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CHAPTER FIFTEEN

MARCO GAZED OUT at the azure sky, his eyes starting to water from staring at its hard brightness for so long. The plane was minutes away from touching down in LA and he’d barely spoken to Sierra for the six hours of the flight.

He’d wanted to. He’d formed a dozen different conversation openers in his mind, but everything sounded wrong in his head. He had a feeling it would sound worse out loud. The trouble was, since her revelation last night he hadn’t known how to approach her. How to handle her.

Guilt churned in his stomach as he replayed in his mind all that Sierra had told him. It was a form of self-torture he couldn’t keep himself from indulging in. A thousand conflicting thoughts and feelings tormented him: sadness for what Sierra had endured, guilt for his part in it, confusion and grief for what he’d felt for Arturo, a man he’d loved but who had been a monster beyond his worst imaginings.

In the end, beyond a few basic pleasantries about the trip and their destination, he’d stayed silent, and so had Sierra. It seemed easier, even if it made him an emotional coward.

‘Please fasten your seat belts as we prepare for landing.’

Marco glanced at Sierra, trying for a reassuring smile. She smiled back but he could see that it didn’t reach her eyes, which were the colour of the Atlantic on a cold day. Wintry grey-blue, no thaw in sight. Was she angry at him? Did she blame him somehow for what had happened before? How on earth were they going to get past this?

Which begged another question—one he was reluctant to answer, even to himself. Why did they need to get past this? What kind of future was he envisioning with Sierra?

A few days ago he’d wanted to be the one to walk away first. But a realisation was emerging amidst all his confusion and regret—he didn’t want to walk away at all.

But how could they build a relationship on such shaky, crumbling foundations of mistrust and betrayal? And how could he even want to, when he had no idea what Sierra wanted? When he’d been so sure he’d never love someone, never want to love someone?

‘Are you looking forward to seeing Los Angeles?’ he asked abruptly, wanting to break the glacial silence as well as keep from the endless circling of his own thoughts.

‘Yes, thank you,’ Sierra replied, and her tone was just as carefully polite. They were acting like strangers, yet maybe, after all they hadn’t known about each other, they were strangers.

The next hour was taken up with deplaning and then retrieving their luggage; Marco had arranged for a limo to be waiting outside.

Once they’d slid inside its luxurious leather depths, the soundproof glass cocooning them in privacy, the silence felt worse. More damning.

And still neither of them spoke.

‘Where are we staying?’ Sierra finally asked as the limo headed down I-405. ‘Since there isn’t a Rocci hotel here yet?’

‘The Beverly Wilshire.’ He managed a small smile. ‘I need to check out my competition.’

‘Of course.’ She turned back to the window, her gaze on the palm trees and billboards lining the highway. The silence stretched on.

Sierra admired the impressive Art Deco foyer of the hotel, and when a bellboy escorted them to the private floor that housed the penthouse suite, Marco experienced a little dart of satisfaction at how awed she looked. It might not be a Rocci hotel, but he could still give her the best. He wanted to give her the best.

And the penthouse suite was the best: three bedrooms, four marble bathrooms, a media room, plus the usual dining room, living room and kitchen. But best of all was the spacious terrace with its panoramic views of the city.

Sierra stepped out onto the terrace, breathed in the hot, dry air of the desert. She glanced up at the scrubby hills that bordered Los Angeles to the north. ‘It almost looks like Sicily.’

‘Almost,’ Marco agreed.

‘I don’t know if we need such a big suite,’ she said with a small teasing smile. ‘Three bedrooms?’

‘We can sleep in a different one each night.’

Her smile faltered. ‘How long are you planning on staying here?’

Marco noted the ‘you’ and deliberately kept his voice even and mild. ‘I’m not sure. I want to complete the preliminary negotiations for The Rocci Los Angeles, and I don’t need to be back in Palermo until next week.’ He shrugged. ‘We might as well stay and enjoy California.’ Enjoy each other. He only just kept himself from saying it.

‘I have a job to get back to,’ Sierra reminded him. ‘A life.’

And she was telling him this why? ‘You have a freelance job,’ Marco pointed out. ‘What is that if not flexible?’

Her eyebrows drew together and she looked away. So he’d said the wrong thing. He’d known he would all along.

Sierra walked back into the suite and after a moment Marco followed. When he came into the living area he saw how lost she looked, how forlorn.

‘I think I might take a bath,’ she said without looking at him. ‘Wash away the travel grime.’

‘All right,’ Marco answered, and in frustration he watched her walk out of the room.

* * *

Could things get more awkward and horrible? With a grimace Sierra turned the taps of the huge sunken marble tub on full blast. She didn’t know what she regretted more: telling Marco the truth about her father or coming with him to LA. The trouble was, she still wanted to be with him. She just didn’t know how they were going to get past this seeming roadblock in their relationship.

Whoa. You don’t have a relationship.

She might be halfway to falling in love with him, but that didn’t mean Marco felt the same. He’d made it abundantly clear that they were only having a fling and, in any case, she didn’t even want him to feel the same. She didn’t want to be in love herself. Not when she’d seen what it had done to her mother. Not when she’d felt what it could do to herself.

Since meeting Marco again her whole world had been tangled up in knots. Since making love with him she’d felt happier and yet more frightened than she ever had in the last seven years. Happiness could be so fleeting, so fragile, and yet, once discovered, so unbearably necessary. How much was it going to hurt when Marco was gone from her life?

Better to make a quick, clean cut. She’d told herself that yesterday and yet here she was. She was more like her mother than she’d ever wanted to be. Filled with regret and uncertainty, Sierra closed her eyes.

She almost didn’t hear the gentle tapping at the bathroom door. She opened her eyes, alert, and then heard Marco call softly, ‘Sierra? May I come in?’

She glanced down at her naked body, covered by bubbles. Everything in her seemed to both hesitate and yearn.

‘All right,’ she said.

Slowly the door opened. Marco stepped inside the steamy bathroom; he’d changed his business suit for faded jeans and a black T-shirt that clung to his chest. His hair was rumpled, his jaw shadowed with stubble, his eyes dark and serious.

‘I haven’t known what to say to you.’

Sierra gazed at him with wide eyes. She felt intensely vulnerable lying naked in the bath, and yet she recognised that Marco had come in here for a reason. An important reason. ‘I haven’t known what to say, either.’

‘I wish I had the right words.’

‘So do I,’ she whispered.

Slowly Marco came towards her. Sierra watched him, her breath held, her heart beating hard. ‘May I help you wash?’ he asked and she stared at him, paralysed by indecision and longing. Finally, wordlessly, she nodded.

She watched as Marco reached for the bar of expensive soap the hotel provided and lathered his hands. He motioned for her to lean forward and after a moment she did and he began to soap her back. His touch was gentle, almost hesitant, and it felt loving. It also felt incredibly intimate, even more so than the things they’d done together in bed. Yet there was nothing overtly sexual about his touch as he slid his hands up and down her back. It felt almost as if he were offering some kind of penance, asking for absolution. Almost as if this act was as intimate and revealing for him as it was for her.

She let out a shuddering breath as he pressed a kiss to the back of her neck. Desire, like liquid fire, spread through her as he kissed his way down the knobs of her spine.

‘Marco...’

‘Let me make love to you, Sierra.’

She nodded her assent and in one easy movement he scooped her up from the tub and, cradling her in his arms, he brought her back to the master bedroom. Sierra gazed up at him with huge eyes as he laid her down on the bed and then stripped his clothes from his body.

She held her arms out and he went to her, covering her body with his own, kissing her with a raw urgency she hadn’t felt from him before. And she responded in kind, kiss for kiss, touch for touch, both of them rushed and desperate for each other, until Marco finally sank inside her, buried deep, her name a sob in his throat as they climaxed together.

Afterwards they lay quietly as their heart rates returned to normal and honeyed sunlight filtered through the curtains.

She would miss this, Sierra thought, when it was over. And despite the tenderness Marco had just shown her, despite the fierce pleasure of their lovemaking, she knew it would be over soon. She felt it in the way Marco had already withdrawn back into the shuttered privacy of his thoughts, his eyebrows drawn together as he stared up at the ceiling. She had no idea what he was thinking or feeling. Moments ago he’d been the most loving, gentle man she could have imagined, and now?

She sighed and stirred from the bed. ‘I should dress.’

He barely glanced at her as he reached for his clothes. ‘We can order room service if you like.’

‘I’d rather go out.’ She wanted to escape the oppressive silence that had plagued them both since last night.

‘Very well,’ Marco answered, and he didn’t look at her as he started to dress.

An hour later they were seated at an upmarket seafood restaurant off Rodeo Drive. Sierra perused the extensive and exotic menu while Marco frowned down at the wine list.

‘So what business do you have to do here exactly?’ she asked after they’d both ordered.

‘I’m meeting with the real estate developers to agree on the site for the new hotel.’

‘Where is it?’

‘Not far from here. A vacant lot off Wilshire Boulevard.’ He drummed his fingers on the table, seeming almost impatient, and Sierra couldn’t help but feel nettled.

‘Sorry, am I wasting your time?’ she asked tartly and Marco turned to her, startled.

‘No, of course not.’

‘It’s just you seem like you can’t wait to get away.’

‘I seem...?’ Now he looked truly flummoxed. ‘No, of course not.’

Sierra didn’t answer. Maybe the problem was with her, not with Marco. She could feel how his changing moods affected her, made her both worry and want to please him. Had her mother been like this, wondering if her husband would come home smiling or screaming? Bracing herself for a kiss or a kick?

She couldn’t stand the see-sawing of emotions in herself, in Marco. The endless uncertainty. It had been better before, when she hadn’t cared so much. That was the problem, Sierra realised. She really was starting to love him. Maybe she already did.

Cold fear clawed at her. So much for a fling. How had she let this happen? How had he slipped under her defences and reached her heart, despite everything? She’d never wanted love, never looked for it, and yet it had found her anyway.

‘Is something wrong?’

Sierra jerked her gaze up to Marco’s narrowed one. ‘No...’

‘It’s just that you’re frowning.’

‘Sorry.’ She shook her head, managed a rather sick smile. ‘I’m just tired, I suppose.’

Marco regarded her quietly, clearly unconvinced by her lie. ‘My business should only take a few days,’ he said. ‘I’ll be done by the day after tomorrow. Maybe then we could go somewhere. Palm Desert...’

For a second Sierra imagined it: staying in a luxurious resort, days of being pampered and nights spent in Marco’s arms. And then, after a few days, what would happen? Maybe he would ask her to go with him to Palermo. Maybe there would be more shopping trips and fancy restaurants and gala events. But eventually he would tire of her tagging along with him, leaving her own life far behind, just as her mother had. And even if he didn’t tire of her, what would she be but a plaything, a pawn?

And yet still she was tempted. This was what love did to you. It wrecked you completely, emotionally, physically—everything. It took and took and took and gave nothing back.

Marco frowned as he noted her lack of response. ‘Sierra?’

‘How long would we go to Palm Desert for?’

Marco shrugged. ‘I don’t know—a few days? I told you, I have to be back in Palermo next week.’

‘Right.’ And never mind what she had to do. Of course. Sierra took a deep breath. This felt like the hardest thing she’d ever said, and yet she knew it had to be done. ‘I don’t think so, Marco.’

His mouth tightened and his eyes flashed. She knew he’d taken her meaning completely. Before he could respond the waiter came with their wine, a bottle of champagne that now seemed like a mockery, the loud sound of the cork popping a taunt.

The waiter poured two flutes with a flourish, the fizz going right to the top. Marco took one of the flutes and raised it sardonically.

‘So what shall we toast?’

Sierra could only shake her head. She felt swamped with misery, overwhelmed by it. She didn’t want things with Marco to end like this, and yet she didn’t know how else they could end. Any ending was bound to be brutal.

‘To nothing, then,’ Marco said, his voice hard and bitter, and drank.