt nothing like it, and Luca was glad. The last thing he needed was that the weather should emulate his grey mood. Sydney had been sunny too, though Luca had only stayed in the city for a few hours. Long enough to see Carrick, to have some of his most fundamental life views altered by the older man. And despite the healing that had begun—and it was indeed a healing, of such long-held wounds Luca hadn’t even realised they existed: they were simply a part of him—he couldn’t shake the foul mood that was heavy upon him.

His father’s ill health had rattled him more than he’d expected but it was more than that.

Some of Carrick’s words had dug deep into Luca and resonated with his own feelings. Pride had stopped Carrick from being honest about his feelings. What if pride had stopped Luca from understanding, let alone conveying, what he really wanted from Mia?

But what was that?

And did it even matter? She was going to marry another man, despite what he’d offered. But what had he offered that could possibly tempt her to stay with Luca? She was right. He’d cheapened everything, had created the impression that there was something transactional about their relationship, instead of... Here, he floundered, because describing what he shared with Mia was overwhelmingly difficult.

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