Sicilian's Shock Proposal Page 11

  She didn’t have a single one.

  It was strange to have the world at your fingers, courtesy of the Cavaliere name.

  Except people didn’t jump in fear when she rang and said that she was organising a last-minute gathering; instead, they seemed genuinely happy to help.

  And so she enjoyed herself amidst the saddest of times.

  The columns of foliage and scented trees were decorated with tiny lights that would come on at sunset. A string quartet had been arranged and the food had Sophie’s mouth watering even as she made her selections.

  Hearing her father cough and struggle to catch his breath, Sophie knew this would all be over, long before the credit-card bills came in.

  ‘What’s this?’ Paulo asked.

  ‘A new shirt and suit.’ Sophie smiled. ‘They just need you to try it on so they can take it in.’

  Yes, to Sophie, Luka’s life was charmed.

  And so she had a beautician come to Luka’s home and sat on a velvet chair in the bedroom as her thick black hair was spun into heavy ringlets and her eyelids were painted a smoky grey.

  ‘Red lips...’ the beautician said, but Sophie shook her head.

  In her bag, still there, was her once-used lip glaze.

  She wondered if it would all have dried up but, no, it went on easily.

  ‘Just touch it up through the evening,’ the beautician said. ‘And try not to play with your hair or the curls will drop.’

  Sophie chose her dress from the selection Bella had made. A simple black dress that went with the shoes she had worn on the day she had walked into his office was her choice. She tried it on and let out a small hiss of frustration. The front was far too low and as for the back there wasn’t one.

  Luka walked in as Sophie stood staring in the mirror, trying to fathom if she’d be safe without a bra.

  He saw first her back, glossy and brown, with black ringlets snaking down it. He looked down and saw the muscles of her calves drawn lean in high heels and he walked over, anticipating her slight jump as he came into view in the mirror.

  ‘I’m sorry about all this,’ Sophie said.

  ‘Don’t be sorry.’ Luka shrugged. ‘I agreed to go along with this. Of course your father would want a special night.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  He looked at her lips and told himself he was imagining things because they were the very lips he had kissed that long-ago day. He looked down at the gape of unrestrained cleavage and thick nipples that jutted from the fabric.

  ‘I forgot to pack my backless bra...’

  ‘Those bras are the ugliest things I’ve ever seen.’

  She could feel a shiver on her back, so light she thought it might be his finger, but she realised he was holding a drink with one hand and removing his tie with the other.

  It was the nerves on her spine that were leaping in hope.

  ‘I’ll change,’ Sophie said, turning to go to the wardrobe, except Luka didn’t step aside and she walked slap bang into him.

  His drink he held steady.

  It was her heart that seemed to spill on the floor.

  ‘You’ll wear that,’ Luka said. ‘You’ll wear what turns me on.’

  ‘Why?’ Sophie demanded. Why the hell would he do this to them?

  ‘Mortification of the flesh,’ Luka answered. ‘It’s my new game.’

  He undid his shirt and she could feel the tense pinch of her nostrils as he took it off and she would hold her breath till he headed for the shower.

  He didn’t, though.

  Instead, he went to the wardrobe and took out a clean shirt.

  ‘Aren’t you going to shower?’

  ‘There’s no time for that.’

  ‘Luka, please...’

  ‘Do I smell?’ He came over and lifted his arm and she simply refused to breathe him in. ‘No, I showered this morning. You get me in the raw...’

  She wanted him clean and sterile—she didn’t want his heady scent.

  ‘See?’ Luka smiled at her pale face. ‘It’s a good game. Well, it is for me. I keep forgetting you don’t like all that business...’ He did up his shirt and Sophie chose to get out.

  ‘I’m going to help my father get ready.’

  ‘No need.’ His eyes did not leave her alone for a minute. ‘I brought a nurse back with me. Another one will take her place at midnight. They come with the best references and I have done the necessary checks.’

  ‘I take care of my father.’

  ‘Of course you do,’ Luka said. ‘But as a daughter, not a nurse. I was thinking today that if I had a child, not that I ever will, but if I did I would not want them looking after me in that way. Enjoy him as your father now.’

  ‘I can’t afford a nurse.’ Her words were shrill, her admission reluctantly dragged through strained lips, but Luka didn’t even blink.

  ‘You know,’ he drawled, ‘they’re the first honest words to come out of your mouth. We need to head out there. Matteo and Shandy will be here soon, I believe they’re getting engaged in a few weeks...’

  ‘Shandy?’ Sophie said, resentment prickling for Bella, for her heart would break when she found out that Matteo was about to get engaged. ‘What sort of a name is that? Is he bringing a horse?’

  ‘Oh...’ Luka gave a low laugh. ‘She’s back.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The real Sophie,’ Luka answered. ‘I keep glimpsing her but then you tuck her away. Bring her out, Sophie. Don’t worry, I can handle her.’

  The real Sophie took the elevator with him up to the rooftop garden.

  Her father was there, thanks to the nurse.

  And so too were Matteo and Shandy.

  ‘You’ve done well,’ Luka said.

  Sophie had. The garden twinkled with lights, the string quartet was softly playing and the waiters were waiting to pounce.

  ‘It’s been so long,’ Sophie said, and kissed Matteo’s cheek.

  ‘Just not quite long enough,’ Matteo said, and Sophie jerked her head back.

  He hated her too, only she didn’t understand why.

  ‘This is Shandy.’ Matteo introduced the glossy blonde and Sophie looked at her. With her long legs and slightly protruding teeth, she actually did slightly resemble a horse.

  ‘Shandy.’ Sophie kissed her on both cheeks too and met Luka’s eyes.

  She would behave, Sophie swore.

  The food was delicious.

  Porcini mushrooms with black truffle pappardelle, the sauce thick and creamy and mopped up with bread rich with herbs and olives, but, Paulo mused, ‘It cannot beat Sicilian panne...’

  ‘Nothing beats Sicilian,’ Sophie said.

  She meant it for Bella, for her friend, she meant it to remind Matteo of the woman who was not here tonight, yet it was Luka’s eyes she met as she said it.

  ‘No.’ She put her hand over the wine glass as the waiter went to pour.

  ‘Enjoy yourself.’ Luka smiled. ‘I am.’

  He liked the real Sophie; he liked watching her attempt to rein herself in as he invited her to come out.

  Both were, both knew, playing the most dangerous of games.

  Dessert was pure heaven—thick cassata that was as rich and as liqueur-laced as it had been more than a decade ago when he had denied her that kiss.

  And then tiny cannellonis, the ricotta tart with lemon, refreshing to the tongue.

  ‘Limoncello.’ Paulo smiled as he sipped the drink of home, and then he stood on frail legs as Sophie sat.

  ‘Tonight makes up for many things,’ Paulo said. ‘Tonight I sit with old friends and new...’ He raised a glass to Shandy, and Luka and Matteo did the same.

  The glass felt like lead to Sophie but she raised hers too.

 
Then she had to listen to her father say how right she and Luka were. That they were simply meant for each other.

  ‘Luka was twelve when his mother died. I remember Sophie crying that night for his pain.’ She had forgotten that. Deliberately. To escape the pain, she had avoided their past and now her father walked them both through it.

  For appearances’ sake Luka’s hand was over hers but it was hot and dry and there was no caress from him as her father exposed the love that was lost.

  ‘When we had a party for Luka moving to London, I remember Sophie coming down the stairs. She had put tissues in her bra. She wanted Luka to notice her...

  ‘“In time,’ I told her. But she was fourteen and impatient and did not want to listen to me,’ He looked at Sophie. ‘Listen to me now. You and Luka’s time is now. Don’t ever waste it.’

  Then it was Luka’s turn to speak.

  He cleared his throat and thanked their few guests. Out of the corner of her eye Sophie could see that her father was fading. Smiling but fading, and she was so grateful to Luka to have given him this night.

  ‘Paulo, we are so happy to celebrate this night with you. I am very blessed. Some might say that I have a charmed life...’ He looked at Sophie and with a smile that did not reach his eyes he painted her heart black. ‘That is because of you, Sophie...’ He offered her his hand and Sophie stood. ‘I know you have your ring, but I wanted something to mark this night.’

  She opened a box and there was a fine bracelet and she read the inscription:

  ‘Per sempre insieme.’

  Together for ever.

  She wanted to hurl it over the balcony and to the street or throw it across the floor, but instead she handed it to her father, who was putting on his glasses to read what had been written.

  ‘We should go soon,’ Matteo said to Shandy.

  ‘Why?’ Sophie challenged. ‘When we’re having so much fun?’

  ‘You could stay here,’ Luka offered, but Matteo shook his head. ‘It is good to check the hotel out...’

  ‘Where are you staying?’ Paulo asked.

  ‘Fiscella,’ Matteo answered, and Sophie shivered and hoped that Bella wasn’t working there tomorrow. ‘Luka and I are thinking of buying it,’ he explained to Paulo. ‘It is a nice old hotel but it needs a lot of refurbishment. I want to see for myself a few things.’

  ‘Doesn’t Bella work there?’ Paulo asked, and Sophie tensed, especially when she felt the scrutiny of Luka’s gaze.

  ‘She does.’

  ‘Doing what?’ Matteo asked.

  ‘She’s a chambermaid,’ Paulo answered. ‘Isn’t she, Sophie?’

  ‘Well, I guess it gives her access to a richer clientele.’ Matteo’s response was surly and, taking Shandy by the hand, he led her to the floor to dance.

  ‘I thought you would wear your mother’s earrings tonight,’ Paulo said. ‘You wanted them for your engagement.’

  ‘They didn’t go with the dress.’ Sophie’s answer was brittle and Luka noted it.

  ‘Come on,’ Luka said. ‘Dance.’

  I don’t want to dance with you, she wanted to say. I don’t want to be in your arms because there I might convince myself that this is real.

  He held her at her waist and she could feel his cheek by hers and it was their first dance and had to be their last because it nearly killed her to be back in his arms.

  Yet she didn’t want their one dance to end—ever.

  ‘Why did you get me that bracelet? Why would you have engraved “Together for Ever”?’

  ‘What did you want me to have inscribed? “Né tu letu né iu cunsulatu”?’

  She looked right at him with narrowed eyes as he delivered a very apt Sicilian saying—‘Neither you happy nor I consoled.’

  ‘Do you need consoling, Luka?’ Her smile was mean with seduction.

  ‘Are you happy?’ Luka asked, and saw that her smile struggled to stay on. ‘Do you miss it?’

  ‘Miss what?’ Sophie hissed, yet she knew what was coming and she was right, for he practically echoed Bella’s words.

  ‘Everything we could have had.’

  ‘You ended things with me,’ Sophie said. ‘You came back to Bordo Del Cielo just to say you didn’t want to marry me.’

  ‘Oh, you are so good at rewriting history, Sophie,’ Luka refuted. ‘I ended the old us, we were just starting anew. It was you that ultimately broke things off. You who refused to come to London with me. So,’ he asked, ‘do you regret it?’

  If she said that she did, then she admitted her love. And if she admitted her love, then it made the last years wasted, and that shamed her more than being led to a police car dressed in his shirt.

  Instead, she clung to her pride as she fought not to rest her head on his shoulder. ‘No.’

  ‘Then you’re more of a fool than I thought.’

  ‘Oh, I’m a fool now, am I?’ Sophie retorted. ‘A peasant and a fool.’

  ‘You’ll never let it go, will you? Always you let your temper get the better of you,’ Luka said into her ear, and she fumed silently in his arms as one by one he took out her faults and examined them as their bodies swayed to the music and turned the other on. ‘Your quick tongue...’

  ‘My slow tongue...’ Sophie said, and he laughed a dark laugh at her attempt to change the subject.

  Yes, the old Sophie was back.

  ‘It won’t work, Sophie.’

  ‘Ah, but it already has,’ she said, because she could feel him hard against her and certainly, for Luka’s sake, one dance must now become two.

  ‘You should be careful who you tease,’ he said into her ear. ‘I have no problem sleeping with you and then walking away.’

  ‘You would do that, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Luka said. ‘So don’t play with fire.’

  It felt strange to be both angry and turned on, to want and to resist.

  ‘Why do you loathe me?’ Sophie asked. ‘You have a wonderful life. And why does Matteo hate me?’

  ‘Because I’m boring when I’m drunk,’ Luka said. ‘I guess I tend to complain about you.’

  ‘And why do you hate me so?’

  ‘Many reasons.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘You held what my father did against me. You compare me to him when I never did that to you.’

  ‘My father is a good man.’

  ‘Perhaps, but he is not completely innocent.’ He dropped a kiss on her burning shoulder and there was nowhere to hide, no row that could be had in the public arena she had made for them, and resistance was agony.

  ‘Don’t make him out a saint,’ Luka said.

  ‘I don’t.’ Sophie closed her eyes as his face came back to her cheek.

  ‘What else?’ she asked.

  ‘Your inability to back down, to admit you were wrong,’ Luka said, and then he warned her what he was about to do. ‘I’m going to kiss you now. I’m going to kiss you and there is nowhere you can go and nowhere you can hide, and I am going to remind you what you let go. You are going to taste what you must now miss every day.’

  ‘A small kiss is hardly going to have me on my knees.’

  ‘Who said small?’

  ‘There are people present. My father...’

  ‘Would he not expect us to kiss at our engagement party? Just pull away when it gets too much...’

  ‘Luka, you seem to think I still want you. I told you, I don’t want anyone.’

  ‘Oh, that’s right—your phobia...’

  He pulled his head back so she could see his black smile.

  ‘When you need me to stop, I shall.’

  Sophie blinked. She already needed him to stop and he had barely started, but just the graze of his lips was too much, just the press of his
mouth was too dangerous.

  He was necessarily cruel.

  Necessarily because their mouths needed each other, and it was a relief just to give in to mutual want.

  The shiver along her spine this time came from his fingers, and it was Sophie’s tongue that caressed his.

  Just the tip.

  That cool, muscular tip that stroked hers enough to remind their scalding bodies of the fire they’d once made.

  ‘Enough for show,’ Sophie said, and pulled back.

  Just not enough for them.

  ‘I’m going to see Matteo off.’ Luka ran a slow tongue over his lips and tasted her again. ‘Your father looks as if he needs to go to bed.’

  He left her burning.

  As Luka saw their guests off, Sophie took the elevator with her father and the nurse.

  ‘It is good to see you so happy.’

  ‘We are happy, Dad,’ Sophie told him, as she saw him to his room. ‘You can see how Luka takes care of me. You don’t have to worry any more.’

  ‘But I do,’ Paulo said, then turned to the nurse. ‘Can you excuse us, please?’

  The nurse nodded and they walked into his room. ‘You have no idea how good that feels,’ Paulo said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘To ask for privacy and to be given it. You have made my final days happy, Sophie, but there is more that I want. I need to walk you down the aisle. I want to return to Bordo Del Cielo...’

  ‘The journey will be too much for you.’

  ‘Then I will die returning home to my Rosa.’

  ‘Father...’

  ‘Sophie, don’t say no to me. Let me see you and Luka marry in the same church that your mother and I did, now, this weekend. I won’t see another one, this much I know...’

  How could she say no to him?

  ‘I’ll speak to Luka.’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  SHE WALKED INTO the bedroom. Luka was lying on his side, his back to her and the sheet low on his hips.

  She didn’t know if he was awake or asleep but she knew that she had to tell him between now and the morning that she had told her father they would marry. She headed into the en suite and started to undress then realised she had left her nightdress in the bedroom. Rather than going back in there, she undressed and wrapped herself in a towel then took off her make-up and brushed her teeth.