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He’d grown up in a village, too—of sorts. An untouched wilderness in the eastern hills of Sicily. Too far away from the coastal towns to attract tourists, too wild for the civilised.
It had been a small community who’d often noticed a young boy out alone at night. Who’d whispered among themselves that if that boy whose mother lived in the house on top of the hill, who told stories of a count who lived in castles and who was coming back to claim her as soon as he’d left his wife, was wandering lost and alone you sent him back home with some food.
Because that boy lived with a woman so deep in her depression that the villagers knew his whereabouts before his mother did.
Without them he—
Raffaele thrust the memories aside. He’d survived largely on his own. Strangers’ generosity had filled his belly when the money hidden under the bed had run out, but he’d always been an outcast. On the periphery. Having to rely on himself. And he’d made it on his own.
He’d scrimped and he’d saved to buy his first renovation project. An abandoned house in the village. He’d pulled it apart and put it back together. Brick by brick. And then he’d posted it online, imploring tourists to flock to it and take pretty pictures of his renovations. Then he’d sold it. And then he’d done it again. Until a one-man band had become a crew. A business. An international multi-billion-dollar company.
But there was no time to think about that now. Because every time he’d closed his eyes since that night it had not been his mother’s face he’d seen. It had beenhers. Flora Campbell. Flora Bick.
Raffaele pulled the helicopter to a hovering halt above a snow-speckled field. Anticipation feathered over his skin. His team had delivered more than her adopted name. He had an address. Details of her routines—the farm’s routines. Knew the fields they used for wildflowers to encourage nature. And which were the kale fields...the fields full of turnips for the livestock to graze, or something or other. He didn’t care. Only wanted to know that it was safe to land—and it was.
He circled the fields in a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree turn, found the field marked with an X in his mind’s eye, and descended. It was the only destination he’d thought of for six entire weeks.
He was making his way back toher.
And if she was pregnant there was only one choice to be made.
She wouldn’t run again. He’d tether them together for the sake of his child.
They’d be bound by law and marriage.
Flora was tired. The fatigue running through her mind and body was so intense it was bone-deep. She’d fallen back into the farm’s routine as if her night alone in London hadn’t happened and her life had resumed as normal.
But her body hadn’t forgotten.
It remembered...
For one night there had been no alarm set for morning milking. No routine to maintain. With him, she hadn’t been a farm hand, nor the abandoned daughter of an addict. She’d been a woman. Free to explore herself when she’d never been given a voice. Never been allowed to use her words without checking them first in her head for fear of hurting those who loved her.
He hadn’t known her. He hadn’t even known her name. Her actions on that one occasion wouldn’t give strength to her parents’ worries for their adopted child. Her compulsive nature couldn’t hurthim. So the rules hadn’t applied. There had been no rigid expectations.
But going off the script, allowing the intensity of her feelings to take root, had overwhelmed her.
So she’d run. Back to her life. To what she knew. Because she wasn’tthatwoman. Not in real life. Not now the haze of pleasure had faded. She didn’t know how to beher. The possibility of staying longer in his bed and letting herself explore that woman in his arms had terrified her.
But he’d awoken her body in London, and her body couldn’t forget the change he’d brought about in her. She felt restless. She felt...restricted.
A heavy, dull sound reverberated in her ears. She knew all the sounds on the farm. And the times they occurred. The low hum of the milking parlour, the deep trumpeting sound of the cows, the tick of the tractors. Most of all, she knew the stillness. The quiet. But there was no longer silence.
The air hummed with something unknown.
Something imminent.
And it was getting louder.
Closer.
Flora slipped off her yellow rubber gloves, placed them on the draining board, and followed the noise outside.
Everything looked the same as it always did.
She’d stood in this exact spot many times. With the gravel beneath her feet, the farmhouse to her back, the stone drive in front of her leading to more fields and to roads that hadn’t made it on to a map.
Only this time there was a shadow amongst the snowy fields. A mountainous man in a black suit.
