Читать книгу Unwrapping The Castelli Secret - CAITLIN CREWS - Страница 10

CHAPTER FOUR

THEY LANDED AT the private Castelli airstrip, high in the far reaches of northern Italy in the shadow of the towering Dolomites, just after dawn the following morning. Daylight was only beginning to stretch out pink and crystalline over the jagged spires and craggy, snowcapped heights of the sharply imposing mountains on either side of the narrow valley. Lily stared out of the window as the plane taxied down the scenic little runway, feeling as if someone had kicked her in the stomach.

She’d never imagined she’d see this place again. For years now she’d told herself she didn’t want to see it or anything else the Castellis owned again, including those wine bottles with their distinctive labels in the liquor store—yet there was no mistaking the way her heart leaped as the private jet touched down. There was no denying the fact that this felt a whole lot more like a homecoming than it should. Certainly more than was safe.

Last night had been the second-worst night of her life, all things considered.

She’d known on the long drive home from Charlottesville after she’d left Rafael in that café that he wasn’t likely to simply disappear. Not Rafael. He might have been spoiled rotten when she’d known him, a being created entirely out of wealth and privilege and more than happy to exploit both to serve his own ends—but he’d always gotten what he’d wanted. Lily being but one in a long line of things he’d taken because he could.

She’d sped along the dark country roads, hardly seeing the cold winter beauty of this place she’d come to call home. Lost in that kiss again. Lost in him. If it had been only her, she would have left then and there. Just kept on driving until she became someone else, somewhere else. She’d done it before. She knew exactly what it took to disappear without a trace.

But she wasn’t twenty-three and desperate any longer, and there was Arlo now. Her beautiful, magical little boy. She’d turned it over and over in her head all throughout that drive, but she couldn’t see how she could legitimately uproot Arlo and make him