She lifted her chin. ‘Where’s the bedroom?’

Surprise flared silver in his eyes and his mouth quirked in a small smile. ‘You are constantly amazing me.’

She ignored the warmth that flared through her at his praise. ‘Don’t patronise me, Angelo.’

‘Trust me, I am not. Perhaps tragedy has made you stronger, Lucia, for you have far more spirit now than I ever gave you credit for when we were children.’

‘Yes, I do.’ Tragedy had made her stronger. She was glad he saw it. ‘The bedroom,’ she prompted and he smiled faintly even as he watched her, still wary.

‘Are you sure about this?’

‘Why shouldn’t I be?’

‘A decision like this should not be made in the heat of the moment—’

‘And it’s not the heat of the moment right now,’ she answered. Still he stared at her, his eyes dark and considering.

‘I don’t,’ he finally said in a low voice, ‘want to hurt you.’

Lucia swallowed past the ache his words opened up inside her. He’d hurt so many times in the past, but this time it would be different.

‘You won’t,’ she said. This time she wouldn’t let him. She knew what she wanted, what to expect. This time she would be the one to walk away.

About the Author

KATE HEWITT discovered her first Mills & Boon® romance on a trip to England when she was thirteen and she’s continued to read them ever since. She wrote her first story at the age of five, simply because her older brother had written one and she thought she could do it too. That story was one sentence long—fortunately they’ve become a bit more detailed as she’s grown older. She has written plays, short stories and magazine serials for many years, but writing romance remains her first love. Besides writing, she enjoys reading, travelling and learning to knit.

After marrying the man of her dreams—her older brother’s childhood friend—she lived in England for six years and now resides in Connecticut with her husband, her three young children, and the possibility of one day getting a dog.

Kate loves to hear from readers—you can contact her through her website: www.kate-hewitt.com

An Inheritance of Shame

Kate Hewitt

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Gabri—thanks for all your help with Italian phrases. I don’t know what I’d do without you! Love, K.

Special thanks and acknowledgement are given to Sharon Kendrick for her contribution to Sicily’s Corretti Dynasty series

CHAPTER ONE

IT WAS HIS. All his. Almost his, for tomorrow he had an appointment to sign the papers transferring the ownership of the Corretti Hotel Palermo from Corretti Enterprises to Corretti International. Angelo Corretti’s mouth twisted at the irony. From one Corretti to another. Or not.

Slowly he strolled through the hotel lobby, watching the bellhops catch sight of him, their eyes widening before they straightened to attention. A middle-aged woman at the concierge desk eyed him apprehensively, clearly waiting to spring into action if summoned. He hadn’t been formally introduced to any of the hotel staff, but he had no doubt they knew who he was. He’d been in and out of the Corretti offices for nearly a week, arranging meetings with the major shareholders who had no choice but to hand over the reins of the flagship hotel in view of their CEO’s absence and Angelo’s controlling shares.

It had, in the end, all been so gloriously simple. Leave the Correttis alone for a little while and they’d tear themselves apart. They just couldn’t help it.

‘Sir? Signor…Corretti?’ The concierge finally approached him, her heels clicking across the marble floor of the soaring foyer. Angelo heard how she stumbled over his name, because of course everyone knew the Correttis here, and in all of Sicily. They were the most powerful and scandalous family in southern Italy. And he wasn’t one of them.

Except he was.

He felt his mouth twist downwards as that all too familiar and futile rage coursed through him. He was one of them, but he had never—and never would be—acknowledged as one, even if everyone knew the truth of his birth. Even if everyone in the village he’d grown up in, from the time he was a little boy and barely understood it himself, had known he was Carlo Corretti’s bastard and made his life hell because of it.

He turned to the concierge, forcing his mouth upwards into a smile. ‘Yes?’

‘Is there anything I can do for you?’ she asked, and he saw the uncertainty in her eyes, the fear that he’d come in here and sweep it all clean. And part of him was tempted to do just that. Every single person who worked here had been loyal to the family he despised and was determined to ruin. Why shouldn’t he fire them all, bring in his own people?

‘No, thank you, Natalia.’ He’d glanced at her discreet, silver-plated name tag before meeting her worried gaze with a faint smile. ‘I’ll just go to my room.’ He’d booked the penthouse suite for tonight, intending to savour staying in the best room of his enemy’s best hotel. The room he knew for a fact was reserved almost exclusively for Matteo Corretti’s use, except since the debacle of the called-off Corretti/Battaglia wedding, Matteo was nowhere to be seen. He wouldn’t be using the suite even if he could, which from tomorrow he couldn’t.

No Corretti, save for himself, would ever stay in this hotel again.

‘Certainly, Signor Corretti.’ She spoke his name more surely now, but it felt like a hollow victory. He’d always been a Corretti, had claimed the name for his own even though the man who had fathered him had never admitted to it or him. Even though using that name had earned him more black eyes and bloody noses than he cared to remember. It was his, damn it, and he’d earned it.

He’d earned all of this.

With one last cool smile for the concierge, he turned towards the bank of gleaming lifts and pressed the button for the penthouse. It was nearly midnight, and the foyer was deserted except for a skeleton staff. The streets outside one of Palermo’s busiest squares had emptied out, and Angelo hadn’t seen anyone on his walk here from his temporary offices a few blocks away.

Yet as he soared upwards towards the hotel’s top floor and its glittering, panoramic view of the city and harbour, Angelo knew he was too wired and restless to sleep. Sleep, at the best times, had always been difficult; he often only caught two or three hours in a night, and that not always consecutively. The rest of the time he worked or exercised, anything to keep his body and brain moving, doing.

The doors opened directly into the suite that covered the entire top floor. Angelo stepped inside, his narrowed gaze taking in all the luxurious details: the marble floor, the crystal chandelier, the expensive antiques and art. The lights had been turned down and he glimpsed a wide king-size bed in the suite’s master bedroom, the navy silk duvet turned down to reveal the six hundred thread count sheets underneath.

He dropped his key card onto a side table and loosened his tie, shed his jacket. He felt the beginnings of a headache, the throbbing at his temples telling him he’d be facing a migraine in a couple of hours. Migraines and insomnia were just two of the prices he’d had to pay for how hard he’d worked, how much he’d achieved, and he paid them willingly. He’d pay just about anything to be where he was, who he was. Successful, powerful, with the ability to pull the sumptuous rug out from under the Correttis’ feet.

He strolled through the suite, the lights of the city visible and glittering from the floor-to-ceiling windows. The living area was elegant if a bit too stuffy for his taste, with some fussy little chairs and tables, a few ridiculous-looking urns. He’d have a refit of the whole hotel first thing, he decided as he plucked a grape from the bowl of fresh fruit on the coffee table, another fussy piece of furniture, with fluted, gold-leaf edges. He’d bring this place up to date, modern and cutting edge. It had been relying on the distinctly tattered Corretti name and a faded elegance for far too long.

Restless, his head starting to really pound, he continued to prowl through the suite, knowing he wouldn’t be able to sleep yet unwilling to sit down and work. This was the eve of his victory after all. He should be celebrating.

Unfortunately he had no one to celebrate with in this town. He hadn’t made any friends here in the eighteen years he’d called Sicily home, only enemies.

You made one friend.

The thought slid into his mind, surprising and sweet, and he stilled his restless pacing of the suite’s living area.

Lucia. He tried not to think of her, because thinking of her was remembering and remembering made him wonder. Wish. Regret.

And he never regretted anything. He wouldn’t regret the one night he’d spent in her arms, burying himself so deep inside her he’d almost forgotten who he was—and who he wasn’t.

For a few blissful hours Lucia Anturri, the neighbour’s daughter he’d ignored and appreciated in turns, with the startling blue eyes that mirrored her heart, had made him forget all the anger and pain and emptiness he’d ever felt.

And then he’d slipped away from her while she was sleeping and gone back to his life in New York, to the man of purpose and determination and anger that he’d always be, because damn it, he didn’t want to forget.

Not even for one night.

Even more restless now, that old anger surging through him, Angelo jerked open the buttons of his shirt. He’d take a long, hot shower. Sometimes that helped with the headaches, and at least it was something to do.

He was in the process of shedding his shirt as he came into the bedroom and to an abrupt halt. A bucket of ice with a bottle of champagne chilling inside was by the bed—and so was a woman.

Lucia froze at the sight of the half-dressed man in front of her, three freshly laundered towels pressed to her hard-beating heart.

Angelo.

She knew, had always known, that she would see him again, and occasionally she’d embroidered ridiculous, romantic fantasies about how it would happen. Stupid, schoolgirl dreams. She hadn’t done that for years though, and she’d never imagined this.

Running into him without a second’s notice, totally unprepared—

She’d heard whispers that he was back in Sicily but she had assumed they were, as they’d always been, mere rumours, and she’d never expected to see him here.

From just one shocked glimpse of him standing there, his hair rumpled and his shirt half undone, she knew he didn’t recognise her. Meanwhile in the space of a few seconds she was reliving every glorious and agonising moment she’d spent with him that one night seven years ago, the feel of his satiny skin, the desperate press of his lips against hers.

Such thoughts were clearly the furthest from his mind. His eyes had narrowed, his lips thinned, and he looked angry. She recognised that look, for God knew she’d seen it enough over the fraught years of their childhood. Yet even angry he was beautiful, the most beautiful man she’d ever known.

Known and loved.

Swallowing, she pushed that most unhelpful thought away. She hadn’t seen Angelo in seven years. She didn’t love him any more, and she absolutely knew he’d never loved her.

Which, of course, shouldn’t hurt all this time later, yet in that unguarded moment as she stared at him, his shirt hanging open to reveal the taut, golden expanse of his chest, she knew it did.

Angelo arched an eyebrow, obviously annoyed, clearly waiting. For what? An apology? Did he expect her to do the little chambermaid stammering act and scurry away?

Two desires, both deep-seated, warred within her. On one hand she felt like telling Angelo Corretti exactly what she thought of him for sneaking out of her bed seven years ago. Except she didn’t even know what that was, because she thought of Angelo in so many ways. Desire and despair. Hope and hatred. Love and loss.

In any case, the far more sensible impulse she had was to leave this room before he recognised her, before any awful, awkward reunion scenarios could play out. They may have been childhood friends, he may have been her first and only lover, but she was next to nothing to him, and always had been—a shaming fact she did not need reminding of tonight.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, lowering her head just a little so her hair fell in front of her face. ‘I was just getting your room ready for the night. I’ll be out of your way.’

She started to move past him, her head still lowered, hating the ache this simple, terrible exchange opened up inside her. It was an ache she’d had for so long that she’d become numb to it, learned to live with it the way you might a missing limb or a permanent scar. Yet now, in Angelo’s uncaring presence, she felt it throb painfully to life and for a second, furious with herself, she had to blink back tears.

She was just about to slip past him when his hand curled around her arm, jolting her so hard and deep she almost stumbled.

‘Wait.’

She stilled, her heart hammering, her breath caught in her chest. Angelo let go of her arm and walked towards the bed.

‘I’m celebrating, you know,’ he said, but he didn’t sound like he was. He sounded as sardonic and cynical as he’d ever been. Lucia tensed, her back to him, her face angled away. He still didn’t recognise her, and that realisation gave her equal parts relief and deep disappointment.

‘Why don’t you celebrate with me,’ he continued, clearly a command, and she stiffened. Was this what he’d become? The kind of man who solicited the housekeeping? ‘Just a drink,’ he clarified, and now he sounded coolly amused as he popped the cork on the complimentary bottle of champagne that always came with the penthouse suite. ‘Since nobody else is here.’

Lucia turned around slowly, her whole body rigid. She had no idea how to act. What to say. This had gone on way too long for her to keep pretending she was a stranger, and yet—

Maybe that’s what she was to him now. A stranger.

He was pouring the champagne into two crystal flutes, his mouth twisted downwards, and something in the shuttered bleakness of his expression called to that ache deep inside her, the ache she’d been trying so hard and for so long to ignore. When he looked like that it reminded her of when he’d shown up on her doorstep seven years ago, when he’d stared at her so bleakly, so blankly, and his voice had broken as he’d confessed, ‘He’s dead, Lucia. And I don’t feel anything.’

She hadn’t thought then; she’d just drawn him inside by the hand, led him to the shabby little living room of the house she’d grown up in and where she then lived alone.

And started something—a single night—that had changed her life for ever.

She swallowed now, forced herself to lift her chin and look him in the eye. She saw him tense, felt it, one hand still outstretched, a flute of fizzing champagne clasped between his long, lean fingers.

‘All right, Angelo,’ she said, and thankfully her voice remained steady. ‘I’ll have a drink with you.’

Angelo stood completely motionless, his hand still outstretched. The only sound in the room was the gentle fizz of the champagne’s bubbles popping against the sides of the crystal flute and his own suddenly ragged breathing.

Lucia.

How could he not have recognised her? How could he have not known her from the moment he’d seen her in his suite? The first thought that seared his brain now was the completely irrelevant realisation of how blue her eyes were, so startling against her dark hair and olive skin. How wide and clear and open they’d always been, open to him.

Then chasing the heels of that poignant memory was a far more bitter realisation—and with it a dawning fury.

‘You work for them? Those sciacalli?’

Her chin tilted up a notch and those blue, blue eyes flashed even bluer. ‘If you mean am I employed at this hotel, then the answer is yes.’

Another thing he’d forgotten: the low, husky timbre of her voice, sounding sensual and smoky and still so tender and sweet. He had a sudden, painfully clear recollection of her asking him in that same low voice what he’d expected to feel that night, the night of his father’s funeral, what he’d wanted to feel. He’d answered in a ragged gulp that just stopped short of a sob, ‘Satisfaction. Happiness. Something. I just feel empty.’

She hadn’t replied, just put her arms around him, and he’d turned into her embrace, burying his head in the sweet curve of her neck before his lips had found hers, seeking and needing the total acceptance and understanding she’d always so freely given.

And now she worked for the Correttis? The family who had made his childhood a living hell? He shook his head slowly, his head throbbing so hard his vision blurred. ‘So what, you’re on your knees for them? Scrubbing their filth, bobbing a curtsey when they come by? What happened to your promise, Lucia?’

‘My promise,’ she repeated, her voice completely expressionless.

He pressed one fist against his temple, closed his eyes briefly against the pain that thundered in his head—and in his heart. ‘Do you not even remember? You promised me you’d never even talk to them—’

‘As a matter of fact, Angelo, I don’t talk to them. I’m a chambermaid, one of dozens. They don’t even know my name.’

‘So that excuses—’

‘Do you really want to talk about excuses?’ she asked levelly, and he opened his eyes, pressed his fist harder against his temple. Damn it, his head hurt. And even in the midst of his shock and pain he recognised how ridiculous he was being. She’d made those silly promises when she was a child, a girl of no more than eleven or twelve. He remembered the moment, stupidly. He’d been jumped on his way back to school, beaten bloody but he’d come up swinging as always. She’d been waiting on her doorstep, her heart in her eyes. She’d tried to comfort him, and in his hurt pride and anger he’d shrugged her off.

But she kept trying—she’d always kept trying—and he’d let her press an ice pack to his eye and wipe the blood away. He’d caught her looking at him, her eyes so wide and serious, and he’d grabbed her wrist and demanded roughly, ‘Promise. Promise you’ll never speak to them, or like them, or even work for them—’

She’d blinked once, twice, and then answered in a voice that was low and husky even then. ‘I promise.’

No, he didn’t want to talk about excuses now. He knew he didn’t have any. Seven years since he’d left her in bed and he still felt that needling pinprick of guilt when he allowed himself to feel it—or anything.

Not that he’d allowed himself to think of her often. By eight o’clock the morning after they’d slept together he’d already been on a plane back to New York, having resolutely shoved her out of his mind.

And now she was back, and the memories cascaded over him, a tidal wave of unexpected emotion he had no desire to feel.

He shut his eyes again, his fist still pressed to his temple.

‘You’re getting a migraine, aren’t you,’ she said quietly, and he opened his eyes, dropped his hand. He’d used to get headaches even as a child, and she’d given him aspirin, rubbed his temples when he’d let her.

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘What doesn’t matter? That you have a headache, or that I work for the Correttis?’

‘You don’t work for them any more.’

Her eyes widened for one fraught second and he knew she thought he was firing her. ‘I own the hotel now,’ he explained flatly, and he heard her slight indrawn breath.

‘Congratulations,’ she said after a tiny pause, and he couldn’t tell a thing from her tone. She seemed so different now, so calm and controlled, so cold. So unlike the warm, generous person she’d been, giving him her body and maybe even her heart in the course of a single night—

No, not her heart. Long ago he’d wondered briefly if she had romanticised their one encounter, thought she might have because of their shared history. He’d worried that she might have expected more from him, things he knew he wasn’t capable of, couldn’t give.

Looking at her impassive face now he knew any uneasy concerns he had once had were completely unfounded, and he wasn’t even surprised. Of course Lucia had moved on.

‘Do you have any tablets?’ she asked calmly, and the pain was bad enough that he answered her.

‘In my wash kit, in my bag.’

She slipped past him, and he inhaled her scent as she went by. He sank onto the edge of the bed, the flute of champagne still dangling from his fingers. Distantly over the pounding in his brain he heard her moving about, unzipping his suitcase.

A few minutes later she came back in and knelt by his side. ‘Let me take this,’ she said, and plucked the champagne from his fingers. ‘And give you this.’ She handed him a glass of water and two tablets. ‘I checked the dosage. It said two?’

He nodded, and he felt her hand wrap around his as she guided the glass to his lips. Even through the pain pounding in his head he felt a spark of awareness blaze from his fingers all the way to his groin. He remembered how sweet and yielding she’d been in his arms, without even so much as a word spoken between them. But then Lucia had always been sweet and yielding, always been willing to take care of him, even when he’d pushed her away again and again.

Clearly she’d changed, for she pulled her hand away from his, and he stamped down on that spark.

‘Thank you,’ he said gruffly. They may have shared one desperate, passionate night, but he knew there was nothing between them now. There couldn’t be.

Lucia sat back on her heels and watched Angelo struggle with himself, as he so often did. Feeling weak and hating to show it. And her, wanting to help him and hating how he always pushed her away. The story of both of their lives.

A story she was done with, she told herself now. Seeing Angelo again might have opened up that ache inside her, but she wasn’t going to do anything about it. She wasn’t going to be stupid about it, even though part of her, just as before, as always, yearned towards him and whatever little he could give.

No. He’d wrecked her before, and broken not just her heart but her whole self. Shattered her into pieces, and she wouldn’t allow even a hairline crack to appear now. It had taken years to put herself together again, to feel strong if not actually ever complete.

She rose, picking up the towels she’d dropped when she’d gone for his pills. ‘Will you be all right?’ she said, making it not so much a question as a statement.

‘I’m fine,’ he said, the words a growl, and she knew he was already regretting that little display of vulnerability.

‘Then I’ll leave you to it,’ she said, and Angelo didn’t answer. She took a few steps and then stopped, her back to him, one hand on the doorframe, suddenly unwilling to go so simply. So easily. Words bubbled up, bottled in her throat. Words that threatened to spill out of the hurt and pain she felt even now, so many years later. The pain and hurt she didn’t want him to see, because if he saw it he’d know how much she’d cared. How weak she’d been—and still was.

She swallowed it all down, those words and worse ones, broken, wounded words about a grief so very deep and raw that he knew nothing about. She couldn’t tell him tonight.

Maybe she wouldn’t ever tell him. Did he really need to know? Wouldn’t it be better to simply move on, or at least to let him think she had moved on?

‘Lucia?’ Angelo said, and it was a question although what he was asking she didn’t know. What do you want? Why are you still here?

‘I’m going,’ she said, and then she forced herself to walk out of the suite without looking back.

CHAPTER TWO

ANGELO FINGERED THE typewritten list of the hotel’s employees that lay on his desk. Matteo’s desk, because there had been no time to change anything since signing the papers on the hotel this morning. He’d gone directly from the meeting of unhappy shareholders to here, sweeping into his rival’s office and claiming it as his own.

His mouth twisted as he glanced at the tabloid headline he’d left up on his laptop. Not that he actually read those rags, but this one blazed bad news about the Correttis. Alessandro Corretti was meant to have wed Alessia Battaglia, but she’d run off with his cousin Matteo at the very last second. Angelo smiled grimly. The chaos that had ensued was devastating for his half-brothers and cousins, but good news for him.

With Matteo out of the way and the other Correttis scrambling to make sense of the chaos, he could saunter in and take another slice of the Corretti pie, starting with the docklands regeneration. Antonio Battaglia, the Minister of Trade and Housing as well as Alessia’s father, would be all too willing to consider his bid, since he was already funding a housing project in the area. Angelo had made initial overtures, and planned to cement the deal this week.

He glanced back at the list of employees. Anturri, Lucia was the first name under the housekeeping section. As soon as he’d arrived back at the hotel he’d pulled up the employee files and seen that Lucia had been working here for seven years, the entire length of time since he’d last seen her.

Why did that hurt?

No, it didn’t hurt. Annoyed him, perhaps. From his bed to making the Correttis’. Had she had a moment’s pause, a second’s worth of regret, before she took a job working for the family he hated, the family who had rejected him even as his association with them had defined and nearly destroyed his life?

Or had she just not cared?

Yet Lucia had always cared. She’d always been there when they were children, waiting for him to come home, ready to bathe his cuts or just make him smile with a stupid story or joke. More often than not he’d pushed her away, too angry to accept her offers of friendship. Mi cucciola, he’d called her. My puppy. An endearment but also a barb because she had been like a puppy, dogging his heels, pleading for a pat on the head. Sometimes he’d given it, sometimes he’d ignored her and sometimes he’d sent her away.

Yet still she’d come back, her heart in her eyes just like it had been the night he’d shown up at her door, too numb to feel anything except the sudden, desperate passion she’d awoken in him when she’d taken him in her arms.

Guilt needled him again as he thought of that night, how he’d slipped from her bed before dawn without a single word of farewell. He should have said goodbye, at least. Considering their history, their shared childhood, she’d deserved that much. Even if it didn’t seem like it mattered to her any more. It mattered, annoyingly, to him.

He stood up, pacing the spacious confines of the office with his usual restlessness. He should be feeling victorious now, savagely satisfied, but he only felt uneasy, restless, the remnants of his migraine mocking him.

He’d spent another sleepless night battling memories as well as his migraine. For seven years he’d schooled himself not to think of that night, to act as if it hadn’t happened. Yet last night in the throes of pain he’d been weak, and he’d remembered.

Remembered the sweet slide of her lips against his, the way she’d drawn him to herself, curling around him, accepting him in a way he’d never been before or since. How he’d felt tears spring to his eyes when he’d joined his body with hers, how absolutely right and whole that moment had felt.

Idiotic. He was not a romantic, and a single encounter—poignant as it may have been—didn’t mean anything. It obviously hadn’t meant anything to Lucia, who had seemed completely unmoved by his appearance last night. And if Lucia, who had hero-worshipped him as a child, could be indifferent and even cold towards him now, than surely he could act the same. Feel the same.

In any case he had too many other things to accomplish to waste even a second on Lucia Anturri or what had happened between them. Nothing would happen between them now. He’d come back to Sicily for one purpose only: to ruin the Correttis. To finally have his revenge.

Determinedly Angelo pulled the phone towards him. It was time to call Antonio Battaglia, and start carving up that Corretti pie.

Lucia felt the throb in her temples and wondered if headaches could be contagious. She’d had one since she’d left Angelo in the penthouse suite last night, and spent a sleepless night trying not to remember their one night together.

Yet far worse than the pain in her head was the ache seeing Angelo had opened up in her heart. No tablet or pill would help that. Swallowing hard, she pushed the trolley of fresh linens and cleaning supplies down the corridor. She had to finish all the third-floor rooms by lunchtime. She had to forget about Angelo.

How can you forget him when you haven’t told him?

Last night, she knew, hadn’t been the right time. She’d even half convinced herself that he need never know the consequence of their one night together. What point was there, really, in raking up the past? It wouldn’t change things. It wouldn’t change him.

And yet Lucia knew if the positions had been somehow reversed she would want to know. Yet could she really assume that Angelo would feel the same? And if she did tell him, and he shrugged it off as irrelevant, wouldn’t that break her heart all over again? Just one brief conversation with him last night and already she felt it starting to splinter.

She was almost finished the third floor, her head and heart both aching, when she heard the muffled sobs coming from the supply room at the end of the hall. Frowning, Lucia pushed open the door and her heart twisted at the sight inside the little room stacked with towels and industrial-size bottles of cleaner.

‘Maria.’

Maria Dibona, another chambermaid, looked up at her with tear-streaked eyes. ‘Scusi, scusi,’ she said, wiping at her eyes. Lucia reached for a box of tissues used to supply the hotel bathrooms and handed her one. ‘Is it Stefano?’

Maria nodded. Lucia knew her son had left Sicily for a life in Naples, and his sudden defection had broken his mother’s heart.

‘I’m sorry, Maria.’ She put her arm around the older woman. ‘Have you been in touch?’

‘He hasn’t even called.’ Maria pressed the tissue to her eyes. ‘How is a mother to live, not knowing if her son is healthy or not? Alive or not?’

‘He will call,’ Lucia murmured. ‘He loves you, you know. Even if he doesn’t always show it.’ She meant the words for Maria, yet she felt their mocking echo in herself. Hadn’t she told herself the same thing after Angelo had left? Hadn’t she tried to convince herself that he would call or write, reach her, even as the heaviness in her heart told her otherwise?

When she’d rolled over and seen the smooth expanse of empty sheet next to her she’d known Angelo wasn’t coming back. Wasn’t writing, calling or keeping in touch in any way…no matter how desperately she tried to believe otherwise.

Maria blew her nose. ‘He was such a good boy. Why did he have to leave?’

Lucia just shook her head and squeezed the woman’s shoulders. She had no answers, no real comfort to give besides her own understanding and sympathy. She’d lived too long and experienced too much heartache to offer anyone pat answers. There were none.

She heard the sound of someone striding down the hall, someone walking with purpose and determination. Instinctively she stiffened, and then shock iced through as an all too familiar face appeared around the door of the little supply cupboard.

‘Lucia.’

She straightened and Maria lurched upright, dabbing her face frantically. ‘Scusi, scusi, Signor Corretti…’

Angelo waved a hand in quick dismissal of the other woman. His grey-green eyes blazed into Lucia’s. ‘I need to speak with you.’

‘Very well.’ Lucia hid her trembling hands in her apron. She hadn’t expected to see him again so soon, or even at all. She had no idea what he intended to say, but she knew she wasn’t ready for the conversation.

‘In my office.’ Angelo turned away, and Lucia glanced back at Maria, whose eyes had rounded in surprise. Maria was no gossip, but Lucia knew the news would still spread. Angelo Corretti had summoned her to his office for a private conversation. All the old memories and rumours would be raked up.

Closing her eyes briefly, she followed Angelo out into the corridor. They didn’t speak as they stepped into a lift that took them to the second-to-top floor that housed the hotel’s corporate offices, yet Lucia was all too achingly aware of the man next to her, the suppressed tension in every taut line of his lean body, the anger apparent in the tightness of his square jaw. She tried not to look at him, because if she looked at him she’d drink him in and she knew her need and want would be visible in her eyes, all too obvious to him.

Still. Still she felt that welling up of longing for him, a hopeless yearning that had her almost swaying towards him. It infuriated her, that her body and even her heart could want a man who had so little regard for her. At least her mind was strong. She straightened, lifted her chin. Angelo would never know how much he’d hurt her.

The lift doors pinged open and Lucia felt her cheeks warm as Angelo strode past a receptionist whose jaw dropped when she saw Lucia in her standard grey maid’s uniform, complete with frilly apron and ridiculous cap, follow him into his office like a scolded schoolgirl…or a summoned mistress.

No, she wouldn’t think like that. Couldn’t, even if everyone else would. Again.

Angelo strode towards the floor-to-ceiling windows with a view of Palermo’s harbour, one hand braced against the glass, his back to her. Lucia waited, her heart pounding even as her hungry gaze swept over him, the long, muscular stretch of back, the narrow hips, the powerful legs. The elegant, expensive suit that reminded her just how out of her league he was now.

Angelo swung around suddenly to face her, his eyes narrowed. ‘Why did you start working at this hotel?’

Lucia blinked. ‘Because I needed a job.’

‘Surely you could have found a suitable position somewhere else.’

She drew herself up even though she felt like curling into a protective ball, hiding her hurts. How could he be angry about her job? ‘Are you still angry that I broke my promise, Angelo?’ she asked, an edge to her voice. ‘That seems rather hypocritical.’

‘I didn’t make any promises,’ he said flatly, and she drew in one short, sharp breath. Felt the truth of his words cut her as if he were wielding a sword.

‘I know that.’

‘So why did you?’

She gritted her teeth, forced herself to sound calm. Strong. ‘I told you, I needed a job. Did you really call me up here to ask me that—’

‘Did you even think of that promise you made, Lucia?’ he cut her off harshly. His hands clenched into fists at his sides. ‘Did you think of me?’

Every day. She drew a painful breath into her lungs. ‘Did you think of me, Angelo?’ she asked quietly, knowingly, and he swung away again, his silence answer enough.

Lucia waited, her hands clenched in the folds of her apron. A minute ticked by in taut silence, and then another, and Angelo still didn’t speak.

‘Who was that woman you were with?’ he asked suddenly, and she blinked in surprise.

‘Her name is Maria Dibona. She works here, with me.’

‘I gathered that.’ Angelo turned towards her, but she couldn’t tell anything from his face besides the fact that he still seemed angry. But then Angelo had always seemed angry, except perhaps for when he’d been sad. And the few times he’d made her laugh, when they were children…precious memories she kept locked away, deep inside. Memories she couldn’t let herself think about now. ‘Why was she crying?’ he asked, and she shrugged.

‘Her son has left suddenly for Naples. She misses him.’

Angelo said nothing for a moment, but his eyes blazed into hers and his mouth twisted downwards. ‘And you were comforting her?’

Where was this going? ‘Trying to. Sometimes there’s very little comfort to be had.’

He didn’t answer, but she saw a flash of recognition in his eyes and she knew he thought she’d been talking about them. What little them there was. And had she? Perhaps. Perhaps she wasn’t above such a sly implication.

‘You still live in Caltarione,’ he said suddenly, a statement, and she raised her eyebrows.

‘Obviously you must know that, since you’ve looked at my employee file. What is this about, Angelo? Why have you brought me up here?’

She saw, to her surprise, a faint flush touch his cheekbones. He glanced down at some papers on his desk. ‘We were friends once, weren’t we?’

Once, not now. His meaning was clear. ‘As children, yes,’ she said flatly.

‘I want to know what has happened to you in these past years.’

‘Oh, really? Funny, then, that you never called or wrote. Not a postcard or email or anything. If you wanted to catch up on old times, Angelo, I’m sure you could have found a way other than summoning me to your office like some scolded schoolgirl.’ His blush deepened, and his eyes glittered. ‘I didn’t—’

‘Didn’t think of me once in the past seven years while you were away becoming a billionaire? How surprising. And yet you’re angry because I took a job working for the Correttis.’ She shook her head. ‘You may not have made any promises, but you’re still a hypocrite.’

‘You’re angry with me,’ he said, and she forced herself to laugh, the sound hard and humourless.

‘Angry? That takes too much effort. I was angry, yes, and I’m annoyed you think you can order me around now. But if you think I’m hurt because you stole from my bed—’ She stopped suddenly, her breath catching in her chest, and swallowed hard. She knew she couldn’t continue, couldn’t maintain the charade that what had happened seven years ago hadn’t utterly broken her.

So she simply stared, her chin tilted at a determinedly haughty angle, everything in her willing Angelo to believe that she didn’t care about him. That he hadn’t hurt her. Let him believe she was only angry; at least it hid the agony of grief she couldn’t bear to have exposed.

‘I’m sorry, Lucia,’ Angelo said abruptly, and Lucia could only stare. He didn’t sound sorry.

‘For what?’ she asked after a taut moment when neither of them spoke.

‘For…’ He paused, a muscle flickering in his jaw, his eyes shadowed with some dark emotion. ‘For leaving you like that.’ Lucia let out a shuddering breath. She’d never expected an apology, even one so grudgingly given. She didn’t speak. Angelo stared.

‘Aren’t you going to say anything?’ he finally demanded.

‘What do you want me to say?’

‘You could accept my apology, to start.’

‘Why should I?’

Angelo’s jaw dropped, which would have made her laugh save for the leaden weight of her heart. ‘What?’

‘Just because you’ve finally deigned to say sorry doesn’t make me ready to accept it.’ Or act like all that was needed was a carelessly given, barely meant apology. She wanted more than that. She deserved more than that.

Except, of course, Angelo had nothing more to give. And whether or not he said sorry for the past made no real difference to either of their futures. Why had he brought her up here? Looking at him now, his face taut with annoyance or maybe even anger, Lucia thought she could hazard a guess.

She was no more than an item to be ticked off on his to-do list. Come back to Sicily, buy a hotel, deal with Lucia. Get any messy emotional business out of the way so he could move on to more important things. She supposed she should be grateful she’d warranted any consideration at all.

She took a deep breath. ‘So you’ve said it, Angelo, you’ve ticked me off your list, and you can go on happily now with your big business deals and fancy living. And I can get back to work.’

And stop acting out this charade that she didn’t care, that she’d only been angry or even annoyed. She couldn’t understand how Angelo could believe it, yet he obviously did, for he was annoyed too, by her stubbornness. He still had no idea how much he’d hurt her.

‘It’s been seven years, Lucia,’ he said, an edge to his voice, and she met his gaze as evenly as she could.

‘Exactly.’

‘I haven’t even been in Sicily since that night.’

‘Like I said before, there’s the phone. Email. We live in the twenty-first century, Angelo. If you’d wanted to be in touch, I think you just might have found a way.’ He bunched his jaw and she shook her head. ‘Don’t make excuses. I don’t need them. I know that one night was exactly that to you—one night. I’m not delusional.’ Not any more.

‘So you didn’t even expect me to call? Or write?’

‘No, I didn’t.’ Even though part of her had stubbornly, stupidly hoped. ‘But expecting and wanting are two different things.’

He stared at her for a long, hard moment. ‘What did you want?’ he asked quietly, and Lucia didn’t answer. She would not articulate all the things she had wanted, had hoped for despite the odds, the obviousness of Angelo’s abandonment. She would not give Angelo the satisfaction of knowing, and so she lifted one shoulder in something like a shrug. ‘A goodbye would have been something.’

‘That’s all? A farewell?’

‘I said it would have been something.’ She tore her gaze from his, forced all that emotion down so it caught in her chest, a pressure so intense it felt like all her breath was being sucked from her body. ‘It’s irrelevant anyway,’ she continued, each word so very painful to say. ‘If you brought me up here to say sorry, then you’ve said it. Thank you for that much, at least.’

‘But you don’t accept my apology,’ Angelo observed. His gaze swept her from head to foot like a laser, searching her, revealing her.

She closed her eyes briefly, tried to summon strength. ‘Does it really matter?’

His gaze narrowed, his lips compressed. ‘Why do you ask that?’

‘Because you’ve managed to go seven years without saying sorry or speaking to me at all, Angelo. How can I help but think my opinions—my feelings—matter very little to you?’ He frowned and she shook her head. ‘I’m not accusing you. I’m not angry about it any more.’

‘You still seem angry.’

Seem, Lucia thought, being the operative word. If only it was as simple as that; if only she felt angry that he’d been so thoughtless as to leave her bed without a word. If only she felt clean, strong anger instead of this endless ache of grief. ‘I suppose seeing you again has brought it back, a bit, that’s all,’ she finally said. She couldn’t meet his gaze. ‘Why do you care anyway?’

‘I suppose…the same.’ Angelo sounded guarded. ‘Seeing you again has made me…want to make amends.’

Make amends? As if a two-word reluctant redress made up for years of emptiness, heartache, agony? Did he really think that was an equal exchange?

But he didn’t know. He couldn’t know how much she’d endured, the gossip and shame, the loss and heartbreak. He had no idea of the hell she’d been through, and she wouldn’t weaken and shame herself by telling him now.

‘Well, then,’ she said, and her voice sounded flat, lifeless. ‘I suppose that’s all there is to say.’

Angelo nodded, the movement no more than a terse jerk of his head. ‘I suppose so.’

She made herself look at him then, for surely this was goodbye. The goodbye they’d never had. They lived in different worlds now; she was a maid, he was a billionaire. And while she cherished the memory of who he’d once been, she knew she didn’t even recognise this haughty man with his hostile gaze and designer suit. He was so different from the tousle-haired boy with the sad eyes and the sudden smile, the boy who had hated her to see him vulnerable and yet had sought her out in the sweetest, most unexpected moments. What had happened to that boy?

Staring at Angelo’s hard countenance, Lucia knew he was long gone. And the unyielding man in front of her was no more than a wealthy stranger. She felt a sudden sweep of sorrow at the thought, too overwhelming to ignore, and she closed her eyes. She missed that boy. She missed the girl she’d been with him, full of irrepressible hope and happiness. The girl and boy they’d been were gone now, changed forever by circumstance and suffering.

She opened her eyes to see Angelo staring at her, a crease between his brows, a frown compressing his mouth. He had a beautiful mouth, full, sculpted lips that had felt so amazingly soft against hers. Ridiculous that she would recall the feel of them now.

‘So may I go?’ she asked when the silence between them had stretched on for several minutes. ‘Or is there anything else you’d like to say? You might as well say it now, because if you summon me to your office twice the gossip will really start flying.’

Angelo’s frown deepened into a near scowl. ‘Gossip?’

Lucia just shook her head. She shouldn’t have said that. Angelo didn’t know how difficult those months after he’d left had been for her, how in their stifling village community she’d been labelled another Corretti whore…just like his mother had. She didn’t want him to know. ‘It looks a little suspicious, that’s all. Most maids never see the CEO’s office.’

‘I see.’ He paused, glanced down at some papers that lay scattered across his desk. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make things difficult for you.’

‘Never mind. May I go now?’

Angelo stared at her for a long moment, and she saw that glimpse of bleakness in his eyes again, and that ache inside her opened right up, consumed her with sudden, desperate need. She wanted to take him in her arms and smooth away the crease that furrowed his forehead. She wanted to kiss him and tell him none of it mattered, because she loved him. She’d always loved him.

Pathetic. Stupid. What kind of woman loved a man who had treated her the way Angelo had treated her?

Her mother, for one. And look how she had ended up.

‘Yes,’ Angelo finally said, and he sounded distant, distracted. He was probably already thinking of his next business deal. He turned away, to face the window. ‘Yes, of course you can go.’

And so she did, slipping silently through the heavy oak doors even as that ache inside her opened up so she felt as if she had nothing left, was nothing but need and emptiness. She walked quickly past the receptionist and felt tears sting her eyes.

Alone in the lift she pressed her fists against her eyes and willed it all back, all down. She would not cry. She would not cry for Angelo Corretti, who had broken her heart too many times already so she’d had to keep fitting it back together, jagged pieces that no longer made a healthy whole. Still she’d done it; she’d thought she’d succeeded.

Alone in the lift with the tears starting in her eyes and threatening to slip down her cheeks, she knew she hadn’t.

Angelo stared blindly out the window, his mind spinning with what Lucia had said. And what she hadn’t said.

His first reaction had been, predictably, affront. Anger, even. What kind of person didn’t accept an apology? He’d had no need to call her up here. He could have ignored her completely.

Yet even as he felt anger flare he’d known it was unreasonable. Unjust. He’d treated her badly, very badly considering their childhood friendship, their history. He’d always known that even if he tried not to think of it. Tried not to remember that one tender night.

Seeing her last night had raked up all those old memories and feelings, and he knew he couldn’t be distracted from his purpose here. So she’d been right; his apology had been, in a sense, an item on his to-do list.

Deal with Lucia and then move on.

Except as he stood there and silently fumed, staring out the window without taking in the view, he knew he wasn’t moving on at all. Seeing Lucia had mired him right back in the past, remembering how he’d been with her. Who he’d been. She’d seen him at his most vulnerable and needy, at his most shaming and pathetic. The thought made his fists clench.

He’d hoped apologising to Lucia would give them both a sense of closure, but he didn’t think it had. At least for him it had only stirred things up even more.

Gazing blindly out the window, he saw the bright blue of her eyes, the determined tilt of her chin. When had she become so strong, so hard? He’d thought, he realised now, that she’d be glad of his apology, grateful for his attention. He’d expected her to trip over herself accepting his grudging sorry.

Instead she’d seemed…indifferent. Uncaring. Hard.

He spun away from the window.

He hated this feeling of restless dissatisfaction that gnawed at him, ate away any sense of achievement he’d had over his recent business successes. He hated the raw emotion he felt about Lucia, an uncomfortable mix of guilt and vulnerability and need. Why couldn’t he just forget about her? Regardless of whether she had accepted his apology or not, at least he’d given it. The matter was done. It should have been, at any rate.

He sat down at the desk, pulled a sheaf of papers towards him, determined not to think of her again. He’d managed not to think of her for seven years; surely an hour or two wouldn’t be difficult.

Yet the minutes ticked by and Angelo just sat there, staring at the papers in front of him without taking in a single word.

CHAPTER THREE

‘FRESH TOWELS ARE needed in the penthouse suite.’

Lucia glanced up from where she’d been stacking laundered linens in one of the supply cupboards.

‘The penthouse suite?’ she repeated, and felt dread—as well as a betraying anticipation—sweep through her. ‘Can’t someone else go?’ She’d been avoiding the penthouse suite or any of the hotel’s public places since her confrontation with Angelo.

She’d seen the speculative, sideways glances when she’d walked out of his office, had heard the whispers fall to a hush when she’d entered the break room. She knew people were wondering, some of them remembering, and she couldn’t stand the thought of any more speculation or shame. She also couldn’t stand the thought of seeing Angelo again, knowing he would look at her as if she were no more than an irritating problem he had to solve. She didn’t have the strength to act indifferent, uncaring. He’d see through her thin facade at some point, and she could bear that least of all.

‘Signor Corretti asked for you in particular,’ Emilia, one of the other chambermaids, returned with a smirk. ‘I wonder what he wants besides the towels?’

Lucia stilled. She knew Emilia from her childhood, knew the other woman had never liked her—had in fact seemed jealous of her, which was ridiculous considering how lonely her life had been since Angelo’s sudden departure. Emilia would certainly relish any gossip Angelo’s personal requests stirred up now. Swallowing, she nodded.

‘Fine.’ And she’d tell Angelo to leave her alone while she was at it. She took a deep breath and reached for several of the velvety soft towels. If Angelo owned the hotel, she’d have to see him again at some point. The more she got used to it, the less it would hurt. She hoped.

Still Lucia couldn’t keep the dread from pooling like acid in her stomach as she headed up the service lift to the top floor, the towels clutched to her chest. Maybe he wouldn’t be there. Maybe he’d put in the request for towels and then gone out…somewhere…

Except of course that was ridiculous, if he’d made the request himself. He obviously wanted to see her, was summoning her like a—

No. She wouldn’t think that way.

The lift doors opened directly into the suite, and Lucia took a step into the silent foyer. She couldn’t see or hear Angelo anywhere.

She glanced cautiously towards the living area before she decided to just head for the bathroom, deposit the towels and get out of there as quickly as possible. Taking a deep breath, she hurried down the hall and had her hand on the doorknob of the bathroom when the door swung open and Angelo stood there, dressed only in a pair of dress slacks, his chest bare, droplets of water clinging to his golden skin.

Lucia stood as if rooted to the spot, the towels clutched to her chest, every thought evaporating from her brain. Finally she moistened her lips and managed, ‘You wanted towels—’

‘Towels?’ He frowned, glancing at the towels still clutched against her chest. ‘I didn’t ask for any towels.’

Lucia felt colour rush to her face. ‘You—you didn’t?’ Which meant Emilia had been mistaken—or lying. Had the other maid set her up for more gossip? Now she could whisper to everyone how Lucia had sneaked up to the penthouse suite late at night? Lucia knew what it would look like. And from Angelo’s narrowed gaze, she had a feeling he knew what it looked like too.

Angelo gazed at Lucia, her cheeks touched with colour but her eyes still frustratingly blank. Once he’d been able to see so much clear emotion in those blue, blue eyes of hers. He’d read her so easily because she’d never tried to hide what she felt. How much she felt. He’d taken for granted, he saw now, the hero-worship she’d had for him when they were children. He’d always known it wasn’t real, couldn’t be, and yet he missed it. He missed, if not the childish adoration she’d once had for him, then at least the affection. The regard.

She looked now as if she didn’t care for him at all. As if he were a stranger of no importance. Anger or even hatred would have been easier to accept. It would have been understandable.

But this cold indifference in her eyes—it chilled him. Reminded him of Carlo Corretti’s uncaring stare when he’d confronted the man who had fathered him with the hard truth of his identity.

All you were meant to be was a stain on the sheets.

He couldn’t stand for Lucia to look at him that way, as if he didn’t matter. Didn’t exist.

‘I didn’t order any towels,’ he said again, wondering if she had possibly used it as an excuse to see him. But no—she looked like she’d rather be anywhere else. With anyone else.

‘It must have been a mistake,’ Lucia said stiffly. ‘I’ll go.’

She turned and started down the hall, and some insane impulse had Angelo springing forward, reaching for her wrist. ‘No—’

She stilled, his fingers still wrapped around her wrist. ‘Angelo,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Don’t.’

He could feel the pulse in her wrist hammering hard, and it gratified him. Underneath that cold indifference she felt something. Just as he did. ‘Don’t what?’ he asked softly.

‘Don’t do this,’ she said helplessly. ‘What happened between us is over. I know that. It’s fine.’

‘It is not fine.’

She turned back to him, genuine confusion clouding her eyes to a stormy grey. ‘Why? Why do you ever care what I think or feel?’

‘Because—’ He heard his voice rise in frustration. Because I can’t stop thinking about you. Because when I finally fall asleep at night I dream of your eyes, your mouth, your softness. What would it take to stop thinking about this woman? To get her out of his head completely?

Lucia’s gaze swept over him and then she angled her head away, hiding her face. Her eyes. ‘I must go.’ She turned towards the lift, extended one hand towards the button.

Without thinking about what he was doing Angelo lunged forward, trapped her hand with his against the panel of buttons. ‘Don’t.’

She stilled, and he realised how close he was to her, his body pressing hers against the wall next to the lift. He could feel the heat coming off her lithe, athletic frame, and also the awareness. It coiled and snapped between them like a live wire, an attraction he’d felt—and surrendered to—all those years before. An attraction he still felt now—and with a thrill of satisfaction he knew she felt it too. It wasn’t over.

He lowered his head so his lips brushed the dark softness of her hair, inhaled the clean, warm scent of her.

‘Lucia,’ he murmured, and he felt her tense even more.

‘Let me go, Angelo.’ Her voice trembled and broke on the note of his name and he felt a savage surge of triumph at knowing how affected she was. How attracted.

His lips brushed her hair again and with one hand he drew her own away from the lift button. A shudder wracked her body at his touch, and Angelo felt another thrill surge through him at her blatant response.

He laced his fingers with her own and put his other hand on her shoulder, gently turning her around so her back was against the lift, her body towards him.

He pressed against her and although she remained tense he could still feel her response, her body arching helplessly towards his. This was what he’d wanted all along, he acknowledged with a sudden, primal certainty. This was what he couldn’t forget. What he wouldn’t forget.

And this was how he would finally exorcise himself of her.

She’d lowered her head, her hair sliding in front of her face. He tucked a tendril behind her ear.

‘Don’t—’ she whispered, but the single word ended on a shudder of longing.

‘Don’t what?’ Angelo asked huskily. ‘Don’t touch you, or don’t stop?’ He trailed his fingers down her cheek, let his thumb caress the intoxicating fullness of her lips. Another shudder, and he felt the answering ache inside him. She was so soft. Lips, hair, the curve of her cheek. ‘Don’t kiss you?’ he murmured, and then he did.

Her lips were as sweet and warm as he remembered, and after only a second’s pause they parted beneath his own. He swept his tongue into her mouth’s softness, his hands sliding from her shoulders to her waist and then to her hips, pulling her closer to him, fitting her against his arousal.

Her hands came up to his shoulders, her fingers curling around as she responded to his kiss, her tongue meeting his, her mouth and body accepting him as they had before.

Triumph and something far deeper and needier surged through him. How had he ever lived without this? Without her?

He moved his hand upwards to cup the warm swell of her breast, felt her shuddering response. Then he felt a tear splash onto his cheek and he jerked away as if that single drop had scorched him.

‘Maledizione, you’re crying?’

Lucia dashed the tear from her face. ‘You think I want this?’ she snapped, her voice choked and yet still filled with furious pride. ‘You think I want a repeat of what happened before? Another one-night stand?’

‘I…’ At a loss, Angelo just shook his head. He’d thought her so hard, so indifferent, yet in that moment it seemed no more than a charade. She couldn’t hide the honest emotion in her eyes, and it was despair. Grief. ‘Lucia…’

‘Don’t.’ Her voice came out clogged and she shook her head. ‘Please don’t, Angelo.’ She turned from him, her whole body trembling, and pressed the button for the lift.

She didn’t say anything else and neither did he as they waited for the lift doors to open. He was still reeling from shock at the naked sorrow that had swamped her eyes when the doors opened and she stepped inside. She didn’t turn around to face him and Angelo felt that familiar pressure build in his chest, throb in his temples. He didn’t want her to go. Not like this—

The doors closed on both of their silence.

He stood there for a moment, his head aching, his heart aching. Damn his heart. Damn hers. Why had she looked so sad? So lost? He’d thought she was strong, hard. Indifferent…yet she hadn’t been indifferent to him in his arms. He’d thought then she felt the same consuming desire and need he felt, not sadness. Grief.

When he’d gazed down at her she’d looked…broken.

He didn’t want to think about why.

He turned from the lift and stalked over to his laptop, pulling it resolutely towards him, determined to forget about Lucia once and for all.

He couldn’t be distracted from his purpose here. He had work to do, more deals to make, more plans to put into motion. Battaglia wanted to meet him and discuss the docklands regeneration project. Luca’s fashion business could be ripe for a hostile takeover. Even Gio and his horses on the other side of the island might show a weakness. The Corretti empire was surely starting to crumble, and he’d be the one to sweep up the pieces.

He was on the cusp, Angelo reminded himself, of having everything he’d ever wanted.

So why now, as ever, did he feel so empty?

CHAPTER FOUR

LUCIA’S LEGS TREMBLED and she sagged against the side of the lift as it plunged downwards, away from Angelo. She could still feel the taste of him on her lips, the strong press of his hard body against hers. Even now desire flowed through her in a molten river, making her sag even more against the wall. Making her even weaker.

For she was weak, so pathetically weak, to still respond to him. To still want him, even though she knew he would never think of her as anything more than—what?

Why had he kissed her? The answer, the only possible answer, was glaringly apparent. Because he knew he could have her—and then walk away. Because he knew that just as before she would take him in her arms, into her body, and then he could leave without so much as an explanation. She was the easy option, just as her mother had been, accepting a man who treated her like dirt. Wanting him, even begging him, back.

She had never wanted to be like that. She still didn’t. She wouldn’t.

Lucia closed her eyes, forced back the sting of tears. Forced back all the emotion, all the useless regret and anger and hurt. At least she’d shown him she was different now…if only just. At least this time she’d been the one to walk away. If only just.

Two hours later, her heart and body aching, she climbed the steps to the tiny apartment she rented over a bar in Caltarione, the small village near the Correttis’ palazzo. She’s grown up in a tiny, terraced house farther down the main street, next to Angelo and his grandparents. She’d thought of leaving the village after Angelo had gone, after she’d endured the bold stares and muttered curses that had accompanied her wherever she went for months after his departure, but she hadn’t.

Perhaps it was stubbornness or maybe just sentimentality, but she wasn’t willing to leave the only place she’d considered home. She wouldn’t be driven out, even if the busy streets of Palermo might offer more anonymity and acceptance.

In any case, the whispers and rumours and sneers had died down in the years since Angelo had left. They’d returned, a little, with him; she recognised the speculative looks Emilia and some of the other housekeeping staff who knew her history had given her in the past week. But she ignored it all, with a determination that had sapped all of her strength.

She certainly didn’t feel like she had any left now. Resisting Angelo had taken everything.

Kicking open the door to her apartment Lucia discarded her sensible shoes and stripped the soiled maid’s uniform from her body. She headed towards the tiny bathroom in the back of the flat and turned the taps on the small, rather dingy tub. She sank onto the edge of the bath and dropped her head in her hands. She felt so unbearably, achingly tired, tired of pretending all the time that she was strong, that she barely cared or remembered about what happened seven years ago. Why had she insisted on this ridiculous charade of indifference? Was it simply out of pride?

But no, she knew it was not as simple a matter as that. She knew this charade was as much for her own benefit as Angelo’s. Some absurd part of her believed, or at least hoped, that if she acted like she didn’t care, she wouldn’t. If she told him it didn’t matter, it wouldn’t.

And yet it did matter. So very much. It had mattered then, and it mattered now. And while she’d convinced herself that he didn’t need to know the truth, maybe she needed him to.

The thought was both novel and frightening. She didn’t want to tell Angelo the truth of their night together, and yet as long as she kept it a secret it festered unhealed inside her soul. What if she lanced that wound, drained it of its poison and power? What if she told Angelo, not for his sake, but for her own?

Would she finally be able to put the whole episode behind her, put Angelo behind her?

If only.

She stayed in the tub until the water had grown cold and then she slipped on a pair of worn trackie bottoms and a T-shirt. After a second’s pause she took an old cardboard box from the dusty top shelf of her wardrobe, brought it out to the sofa in the living room. She didn’t take this box out very often; it felt like picking off the scab of her barely healed soul. She knew it was dangerous weakness to take it out now, when she already felt so raw, yet still she did it, unable to resist remembering.

Carefully she eased the lid off the box and looked at the few treasures inside: a scrapbook of old travel postcards she’d been given from the people whose houses she and her mother had cleaned. She and Angelo had used to make up stories about all the different places they’d travel to one day, the amazing things they would do. A single letter Angelo had written her from New York, when he’d left at eighteen years old. She’d practically memorised its few lines. A lock of hair.

She took the last out now, fingering its silky softness, a tiny curl tied with a bit of thread. She closed her eyes and a single tear tracked down her cheek. It hurt so much to remember, to access that hidden grief she knew she would always carry with her, a leaden weight inside her that never lightened; she had simply learned to limp along under its heaviness.

A sudden, hard rapping on the front door made her still, tense. The only person who ever knocked on her door was the owner of the bar downstairs, an oily man with a sagging paunch who was always making veiled—and not-so-veiled—references to what he thought he knew of her past. She really didn’t feel like dealing with him now.

Another knock sounded, this one even more sharp and insistent.

Drawing a deep breath, Lucia put the box and its contents aside. She wiped the tear from her face and looked through the fogged eyehole in the door, shock slicing straight through her when she saw who it was. No oily landlord, and definitely no paunch.

Angelo raised his hand to knock again and, her own hands shaking, she unlocked the door and opened it.

‘What are you doing here, Angelo?’

His hair was rumpled like he’d driven his fingers carelessly through it, his expression as grim as ever. ‘May I come in?’

She shrugged and moved aside. Angelo stepped across the threshold, his narrowed gaze quickly taking in the small, shabby apartment with her mother’s old three-piece suite and a few framed posters for decoration. It wasn’t much, Lucia certainly knew that, but it was hers and she’d earned it. She didn’t like the way Angelo seemed to sum it up and dismiss it in one judgemental second.

‘What do you want?’ she asked, and heard how ragged her voice sounded. ‘Or do you not even know? Because you keep trying to find me, but God only knows why.’

He turned slowly to face her. ‘God only knows,’ he agreed quietly. ‘Because I don’t.’

‘Then maybe you should just stop.’

‘I can’t.’

She shook her head helplessly, every emotion far too close to the surface, to his scrutiny. ‘Why not?’

‘I…’ He stared at her, his eyes glittering, wild. His lips parted, but no sound came out. Lucia folded her arms, conscious now that she was wearing a thin T-shirt and no bra.

‘Well?’ she managed.

‘Back in my hotel suite,’ Angelo said slowly. ‘At the lift.’ His gaze roved over her, searching. ‘Why did you look at me like that?’

‘Like what?’

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