Sicilian's Shock Proposal Read online

  She blushed in embarrassment at the thought of him returning and being forced to marry her.

  No doubt he was dreading next weekend and returning to uphold his father’s commitment for him to marry poor little Sophie Durante.

  Was that the hold Malvolio had over her father? Sophie wondered.

  Well, she didn’t need charity and she would tell her father that.

  She put down the photo, took her parcel upstairs and finally opened it.

  The dress was exquisite. It was in the softest chiffon and the colour was a very pale coral. Sophie badly wanted to try it on but she had a very quick shower and washed her hair and then combed it before picking up the dress.

  She slipped it over her head and looked in the mirror.

  Sophie found she was holding her breath. All those hours standing as Bella had pinned sheets of paper had been worth it for this moment.

  The dress was amazing. It was scooped low at the front and showed Sophie’s cleavage. Of course, it would need a bra but even without it was somehow both elegant and sexy. It came in at the waist and then fell in layers, emphasising her curves when usually Sophie did what she could to downplay them.

  Yes, she knew she should take it off but instead she put on her mother’s earrings and found the lip glaze she had bought.

  Working at the hotel, Sophie was used to seeing beautiful women but this afternoon, for the first time in her life, she felt like one.

  Now she blushed for different reasons when she imagined facing Luka.

  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

  ‘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, sophisticat
ed 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.

  He headed up to his old bedroom and stripped off his shirt then went into his bathroom and examined the damage.

  There was bruising to his ribcage and on his shoulder where it had met the wall. An old gash above his eyes had opened up and probably needed stitching.

  Not now, though.

  For now he would patch himself up and then head to the airport. He might call Matteo and ask if he wanted to meet for a drink but they would meet at the airport.

  He was done with Bordo Del Cielo.

  Sophie.

  As he splashed cold water on his face he thought of her.

  Yes, this would be hell for her, Luka knew that and it didn’t sit right with him. Perhaps before he left for good he should go and speak with Paulo and maybe Sophie too.

  He pressed his bloodied shirt over his eye and went into his suitcase to find a fresh one. He hadn’t unpacked. Luka hadn’t even been back home for an hour before the argument had started.

  He heard a knock at the door but ignored it.

  Angela could get it, but then he remembered that she was at church.

  There was another knock but more loudly this time, and Luka headed down the stairs and opened the door.

  The breath that had just returned after his father had knocked it out of him stilled inside Luka now.

  His voice, when it finally came, was low and curious, and even though he said but one word there was a slight huskiness.

  ‘Sophie?’

  He was struggling to meet her eyes. In the argument that had just taken place, as he had attempted to wrestle back his life from his father’s control, things had been said about Sophie.

  Things she did not deserve.

  It had been said in the heat of the moment. Vile words in a vile row and Luka could taste bitterness along with blood in his mouth.

  Now, though, as finally he looked at her, there was a pleasant silence. No other thoughts other than this moment.

  Her eyes were the same, yet more knowing. Her mouth was full and she was wearing a little make-up.

  Her hair was thicker and longer.

  And her body—he could not help but briefly look down. The skinny teenager he remembered had left and in her place stood a very beautiful woman.

  One whose heart he was about to break.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ‘LUKA?’ SOPHIE FROWNED. ‘I didn’t think you were getting here till Wednesday.’

  ‘There was a change of plan.’

  ‘What happened?’ Sophie asked.

  ‘I decided to fly home earlier—’

  ‘I meant to your face.’

  ‘It’s just a cut,’ Luka said. ‘An old cut that opened up.’

  ‘The bruises are new,’ Sophie pointed out, and he gave a pale smile.

  ‘My father,’ he admitted.

  Sophie didn’t really know what to say to that so she cleared her throat and got back to the reason she was standing at the door.

  ‘I just had a message from Pino. Your father said I was to come here. That it was important.’

  ‘I can guess why,’ Luka said. No doubt his father had thought that one look at Sophie and he would change his mind. Well, he wasn’t that shallow. He saw her frown as he explained things a little better. ‘I think my father wanted us to be alone.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘You know how manipulative he can be,’ Luka said.

  She didn’t answer. Everyone might think that of Malvolio but no one would ever dare to say it.

  ‘Come in, Sophie.’ He held open the door and after a moment’s hesitation she stepped inside. ‘We need to talk.’ She followed him through to the kitchen, her eyes taking in his back and wide shoulders, and she felt very small and not in a nice way.

  He was so glossy, so sophisticated, he was everything that she wasn’t.

  Of course he wouldn’t want her.

  And now, from the little he had said, and the way he couldn’t quite meet her eyes, Sophie guessed she was about to be told that.

  Yes, she had her doubts about the engagement—yes, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to get married—but it felt very different from being told to your face that you weren’t wanted.

  ‘I just need to sort out this cut,’ Luka said. ‘Take a seat.’

  She didn’t.

  ‘I don’t know where Angela keeps the first-aid kit,’ Luka continued as he went through the cupboards. ‘Here it is.’ Sophie watched as he pulled out a small first-aid kit and even smiled as his long fingers tried to open a sticking plaster while holding the shirt over his eye.

  ‘It needs more than a plaster,’ Sophie said. ‘You need a doctor to stitch it.’

  ‘I’ll get it sutured tomorrow if it needs it,’ Luka said. ‘In London.’

  He looked up and caught her eye but she didn’t respond to his opening.

  She’d damn well make him say it, Sophie decided.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ Sophie said, because it really was a nasty cut. She took out the scissors then cut the sticking plaster into thin strips onto the kitchen bench, and as she did so Luka spoke.

  ‘You look well.’

  Sophie gave a wry smile. At least he had got to see her in her beautiful dress, she thought with slight relish. She knew she looked her very best and it was a rather nice thing to know when you were about to be dumped.

  Let him think she ran around on a Sunday in coral chiffon with lip gloss and jewellery...

  And no underwear, Sophie remembered, as she jumped up onto the kitchen bench and quickly put her dress between her thighs.

  ‘Come here,’ Sophie said, now that she had set up for the small procedure.

  ‘I don’t want to get blood on your dress.’

  It didn’t matter now if her dress was ruined, Sophie knew. This was the only time that he’d be seeing her in it. ‘Oh, this old thing.’ She shrugged. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

  Luka went over to where she sat and stood as Sophie concentrated on closing the cut.

  ‘Why were you two fighting?’

  ‘We weren’t fighting,’ Luka said. ‘He was taking out his temper on me. I chose not to hit him back. This one last time.’

  ‘I hate how he treats you,’ Sophie said, and her hand paused over the cut as she deliberated with herself whether or not to continue. ‘How he treats everyone.’

  She thought of Bella and if there was any good that could come out of this then she’d damn well find it.

  ‘Bella’s mother is sick,’ Sophie said. ‘She can’t work and now he wants Bella to start doing shifts at the hotel bar.’ She assumed, given that his eyes refused to meet hers, that he knew what that meant. ‘Can you speak with him for me?’

  ‘Sophie, before we discuss Bella I need to speak first with you.’

  ‘I get that you do,’ she said, ‘but I would like to speak about this first’. Sophie persisted because she knew she might lose her temper about five minutes from now. Yes, she didn’t want to be forced into a marriage but, no, she didn’t want to be left here either.

  It wasn’t just her pride that was going to hurt when he ended things—now that he was back her heart remembered him.

  Standing before her was the man she had cried herself to sleep over when he had left last time.

  It had been a childish crush, a schoolgirl’s dream, a teenage fantasy, Sophie’s head knew that but, having him back, feeling him close, her heart was racing again and her body wanted to taste first-hand her forbidden dreams. Yes, soon th
at Sicilian temper might get the best of her, so she would speak with him now, about the things that possibly could be sorted, while there was relative calm.

  Relative, for her legs ached to wrap around him and the tongue that went over her lips now was inadvertently preparing herself for him. ‘Bella doesn’t want to work in the bar.’

  She could sense his discomfort and guessed that it had little to do with the pain from the cut, more the subject matter.

  ‘I’ll speak to him,’ Luka offered, ‘but first I need to speak with you. I was going to go and see Paulo—’

  ‘Luka...’ Her hand was on his cheek and she wanted to halt him, wanted to kiss him, to make love and then deal with the rest.

  Please, don’t say it, she wanted to beg.

  Not yet, not until I have finally tasted you.

  ‘Luka, I know this is difficult but...’

  She was right. Luka was not looking forward to this conversation one bit. He wondered how best he could tell her his reasoning without destroying her belief in her father.

  It was also difficult for other reasons.

  Yes, Malvolio was a manipulative bastard and Luka knew that he wasn’t shallow enough to change his mind just because Sophie looked sensational. Still, it was rather hard to stand there at eye level with the ripe swell of her breasts, with the warm, musky scent of her reaching into him and then to look into eyes that, Luka realised, knew him.

  Perhaps their fathers had chosen more wisely than he had given them credit for, because the ache in his groin and the surprising pleasure of talking to her had momentarily upended his plans.

  He had to go through with it, Luka knew.

  He had to deny the attraction, the want that was there between them.

  Her pupils were large with lust, and he was sure that so too were his as they stared back to her. How the hell did you tell someone it was over when you were hard for them? When you knew, just knew, that with one slip of your hand those gorgeous thighs would part?

  He needed to tell her they were over now, right now, before he gave in to the kiss they both wanted, and so he spoke on. ‘My father was angry because I told him I wouldn’t be coming back to Bordo Del Cielo and instead I would be living permanently in London. I told him I wanted no part of his life. I said that I won’t have him choose where I live, how I work—’