Luka was going to be furious, Sophie knew.
But, hell, he must surely understand the impossible situation her father had put her in. He was days away from dying—of course he wanted to go home one last time, of course he would want to see his daughter married to the man she supposedly loved.
Loved?
She didn’t love Luka, she abhorred him, Sophie told herself, but then she caught sight of her lying eyes in the mirror as she rinsed her mouth.
Her body loved him, she knew, because it hadn’t just been hard work and few hours to spare that had kept her from other men, it had been the utter lack of wanting them when she looked at them. She’d had a few kisses that had tasted of plastic compared to being devoured by the man on the other side of the bathroom door.
She stepped into the bedroom.
‘Luka...’ Her voice was perhaps a little too quiet for someone who was truly trying to wake another, but when he didn’t respond Sophie decided that she’d tell him in the morning, and she slipped out of her dress and panties.
‘What?’
He didn’t turn and Sophie reached for her nightdress as she spoke. ‘It will keep till morning.’
‘Tell me now.’ He turned then and he wished he hadn’t for despite the darkness he could see her naked body with arms raised as she pulled on her nightdress.
He should turn away quickly, yet he didn’t. Instead, in that brief moment everything he’d imagined was verified. He had been trying to ignore her, willing sleep to come before she slipped into bed beside him and now he had to endure another night fighting instinct.
Sophie met his eyes and denied the sexual tension between them. ‘My father...’ She kept her voice calm. ‘I couldn’t get out of it.’
‘Get out of what?’
‘He wants to go back to Bordo Del Cielo as soon as possible. He wants to visit my mother’s grave.’
‘I’ll arrange the flight, you can go with him. I’ll make up some excuse about work as the reason I cannot be there. I never want to go back.’
‘He wants us both to go with him, though,’ Sophie said. His eyes were fixed on hers and her skin prickled with heat as she continued. ‘I’ve said that we will marry this Sunday.’
He said nothing and she stood there awaiting his response.
‘Luka?’
‘Are you going to stand there all night or get into bed?’
Sophie took a tentative step forward, pulled back the sheet and slipped in.
Her heart was thumping. The tension in the room was almost unbearable—a mixture of fear at his response and a deep, thick arousal. She knew he was turned on, and so too was she; she could not catch her breath, though she tried to keep it even.
‘Did you hear what I said about us?’
‘I heard.’
‘You didn’t respond.’
‘I have already told you where I stand on that—I will never marry you.’
‘But I’ve told him that we shall.’
‘Then you’d better hope that he dies before the service is due to commence.’
‘Luka...’ Fury bolted her upright but he pulled her down and pinned her.
‘What?’ he demanded. ‘Say what you were going to.’
‘You can’t mean that.’
‘Oh, I mean it,’ he said. ‘I’ll go along with it, I’ll go back home with you and get involved with the preparations. I’ll say and do all the right things right up until the church but know this—I won’t be standing at the altar when you get there, Sophie. You’ll be jilted in front of the town.’
‘You hate me so much that you’d do that to me.’
‘I hate you as much as I want you.’
‘That doesn’t make sense,’ Sophie said, yet even as the words left her lips she had worked out what he meant. He hated her fiercely, judging by the erection now pressing into her thigh.
‘I’ll make it clearer, then,’ Luka said. ‘I hate you as much as you want me.’
‘But I don’t want you. I don’t want anyone,’ Sophie said. With every cell in her body she lied and she knew he knew it. ‘Will you marry me, Luka? I’m not asking for forever...’
‘You miss the very point.’
‘Luka, can we start again?’ Sophie drew in a breath. ‘Can we put the past behind us and start anew?’
‘Without examining it?’ Luka checked. ‘Without accusing?’
‘Yes.’
‘How very convenient, Sophie, because then you don’t have admit you were wrong. You get to wipe the slate clean for as long as it suits you.’
‘What does that mean?’
He got up and headed to the safe where her mother’s necklace was kept and opened it.
Just hand it to her, he told himself.
Simply give her the benefit of the doubt.
Hand it over to her and see what she says.
‘You want a clean slate?’ Luka checked.
‘Yes,’ Sophie said. ‘I won’t raise what was said in court.’
He stared at the cross and chain; he almost believed she could do it until Sophie spoke on.
‘I won’t bring up the other women.’
‘But. You. Just. Did!’ Luka shouted in exasperation, and took out the earring instead of the cross. She was nowhere ready for the truth. ‘You’re still the fourteen-year-old kid padding her bra.’
‘Meaning?’
‘You haven’t grown up, or rather you haven’t moved on.’
‘Still the peasant.’
‘One row,’ Luka shouted, ‘one cross word and you hurl the past back at me. So where’s the clean slate, Sophie?’
‘Keep it down,’ she said. ‘I don’t want my father to hear us row.’
‘He can’t,’ Luka said. ‘These walls are soundproof So row away, Sophie, say what you have to. Here...’ He tossed her a piece of gold.
Just not the right one.
‘My mother’s earring.’
‘I found it in my bedroom,’ Luka said. ‘Come on, Sophie, say what you have to.’
‘I don’t want to row.’
‘You want to make love?’ Luka checked.
She ran an eye over his naked body and when most might avert their eyes from an angry erection, Sophie frowned.
‘I don’t think it has love on its mind.’
Uh-oh!
Luka walked over and she refused to flinch as he shredded her flimsy nightdress.
‘You’ll have sex with me yet you won’t go through with the marriage?’ Sophie checked.
‘Yes,’ Luka said. ‘And if you knew my reputation you would know many of my girlfriends have complained about the same thing.’
‘Ah, but you don’t make love to them the way you do with me.’
‘You don’t know that.’
‘I do know that,’ Sophie said, and looked right into his eyes. ‘Absolutely I do.’
‘That’s a very confident assumption for someone who’s only had sex twice.’
‘Once,’ Sophie corrected. ‘We only did it—’
She never got to finish. His mouth was hard on her hers and he kissed her then as he had wanted to on the dance floor.
He kissed her hard until she was kissing him back, her fingers knotting in his hair.
‘Remember, I don’t want charity,’ Luka said, as his thighs parted her legs.
He made her back down.
With his refusal to go further, he tested their patience to the edge.
‘It isn’t charity,’ Sophie said, as she guided him to her heat.
‘Some phobia.’
He exposed her lie and she didn’t care, as long as he took her now.
Yet he didn’t.
And neither did he leave her hanging on; inste
ad, he knelt up.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Picking up where we left off.’
He lowered his face to her and confirmed her desire for she was wet and swollen and a moment away from coming to him.
She tried to scramble away from him, but he held her hips down; she wanted them face to face, not this intimate, raw exploration where there was no place to lie.
And, Sophie thought as he pressed his long tongue in over and over again, she was wrong to berate him for past lovers.
She should handwrite them all thank-you notes because his mouth was sucking on her clitoris now and his fingers were probing her along with his tongue, and she was sobbing as she came to him.
‘Luka...’
He was kneeling between her parted legs, pulling them apart when they ached to close in on the orgasm he had just delivered her.
‘What?’ Luka checked, as he nudged a little way in. ‘Do you want to me stop?’
He would.
The bastard would.
‘Or,’ Luka said, ‘I go deeper.’
She could hear the sound of them, feel the tease of him that had her beating below again.
‘Just come,’ Sophie said.
‘I told you, I loathe martyrs.’
He rested on his heels and pulled her hips down and carried on his cruel tease, there but not, in but not enough.
‘Or,’ Luka offered, ‘we could try something different...’
‘Like?’ Sophie asked, and he suppressed a smile.
He could feel her mounting tension, he was holding down her hips as they rose in his hands.
‘Something dangerous,’ Luka said, and she nodded her head, set now on a rigid neck.
And so he kissed her like the first time.
When they’d tasted sweet and new.
He toppled onto her as he fully entered her again, and he brushed her wet lips with his as she clawed at his back and then gave in.
They made love.
They might well regret it tomorrow, but that was for then.
Now he kissed her like he only ever would kiss her, and Sophie just drank it in.
She smiled and she pushed back his damp hair just to see him, just to feel it. She stopped fighting and started caressing and they rolled, made love to each other, nipped, sucked and tasted, and came.
And came again.
Guns were down.
Walls were gone.
She accepted his temporary truce as they made up for lost time.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
‘I DON’T UNDERSTAND YOU.’
They were the words he awoke to the next morning. He stared at the face that belonged on his pillow.
‘Where did the other earring come from?’ Luka asked, because she was wearing both.
‘I always carry it in my purse,’ Sophie said.
She would carry her mother with her for ever, Luka knew. If the truth was ever revealed she would never forgive and he was right not to trust her with his heart.
Some things were too big to come back from.
‘You don’t understand me, Sophie, because I won’t let you.’
He rose from the bed.
‘Will you let me try?’
It was the calmest they had ever been, like sweeping up the debris after a wild party that neither regretted.
‘No,’ Luka said. ‘Sophie...’ He sat on the bed and took her hand. ‘We had a love that most people never know. You know that saying...better to have loved and lost—’
‘I hate that saying,’ Sophie broke in. ‘I hate that saying more than any other. Who wrote that?’ Sophie demanded.
‘Tennyson.’
‘Well, he was wrong.’
‘I agree,’ Luka said. ‘I wish I’d never loved you.’
‘But you did.’
‘I did.’
‘And you don’t now?’
Luka wasn’t that good a liar so he gave her a kiss instead. A nice one, not a loaded one. A sweet one, if, between them there could be such a thing.
‘In a few days this will be over,’ Luka said. ‘We’re going to get back to our lives knowing that we did the right thing by your father. It will be easier on us both once we get to Bordo Del Cielo.’
‘How?’
‘I’ll check into the hotel and, like a good groom, I’ll stay well away from the blushing bride-to-be.’
‘Not as blushing as I’ll be when you jilt me.’
‘I can’t marry you, Sophie. I can’t be your fake husband. I can’t stand in a church and exchange vows that I know we can’t keep.’
He got up and headed to the bathroom.
‘Hey, Luka,’ Sophie said. ‘I wished I’d never loved you too.’
* * *
The calm did not just belong in the bedroom.
A new presence had arrived with the dawn, though no one fully acknowledged it.
The colour seemed to have drained from Paulo’s irises, Luka noticed as he wished him good morning.
And as Sophie passed her father his coffee and his shaking hand reached for it, it was a natural transition for her to lift the cup to his lips and help him to drink it.
The nurse stood, about to help, but Sophie shook her head.
‘I’ve got this.’
So too had Luka.
He was so kind to Paulo and so engaged in organising the quick wedding that there were times Sophie had to catch herself because it felt real.
‘What about the evening?’ Paulo wheezed.
‘The hotel is already holding a function,’ Sophie explained, and she looked at Luka, but he shook his head. There was nothing he could do. It had been the first thing he had sold. ‘The hotel is under new ownership.’
‘We don’t need that hotel,’ Paulo said. ‘Before it was built we would party in the street. I remember my wedding to your mother—we came out of the church and straight into a feast. Perhaps you could ring Teresa at the deli and see if she can sort out the food and the drinks...’
‘Pa...’ Sophie looked over to where her father sat. ‘Why would Teresa want to help us when you—?’
‘Sophie.’ Luka stopped her from continuing and then watched as Sophie walked out onto the balcony. He could see her hands gripping the railing as she fought not to confront her father. Despite Paulo insisting he wasn’t confused, he seemed to live between the long-ago past—when Rosa had been alive—and then the present, as if he had simply erased the damage that had been caused in between.
‘Scusi,’ Luka said to Paulo, and walked out to join her.
‘He gets confused,’ Luka said patiently.
‘He gets confused when it suits him.’
‘No,’ Luka said. ‘I don’t think he can reconcile what he has done. He needs to go home. I can see that now.’
‘No one will be talking to him, though,’ Sophie said. ‘Have you asked Matteo to be your groomsman?’
‘I have.’
‘And what did he say?’
‘That he’ll move things around so that he can be there.’
‘I want Bella there too.’
‘I’m not sure if that’s wise,’ Luka said. ‘Matteo will be with Shandy. You know a bit of what went down between him and Bella.’
‘I believe that it was Bella who went down,’ Sophie said. ‘And your friend paid for the pleasure.’
‘You don’t let a single thing go.’
‘You refused my offer of a clean slate,’ Sophie pointed out. ‘So tell your friend that, however uncomfortable Bella’s presence might make him, she’ll be there.’ She rubbed her temples and dragged in air. ‘I need to sort out some accommodation for us.’
‘That’s all sorted,’ Luka said.
&n
bsp; ‘How?’
‘Come on.’ Luka led her back inside then he addressed her father. ‘Paulo,’ he said in a very practical voice, ‘you will be tired after the ceremony. Perhaps we could have a few people back to your home...’
He gave a pale smile as Sophie let herself back in but then Paulo spoke. ‘I don’t have a home there any more.’
‘Yes, Paulo,’ Luka said, ‘you do. Since his death my lawyers have been sorting out the properties that my father acquired. You have your home to return to. It is all there, nothing has been changed. Angela has been taking care of it.’
For this gift to her father Sophie could almost forgive Luka for not loving her enough to remain in her life.
‘I have a home,’ Paulo sobbed. ‘Your mother’s dress will be there, Sophie. You can wear it for the wedding.’
‘No!’ It was Sophie who interrupted Paulo. ‘I’m not wearing my mother’s dress. I’m not my mother...’
‘Sophie, please,’ her father begged, but on this she stood firm.
‘I don’t want a replica of your marriage, Pa.’ She was caught between the truth and a lie. ‘I want our marriage to be different.’
She was torn, completely, as she walked out of the lounge and into the bedroom.
‘What was all that about?’ Luka asked, having followed her in. ‘I thought you were trying to give him the wedding of his dreams before he dies.’
‘Remember that you said if this was real, if we were in love...?’ Sophie turned the tables on him. ‘Then my father would know I would not be simply agreeing to everything. My father sees those times through rose-coloured glasses. If we really were marrying...’
‘Go on.’
‘What’s the point in going on?’ Sophie demanded. ‘Why should I tell you the wife and woman I want to be when you’re not even prepared to be there to find out? Why should I trust you with my dreams again when you won’t let me into your heart? You can have sex with me. Luka, you can be kind to me, you can argue with me if you must, but don’t ask for my private thoughts when we both know that you’re planning to walk away from me.’ She couldn’t continue speaking. ‘I’m going to Bella’s.’
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