The Sicilian's Red-Hot Revenge

The Sicilian's Red-Hot Revenge
Kate Walker

Kate Walker

THE SICILIAN’S RED-HOT REVENGE

TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN • MADRID PRAGUE • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND

This special book is dedicated to

four important writers in my life:

Marjorie Phillips, who created the first dark,

ambiguous hero I fell in love with

Mary Stewart, whose books inspired me

to want to write my own heroes as powerfully

as she created hers

Dorothy Dunnett, whose complex heroes

and amazing storytelling have thrilled and

absorbed me for years and

Marguerite Lees, who believed in me

from the start

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER ONE

EMILY sighed and kicked off her shoes, leaning back against the beach wall as she stared out at the blue-grey stretch of sea. The weak late-autumn sun shone down on her upturned face and the soft sand supported her comfortably. It was just so good to be still and on her own at last.

For the moment, all was silence—and peace. And it felt wonderful.

She sighed again, savouring the quiet around her, enjoying it after five long weeks of non-stop wretchedness. She thought she’d known what misery was like in the past, but this last month had shown her another sort of hell.

She had had to get away.

She couldn’t have taken another moment of being stared at, talked about, with every last move she made the subject of comment and gossip.

And disapproval.

But here, at last, she could be on her own—be herself.

For now.

After the confines of the hospital, the space was wonderful. The air felt fresh and clean, touched with the exhilarating tang of ozone, and it was a delight after the artificially maintained temperature of the wards.

But best of all was the fact that no one was watching her.

‘And I thought it was all over…’

Bringing her fist down on the sand with a thud, she snatched up a handful of the slippery grains, clamping them tight between her fingers and her palm, blinking fiercely to fight against the hot tears that stung at her eyes, blurring her vision. But then, with a fierce effort, she forced a new control on herself, shaking her head in both denial and despair.

Today was the day that she should have been free. The day when everything should have been signed and sealed, when it was all over and she could move on into a new life. Instead, she had been pulled back into the old one, with no hope of any liberation, no light at the end of the long, dark tunnel she was looking down.

‘No…no. Let it go!’ she commanded herself. ‘Let it go.’

And slowly, reluctantly, her fingers obeyed her, uncurling, opening, letting the sand slither through the openings between them to fall back onto the ground.

She only needed a day, she’d said. Just twenty-four hours before she would go back, face them all again. She knew her duty—and she would do it. But she just needed time to breathe.

The sound of the sea lapping against the shore brought her head round again, her eyes staring out at the distant horizon. The wide expanse of the ocean looked cool and inviting, calling to her in a way that nothing had done for so long. Living in the city meant that she hadn’t been to the beach in…

In how long? Far, far too long. And she hadn’t been paddling in the sea since she was a child. Life had closed in on her and Mark would never have countenanced seeing her indulge in anything so undignified and unrestrained.