a few ridiculous-looking urns. He’d have a refit of the whole hotel first thing, he decided as he plucked a grape from the bowl of fresh fruit on the coffee table, another fussy piece of furniture, with fluted, gold-leaf edges. He’d bring this place up to date, modern and cutting edge. It had been relying on the distinctly tattered Corretti name and a faded elegance for far too long.
Restless, his head starting to really pound, he continued to prowl through the suite, knowing he wouldn’t be able to sleep yet unwilling to sit down and work. This was the eve of his victory after all. He should be celebrating.
Unfortunately he had no one to celebrate with in this town. He hadn’t made any friends here in the eighteen years he’d called Sicily home, only enemies.
You made one friend.
The thought slid into his mind, surprising and sweet, and he stilled his restless pacing of the suite’s living area.
Lucia. He tried not to think of her, because thinking of her was remembering and remembering made him wonder. Wish. Regret.
And he never regretted anything. He wouldn’t regret the one night he’d spent in her arms, burying himself so deep inside her he’d almost forgotten who he was—and who he wasn’t.
For a few blissful hours Lucia Anturri, the neighbour’s daughter he’d ignored and appreciated in turns, with the startling blue eyes that mirrored her heart, had made him forget all the anger and pain and emptiness he’d ever felt.
And then he’d slipped away from her while she was sleeping and gone back to his life in New York, to the man of purpose and determination and anger that he’d always be, because damn it, he didn’t want to forget.
Not even for one night.
Even more restless now, that old anger surging through him, Angelo jerked open the buttons of his shirt. He’d take a long, hot shower. Sometimes that helped with the headaches, and at least it was something to do.
He was in the process of shedding his shirt as he came into the bedroom and to an abrupt halt. A bucket of ice with a bottle of champagne chilling inside was by the bed—and so was a woman.
Lucia froze at the sight of the half-dressed man in front of her, three freshly laundered towels pressed to her hard-beating heart.
Angelo.
She knew, had always known, that she would see him again, and occasionally she’d embroidered ridiculous, romantic fantasies about how it would happen. Stupid, schoolgirl dreams. She hadn’t done that for years though, and she’d never imagined this.
Running into him without a second’s notice, totally unprepared—
She’d heard whispers that he was back in Sicily but she had assumed they were, as they’d always been, mere rumours, and she’d never expected to see him here.
From just one shocked glimpse of him standing there, his hair rumpled and his shirt half undone, she knew he didn’t recognise her. Meanwhile in the space of a few seconds she was reliving every glorious and agonising moment she’d spent with him that one night seven years ago, the feel of his satiny skin, the desperate press of his lips against hers.
Such thoughts were clearly the furthest from his mind. His eyes had narrowed, his lips thinned, and he looked angry. She recognised that look, for God knew she’d seen it enough over the fraught years of their childhood. Yet even angry he was beautiful, the most beautiful man she’d ever known.
Known and loved.
Swallowing, she pushed that most unhelpful thought away. She hadn’t seen Angelo in seven years. She didn’t love him any more, and she absolutely knew he’d never loved her.
Which, of course, shouldn’t hurt all this time later, yet in that unguarded moment as she stared at him, his shirt hanging open to reveal the taut, golden expanse of his chest, she knew it did.
Angelo arched an eyebrow, obviously annoyed, clearly waiting. For what? An apology? Did he expect her to do the little chambermaid stammering act and scurry away?
Two desires, both deep-seated, warred within her. On one hand she felt like telling Angelo Corretti exactly what she thought of him for sneaking out of her bed seven years ago. Except she didn’t even know what that was, because she thought of Angelo in so many ways. Desire and despair. Hope and hatred. Love and loss.
In any case, the far more sensible impulse she had was to leave this room before he recognised her, before any awful, awkward reunion scenarios could play out. They may have been childhood friends, he may have been her first and only lover, but she was next to nothing to him, and always had been—a shaming fact she did not need reminding of tonight.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, lowering her head just a little so her hair fell in front of her face. ‘I was just getting your room ready for the night. I’ll be out of your way.’
She started to move past him, her head still lowered, hating the ache this simple, terrible exchange opened up inside her. It was an ache she’d had for so long that she’d become numb to it, learned to live with it the way you might a missing limb or a permanent scar. Yet now, in Angelo’s uncaring presence, she felt it throb painfully to life and for a second, furious with herself, she had to blink back tears.
She was just about to slip past him when his hand curled around her arm, jolting her so hard and deep she almost stumbled.
‘Wait.’
She stilled, her heart hammering, her breath caught in her chest. Angelo let go of her arm and walked towards the bed.
‘I’m celebrating, you know,’ he said, but he didn’t sound like he was. He sounded as sardonic and cynical as he’d ever been. Lucia tensed, her back to him, her face angled away. He still didn’t recognise her, and that realisation gave her equal parts relief and deep disappointment.
‘Why don’t you celebrate with me,’ he continued, clearly a command, and she stiffened. Was this what he’d become? The kind of man who solicited the housekeeping? ‘Just a drink,’ he clarified, and now he sounded coolly amused as he popped the cork on the complimentary bottle of champagne that always came with the penthouse suite. ‘Since nobody else is here.’
Lucia turned around slowly, her whole body rigid. She had no idea how to act. What to say. This had gone on way too long for her to keep pretending she was a stranger, and yet—
Maybe that’s what she was to him now. A stranger.
He was pouring the champagne into two crystal flutes, his mouth twisted downwards, and something in the shuttered bleakness of his expression called to that ache deep inside her, the ache she’d been trying so hard and for so long to ignore. When he looked like that it reminded her of when he’d shown up on her doorstep seven years ago, when he’d stared at her so bleakly, so blankly, and his voice had broken as he’d confessed, ‘He’s dead, Lucia. And I don’t feel anything.’
She hadn’t thought then; she’d just drawn him inside by the hand, led him to the shabby little living room of the house she’d grown up in and where she then lived alone.
And started something—a single night—that had changed her life for ever.
She swallowed now, forced herself to lift her chin and look him in the eye. She saw him tense, felt it, one hand still outstretched, a flute of fizzing champagne clasped between his long, lean fingers.
‘All right, Angelo,’ she said, and thankfully her voice remained steady. ‘I’ll have a drink with you.’
Angelo stood completely motionless, his hand still outstretched. The only sound in the room was the gentle fizz of the champagne’s bubbles popping against the sides of the crystal flute and his own suddenly ragged breathing.
Lucia.
How could he not have recognised her? How could he have not known her from the moment he’d seen her in his suite? The first thought that seared his brain now was the