* * *
Annah’s heart thudded unevenly. She had just told Luca she cared about him, and the admission made her feel as stripped bare and vulnerable as if she sat in the restaurant naked.
Silence blanketed the table, Luca’s expression so taut she longed to reach across, cup his face, and smooth her thumbs over his ravaged features.
She balled her hands tightly in her lap.
She could barely credit she was here and not back in England. Agreeing to extend her and Ethan’s stay had surprised herself as much as it delighted Luca.
Chloe had not proven the fount of good sense Annah had hoped for.
‘Oh, my God!’ she’d cried, her squeal forcing Annah to pull the phone away from her ear. ‘He’s fallen for you!’
Annah had tried to temper her friend’s excitement. ‘He hasn’t. This is about Ethan. Luca’s proposing has nothing to do with love.’ Not that it’d been a proposal in the traditional sense. Which was fine. She didn’t need romance.
Or love? a little voice had whispered before Annah quickly silenced it.
‘Stay,’ Chloe had insisted. ‘Everything’s ticking along here just fine.’
And now here she sat, her pulse racing, knowing instinctively this was important. A puzzle piece she had to slot into place if she were to have any hope of truly understanding Luca.
‘My brother died in prison,’ he said suddenly.
Shock sent her eyes wide, but she stifled her gasp and kept silent, afraid that so much as a murmur of sympathy might stop him telling the story.
He picked up his wine, finished it in a single gulp, and put the glass down. ‘Enzo was younger than me and more susceptible to our father’s influence,’ he said, his gaze fixating on his empty glass. ‘When I came back after my first year at university in the States, he was...different. It cemented my determination to return when I completed my studies. I thought I could not only change Franco, but save Enzo from ending up like him.’
He shook his head, his mouth hard. ‘But he was too entrenched. Too far gone. I couldn’t get through to him. After I fell out with Franco and moved to New York, Enzo refused to accept even a phone call from me.’
He was silent a moment. Annah’s throat grew painfully tight. She badly wanted to reach for his hand, offer comfort, but his gaze was turned inward, focused on the past, and she didn’t want to jolt him.
‘Enzo was imprisoned for arson and manslaughter. He was doing our father’s dirty work and set fire to a retail shop. His defence counsel claimed he didn’t know the owner was inside the premises at the time.’ His gaze found hers, and the torment in his eyes broke her heart. ‘I want to believe that, but I... I don’t know.’
Annah couldn’t hold back. She slid her hand across the white linen tablecloth and gripped Luca’s. ‘What happened?’ she asked.
‘A fight in the prison... He took a shiv in the chest, didn’t survive the wound.’
It was so horrible she couldn’t think of any words to say. Her heart wrenched for Eva, too. In a way, she’d lost her youngest son twice—first to corruption, then to death.
‘I’m so sorry you lost him,’ she whispered.
He turned his palm up, wrapped his fingers around Annah’s. ‘Sometimes life takes, sometimes it gives. I lost Enzo, but I found Ethan...’ he looked up from their joined hands ‘...and you.’
Annah’s heart gave a wild flutter. How was she supposed to resist this beautiful, tortured man? A desire to be skin to skin with him, to entwine her body with his and feel him moving inside her, rose w
ith such intensity it stole her breath. She sent him a look she hoped was sultry enough to telegraph her need. ‘I know we’ve already ordered dessert, but...’ She let the sentence hang, her breath catching when one of those slow smiles that always accelerated her heart rate touched Luca’s mouth.
‘I’ll get the bill,’ he said.
Minutes later they stood outside on the cobblestones waiting for Mario, who was both their driver and bodyguard tonight.
Luca pulled Annah’s hips against him, letting her feel the hard ridge of his arousal, and kissed her intimately. ‘I’m not sure I can wait,’ he growled against her mouth. ‘How do you feel about sex in the back of the SUV?’
A breathless laugh tumbled from Annah’s throat, and when Mario pulled up seconds later she couldn’t stop a hot blush from engulfing her cheeks. He leapt out to open the rear door, and she moved towards the vehicle. But the heel of her stiletto caught in the uneven cobblestones and she stepped right out of it.
‘I’ve got it,’ said Mario, dropping to his haunches to retrieve the shoe.
She turned an embarrassed smile to Luca, but found herself staring at his back. Her smile turned quizzical. ‘Luca?’