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‘Yes. I never saw him anywhere else. We were acquaintances who become friends, I suppose, but Raoul had his own life, and I had mine.’
‘What did you find to talk about?’
He handed her the glass. ‘Anything and everything,’ Jen said honestly, sipping the water. Another young life needlessly lost. Memories of the terrible day when Lyddie had been killed came flooding back. The police had been so kind to Jen, rushing her to the high-dependency unit of the local hospital with their sirens wailing where she’d found Lyddie still breathing. Still alive! Jen had thought, wanting to believe in miracles. Yes, the doctor had confirmed, her sister was still living, but her brain dead, he’d explained gently. Head injuries, he’d said when Jen had stared at him blankly. Irrecoverable brain damage, he’d said, before asking if she would consider donating Lyddie’s organs. Up to then she had fooled herself that Lyddie was asleep and would soon wake up. There hadn’t been a mark on her sister, just a small white bandage taped to her forehead. Jen could spend as long as she liked with Lyddie, the doctor had told her—but not too long, was the unspoken text, because decisions would have to be made—
‘Ms Sanderson?’
‘Sorry—’ She turned to focus on Luca. He was so like Raoul, though a bigger, stronger version, as if he was the positive imagine and Raoul was the negative. ‘I’m sorry. I keep wandering off in my mind. I’m just so shocked to hear about your brother.’
‘Raoul confided in you?’ Luca pressed.
‘We used to talk,’ Jen confirmed. Raoul had opened up about a lot of things, but she prided herself on her discretion.
‘Did you talk every night?’
‘What is this?’ she challenged lightly. ‘I knew your brother, and I liked him very much. We discussed a lot of things.’ She stopped and pressed her lips together, hoping Raoul’s brother would take the hint.
‘I apologise if I seem intrusive,’ he said. ‘I’m just trying to fill in the gaps.’
‘I understand your sense of loss. I’ve been through something similar.’
‘Oh?’ he probed.
‘This isn’t the time,’ she said quickly. ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’
As Luca Tebaldi hummed, she wondered what he wanted her to say. His look was penetrating, and almost suspicious. Did he think she was chanting words of condolence because they were expected? She couldn’t get past the feeling that this was the calm before the storm. If she only had some idea of where the storm was coming from, or what had caused it, she might be able to help him. Luca Tebaldi was looking at her as if she posed a threat of some kind, and he was the white knight who was here to save the day. But who was he saving, and from what?
CHAPTER FOUR
MAYBE HE WAS jealous of her relationship with his brother, Jen mused as the antique clock on the carved mahogany mantelpiece ticked away the seconds. She could understand his need to know. When she met people who’d known Lyddie, she had to hold back from grilling them, in an attempt to glean every tiny detail they might remember about her sister. It was as if she had to make a remembrance quilt, and every tiny scrap of information was vital because it might fill a gap.
Luca had been silent now for quite some time and, thanks to the memories he’d stirred, Jen’s emotions peaked. She had never felt angry with a client before, but it was unfair of him to grill her. Raoul had needed him, and where was Luca Tebaldi then?
‘Your brother missed you,’ she said, breaking the tense silence. ‘He talked about you all the time. He said you used to look out for him when he was young, but eventually you went your separate ways—’
‘Did he tell you why that was?’ Luca interrupted.
‘No.’ But Jen thought she knew. Now she’d had the chance to meet Raoul’s brother, she had seen how different they were. Raoul had been lonely and sensitive, while Luca Tebaldi was steely, driven, and self-assured. With that amount of testosterone on the table, it wouldn’t have been easy for Raoul to admit that he wanted such very different things out of life. Luca had his problems too, she suspected. He’d shut himself off from grief and emotion. She recognised the symptom, having done something very similar herself. That was a bond of sorts between them, she conceded.
‘Did my brother ever talk money with you?’
‘Money?’ The mention of money cheapened her relationship with Raoul. She might not have much in the way of material things compared to the Tebaldi family, but every little thing she had, she’d earned.
‘I lent your brother money once,’ she said, feeling Luca Tebaldi needed to know the truth, or as much of it as she was prepared to tell him. ‘Not much,’ she added in response to Luca’s sharp breath in.
‘You lent Raoul money?’
‘Yes.’ And she had given Raoul her bag of groceries, Jen remembered. ‘He’d lost everything at the tables. He didn’t even have his cab fare home. It was only a twenty. I’m sorry. I thought you realised how bad things were.’
Luca’s expression darkened.
‘Raoul said he’d pay me back. He said he’d got expectations. I told him I didn’t want his money—expectations or not. I said he should accept my twenty as a gift from a friend.’
She might as well have slapped him in the face. Of course he knew some of it, but Raoul hadn’t confided in him for a long time. His brother had been on a downward slide for as long as Luca could remember. When he’d paid off Raoul’s debts it had only led to Raoul building up more debts. Bailing Raoul out of jail had become such a regular occurrence, Luca had arranged for one of his legal team to be constantly on call, in case he was out of the country. It hurt to know he hadn’t been there for his brother at the end. They’d been so close at one time, but, having been rebuffed once too often, Luca had switched off his feelings. It had taken this girl to remind him how much he had loved Raoul.
An aching sense of loss and regret gripped him. He showed nothing. For all he knew, she was just another of Raoul’s disastrous liaisons. His love life was a car crash, Raoul had
told him hauntingly once. But whatever Raoul’s relationship with this girl, she’d been there for his brother when Luca was nowhere to be found.
‘Do you mind if I call you Luca?’ she asked, calling him back from the pit of despair. ‘After all, if we’re going to be working together...?’
‘Working together?’ he queried, frowning.
‘We’ll be working together on your father’s exhibition, won’t we?’
‘I’ll be keeping a watching brief, and that’s all,’ he assured her.
‘I see,’ she said. ‘Oh, well. At least call me Jennifer—or Jen, if you prefer?’
‘Which do you like?’ He’d made her nervous, and that didn’t suit him. With nerves came wariness, and wariness led to silence, and he needed her to talk.
‘Jen,’ she said.
‘Call me Luca,’ he offered.
‘Luca,’ she repeated, staring into his eyes.
He assessed her frank expression, and the freckled perfection of her heart-shaped face. She didn’t know what to make of him. Her jade-green eyes were shadowed with puzzlement, though her generous mouth and the stubborn tilt of her chin continued to stir him. He recognised his body’s reaction as the primal need to celebrate life in the face of death, which meant sex, though his father’s suggestion to seduce Jen, if he had to, in order to get information out of her, had sickened him back in Sicily, and it sickened him now. If he seduced Jennifer Sanderson, it would be because they both wanted it.
‘Jen,’ he murmured, liking the sound of her name on his tongue.
He was in an agony of lust for a woman in whom he sensed so much potential. This was no mouse. His father’s idea to buy her off was overly simplistic. His plan to keep Jen in Sicily until he could unravel the puzzle of her relationship with Raoul held far more promise.
He had considered the idea that Jen could lay a long-term plan that would allow her to inherit his brother’s vast wealth, but it didn’t seem likely. Not that she lacked in smarts, but his brother’s death had been an accident, and she couldn’t have planned for that. How would she respond when she realised how wealthy she was about to become? She would be rich enough to buy this auction house and everything in it. Raoul’s legacy could be a fairy tale for a woman of such limited means, or it could become a nightmare, throwing Jen out of the world she knew, into a cold, hard place where money ruled and predators gathered. The least he owed Raoul was to get to know her, so he could understand his brother’s motives—and maybe protect her, if he had to. That was what he would do, he decided as her wildflower scent assailed his senses.
