Page 35 of The Sicilian’s Deal For 'I Do'

And without the answers she desperately wanted.

‘I’m glad you like it.’

‘I do.’ She forced herself to be brave, to confront reality head-on. ‘It’s hard to believe I won’t see it again.’ Damn it, her voice cracked ever so slightly.

Was she imagining the way he stiffened at her side? Of course she was. A quick glance at Luca showed him to be the picture of sexy, tousled relaxation. As always, just the sight of him made her pulse thunder. She looked away again quickly.

One more night.

‘You can come back any time,cara.’

She took the throwaway comment as civility, nothing more. They’d made an agreement that this one week would be the end of their relationship—Mia wasn’t going to go back on her word, and she knew he wouldn’t either. Too much was at stake to be so foolish.

If she were to back out of her arrangement with Lorenzo, she’d have two failed engagements behind her. And for what? A man who, by his own admission, didn’t do serious relationships and didn’t want children. And who hated her parents, to boot.

But, that annoying little voice pressured,isn’t it better to be ecstatically happy for a short time than mildly contented for ever?

And was it really the right thing, to marry Lorenzo? A fortnight ago, she would have said yes, unequivocally, but everything was different now, including Mia, and what Mia wanted from life, and the path forward was no longer a path so much as a mess of sand and grit that she had no concept of how to navigate.

Mia knew two things for certain: she didn’t want to consider a life without Luca, but she couldn’t consider a life with him in it either. It would never work. So she forced herself to remember that, over and over and over again.

And as the night slipped towards dawn, and their time came close to running out, she had almost convinced herself that she was ready for this. Goodbyes, though, were never easy, even the ones that were utterly necessary.

CHAPTER EIGHT

‘HE’SSICK.’LUCAAPPRECIATEDthe fact Max cut right to the chase. And his older brother didn’t need to go into further detail. Luca knew that ‘he’ was their father, and that by ‘sick’ Max must have meant seriously ill, because he’d have never called in the middle of the night if the old man had a trifling cold. Not that Luca had been sleeping, anyway.

Having dropped Mia at her office earlier that day, he’d found himself ravaged by a vicious, internal war.

On the one hand, he knew there was wisdom in never seeing her again.

It wasn’t only wise, it wasright. Mia had chosen what she wanted in life and her priorities didn’t—couldn’t—accord with his own.

The fact they hadn’t married a year ago was, as it turned out, a blessing in disguise. Why hadn’t it occurred to him that the issue of children might prove controversial?

Because he was selfish.

The answer blinked right in front of his eyes, bringing him little pleasure. Her supposition—that children would, at some point, follow marriage—was the more natural of the two.

He knew his strong desire to never put down roots was unusual. How arrogant of him not to have given her any explanation on that score. He hadn’t treated her like a person, but, rather, a commodity. He couldn’t look back on that time in his life without a deep sense of shame. It was as though he were a different person altogether.

‘Luca?’

He drew himself back to the conversation with Max with effort.‘Sì?’

‘He’s known for a while.’

Luca grunted. That was so like their father—to conceal something important. ‘And?’

‘Bottom line? He’s probably got weeks, not months.’

Something shifted inside Luca. Though he wasn’t close to his father, it was yet another touchstone in his life being eroded away, leaving him with flint in his chest. ‘I see.’

‘He wants to see you.’

Luca stared at the wall across the room for a long time without speaking. He didn’t know what to say. Of course, the norm would have been to immediately assure his brother that he would come home, but Luca hadn’t thought of Australia as home for a long time—if ever. It was this foothold of Italy, where his mother had chosen to raise him, where he saw himself in the features of the people he passed on the street and in the rugged landscape that abounded in these parts.

Australia was just where he’d spent his adolescence.

---