Michelle Reid - Italian Deception

Behind her the silence was throbbing like the heavy beat of a drum. Inside she was quietly tearing apart at the seams. In her heart she was weeping at all the bitterness, and in her head she was feeling so ugly she never wanted to look at herself again.

‘Do I win my pass out of here now?’ she asked with a dullness that saw off her anger.

For an answer he spun on his heel and strode away.

Shannon wilted on a combination of shocked horror at what they had thrown at each other and a sinking sense of relief because she had finally driven him to let her out of here. Pulling herself together, she went to gather up her bags, then took in a deep breath before following him.

The moment she stepped back into the kitchen she knew she had not won anything. Luca was playing the domesticated man again and filling the kettle. His overcoat had gone, and his jacket and tie. As she stood there her eyes couldn’t resist following the ripple of muscle across broad, tense shoulders.

‘Take your coat off, dump the luggage,’ he said without turning.

‘Luca—for goodness’ sake …’ she pleaded yet again. ‘Just let me out of here so I can find a hotel room somewhere.’

‘Tea or coffee?’ was all she got by return.

‘Oh,’ she groaned, covering her now-throbbing eyes with a trembling hand. ‘Can’t you understand?’ she cried in a last-ditch attempt to make him see reason. ‘I just can’t stay in this apartment with you!’

It was no use. The rigid stretch of cotton barely flexed in response as he stood there waiting for the kettle to boil. ‘You’re nothing but an unfeeling monster,’ she told him as her weary body gave up on the whole stupid fight.

‘Tea or coffee,’ he repeated.

‘Oh, choose which you like,’ she sighed, and on an act of surrender sank into one of the chairs at the kitchen table, dropped her bags to the floor, then placed her elbows on the table so she could bury her face in her hands.

Another silence rained down around them after that, broken only by the soothing hiss of the kettle as it came to the boil. Shannon kept her face hidden and Luca—well, she was aware that he was standing there, leaning against the worktop and looking at her, but—what the heck? Let him get his fill of her defeat if that was how he got his kicks these days. She didn’t care any more, didn’t care about anything but getting a warm drink inside then finding a bed she could sleep in.

Observing the weary way she was sitting there with her face buried in her hands, Luca bit his teeth together and angrily asked himself what the hell he’d thought he was doing orchestrating that little scene. Since when did a reasonably sophisticated man of thirty-four taunt an ex-lover with the kind of remarks he had just poured out?

One that needed an escape for all the burning grief that was trampling his insides, he acknowledged heavily.

And Shannon was not just an ex-lover. She was the woman he’d loved. The woman he’d believed he could spend the rest of his life with. Walking into his own home and seeing what he had seen was going to burn in his head for ever.

‘I never did manage to discover who the other man was.’

‘What—?’ Her face came out of her hands, red-rimmed eyes staring at him as if he had just spoken to her in Greek. ‘It makes you a sad kind of man that you even bothered to try,’ she threw back in derision. ‘Forget the tea,’ she added, dragging herself to her feet again. ‘I’ll just take the bedroom.’

With that she hauled up her luggage and walked out of the kitchen.

Luca let her go, angry with himself for saying something else he had not meant to say. He stood there listening to her footsteps taking her down the hallway, listened to a door being opened, and a grim smile touched the corners of his mouth because he’d recognised the door as belonging to what she believed was one of the guest bedrooms. She’d picked it out deliberately knowing that their old bedroom was at the other end of the hall.

Standing there tense, hands braced on the worktop, he waited for her to realise the mistake she’d made. Sure enough a few seconds later the door closed and her footsteps continued to the room next door. He hadn’t slept in their old bedroom since the day she’d taken another man to it. He would have walked out of the apartment and never come back if it hadn’t been too big a step for his pride.

A few seconds later and the next door she had chosen shut with a telling slam. Only then did he let the air leave his body.

He must be mad—crazy to continue to let her get to him like this. What had gone should be forgotten. He wanted to forget, so why was he standing here feeling as bad as he’d felt two years ago?

He knew the answer but hell would freeze over before he would admit it.

The kettle boiled. He watched it happen. Watched it switch off and still remained standing there until the steam had died away again. Then, on a growl of frustration that sounded alien even to him, he turned and followed Shannon’s lead by slamming into his own bedroom.

From now on he was going to keep his distance, he vowed grimly. Tomorrow she moved to a hotel. And if they met up again while she was here in Florence then it would be by mistake because he didn’t want it to happen.

With that decision made, he stripped off his clothes then strode into the adjoining bathroom, switched on the shower and stepped beneath it. The jet was powerful, the water hot, and as it sluiced down over him he couldn’t help but notice what was happening in his lower regions. It made him want to push his fist through the tiled wall in front of him because if Shannon was the only woman who could excite this kind of response in him, then she was right and he was the saddest kind of person indeed.

Shannon opened her suitcase and dragged out a pair of pyjamas, then just stood holding the pale blue strips of flimsy silk in fingers that shook. She despised him, she really did—so why were there tears in her eyes? Why was she feeling so unbelievably hurt because he’d dared to remark on something that should no longer matter to either of them?

If she’d been guilty as charged she might have had reason to feel this wretched. Innocence should bring with it a smug sense of self-righteousness. Only it didn’t. Instead it made her want to go and find him, tell the truth and just get it all over with so she could feel comfortable again.

What truth, though? The full truth, warts and all, and other people’s secrets? She had tried offering him that truth two years ago only to be scalded by angry disbelief. As far as Luca was concerned she had been caught red-handed trying to tidy away the evidence of another man’s recent presence in their bedroom. The rumpled bed had spoken volumes. The packet of condoms had said even more. The fact that she’d dared to try and pass the blame onto someone else had been her final crime in his eyes.

If love had to be tried by such painful methods, then their love was certainly judged that day and found to be utterly wanting in both strength and substance.

And the quicker she got herself out of his orbit, the better it was going to be for both of them, because it was as clear as the nose on her face that he wasn’t handling this situation any better than she was.

‘Oh, Keira,’ she sighed. Just wake up and get well so that I can leave here as quickly as the first flight to London can take me.

Then she thought of Angelo, who had not been given the chance to get well.

Dead.

Her eyes burned. It just wasn’t fair. She loved him—everyone loved Angelo. He was that kind of wonderful man.

But no one loved him more than Luca did, she thought painfully. And suddenly she realised she had her reason as to why his behaviour had been so insane.