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She could only pray Luca never found it.
* * *
Luca knocked on the door to the blue room. He was confident that, given a little more time, he would start thinking of it as Grace’s room. He was also confident that, given a little more time, he would stop thinking of the master bedroom as their room.
He ignored the thought that he’d had well over ten months to stop thinking of it as theirs.
When there was still no response, he pushed the door open. Neither Grace nor Lily were anywhere to be found. A small suitcase lay closed on the bed, the dress he had bought her draped over it as if it had been thrown there without any thought. The fancy box it had been perfectly folded into at the boutique had been thrown in the waste bin.
She hated that dress. Really hated it. It had given him a perverse pleasure buying it for her, knowing she would have to obey his wishes and wear it. He had seen it as a fitting punishment for a woman who thrived on colour and light, one of many punishments she would have to endure.
Turning to leave, he caught sight of his reflection in the full-length mirror and stopped short, suddenly certain he had seen a pair of horns sprouting from his head. He blinked to clear the image.
It was just him. Luca.
Not the monster Grace was adamant he had become.
For a moment though...
What did she see when she looked at him?
Did she really see a man with horns on his head?
An image of his tiny, defenceless daughter floated into his head. Lily was an innocent, dependent on the adults who cared for her. She had no voice.
But one day she would. One day she would be old enough to form her own opinions. If she was anything like her mother, those opinions would be contrary to his. Would his daughter look at him and see a monster, an ogre...?
Another, equally powerful thought occurred to him.
What would his father say if he could see him now?
His father. The man who had gone to such great lengths to leave the old life—indeed had taken the final necessary steps mere months before his great heart had failed.
Would his father see a monster too? Would his father understand the route he, Luca, had taken? Would he understand his need to strike out on his own, to step out from under Pietro Mastrangelo’s shadow and do something for him, to form partnerships and invest in businesses that were nothing to do with family, or vineyards, or olive groves?
When his father had died, all of Luca’s dreams of founding his own business empire had died a death with him. He’d had to step into the breach. There had been no other choice, unless you considered letting the estate fall to ruins a choice.
His mother had fallen to pieces. His brother had been about to head off to university. None of the uncles or aunts in his family had been in a position to help, not for any substantial length of time.
That had left him, Luca, to bury his own grief and step into the breach. With one hand he’d learned the ropes while the other hand had been busy keeping at bay the vultures, led by Salvatore Calvetti, who would snatch the estate from them.
For thirteen years he had done nothing but push the estate onwards, investing surplus profits into new vineyards and olive groves across Southern Europe and beyond, new bottling plants, new everything, in the process making the Mastrangelos billionaires.
For thirteen years he’d done his duty.
It was only seeing the world through Grace’s enchanted eyes that had propelled him to get out of the rut he hadn’t even known he was in.
Francesco Calvetti had been as relieved at the death of his father, a man who would as soon slit your throat as give you the time of day, as Luca had been. Salvatore’s death had freed them both, and it had allowed them to rekindle their old friendship. Like Luca, Francesco was ready to take a different path and strike out on his own.
Along with a chain of international restaurants Luca had bought out in his own right, he and Francesco had invested in a couple of casinos and a handful of high-end nightclubs together. That these particular investments required a management technique that differed from his usual management style had not been something Luca had considered before laying his cash on the table.
Once he had understood it, however, he’d gone along with it with little more than a shrug. And if Francesco had embraced these techniques with an enthusiasm that proved more than a little of Salvatore lived on in him, then so be it. This was the way of the world here. It was how his own father had once been forced to conduct business. It was a method Luca understood. He was not averse to using his fists and other weapons to protect himself and his property, had employed numerous tactics throughout the years to keep Salvatore and his henchmen at bay. This situation was no different: you did what was needed to be done to protect your investments and if that meant sending a physical warning to thieves and swindlers, then so be it.
