What a Sicilian Husband Wants

She could imagine herself on that stage, trying to justify shooting her own husband. Trying to justify a lot of things. Like ignoring all the signs that the man she loved was nothing but a gangster.

But love had blinded her. Or should that be lust? A combination of both that should have overwhelmed her in its intensity had instead been embraced. Without a second thought, she’d opened her heart wide enough to allow Luca to step right inside and burrow deep into her soul.

She had graduated art school full of the wonder of all life had to offer. Together with her best friend Cara, they had travelled Europe, visiting many of the architectural wonders in the continent.

Sicily was magical. She had fallen in love with the island and its gregarious inhabitants. Its more nefarious history had only added to the romantic ideal she had conjured.

Cara, an outdoor lover, had dragged her along for a hike over the mountainous terrain close to Palermo. They had followed what they joked was the longest fence in the world, a fence that kept outsiders from properly appreciating the most beautiful vineyards in the whole of Europe. When they had come to a gap in the fence they had assumed—wrongly—that it gave them a right of way. As luck would have it, the gap had led into an open meadow with the most spectacular views either of them had been privileged to see. Cara had been aching to paint it, so they had opened their picnic blankets out and set up; Cara with her watercolours, Grace with her sketchbook and pencils.

She had barely made a scribble when a black Jeep tore up the hill and screeched to a stop beside them.

That was when she had met Luca.

He had got out of the Jeep and walked towards them, a gun in his hand.

She should have been terrified. He had been dressed all in black, and her mind had immediately gone into an overdrive of images of swooping vampires and flesh-eating ravens.

While Cara had sensibly turned into a gibbering wreck, Grace had been entranced. It was as if she had inadvertently stepped into a movie shoot and the head vampire had come out from his coffin to greet them.

Looking back, she could hardly credit that she had been so blasé about a man with a gun, but she hadn’t felt the slightest shiver of physical danger. She’d been so naïve she had assumed all Sicilian men carried guns. Fool that she was, she’d thought it all somewhat romantic.

Inexplicable tears filled her eyes and she blinked them away, sniffing loudly, disturbing Lily, who was busy guzzling her milk. The poor little mite was unaware her happy little life had irrevocably changed.

Footsteps sounded down the hall, followed by the sound of the front door closing.

She held her daughter ever tighter. She would rather die than be parted from her.

Somehow she didn’t think Luca had been the one to leave the house.

Her intuition was bang on the money.

He strode into the living room as if he had every right to be there. His chest was still bare; a large white bandage had been placed over the wound on his shoulder, his arm resting in a sling.

He made straight for the television and turned it off.

‘I was watching that.’

His nostrils flared. Not taking his eyes off her, he reached into his back pocket and produced two passports.

Blood rushed to her head so quickly it made her dizzy. Her hold on Lily tightened as she watched him, chills crawling up her spine.

Slowly, he waved the passports at her before sliding them back into his pocket.

‘Lily Elizabeth Mastrangelo.’ His words were monotone yet utterly remorseless. ‘Her date of birth puts her at twelve weeks old.’

He might be injured but he still exuded the latent danger she had once found so exciting.

Why did he have to loom over her so? At five feet eight Grace was taller than the average female but next to Luca she always felt tiny.

Why, oh, why had she not moved on sooner? She had got back into physical shape relatively quickly. Obviously if she was comparing her recovery with that of a supermodel who managed to get back into her itsy-bitsy knickers within days, then she had been a failure.

In reality she had been fit enough to move on a month ago.

So why had she dragged it out?

Where had this abnormal lethargy come from?

Why had she not run the moment she had been fit enough?

‘How dare you go through my handbag?’ she said, dredging the words from a throat so arid it hurt to speak.

His eyes flashed. ‘I have every right. You stole my child from me.’

Somehow she managed to grind the words out. She would not let him win. Not without a fight. ‘She is not your child. I had to name you as her father because we’re married.’

‘Yes, she is.’

How she longed to slap the arrogant certainty from him.

‘You did not have the opportunity for an affair and, besides, you loved me. Our sex life was incredible.’

A deep flush curled inside her, scattered memories of being wrapped in his arms, naked, his hard strength...

‘Loved being the operative word,’ she said, a little more breathlessly than she would have liked. ‘Loved, as in past tense. Lily is not your child.’

She refused to acknowledge his mention of the S word. The nightmares of the past ten months had been too great for her libido to do anything but wave a white flag. The only ache had been in her heart. And only in the dark early hours, when the world slept, did her heart acknowledge the aching absence within it.

Luca came before her and dropped to his haunches. The movement caused a fleeting wince to contort his features. The twisting sensation in her belly tightened. Being incapacitated in any form was anathema to him. She could have shot him a dozen times and he would still have the same vital, energising presence.

‘Bella,’ he said in a voice that was far too silky for comfort, ‘she has the Mastrangelo hair. And you were still married to me when you conceived her. I know for a fact you did not cheat on me...’

The tension cramping inside her suddenly exploded and she met his gaze with wild eyes. How stupid was she to think for a single second he would even contemplate Lily being someone else’s? Luca was so insufferably arrogant the thought of his wife cheating would be as likely as the moon being made of Stilton.

And how stupid was she to have named him as the father on the birth certificate?

‘It’s a bit hard to have an affair when your own husband has a tracker in your phone to monitor all your movements, and assigns two bodyguards to chaperone every single movement and report on anything the tracker fails to pick up.’

Lily had finished her bottle. She stared up at Grace, startled to hear her mother’s raised voice.

Luca’s lips formed a tight white line. Still on his haunches, he tilted forward. ‘So you admit she is mine? You admit you wilfully kept my daughter’s existence a secret?’

Forcing her voice down to a lower, calmer tone so as not to distress Lily, Grace stared at him with all the venom she could muster, willing him to feel every syllable that came from her lips like a punch to the gut. ‘Yes. I hid her existence from you, and do you know what? I would do it again. Lily deserves better than to know of the monster who created half her DNA. You might be the sperm donor but I am her mother. She does not need you. And neither do I.’

* * *

The poison in Grace’s voice cut through him, as sharp as a dagger.

Luca had taken one look at Lily and known she was his. He could not say where this certainty had come from but there been no shadow of doubt in his mind. She was his.