‘That was the only upside to this evening!’ she spat. ‘That sweet, sweet moment when your vile assumption about my presence here was shot down in flames! When Matteo told you I was his niece!’ Her words were vicious beneath the saccharine.
‘Sweeter still,’ he snarled back at her, ‘was the moment when he said he wanted us to marry!’
She threw her head back. ‘“Sweet” is not the word! I love my uncle very much—and I am so incredibly glad and grateful we have discovered each other’s existence. I’m devastated—horribly devastated—and heartbroken that our time together must be so short. But even loving him there are sacrifices I will not make for him—and marrying you is top of the list! You were a conceited pig six years ago, Luca—and you’re a conceited pig still!’
She surged past him, aiming for the French windows.
Blind rage was in him. Rage for what she had manipulated her poor dying uncle into wanting. Rage for her trying to deny it. Rage at her daring to try to turn the tables onhim, accusehim, when it wasshewho was the cause of all this fiasco!
And his rage that went even deeper than that—became something quite other than rage…
His hand lashed out. Fastened around her wrist. Stopped her in her tracks.
* * *
Bianca felt his hand close around her wrist over the pearl bracelet in a vise-like grip. Rage became outrage.
‘Let mego!’
She tried to yank herself free, but he’d stepped up to her.
Close.
Too close.
His closeness filled her consciousness. Suddenly, out of nowhere, the cool night air felt hot—stiflingly hot. She couldn’t breathe. All evening she’d been burningly, punishingly conscious of Luca. Who’d suddenly appeared out of nowhere…out of a past she’d thought dead and buried. She’d thrown away the shovel with which she had doggedly, determinedly and desperately buried it, and yet suddenly, like the demon king in a pantomime, he had just…appeared.
Framed in the entrance to thesaloni.
Walking into her life again. Invading it.
All through the whole nightmare evening she’d been forced to be hideously aware of him, feeling his fury and his outrage at her very presence. And then what had her poor, benighted, hapless uncle said and done? Dear God Almighty…
She’d known from the moment she’d heard Matteo make his unbelievable announcement that a showdown with Luca would be coming. That it had to come. That was why she’d walked out here on to the terrace, at his insistence, knowing she had to make it clear—coruscatingly, irrefutably clear—that whatever her poor, deluded, pitiful…dying…uncle had said, she wanted to stamp it out instantly and totally.
And now to have Lucadareto accuse her of having persuaded Matteo to dream up the idea! Laying it atherdoor! As if…as if…she had fed the notion to her uncle!
As if I actually wanted Matteo to say what he did!
Luca was blamingher…accusingher…sneering ather…
Despising her…
Like he had six years ago.
Rage contorted inside her—rage and another emotion, just as strong, that she crushed down as she had always crushed it down. She had had to learn to crush it down, for six long, brutal years.
And crushed down it would stay—whatever it cost her.
However close to her he stepped. Imposing his presence on her.
She could sense his body—the scent of his aftershave, his skin, the heat of his breath on her, the dark, killing flare of his eyes…
She had to pull free. She had to.
Desperation fuelled her.
‘I said let mego!’