CAROL MARINELLI - Sicilian's Shock Proposal

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 that 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—’

‘Don’t I get a say in where we live?’ Sophie said, refusing to make this easy for him.