Sicilian's Shock Proposal

She wanted him to see her grown up.

Briefly she imagined his mouth on hers but a loud knocking on the door snapped her out of her daydream.

It sounded urgent and Sophie ran through the house but she smiled when she opened the door and saw that it was just Pino on his bike.

He was twelve years old and everyone used him as a messenger.

‘Malvolio wants you to go to his home,’ Pino said in a self-important voice.

‘Malvolio.’ Sophie frowned. She had never been to Malvolio’s home. ‘Why? What does he want?’

‘I was just told to give you the message,’ Pino said, balancing on his bike. ‘He said that it is important and that you’re to go there now.’

Sophie went and got Pino some money and thanked him but her heart was racing.

Why would Malvolio ask her to go to his home?

She had assumed that he and her father were meeting at the hotel bar.

Sophie thought of her father’s grey complexion and the sweat on his face and was suddenly worried that he might have been taken ill.

She slipped on some sandals and ran up the hill towards Malvolio’s spectacular home, which overlooked not just the ocean but the entire town. Once there she took a breath and then knocked on the door. She didn’t want to be there but he had summoned her after all.

No one ever said no to Malvolio.

CHAPTER TWO (#u3e8c65b1-c2ab-5bfa-886b-765fb9189dc5)

‘WHY DON’T YOU ask Sophie to come over?’

Luka let out a tense breath at his father’s suggestion. Against his father’s wishes he had been in London for the last six years, at first studying but now he was now starting to make a name for himself.

He had offered some financial advice to a boutique hotel, but when unable to pay him to implement the changes Luka had offered to work for them for a stake in the hotel.

It had been a gamble. For a year he had worked for nothing by day and earned money by working in a bar at night.

Now, though, the hotel was starting to flourish and Luka owned ten percent of a thriving business.

Luka had his start.

He could have it all here, he knew that.

His father was one of the wealthiest men in Sicily, and he should be stepping in now. His father thought he was back to settle down and start taking over his empire, but instead Luka was choosing to step out for good.

His time away had opened his eyes. With an increasing awareness of his father’s corrupt ways he had chosen to stay away and had made only the occasional trip home to Sicily.

Deliberately he hadn’t seen or spoken to Sophie in that time.

And in that time an awful lot had changed.

‘It might be nice to spend some time with her before the engagement party,’ Malvolio pushed. ‘Angela will be at church all day and I know that there is a bible meeting this evening she wants to attend,’ he said, referring to their maid. ‘I’ll go out and give you two some time—’

‘There isn’t going to be an engagement party,’ Luka said, and met the eyes of his father—a man who he did not even recognise, for Luka had come to understand that he had never really known his father at all. ‘Because there isn’t going to be an engagement. I’m not marrying Sophie Durante.’

‘But the two of you have been promised to each other since childhood.’

‘That was your promise, not mine,’ Luka said. ‘You chose my future wife, the same way you have chosen for me to follow in the family business. I’m here to tell you that I am going to be returning to London. I’m not going to live and work here.’

‘You can’t do that to Paulo, to Sophie.’

‘Don’t pretend you care about them,’ Luka said, and watched his father start to breathe harder as he realised the challenge he was facing.

‘I won’t let you do it to me,’ Malvolio said. ‘You will not shame the Cavaliere name.’

Luka jaw gritted. His father had no shame. His father took from the poor, from the sick, his father ruled the people of Bordo Del Cielo with an iron fist—there was the real shame.

‘I will speak with Sophie’s father and explain that I will not have a bride chosen for me. The same way that I will not have my career, nor the place on this planet where I live, dictated to me.’

‘You will destroy Sophie’s reputation.’

‘I am not discussing this,’ Luka said. ‘I am telling you that I shall speak with Paulo about my decision and then, if he will allow me to, I will talk to Sophie myself.’

‘You are not returning to London, you will work with me. After all I have done for you—’

‘Don’t!’ Luka said. ‘Don’t say that you did all this for me when I never asked for any of it.’

‘But you took,’ Malvolio said. ‘You have lived in the best home and I gave you the very best education. I have a business waiting for you to take over. I will not let you walk out on that.’

‘Let me?’ Luka checked. ‘It’s not for you to choose how I live. I don’t need your permission for anything.’ He went to walk off but his father stopped him in the way he knew best.

Luka, at twenty-four, could have halted the punch that was coming to him but he did not. His father sent him crashing back into the wall and there was a gush of warm blood down his face. Not that it would stop Malvolio.

His only son, his only child was now turning his back on everything Malvolio had worked for and Luka had known that it would come to this.

Too often, growing up, it had.

As his head hit the wall his father thumped him in the stomach and as Luka doubled over Malvolio’s fist came into his ribs, but all it did was reaffirm to Luka that his decision to leave for good was the right one.

While he did not hit his father, Luka pulled himself back to his feet and faced him. ‘Clever men fight with their minds,’ Luka said, as Malvolio raised his fist again. ‘Whereas you instil fear...’ He shrugged his father off. ‘But not in me. The next punch you deliver will be returned,’ he warned—and he meant it.

‘You will marry her.’

Luka might not have fought back but anger raged through his veins. He loathed his father’s assumptions and the way he dictated his life, and he told him so.

‘I live in London,’ he shouted. ‘I date models now, glamorous, sophisticated women, not some peasant that you have chosen for me.’

‘I have to go to a meeting,’ Malvolio hissed. ‘We will speak of this when I return.’

Luka said nothing, standing bruised and bleeding and a bit breathless as his father picked up his car keys and stormed out.