The Italians: Cristiano, Vittorio and Dario: Once a Ferrara Wife... / A Dark Sicilian Secret / Blackmailed Bride, Innocent Wife

Laurel’s throat burned and she stared straight ahead of her, grateful for the sunglasses that hid her eyes.

There were so many things she didn’t allow herself to think about. So many places she didn’t allow her mind to visit.

It had been more than two years since she’d seen him and she’d disciplined herself not to look at his photograph or surf the Internet for images, knowing that the only way to survive was to try and wipe him from her brain. But that wasn’t easily done with this man.

Once seen, never forgotten. Cristiano was so insanely good-looking that wherever he went, women stared. And it had driven her mad even though he’d done nothing to attract that attention except be himself.

Her need proved stronger than her willpower and she glanced sideways.

Even dressed casually in black jeans and an open-necked polo shirt he looked spectacular and her body responded instantly to the raw male power that was so much a part of who he was. He would no more have apologised for his masculinity than would his caveman ancestors. His masculinity was his pride. And she’d dealt that pride a lethal blow.

‘Why didn’t Dani come with you to meet me?’

‘My sister believes in happy endings.’

What was that supposed to mean? That Daniela thought by allowing them to be alone together they’d fall into each other’s arms and heal a rift wider than the Grand Canyon?

Laurel thought about all Dani’s clumsy matchmaking attempts at college. ‘She always did believe in fairy tales.’ A long forgotten memory appeared through the haze of misery. A child’s room, complete with a canopy bed and pretty fairy lights. Shelves of books, all portraying life as a joyful adventure. A fantasy room. Annoyed with herself for thinking of that now, she shook her head slightly, dislodging the image from her mind. ‘Dani is an incurable romantic. I guess that’s why she’s getting married despite—’ She broke off but he finished her sentence.

‘—despite witnessing the wreckage of our marital car crash? Given your relaxed attitude to marriage vows, I’m staggered that you agreed to act as maid of honour. A decision bordering on the hypocritical, don’t you think?’

He shifted the blame onto her, absolving himself of all responsibility, and Laurel didn’t bother arguing because she didn’t want to change the outcome. If he hated her, fine. If anything, his animosity helped because it poisoned those dangerous feelings that still lurked deep inside.

As for being Dani’s maid of honour—

Laurel had thought of a million reasons to say no but none of them had come out of her mouth when talking to her friend. Mistake number four, she thought. How had she made so many? ‘I’m a loyal friend.’

‘Loyal?’ Slowly and deliberately, he removed his sunglasses and looked at her, those thickly lashed dark eyes revealing the depth of his own struggle. ‘You dare speak of loyalty? Perhaps this is a language thing because we definitely don’t have the same definition of that word.’ Unlike her, he didn’t hide his emotions. Instead he spilled them over her and the more honest he was, the more she withdrew. She was struggling to handle her own feelings. She certainly couldn’t handle his.

Drowning under the full force of his contempt, she pressed herself back against the seat, trying to calm her breathing. She could have hurled her own accusations but that would have taken them back to the past and all she wanted to do was move forwards. Her limbs were trembling and the tips of her fingers were suddenly ice-cold.

Knowing how important it was to control her stress levels, she forced herself to breathe slowly. ‘If you’re going to go for one of your volatile Sicilian Mount Etna-like explosions, at least wait until we’re behind closed doors. It’s just a wedding. We can get through this without killing each other.’

‘Just a wedding? So weddings are no big deal, is that right, Laurel?’

‘Let’s not do this, Cristiano.’ He was incapable of seeing that he might have been wrong. Incapable of apologising. She knew that the absence of the word sorry from his vocabulary had nothing to do with his linguistic ability and everything to do with his ego.

‘Why? Because emotion frightens you? Admit it. You’re terrified of what you feel when you’re with me. You’ve always been terrified.’

‘Oh, please—’

‘It burns you up, doesn’t it?’ His voice was silky-smooth and dangerous. ‘It frightens you so badly you have to push it away. That’s why you left.’

‘You think I left because I was afraid of how much I loved you?’ Outrage lit the fires of her own response. ‘You are so unbelievably arrogant you need a whole island just to house your ego. Are you sure Sicily is big enough? Maybe you should buy Sardinia, too!’

‘I’m working on it.’ His laconic reply was delivered without a hint of irony. ‘If you’re so indifferent, then why haven’t you been back?’

‘There was nothing to come back for.’ And every reason to stay away. Laurel stared straight forward, trying to control her thoughts, feeling his gaze on her.

‘You look good. Relieving all that stress with exercise?’

‘Fitness is my job. It’s how I earn my living. And I’m back because of your sister, not because of u—’ the word jammed itself on all the barriers she’d erected between them ‘—you or me.’

‘You can’t even say it, can you? Us, tesoro. The word you struggle with is us. But the concept of being part of an us has always been your biggest challenge.’ Cristiano lounged back in his seat, relaxed and maddeningly sure of himself. ‘Probably best not to use the word loyal again in reference to yourself, either. That one really presses my buttons. I’m sure you understand.’

Laurel felt like a matador trapped with a very angry bull with nothing for protection but her own anger. And that anger burned slow and dangerous because he was behaving as if he’d played no part in the demise of their relationship.

He just couldn’t see it, she thought numbly. He just didn’t see what he’d done wrong.

And that made it a thousand times worse.

One sorry might have healed it, but to say sorry Cristiano would first have had to admit fault.

Reminding herself of her determination not to discuss the past, she changed the subject. ‘How is Dani?’

‘Looking forward to officially becoming an us. Unlike you, she has no fear of intimacy.’

She remembered thinking once that their relationship was too perfect and time had proved her right. Perfection had proved as fragile as spun sugar.

‘If you are going to carry on taking bites out of me perhaps I’d better just get on the next flight home.’

‘And make things easy for you? I don’t think so. You are our guest of honour, after all.’

His tone made her flinch more than the words themselves, because it was tinged with a bitterness and regret that stung her wounds like the juice of the Sicilian lemon.

Occasionally, when the pain grew almost too much to bear, she asked herself if her life would have been better if she’d never met him. She’d always known that life was hard, which was why meeting Cristiano Ferrara had been like falling straight into a starring role in her own fairy tale. What she hadn’t known was how much harder life would be once she’d given him up.

‘It’s obvious that coming here wasn’t one of my better ideas.’

‘If this was anything other than Dani’s wedding you wouldn’t be allowed to set foot on the island.’

She didn’t state the obvious. That if this was anything other than his sister’s wedding, she wouldn’t have been here.

The divorce could have been handled at a distance. And Laurel preferred distance in everything.

They’d been driving for fifteen minutes, through chaotic Palermo with its jumble of streets littered with Gothic and baroque churches and ancient palaces. Somewhere in the centre was the Palazzo Ferrara, Cristiano’s city residence, now occasionally used as an exclusive venue for weddings and concerts, its wonderful mosaics and baroque ceiling frescos drawing academics and tourists from around the world. It was one of many homes that Cristiano owned around the island but he rarely used it as a base.

Laurel had fallen in love with it and tried not to think about the tiny private chapel that had been the setting for their wedding.

She knew that, despite his aristocratic lineage and his encyclopaedic knowledge of Sicilian art and architecture, he preferred living in modern surroundings with state-of-the-art technology at his fingertips. Cristiano without Internet access would be like Michelangelo without a paintbrush.

Glancing out of the window, she saw that they’d emerged from the choked Palermo traffic and were speeding along the coast road that led to the Ferrara Spa Resort, the ultimate destination for the discerning traveller and one of the top hotels in the world.

It was a hideaway for the glitterati, for that stratosphere of international society that craved privacy and seclusion. Here it was guaranteed, both by the legendary Ferrara security but also by the geography of the coastline. The Ferrara brothers had built the exclusive hotel on a spit of land surrounded on three sides by private beach and spread across lush gardens, dotted with luxury villas. It was a Mediterranean paradise, each individual villa offering the ultimate in pampered seclusion.

The pain of being back here was intensified by the memories that were carved in every glimpse of the place because it had been here, in the exclusive villa on a rocky promontory at the far end of the private beach, that they’d spent the first nights of their honeymoon. It was the villa that Cristiano had built for his own use. The ultimate bachelor pad.

Laurel stiffened. Surely they hadn’t booked her a room in the hotel? ‘I booked a hotel outside the resort.’