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She laughed and the sound trickled through his insides like liquid honey. He held her gaze, and as their humour subsided he saw a flicker of uncertainty and conflict in her sapphire eyes. Guilt needled him. He had to concede he’d not played entirely fair these last few days. Whenever she’d grown serious or seemed about to broach a meaningful conversation, he’d deliberately distracted her.
It wasn’t difficult.
She was so physically responsive to him, and he to her. A single touch could see them both consumed by fire and need.
They were careful in front of others, especially Ethan. Annah let Luca hold her hand in front of their son, but nothing more intimate. And she was gone from Luca’s bedroom by five-thirty each morning, afraid Ethan might wake early and find her absent.
Luca didn’t object. After hearing about her childhood, he understood her better. He’d coaxed even more from her since Tuesday, and it shredded his gut to think of her as an eight-year-old child, cooking her own dinner and sitting home alone because her mother was out with her latest boyfriend.
No wonder she was so fiercely independent.
He reached out, stroked his knuckles down her cheek. ‘Tonight,’ he promised, ‘we’ll talk.’ Convincing her to relinquish some of her independence wouldn’t be easy, but he was confident. Especially now she’d had a taste of the life she could have here with him, sharing his home, his bed.
She nodded, although something he couldn’t identify moved across her features. Her gaze drifted to the meadow below, where Eva was showing Ethan how to fly a small kite.
‘Thank you for inviting Eva to join us today,’ she said.
He shrugged. It had been Annah’s idea, not his, but he’d been happy to indulge her. His reward had been a radiant smile and a kiss behind the closed door of his study that promised even greater rewards tonight.
She considered him for a long moment. ‘Why are you so angry at her?’
The question caught Luca off guard and his stomach clenched. ‘What makes you think I’m angry at her?
Annah hesitated. ‘She told me. But even if she hadn’t,’ she added quickly, ‘I’ve seen how you are with her.’
Luca felt his good mood begin to evaporate. ‘And how’s that?’
‘Stilted,’ she said. ‘The tension between you is obvious, Luca.’
He shook his head. ‘It’s in the past. It’s not important.’
She sent him an incredulous look. ‘How can you say that when it still affects your relationship with her?’
He clenched his jaw.
When he didn’t speak, Annah curled gentle fingers around his left biceps. ‘I’ve told you things that weren’t easy to talk about.’
He glanced down at her hand and resisted the urge to cover it with his. ‘And I’ve talked about my father.’
And didn’t it feel good? Wasn’t it a relief, after five years of isolation and loneliness, to finally feel able to talk to someone?
Ruthlessly, he ignored the voice in his head. ‘Why does it matter?’
‘Because you’re Ethan’s father. And Eva is his grandmother. In time, he’ll come to love you both. If there’s tension between you, it will affect him.’
Luca rubbed his hand over his chin. His mother had spoken of their relationship to Annah? He supposed it was inevitable. The women got along. He was happy they did. It didn’t hurt for Annah to have some female company.
But to make her understand his side of things, he’d have to tell her something ugly.
‘Luca?’ she pressed when he was silent too long.
He hefted out a breath. Fixed his gaze on a distant point across the valley. ‘When I was sixteen my father took me to a meeting. It was in the evening, so I assumed it was a business dinner. My father said it would be my initiation into the business, and I felt...important, I suppose.’ He shook his head. He’d been so naive. So oblivious to what awaited him. ‘But we didn’t go to a restaurant. We went to a warehouse. Some of my father’s men were already there—with a man they’d beaten half to death.’
He heard Annah gasp, felt her fingers tighten on his arm. Her touch comforted. Kept him anchored in the here and now even as the horror of the scene replayed in his head. ‘Franco said the man had betrayed him—betrayed us—and we had to teach him a lesson. Send a message to others who would do the same. He put a hammer in my hand. Ordered me to break the poor bastard’s fingers.’
Another gasp.
Luca dragged his hand across his mouth, swallowed the acrid taste of bile.
