Читать книгу Italian Deception: The Salvatore Marriage / A Sicilian Seduction / The Passion Bargain - Michelle Reid - Страница 11

IF HE only knew what was going on inside her head, Shannon thought. ‘I didn’t see you showing signs of letting your composure crack,’ she countered distantly.

‘It is cracked inside—bleeding, in fact.’ Luca surprised her with the gruff admission. ‘Here, drink some of this,’ he said and put a glass in her hand.

‘What is it?’ she asked suspiciously.

‘Brandy. It might help warm you up. You look in danger of turning into an ice sculpture.’

She drank some of the brandy and was annoyed with herself afterwards because it went straight to her eyes.

‘Don’t,’ Luca husked.

‘You started it,’ she blamed, stretching her eyes wide to stop the tears, and lifted a set of fingers to press them against her trembling mouth.

His sigh arrived with the gentle touch of a long finger as it brushed a stray lock of hair from her cheek. It was contact enough to make her want to throw her arms around his neck and sob her heart out.

Someone appeared on the periphery of their vision. It was Renata; she took one look at the intimacy of their little one-to-one and tensed. Luca’s older sister was one the nicest people anyone would wish to meet, but she struggled to look at Shannon without showing her disapproval.

‘Mama has come down and is asking for you, Luca,’ she informed her brother stiffly.

‘I’ll be there in a minute,’ he said without taking his eyes from Shannon.

‘Mama said—’

‘A minute, Renata,’ he interrupted incisively.

There was a pause that set the fine hairs on Shannon’s body tingling and kept her eyes firmly fixed on the black silk knot of Luca’s tie, then Renata spun away leaving an uncomfortable silence behind her.

‘That wasn’t very nice,’ she chided.

‘I don’t feel like being nice,’ he clipped in reply. ‘For the whole of this terrible day you have looked like a lonely piece of fragile porcelain someone put down and forgot to pick up again. I want to pick you up and never put you down.’

It was Shannon’s turn to murmur an uneven, ‘Don’t.’ He had no right to be saying things like that to her—especially not after the way he’d used her last night.

‘We need to talk. Last night was a mess,’ he said abruptly, hooking right into her thoughts again. ‘It should not have ended the way that it did.’

‘I don’t want to discuss it.’ She made a move to follow in Renata’s footsteps.

Luca blocked her exit from the alcove with a broad shoulder that effectively held her captive. ‘We have to talk about it,’ he insisted. ‘There are things I should have said last night that got lost in the war. But they are about to come up and hit us both in the face so I need you to listen.’

‘Listen to what—more insults?’

‘No,’ he denied on a rasp of impatience. ‘The marriage thing,’ he explained. ‘You said no to marrying me for our child’s sake but—’

‘There is no child!’ she inserted sharply.

‘Luca …’ It was the softer voice of Sophia that interrupted this time, sounding very cautious. ‘I am sorry to disturb you but Signor Lorenzo has arrived. He wants to …’

A string of near-silent curses left Luca’s lips while Shannon closed her eyes and prayed to God that Sophia hadn’t heard what she’d said. ‘I’m coming,’ he bit out in grinding impatience.

Sophia wasn’t up to pushing her point as her older sister had done, because she walked away without saying another word, leaving Shannon trapped in the alcove by a man who was literally pulsing with frustration and a burn in his eyes that made her think of—

Stop it, she thought painfully. Don’t do this to me here! She dragged in a tense breath. ‘Go to your mother, or Mr—whoever,’ she said tautly.

But Luca was not going anywhere. ‘Just listen,’ he instructed, ‘because I do not have time for this but I know it must be said!’ He took a deep breath, impatience fighting with something Shannon couldn’t quite put a name to but it set her trembling as he caught her eyes again and began feeding words to her in a quick, sharp rasp. ‘I want you to think about Rose. I want you to put your own feelings aside, and my feelings, for that matter, and think about her and what is best for her.’

‘Rose will come home with me. I mean to—’

‘No!’ he shot at her forcefully. His hands came up to grip her shoulders, the sudden angry shift of his body almost knocking the glass of brandy out of her hand. ‘I knew you were planning something like this,’ he bit out like a curse, ‘but it cannot be like that.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because—’

‘Luca …’ There was no dismissing the owner of this particular voice. It belonged to Mrs Salvatore herself. Shannon almost sagged with relief when he let go of her shoulders on a sigh of surrender and turned to his mother.

‘Father Michael has to leave now but he says you wanted a word with him before he—Oh, Shannon,’ Mrs Salvatore cut off to acknowledge. ‘I did not see you standing there.’

Which was a blatant untruth because if this wasn’t part of a conspiracy to stop whatever it was the family believed they were doing in this alcove, then Shannon would eat her hat.

Then she smashed that bit of untimely sarcasm when she saw the devastation written in the older woman’s face. Luca’s mother had every right to want her remaining son all to herself just now, she thought guiltily, and managed to squeeze past Luca to offer his mother a smile.

‘Luca brought me a drink,’ she explained.

‘So thoughtful of you, Luca,’ Mrs Salvatore nodded in approval. ‘It seems to have done the trick, Shannon, and put some of the colour back into your cheeks. You needed it, poor dear,’ she added on a husky quaver. ‘Today has been such an ordeal for all of us.’

‘Yes, such an ordeal,’ Shannon endorsed as the full power of it came clattering back down upon her head. To her surprise, Mrs Salvatore reached out to put her arms around her and brushed a kiss on both of her cheeks. ‘I will miss Keira so much,’ she confided thickly—and she said it in English.

It was almost Shannon’s undoing. She had to swallow the tears and was able only to nod and return the two kisses because she knew she couldn’t speak. Luca’s mother seemed to understand that because she patted her gently before releasing her, then turned her attention to her son.

‘I don’t understand why you need to speak with Father Michael but I don’t think you should keep him waiting.’

‘No,’ her son agreed.

Shannon took this as her cue to make good her escape, ‘Excuse me,’ she murmured, and was about to melt quietly away when Luca stopped her with the touch of long fingers to her arm. ‘OK?’ he asked huskily.

She kept her eyes lowered, swallowed and nodded, but he didn’t appear impressed. She could feel his irritation, his frustrated desire to finish what he had begun. But he couldn’t and he knew that he couldn’t. ‘Think about what I said,’ he clipped out eventually.

Not if I can stop myself, Shannon thought bleakly, but nodded because his mother was listening. Then she slipped her arm free of his fingers and walked away, aware of his eyes following her—aware that his mother’s eyes were doing the same.

She looked so damn fragile he knew she was going to have to break soon, Luca was thinking grimly.

‘I hope you know what you’re doing,’ his mother said.

He looked down into the pale, anxious face of this woman he loved without question and wished he could love Shannon that way again. ‘I know exactly what I’m doing,’ he assured her soberly.

‘Still …’ his mother heaved in a breath of air ‘… it is best not to make hasty decisions while you are feeling so vulnerable.’

The comment amused him enough to have him tilt a mocking eyebrow. ‘I wish I knew what you were talking about,’

‘You and Shannon,’ he was informed. ‘It only takes a pair of eyes to know that you two are sleeping together.’

‘Madre!’ he admonished.

‘Why else would you insist that she stay at your apartment?’ She shrugged off the censure. ‘Why else would Shannon refuse my invitation to stay with me? The sparks fly between you like electricity and it took three—three—people to prize you out of this alcove.’

‘Maybe that was because we did not want to be prized out,’ Luca suggested dryly.

His mother was not impressed. ‘It is a known fact that life clings to life in times of tragedy,’ she persisted stubbornly. ‘I can understand it—even sympathise with it. I cannot imagine another situation in which the two of you could be thrown together again so powerfully. But you now have Father Michael waiting to talk to you and Angelo’s lawyer awaiting his turn. I am concerned about what it is you are planning to do.’

There was a lot he could say in reply to this, but Luca’s attention was already fixed elsewhere. Throughout his mother’s very sensible lecture his eyes had followed the glowing crown of Shannon’s head as she moved amongst the darker heads clustered at the other end of the hall. He’d watched her pause, listen, accept embraces of sympathy, watched her pretend to sip at the glass of brandy she still held in her hand. She seemed fine, composed, coping admirably—yet a niggling sensation was clawing at his instincts.

‘Luca, please listen to me,’ his mother urged anxiously. ‘I don’t want to see the two of you hurt each other again!’

His eyelashes gave a reluctant flicker as he made himself look away from Shannon and into his mother’s worried face. Lifting his hands to cover his mother’s fingers where they rested against his chest, he drew them to his lips to kiss them gently, then firmly lowered them to her sides. ‘I love you,’ he told her gently. ‘It breaks my heart that you let yourself worry about me. But we are going to have to finish this later, mi amore …’

Because something more urgent was tugging at him. And to lift his gaze back to the spot where he had last seen Shannon only to discover he couldn’t see that distinctive flame head of hers anywhere turned that tug into a roar that had him striding away, passing by the tall, slender figure of Father Michael and the more rotund Emilio Lorenzo without even seeing them.

Where did she go—?

Shannon had opened the door and slipped quietly inside the Salvatore library with its beautiful pale wood-panelled walls and light blue furnishings, and ornately corniced bookcases filled with rows of priceless books. It was quiet in here, and so free of other people that her shoulders dipped in relief. Luca had hustled her into thinking when she did not want to think. Now she had an ache building behind her eyes that was promising to develop into a blinding headache if she didn’t snatch a few minutes to herself.

At first she walked across to the window to stare out at the gardens laid out with classical Italian formality and awash with the yellow and purple heads of the season’s first spring flowers. There was a moment when she was tempted to open one of the French doors and step out onto the terrace to breathe in some fresh air. But the greyness of the day warned her it was cold out there, and instead she turned to face the room again and was drawn towards the huge white marble fireplace where a burning log fire sent out flickering fingers of inviting warmth.

She was about to sit down in one of the winged chairs flanking the fire when she saw the row of silver framed pictures standing on the mantel top. Her heart gave a pained little flutter as she put down her glass on a small table, then went to study each picture in turn.

They were all there in their wedding finery and standing beneath the same stone archway to the same church they had visited today. Renata with Tazio, Sophia with Carlo—even Mrs Salvatore stood with her handsome husband whom Shannon had never been fortunate enough to meet, but she still knew that if he’d walked by her in the street she would have known who he was because Luca looked so much like him.

And then there was the picture of Angelo and Keira. Reaching up with fingers that weren’t quite steady, she gently floated them over the faces of these two happy people she would never see smile like this again. It came then, breaking free on an anguished sob followed by another and another that sent her sinking to her knees where she knelt, hugging herself as she rocked to and fro, pouring out everything she had been so staunchly holding in.

The door flew open and a cluster of people came to a stunned halt in its opening. She didn’t know, had no idea that Luca had been causing quite a scene out there because he couldn’t locate her. She didn’t know that he’d found her until he was dropping to his knees in front of her and was uttering something thick and uneven as he gathered her up against him.

‘I can’t bear it, I can’t bear it,’ she could hear herself sobbing as he lowered his dark head over hers, and she could feel the tremors shaking him.

Someone else uttered a broken sob and a different hand arrived at the base of her spine. It was Luca’s mother’s hand. Despite her concerns Mrs Salvatore was no match for the depth of Shannon’s broken-hearted grief. Tears thickened her voice as she offered words of comfort. Over by the door several others struggled to keep their tears in check.

But it was Luca who held her, Luca’s composure she could feel tearing apart at its seams.

‘Idiota,’ he muttered as she buried her face in his throat and washed him with the deep, gulping agony of her tears. ‘I take my eyes off you for two short seconds and you disappear to do this! Why are you so stubborn?’ he demanded unevenly. ‘Why do you insist on believing you can carry all of this grief without help from me? Don’t I know better? Don’t you always fall apart eventually? When we are married I am going to shackle you to my side, then I will not need to—’

‘I am not marrying you,’ Shannon sobbed into his throat as a chorus of shocked gasps ran around the room. She didn’t hear them.

Luca ignored them, his fingers dislodging the clip holding up her hair so the thick, flaming mass uncoiled over his fingers as he pressed her closer. ‘Yes you are,’ he gritted. ‘It is your fate—my fate.’

‘What are you are saying?’ It was Renata who spoke so scandalously.

‘Nothing you would not have heard by the end of today,’ he supplied while Shannon sobbed all the harder, and he wondered how long he had left before he joined her in all of this agony.

‘Then you are a fool!’

‘Si,’ he acknowledged. ‘Tazio, have Fredo bring the car to the door, if you please,’ he requested. ‘I am taking Shannon home.’

He climbed abruptly to his feet with Shannon still clamped to the front of him. ‘Can you stand or do I carry you?’ he asked her.

‘I am not going to marry you.’ Shannon found strength from Renata’s dismay to lift her tear-washed face and burn the words up at him. ‘Look at those pictures, Luca—look!’ she insisted with a wave towards the mantel top. ‘They’re all happy to be marrying each other. Are we happy? Are they happy that you’re even thinking of marriage to me?’

Luca did not look at the row of pictures on the mantel top or the real versions of those people who were clustered around the door. He looked at Shannon; he looked into Shannon. ‘Angelo and Keira will be happy for us,’ he stated. ‘Their daughter will be happy for us when we adopt her into our new family. And you’re—’

Shannon’s heart leapt to her throat, ‘Don’t you dare say it!’ she choked out. ‘I’m not—’

‘Already pregnant with our own precious child?’

The next mass gasp was followed by a comprehensive silence. Mrs Salvatore’s hand still lay against Shannon’s back, but it was removed jerkily.

‘How could you?’ Shannon whispered.

‘It was surprisingly easy,’ Luca mocked her with a look. ‘Are you now going to make Renata’s wishes come true and make a fool of me again?’

Well, are you? Shannon was forced to ask herself. She looked into the wry, slightly rueful face of this man she had loved for so long she couldn’t remember when she began loving him, and thought—No, I won’t do it again.

Her tears cleared away, her shaky composure slipped quietly back into place. Moistening her trembling lips, she turned in the circle of his arms and faced this family she had once felt such a welcome part of but now—

‘Luca and I are getting married,’ she announced in a voice that refused not to shake. ‘I’m sorry if you don’t like it but its wh-what we both w-want.’

‘So we plan to do it next week in a quiet ceremony in respect of our recent loss,’ Luca took over. ‘You are welcome to attend but it is not a duty I expect you to take up if you cannot bring yourselves to wish us well in this.’

No one spoke—no one. There wasn’t a single good luck, God damn you or even a dismissive go to hell, you pair of fools. It was a suffocating, suffocating blanket of perfect silence until—

‘Well, bravo,’ a smooth male voice commended, and Father Michael detached himself from the small group.

He began walking towards them, a tall, slender man with silver hair and a look of a Salvatore etched in his lean face. He paused to touch slender white sympathetic fingers to Mrs Salvatore’s shocked cheek, then continued on until he came to a stop in front of them.

‘I now understand your desire to arrange this hasty wedding service, Luca.’ He smiled as he reached out to shake his hand. ‘This should have happened two years ago, of course, but next week is good. I for one am very happy for you both.’

There were so many hidden messages in what he’d said that it caused a wave of discomfort to shift through their audience. Shannon couldn’t cope. She had taken enough. Fresh tears were throbbing in her throat and she knew she was in danger of falling apart again.

She certainly didn’t need the priest to swing the attention to her. But that was exactly what he did. ‘Welcome to the Salvatore family, Shannon,’ he sanctioned, bringing his hands to rest on her shoulders. ‘Having come to know your sister well over the years, I know how hard she prayed for this to happen.’ He bent to place kisses on both of her cheeks. ‘She can be at peace now, cara,’ he murmured for her ears only. ‘For her sake try to be at peace with it yourself.’

It was then that she knew that Father Michael knew everything. Keira must have confessed all to the priest. Her shoulders shook as the tears threatened to burst forth again and she broke free of Luca’s arms to sink into one of the winged chairs with different hurts, different emotions, all clamouring to take a bite out of her.

Father Michael moved back across the room, gathering Luca’s mother beneath his arm as he went and herding the rest of his subdued flock before him through the door. ‘Take the poor child home, Luca. I will stay and deal with the other business you have pending here,’ were the final complacent words spoken in the Salvatore library for long seconds after the door closed.

‘I can’t believe you did that.’ Shannon broke into the silence.

‘I am having great difficulty believing that you backed me up,’ was Luca’s drawling reply. ‘Here …’ The glass of brandy was retrieved from the reading table and slotted between her fingers. ‘Drink,’ he commanded.