He pushed it from him. It was he who had severed their connection and ended their time together—he who had walked away from her. So why should he care whose hand she held now so long as it wasn’t his dying godfather’s?Thatwas the only cause of his reaction to finding her here.
Yet as his eyes locked to hers he felt not just revulsion at the reason why she was here, but also something he could not stop himself reacting to. She was not looking at him. Her gaze was fixed on Matteo, her face in profile to Luca.
He felt words fill his head, force themselves upon him. Force admission.
She’s even more stunning, more fantastically beautiful, than I remember her…
It was dragged from him unwillingly, unwanted. Dragged into his consciousness though he wished the words to perdition. Yet how could he deny it? He could feel a war within himself. Rage and contempt. And something far more basic. Far more dangerous.
Whatever she has become—however sordid—how can I deny the beauty she possesses?
Beauty that once, in a very different style—flamboyant and flaunting—had beguiled him. All those years ago. Beauty thathad now matured, become styled with an elegance and grace that he had never previously associated her with.
It caught at him even more powerfully. Infusing the shock still riveting him, the outrage still possessing him, the fury still blackening his eyes, with something quite different…
His godfather was speaking again, and Luca forced himself to listen, to drag his eyes, his consciousness, from where they rested on Bianca’s perfect sculpted profile. The lamplight caught the opalescence of the pearls at her ears, the combs in her glorious hair, the graceful line of her throat…
Dimly, his godfather’s words penetrated.
‘My boy, forgive me… You must excuse me. I must be absent for a few moments. My dratted nurse is wanting to administer my evening medications, take my pulse and blood pressure. It must be done, but it will not take too long. But I will not subject you to witnessing it.’
He patted Bianca’s hand, and Luca saw her slip it from Matteo’s.
‘Take Bianca out on to the terrace—take the air awhile. Then, when all my nurse’s ministrations are complete, we shall go in to dine and the evening can begin.’
He smiled, both at Luca and at his ‘dearest treasure’, who was now getting to her feet. Was she doing so reluctantly? Well she might…
Luca’s thoughts were dark. As black as pitch. But Matteo’s suggestion could not have been better timed. Giuseppe was entering thesaloniand the young man Paolo, Matteo’s nurse, in his neat white uniform, was following him with a tray of medicines and a blood pressure kit.
Bianca was already stepping towards the French windows that led out on to the terrace. Her spine was as stiff as a poker, and tension radiated from her with every high-heeled step she took.
Grimly, Luca went after her.
His expression, now that Matteo could not see it, was as savage as his thoughts.
* * *
Bianca stalked past Luca on legs that were as heavy as iron, gaining the terrace through the French windows. The cooler night air hit her and she shivered. Surely it was that air, and that alone, that drew such a response from her?
Out on the terrace, she turned. Disbelief was still drowning her.
Matteo’s godson was Luca.
It was like a nightmare—one impossible to cope with, impossible to believe. Shock was still blanking her thoughts.
How can this be happening? How?
But her appalled question was as useless as the hammering of her heart, each blow a pain assailing her. She knew she had to say something—anything. She opened her mouth to speak, to take the initiative, to take control. But she never got the chance.
Luca’s hand whipped out, fastened around her lower arm, steely like a vise. He took a half-step towards her, and in the low light of the terrace, illuminated only by the lights of thesalonibehind him and the dim starlight, she saw his face was stark. The frozen expressionless mask that had settled over him when his eyes had first gone to her, seated by Matteo, had vanished. In its place—
In its place was fury. Cold, dark, condemning.
When he spoke his voice was the same.
‘I don’t give a damn what you’re doing here,’ he bit out, his hand like a vise still, his breath rasping in his throat. ‘Because you’ll be leaving first thing in the morning. Come up with anyreason you like—but you’ll be gone. I’ll drive you to the airport myself.’
Bianca’s face contorted and she tried to pull her arm free.