Sicilian's Shock Proposal

He did not know how he should greet her—shake her hand, or kiss both cheeks perhaps?

Instead, he gestured for her to take a seat.

She did so; placing her designer bag by the seat, she neatly crossed her legs at the ankles.

‘You look well,’ Luka said, and hoped she might miss that he then cleared his throat—for those first delicate traces of her scent had now reached him and his mind was firing taunting glimpses of memory.

‘I am well,’ she responded, and gave him a tight smile. ‘I am very busy, of course.’

‘Are you working?’ Luka asked. ‘Did you ever get to work on the ships?’

‘No.’ Sophie shook her head. ‘I am an events planner.’

‘Really?’ He didn’t even attempt to hide his surprise. ‘You were always running late for everything.’

He glanced at the ring on her finger—a ruby stone set in Italian gold. It was very old-fashioned and far from what he would have chosen for her. ‘I have terrible taste in rings, it would seem,’ Luka said.

‘Don’t!’ she warned abruptly. ‘You will never insult me again.’

He looked up and into the eyes of the only woman he had ever made love to as she asked him a question.

‘Aren’t you going to ask why I am here?’

‘I presume you’re about to tell me.’ Luka shrugged. He knew damn well why she was here but he’d make her say it just for the pleasure of watching her squirm.

‘My father may be released from prison this Friday on compassionate grounds.’

‘I know that.’

‘How?’

‘I do occasionally glance at the news.’ Luka’s sarcasm didn’t garner a response, though his voice was kinder when he asked her a question. ‘How is he doing?’

‘Don’t pretend that you care.’

‘And don’t dare assume that I don’t!’ he snapped, and he watched her rapid blink as he continued speaking.

Seeing her, he had been momentarily sideswiped but now he took back control and made a vow never to lose his control with her again.

‘But, then, that’s you all over, Sophie. Your mind was always made up even before the jury had been chosen. I’ll ask you again. How is your father?’

‘He is fading, he is a little confused at times.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

‘Isn’t that what prison does to an innocent man?’

Luka stared back and for now said nothing.

Paulo was not as innocent as Sophie made out.

‘Not that a Cavaliere would know about prison,’ she added.

‘I spent six months in prison awaiting trial, two of them in solitary,’ Luka pointed out. ‘Or were you referring to my father being found not guilty?’

‘I have no wish to discuss that man.’ She couldn’t, Luka noted, even bring herself to say his father’s name. How much worse would this conversation be if she knew the truth? he wondered. He could almost feel the heat from the necklace in his pocket. He was actually tempted to toss it across the desk to her, to end them once and for all.

‘Just what are you doing here, Sophie? I thought we ended our engagement a long time ago.’

‘Firstly, I don’t want you to think, for even a moment, that I am here for any romantic reasons.’

‘Good, because it would be an extremely wasted journey if that were the case.’

‘However,’ she continued, ‘my father believes that you upheld your promise. He thinks we got engaged and that we now live together in Rome.’

‘Why would Paulo think that?’

‘It was kinder to lie and let him think that you upheld your commitment to me. I never thought he would be let out and now that he might be I need to keep up the pretence. I told him that the terrible things you said in court about me were in an attempt to protect him.’

‘They were,’ Luka responded. ‘I said what I did in the hope of protecting him, or rather protecting you. You simply refused to see it from my side.’ He looked at her for a very long moment and found he could not stand even having her in the same room so he shook his head. ‘It wouldn’t work.’

‘It has to work,’ Sophie said. ‘You owe me.’

‘I do.’ Luka did not concede with those words. He knew she spoke the truth. ‘But apart from the fact that neither of us can abide being in the same room together, I do have a life. I might be seeing someone...’

‘I don’t care if this upends your life for a while. This is going to happen, Luka. You might sit a rich man in your posh London office and live a jet-set lifestyle but you are from Bordo Del Cielo, you cannot escape from that. You might go through women like tissues but the fact remains we were promised to each other from childhood and where we come from that means something.’ Luka let out a tense breath as she asked again. ‘Will you help my father die in peace?’

‘You want me to move in with you and pretend that we live together?’

‘No, I read that you have an apartment in Rome...we will use that.’

‘Why not yours?’

‘I share with my friend Bella. You might remember her...’

Luka bit back a sarcastic response. From what he had heard, a lot of men might remember Bella!

‘She runs a business from our home.’

As she spoke, he noted that Sophie ignored his slight sardonic smile, even though she must know what it insinuated.

‘It would not be fair to disrupt Bella and it would look odd for us, as a couple, to be sharing a home with her.’

‘And would this loving couple be sharing a bed?’ He voiced the obvious question but she did not answer directly.

‘It would look strange for us to sleep apart.’

‘Would there be sex?’ he asked, wishing a blush would rise on her cheeks, for Sophie to give some indication that this hurt like hell for her also, but she stared back coolly as she delivered her response.