The Sicilian's Bought Cinderella

He checked the time as the flash of a vehicle’s headlights passed the kitchen, his men taking the truck with the contents of his father’s office.

Limbs heavy, he climbed the stairs to his childhood bedroom and sat on the bed that had been his for the first twenty years of his life.

Dante’s football posters still hung on the walls. He nudged the bin with his foot and found the old ink stain he’d made on the carpet still there.

He looked out of the window at the huge back garden. His father had played football with him on that lawn. And rugby. And golf. Between them, they’d broken so many windows it had been impossible to keep count.

His mother was right—his father had been a wonderful father to him...

A tidal wave of grief punched him in the guts, doubling him over.

Sinking back onto the bed, he covered his face, unable to hold the tears back any longer.

He cried for the father he’d loved so much and who he missed with every fibre of his being.

And he cried for the woman he’d discarded as if she were a book to be thrown when he’d reached the last chapter.

She’d given him the chance of an epilogue. He saw that now. She’d jumped at the chance of extending their time together and he’d thrown it back in her face.

What a blind fool he’d been.

Aislin was moving on with her life and, other than their shared sister and nephew, that life did not involve him. He accepted that. But he’d been unable to leave Ireland without reaching out to her and letting her know how unbearably sorry he was.

The ring belonged to her. His heart did too. He had no one but himself to blame for her own heart despising him.

Through the crowding noise in his head he heard the faint chime of the doorbell.

Dante cradled his skull and took deep breaths.

He didn’t want to see anyone. Not tonight.

Tonight he wanted nothing but to be left to grieve.

The bell rang again.

A moment later, a voice called out. ‘Dante?’

He froze.

‘Hello?’ Aislin closed the door behind her and called out to him again. ‘Dante?’

He had to be there. It felt like she’d searched the whole of Sicily looking for him. She’d started in Palermo, only to find he wasn’t there and that none of his staff was prepared to tell her where he was; so she’d driven to the cottage, only to find it in darkness, covered in scaffolding and the doors locked. Back to Palermo she’d gone and this time she’d found Ciro. After much pleading, he’d given in and told her to try Salvatore Moncada’s beachside villa.

‘Aislin?’

She turned sharply to the sound of his voice and found him descending the stairs slowly, staring at her much like someone who’d seen a ghost.

For a long time she couldn’t speak, only gaze at him. She soaked everything in. He looked...untamed. His hair was mussed, the beard he trimmed most days thick and bushy, his eyes bloodshot and puffy. He looked thinner too.

He reached the bottom of the stairs and stopped.

Slowly she stepped towards him, heart pounding, breath ragged, praying she hadn’t misinterpreted the meaning behind his letter.

And if she had...

She had nothing to lose in being here. Nothing could be worse than the torture she’d lived through these past two weeks.

But she couldn’t speak.