Italian Bachelors: Irresistible Sicilians

When she felt ready to take Lily on a Sicilian shopping trip two days later, a Mercedes was brought out for her. Three heavies were sitting in it.

The number of her personal ‘guards’ had been increased.

Pushing Lily around Palermo, her gorillas surrounding her, she knew she was onto a lost cause.

Their presence only served to remind her of what she had hated most about her marriage. Before she had opened her eyes to her husband’s true nature, the biggest blot on the marital landscape had been the lack of privacy. Sure, on the estate she could come and go as she pleased, but she had always been aware of hidden cameras, supposedly there for all the Mastrangelos’ protection, watching her every move on the grounds. Outside the estate, she was under constant armed guard. She couldn’t even pop off to buy a paintbrush without one of Luca’s gorillas accompanying her.

She had hated it.

She still hated it, loathed the thought of her daughter growing up in an environment where freedom meant nothing.

Freedom was precious. It was unrealistic and dangerous to expect Lily to have the same levels of freedom she had enjoyed, but, unless she found an escape route, her daughter would never experience what it meant to be a proper, regular child. She would never be able to explore and get into mischief without her parents knowing her every move. She would always be in her father’s eyeline no matter where he was.

All the material advantages Lily would have being a Mastrangelo would be cancelled out by the disadvantages. And that was without considering what it would be like growing up with a father who was a dangerous gangster.

While Grace didn’t believe for a second that Luca would lay a finger on either of them, his rages, which in the last six months or so of their marriage had become more frequent, could be terrifying. Especially for a child. She never wanted her daughter to witness that.

When she returned to the monastery, she carried Lily to the private front door of their wing. Before she could unlock it, Donatella materialised. ‘I thought you would want to know that Pepe will be returning tomorrow,’ she said, referring to Luca’s younger brother who had his own, rarely used, separate wing in the monastery. Pepe was the family firebrand, a playboy rebel without any discernible cause. Yet, despite his outward rebelliousness, he was fiercely loyal to his family.

Grace was not looking forward to his return. Pepe would know the truth of what had gone on between her and Luca. The last time she had seen him, Pepe and Luca had had a massive argument. She still had no idea what the row had been about but it had been heated enough for her to worry that one of them would get hurt. It still made her blood freeze whenever she recalled questioning Luca about it afterwards and their own subsequent row.

‘Thanks for the warning.’ She placed the key in the lock and as she turned it Donatella placed a bony hand on her arm.

‘Why did you return?’

Grace eyed her warily. There was little point in saying it was because of love. The atmosphere between her and Luca was so cold and yet somehow so charged, the entire household had to be aware things were not right between them. ‘What has Luca told you?’

‘Luca does not confide with me. All he has said is that he found you and you agreed to try again. He still has not told me why you left to begin with, or what happened to his shoulder.’

Grace blanched. She shook her head, trying to clear the fog that clouded it every time she thought of it. She could still smell the gun smoke.

She could also see the poor beaten man whose eyes had widened with terror when he recognised her as Luca’s wife.

‘I’m sorry, but it’s for Luca to tell you what happened.’

Donatella studied her for a moment before digging into her pocket and producing a key.

Grace stared at it.

‘It’s the key for your studio,’ Donatella said, passing it to her. A shadow crossed her face. ‘Luca refused to let anyone in there. He said it was yours until you returned, even if you only came back to collect your belongings.’

‘He said that?’

A sliver of ice shot out of her mother-in-law’s eyes. ‘I am not a stupid woman. I can tell you do not wish to be here. But you are here even if the circumstances are not what you or my son would wish.’

With those enigmatic words, Donatella walked off.

CHAPTER FIVE (#ud64c5a2c-015d-5221-b7a4-4ad45cf7f135)

IT TOOK ANOTHER two days before Grace gave in. Leaving Lily with Donatella, who was delighted to be granted her first official babysitting duty, she headed through the thick forest that surrounded the monastery to her cottage.

Her cottage. Given to her by Luca on their wedding day.

She could still recall her excitement when she’d first walked inside and seen the lengths he had gone to to make it into a proper studio for her. The walls of the ground floor had been knocked down to make one enormous room, and painted white to enhance the natural sunlight. Daylight-mimicking light bulbs had been installed for when the muse took her at night. There were easels to accommodate all different sizes of canvas, a hundred different brushes of varying sizes and hair and, best of all, he had bought every shade of paint from the specific brand she favoured. She had been in heaven.

She had not picked up a paintbrush or done anything as basic as a doodle since she had left. All her creative juices had died when she walked out of the estate.

Taking a deep breath, she turned the key and pushed the door open. Immediately she was hit with the trace of turpentine and oil paint, scents that had seeped into every crevice of the cottage.

At first glance it looked exactly as she had left it. The canvas she had been working on was still on its easel, a fine layer of dust now covering it; her brushes all rammed into varying pots, her tubes of paint still scattered randomly across her workbench. Stacks of blank and completed canvases still lay in neat stacks; half-finished canvases she had left to dry before working on them again still lined the walls.

Someone had been in there during her absence. It was nothing specific she could put her finger on, more of a gut feeling.

Her stomach tying itself in knots, she climbed the open staircase to the first floor. The sense that someone had been there grew stronger, especially when she entered the bedroom. This was the room she had slept in whenever Luca was abroad or tied up with business until the early hours, something that had dramatically increased throughout the second year of their marriage. Although she’d missed him being around so much, she would take the opportunity to work through the witching hours without guilt and then flop into bed shattered.

One thing she had always been able to take heart from was that he would always join her if he was in Sicily. Wherever she slept, he would seek her out. Always. She would wake to find herself wrapped in his arms. Invariably, they would make love and she would tell herself that everything between them was fine.

She was certain she had left the bed unmade.

The bathroom was dusty but clean, relatively tidy, her toothbrush and other toiletries on display where she had left them. A quick peek in the laundry basket revealed the tatty jeans and paint-splattered jumper she had last worked in.

Her bittersweet trip down memory lane was interrupted when she heard the front door shut.

‘Hello?’ she called, hurrying to the stairs. About to step down, she paused when she saw Luca leaning against the front door staring up at her.

‘What do you want?’ They were alone for the first time since he had found her. Now there was no Lily to temper the tone of her voice for, she made no attempt to hide her hostility.

The first thing she noticed was his lack of a sling. Dressed in black jeans and a light blue sweater, his arms folded across his broad chest, his jawline covered in dark stubble, he carried a definite air of menacing weariness.

‘We’ve been invited to Francesco Calvetti’s birthday party in Florence next Saturday,’ he said without any preamble.

‘Why’s he holding it in Florence?’ Francesco Calvetti was as big a gangster as her husband. It was only after Luca had invested in a couple of casinos and nightclubs with him that the cracks in their marriage had appeared and he had begun to change...

‘He bought a hotel there. I’ve accepted the invitation for us.’

‘It’s far too short notice.’

‘I wasn’t asking your opinion on the matter. I was telling you.’

‘And what about Lily?’

‘I have spoken to my mother and she has agreed to care for her overnight.’

‘Absolutely not.’ No way was she going to leave her baby to attend that man’s party.

‘I have also seen the local priest about having Lily baptised,’ he continued as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘I have booked her in for the first Sunday of the new year.’

‘Well, that’s telling me,’ she said, stomping down the stairs. ‘We can argue about the christening in a minute. I am not leaving Lily to attend a silly party.’