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‘You didn’t do it.’ Annah’s voice was a fierce whisper, her words a statement, not a question.
Luca looked at her, something tight inside him unravelling at her conviction that he would never commit such an atrocity. ‘No,’ he said, his voice hoarse. ‘I didn’t. I threw the hammer down and walked out.’ He’d been angry. Sick to his stomach. Disillusioned. ‘The next morning I confronted my mother. Asked her if she knew who Franco was. What he was.’ His jaw tightened. ‘She said she’d known since Enzo and I were little.’
He turned his gaze to the meadow. His mother knelt on the ground behind his son, her arms around him, helping to hold the kite’s spool. A memory of her doing the same thing with him flashed unbidden into his head.
‘Did she say anything else?’
He made a rough sound. ‘She said it was “complicated”.’
‘Maybe it was,’ Annah said softly.
He shook his head. ‘It was simple. She lied to me for sixteen years. Let me believe my father was a decent man. Let me idolise him.’
Annah was silent a moment. ‘Perhaps she wanted to protect you.’
He met her eyes. ‘It had nothing to do with me, or Enzo. She loved my father. That was her vice—her weakness.’
Annah’s brows knitted. ‘You think love is a weakness?’
‘I think it clouds people’s judgement,’ he said. ‘Warps their view of things.’ A lesson Luca had learned the hard way and would never forget. Love affected a person’s ability to make the right decisions. The tough decisions. Ones that could ultimately tip the scale between life and death. A man had to be strong to protect the people he cared about. Not weak.
Annah’s hand withdrew from his arm, but he captur
ed her fingers, drew her close to him and stole a brief kiss. ‘Let’s not talk of such things.’ He stroked the underside of her wrist and felt her pulse flutter. ‘It’s a beautiful day. And I have a surprise back at the villa.’
She drew back, gave him an arch look. ‘Isn’t it a little early for bed?’
Luca laughed, a deep chuckle of amusement that expanded his chest, and marvelled at her ability to lift his mood.
* * *
‘You bought him a puppy?’
Annah couldn’t keep the dismay from her voice. But she wasn’t sure Luca noticed or even heard her speak over Ethan’s squeals of delight.
He dropped to his knees on the flagstone terrace, and the little chocolate Labrador pup planted his floppy paws on Ethan’s chest and licked his face. It was the most adorable thing to watch—and it made Annah as mad as hell.
For Ethan’s sake, however, she pasted on a happy expression and kept it up for almost an hour as they took afternoon tea on the terrace. Just when she feared her face would crack from the effort of smiling, Eva, who no doubt detected the tension, suggested to Ethan they go and sort out some sleeping quarters for the puppy.
Annah sent the older woman a grateful look and waited till she and Ethan were out of earshot before speaking. ‘Why did you do that?’
Luca’s expression was perplexed. ‘The dog is a gift,’ he said evenly. ‘And if I am not mistaken, our son is delighted by it.’
‘Why didn’t you ask me first?’
Luca frowned. His tone changed. ‘Do I require your permission to give my own child a gift?’
‘Yes!’ She pushed off her chair and stalked down the steps into the gardens. After a moment, heavy footsteps crunched on the gravel path behind her.
‘Cara.’
She ignored him, even though she knew she was being mulish. She veered onto the path that led through a grove of tall trees to the pond.
‘Annah!’
She couldn’t out-stride him. His legs were too powerful and long. He caught her wrist, spun her round, and pulled her tightly against him.
Something hotter and even more turbulent than anger charged the air.
