Sicilian's Shock Proposal Read online

  ‘No,’ Sophie said. ‘I need to be close to my father. I’m going to go Rome and live there.’

  ‘If you come to London with me then I can pay for you to visit him frequently.’

  ‘I don’t want you paying for me,’ Sophie said. ‘God, you’re as arrogant as your father. Well, let me tell you—I would rather work as a poutana in the bar with Bella than go to London with you. Have you any idea of the shame, to stand the court and hear that?’

  ‘Sophie.’ He grabbed her arm and swung her around to face him. ‘You know why I said what I did. I did all I could so that what you said to me would have no bearing on your father’s verdict.’

  But she didn’t want to hear it.

  ‘Go and live in London, Luka, and party with your models, who only want you for looks and money. You’ll suit each other. Take the head start your father’s filthy dealings gave you.’

  ‘He gave me nothing.’

  ‘Please,’ Sophie scoffed. ‘I’ll do better on my own that I ever could with you.’

  ‘Are you sure about that?’ Luka checked.

  ‘More than sure.’

  ‘Some welcome,’ Luka sneered, and then shook his head. ‘I’ve been in prison for six months, two of them spent in solitary, where the thought of seeing you was the only thing that kept me sane.’

  Luka had had a lot of time to think and in that time the only thing that had kept him going had been her and the memory of that afternoon—sheets that had smelt like the sun and the future they had dared to glimpse. He had walked out of court and straight to the jeweller’s. It had been closed, of course, but he had gone around to Giovanni’s home and asked him to open up, and his first purchase had been the thing he craved most.

  A future with the person he loved by his side.

  ‘What exactly did you say to your father?’ Sophie demanded. ‘I want to hear it.’

  Now, instead of looking to the future, Sophie wanted to examine the past.

  ‘I’ve just been found not guilty, Sophie. I’ve just had my past and my all my dealings examined. I never thought I’d have to come out to be to be retried by you. I lied under oath for you.’

  ‘I don’t care about your lies under oath,’ Sophie said, her eyes blazing with anger. ‘I care about the parts that were true. You go to London, Luka, you go with your glamorous women, you don’t need to take the peasant along...’

  It was that part that had killed her, that part that made her want to curl up right now and hide for ever, but instead Sophie came out fighting. She had never felt good enough for Luka, and hearing what he had said about her to his father had been more shameful than being paraded half-naked in front of the village. ‘You weren’t lying under oath then, Luka.’

  ‘It was a row that I had with my father. What I said was wrong, I know that. Sophie, I thought it the moment I opened the door to you and saw you standing there, so beautiful...’

  Unwittingly he had hurt her again. The Sophie he had seen that day had been dressed in her finest, but he couldn’t know that. All his words did were reinforce her silent fear that if he knew the real Sophie, she wouldn’t be good enough.

  From the ruins she had to dig deep to find her pride.

  ‘I’ll never forgive you for that,’ Sophie spat. ‘I’ll never forget the shame of my first lover calling me a peasant.’

  ‘Well, it was it clearly true.’ He hit completely below the belt but, hell, he was hurting. ‘Do you really think I want to be standing arguing, with you acting like a fishwife, on the night I get set free? I want champagne, Sophie. I want laughter and a beautiful woman.’

  ‘And?’ she demanded.

  ‘That about does it for me,’ Luka said, and shrugged her off.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  HE DIDN’T FEEL ANYTHING.

  Or rather, Luka thought as the car took him from the airport to Bordo Del Cielo , the feelings that he had were perhaps not at they should be on the day of his father’s funeral.

  Yes, he was grieving.

  Just not for Malvolio.

  It had been five years since Luka had been back.

  At least physically.

  More than Luka cared to admit, his dreams regularly brought him back to this place.

  The car turned and he looked out at the glittering Mediterranean and then another turn and there spread out before him were his childhood and teenage years.

  The church, the houses, the rivers and roads that were all etched in his heart were on view now. Memories of summers and Christmases long gone when he had lived a life with the promise of Sophie in his future.

  It had been a promise that he had backed out on, Luka reminded himself.

  Today, on the day that his father was buried, when surely there should be a layer of grief for his father, instead it was all for Sophie and for that small slice of time they had been together.

  She still resided in his heart.

  With the benefit of hindsight he had often rearranged that day in his mind so that they had left for London as soon as she had come out of the shower, before the raid, before everything had fallen apart.

  He arrived at the church and as he stepped inside Luka could only give a wry smile for it was practically empty.

  Defiant only on Malvolio’s death, no one attended.

  There was just Angela the maid, sitting midway down the aisle, and Luka gave her a nod and then headed to the front.

  There was the sound of the door opening and he turned around because, yes, hope remained.

  False hope, Luka thought as Pino, once a young boy on his bike, now a young man, came in and took a seat.

  Luka nodded to him also but as he sat through the short service still his mind turned to Sophie.

  She should have been here.

  Had she cared for him, she would have been beside him today.

  The burial was a sad joke.

  Malvolio had paid for his own funeral and the huge oak casket with its glitzy trimmings went almost unnoticed, for everyone had chosen to stay at home.

  Pino headed off and after Luka had thanked the priest he walked out of the cemetery with Angela.

  ‘I have put on some refreshments,’ Angela said, ‘back at the house. I wasn’t sure how many would be attending. I don’t think I’ll be hungry for a long time.’

  Luka gave a wry smile. ‘You know, for all his power and wealth he had nothing,’ he said. ‘Nothing that matters anyway.’

  ‘I thought Matteo might come with you today. I hear that the two of you are doing very well.’

  ‘He is in the Middle East on business. He offered to come but I really just wanted to do this on my own.’

  Or not on his own. Still his eyes scanned the street, hoping against hope that she might yet arrive.

  He should leave now.

  Luka knew that.

  His lawyers were taking care of the estate. Luka could barely stand to hear the details—his father owned Paulo’s home and Bella’s mother’s too.

  That was the mere start.

  Most of the town had been handed over to his father in times of weakness or ill health, with the promise that Malvolio would take care of everything.

  No wonder the church had been practically empty. No doubt the moment Luka left they would celebrate the end of his father’s dictatorship.

  They would, Luka knew, have reason to celebrate properly soon for he had instructed his lawyers carefully.

  He needed nothing from his father’s estate. It would take some work and a lot of unravelling but, in time, all the homes that his father had procured through less than honourable means would be returned to their rightful owners or their descendants. The locals would only find that out long after he had left Bordo Del Cielo, though.

  They arrived at his car and Luk
a looked at Angela’s tired, strained face.

  ‘How long until I have to leave the house?’ Angela asked.

  ‘You don’t ever have to leave,’ Luka said. Yes, he was handing it over to his lawyers, but he did not want Angela spending another night in fear. ‘I will be transferring the house into your name.’

  ‘Luka!’ Angela shook her head. ‘Bordo Del Cielo is a popular holiday resort now, the properties are expensive.’

  ‘It is your home,’ Luka said. ‘Hopefully, now it can be a happier one.’ He gave her a small smile. ‘Can I ask you to keep it to yourself for a little while?’

  Angela nodded tearfully.

  ‘Come back to the house,’ she said, but Luka shook his head.

  ‘There are few good memories there...’

  ‘Come back for a little while at least.’

  There was one good memory, though, and after a moment of quiet thought Luka nodded.

  He hadn’t been home since the night of the police raid.

  On his release, after pleading with Sophie to join him in London, instead of going to the bar to celebrate his and his father’s freedom he had sat on the sand, going over and over Sophie’s words.

  He went over them again now as he stepped into the kitchen and remembered her sitting on the bench and tending to his eye.

  ‘I might take a look around,’ Luka said, and took the stairs, trying and failing not to remember their frantic kisses there, and then went into his old bedroom.

  It was like entering a time warp.

  Angela must have dusted it but it was just as he had left it.

  Luka closed his eyes as he remembered that afternoon before it had all gone so wrong.

  He thought of the plans they had made and their hopes for the future. Now, with the wisdom the years had afforded and after so many fleeting relationships that never came close to what he had found with Sophie, he knew that what had been born that day had been a fledgling love. It had to have been for there had been nothing close to the same since. Not just the sex, but the conversation, the sharing, peering into the future with one another and picturing themselves there—not clearly, they’d had but a few hours together, of course, but there had been the chance of a future and it had been stolen from them that same day.

  He opened up his bedside drawer, expecting nothing, an old notebook perhaps or a school report. He used to hide them from his father—they had never been good enough. What he found, though, made him sit on the bed with his head in his hands.

  Her earring—just a thin gold loop with a small diamond where the clasp met, but it was the only tangible thing he had from that day and he examined it carefully as memories rushed in. He remembered her standing at the door and how that tiny stone and the sparkle it had made had brought attention not to the earring but to her eyes.

  She should have been here today, standing beside him. If she cared at all she’d have made the effort, wouldn’t she?

  ‘Did you ever look her up?’ Angela asked a little later as they drank coffee.

  ‘Who?’ Luka attempted.

  ‘The woman you were promised to for half of your life,’ Angela said. ‘The woman who walked out of this house dressed only in your shirt as the whole town looked on. The woman you shamed in court. I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you her name.’

  ‘I had no choice to say what I did in court.’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘Sophie didn’t, though.’

  ‘She was young,’ Angela said, and Luka nodded.

  ‘She was more upset about what I said to my father about her being a peasant...’ Luka smiled as he rolled his eyes. ‘And so, to make things worse, I went and said it again on the beach, the night of my release...’

  ‘To Sophie!’ Angela exclaimed, but then smiled. ‘She is so like her mother. Rosa could skin you alive with her eyes... I remember the day she turned up here, shouting at Malvolio to leave her family alone...’ Her voice trailed off. Even if he was dead, some things still weren’t discussed, but Luka nodded.

  He could remember that day just a little. Rosa had knocked on the door and had stood shouting down the hallway.

  He’d forgotten that, Luka thought. He would have been eight or nine...

  ‘You were younger then too when you said those things and you were also just out of prison.’ Angela broke into his thoughts. ‘Perhaps it wasn’t the time for common sense.’

  Again, he nodded.

  ‘So, did you ever look her up?’

  ‘I sat in a car outside Paulo’s jail day in day out for a month a couple of years ago,’ Luka admitted. ‘Then I found out that he was in hospital and not even there.’

  ‘You never visited him?’

  ‘I couldn’t face him,’ Luka admitted. ‘He took the fall for my father. When I found out that he had been sentenced to forty-three years...’ Luka gave a tight shrug. ‘The wrong man was put behind bars.’

  ‘Paulo wasn’t entirely innocent either.’

  ‘I know that. I don’t know what my father’s hold over him was but surely he could have said no at some point or just left.’ Luka gave a tight shrug, weary from thinking about it. ‘He didn’t deserve forty-three years, though, and for my father to walk free.’

  ‘You never saw Sophie after she left for Rome?’

  ‘Never,’ Luka said. ‘It is like she disappeared...’

  ‘I am sure she still visits her father.’

  Luka nodded. ‘Maybe I should go and visit him.’

  He was older now—he could face Paulo...

  Perhaps he could visit him and ask after his daughter.

  Maybe he and Sophie deserved a second chance because, as sure as hell, the years hadn’t dimmed the memory. Absence really did make the heart grow fonder because Luka was in the agony of recall again.

  And still angry again at her words towards him.

  He had never compared her to her father.

  Paulo was no innocent—he knew full well what two visits from him meant.

  Never would he have thrown that at Sophie.

  She wasn’t like her father, though, Luka thought. She was as volatile and explosive as Rosa.

  ‘I’m going to look her up again,’ he said to Angela. ‘I will go and see Paulo and make my peace with him.’

  ‘And ask where his daughter is?’ Angela smiled.

  ‘I have an earring that needs to be returned!’ He smiled; he hadn’t expected to smile today but he did. It hurt to be back here but it had cemented some things in his mind.

  He and Sophie deserved another chance.

  ‘She might be married,’ Angela said. ‘She might—’

  ‘Then it’s better to know,’ he said.

  It was the not knowing that killed him.

  It hurt too much to be here, Luka thought. He wanted the future, he wanted to explore if there was still a chance for him and Sophie, so he drained his coffee and stood.

  ‘I’m going to head back.’

  ‘Do you want to go through his things first?’

  ‘Just take what you need,’ Luka said. ‘Get rid of the rest.’

  ‘His jewellery?’ Angela said. ‘Don’t you want that at least?’

  ‘No.’ Luka shook his head. He was about to tell Angela to sell it and keep what she made but then he hesitated—no doubt his father’s jewellery hadn’t all come by honest means and he did not want Angela in trouble for handling stolen goods.

  ‘I will drop it in to Giovanni on the way to the airport,’ Luka said, referring to the local jeweller ‘He can melt it down or whatever.’

  Angela led him up the stairs and into Malvolio’s bedroom.

  There was nothing he wanted from here.

  He opened up a box and stared at his father’s belongings with dista
ste and then Luka’s heart stopped still in his chest and then started beating again, only faster than it had been before.

  ‘Can I have a moment?’ he said, and somehow managed a vaguely normal voice. He didn’t even see Angela leave but she must have because a moment later he looked up from the jewellery box and she was gone, the door had been closed and he was alone.

  Luka watched his hand shake a fraction as it went into the heavy wooden box and pulled out a simple gold cross and chain.

  Yes, he remembered Rosa.

  Luka had heard in court how things worked and knew that her necklace must have been taken as a souvenir after her death.

  Did Paulo know? Luka wondered.

  He looked at the door.

  Angela too?

  He felt sick as he started counting dates in his head. Yes, he remembered Rosa shouting down the hallway, telling Malvolio that it would be over her dead body before she gave up her home.

  The next memory?

  Her funeral. Paulo, holding a smiling Sophie, who, at two years old, had had no real idea how sombre the day had been.

  He remembered his father delivering the eulogy, telling the packed church how he would support his friend and little Sophie.

  Even though he had surely been responsible for Rosa’s death?

  Was that why Paulo had always said yes to his father? Was that the hold that he’d had over him? Had Paulo done whatever had been asked of him just to keep Sophie safe from the same fate?

  Poor man.

  Luka had always considered Paulo weak.

  Now he glimpsed Paulo’s fear. He had done whatever it had taken to protect his child, and Luka knew that he had to help free him.

  He would get his lawyers onto it this very day, Luka swore there and then. He would get an apartment in Rome and work for however long it took to secure his release.

  There would be no contacting Sophie, though, Luka knew.

  There could be no second chance for them now.

  He knew Sophie well enough, and she would never forgive him if she knew that it had been his father who had killed her mother.

  Never.

  The glimmer of hope he had just started to kindle, the fleeting hope for some reconciliation with Sophie, died then as Luka pocketed the necklace.