Italian Bachelors: Irresistible Sicilians. Michelle Smart

the spur she needed to leave. She had spent the drive back from her shopping trip mute with shock. Her brain frozen, she had walked into the bedroom she shared with the man she loved. She had gazed at the cherubs and lovers on the walls and had felt nothing. All the happiness and feeling had been sucked out of her.

      The man she had married with such hope and such all-encompassing love was nothing but a criminal. And a dangerous one at that. Whether he’d been a criminal or not when they’d first married had been moot. It made no difference to the man he had become.

      ‘It won’t be any good for Lily,’ she continued, resolve spurring her on. ‘Can you imagine how awful it will be for her growing up knowing her parents hate each other? Because she will feel it. She will. Children are like emotional sponges.’

      ‘Lily will not suffer because I will not allow it,’ he bit back. ‘And if you want to remain in her life then you will not allow it either. If I think at any time that you are trying to poison her against me, you will be gone. Now, if you will excuse me, it has been a long day and I would like to shower. You have been put in the blue room.’

      Yanking the door open, he held it for her. She couldn’t help notice the wince of pain he gave and the tight, queasy feeling in her belly rippled.

      She stalked past, flinching when he slammed it shut behind her. Only when she was safely in her new room did she start to shake.

      She sank onto the bed and held Lily’s bag to her chest, blinking rapidly, trying to catch her thoughts.

      The blue room was exactly as it had been when she left. Blue. Blue walls, blue curtains, blue furnishings...even the en suite was the blasted colour. It was the one room of their wing she had never got around to personalising. It had been next on her to-do list, before the discovery of the truth had sent her fleeing.

      She hated this room, had deliberately left it until last because she had known this room above all others would give her the greatest fulfilment.

      Unzipping a compartment of the bag, she pulled out her fated phone. If there was one silver lining to this imprisonment it was that she could now speak to her mum and Cara. It would be the first time she had spoken to either of them in ten months.

      It had been safer all round that no one knew where she was hiding, something she had found especially hard in England. She had known moving to Cornwall was pushing her luck to its limit, but the closer she had come to giving birth, the lonelier and more frightened she had become. There she was, about to go through the most terrifying, life-changing experience of her life and she had no one to share it with. Knowing her mother was only three hundred miles away had at least brought some comfort, but in all honesty her mum would have been a useless birth partner.

      Billie Holden was an artist too—a sculptor—but reality rarely intruded in her life. Grace laughed sourly as she acknowledged it was a trait she had inherited—after all, hadn’t she refused to allow reality to intrude on her love for Luca?

      She remembered her call to Billie from Schiphol Airport with a smile. Typical of her mum, she’d been unfazed when Grace had explained the situation, merely relieved her only child was alive. Even when Grace had said she might not be able to contact her for a very long time, Billie had reacted with a cheery, ‘Never mind, my darling, you’re the best-equipped person I know to fend for yourself.’ She’d probably envisaged Grace’s situation as a great adventure rather than confront the reality of the situation.

      Grace’s childhood had been different from those of her friends. Her mother had treated her like a best friend rather than a daughter. Not for her rigid bedtimes or mealtimes—it was a rare day when Billie even remembered to cook a meal—or the relentless nagging all her friends received. Instead, Grace had been encouraged to embrace life and given all the freedom she desired. Her father was of the same mindset and every bit as much of a dreamer as her mum, but where Billie poured all her energy into her art, Graham devoted his to worthy causes in the developing world, disappearing for months, sometimes years, on end.

      For all her parents’ benign neglect, Grace had never doubted their love for her. It was just a different love from that which most other parents gave. And if there had been moments—many moments—when she had yearned to test them and ask how deep their love for her ran, she wouldn’t swap them for anyone or change a single day of her childhood.

      At least she could now make proper contact without worrying that Luca had tapped Billie’s phone or could trace her IP address.

      For better or for worse, she would no longer have to look over her shoulder. At least, not until she found a way to escape again.

      * * *

      Luca lay in his bed, listening as Lily’s cries lessened. The door to the makeshift nursery opened and he heard soft footsteps go past his room.

      He willed his eyes to shut but they refused, just as they had refused since he had come to bed five hours ago.

      There was too much going on in his head to sleep. This was the first time he had been alone with his thoughts since he had learned of Grace’s location. Not even the sedatives in his painkillers could switch his brain off.

      He had found her. After ten long months he had really found her. It had all happened so quickly the day held a dream-like quality to it. Or was it a nightmare?

      He was a father. That was his daughter crying in the dark. That was his wife comforting her. She was here, back under his roof. Unwillingly back under his roof.

      There were no words to describe the loathing he felt towards Grace, as if an angry nest of vipers were festering in his guts, stabbing their fangs into him.

      Nothing would give him greater pleasure than to pack her stuff and tell her to leave, to get out and never come back. But he could not. Even after everything she had put him through, he retained enough rationality to know it would be Lily who would suffer the most.

      No, Grace’s punishment would be of an entirely different nature.

      From now on, when they entertained guests or left the estate, she would damn well be deferential towards him. No longer would he tolerate having his business activities probed, his opinions contradicted or his word questioned. No longer would he tolerate a wife who neglected her appearance because her mind was too full of whatever she was currently creating on a canvas to run a brush through her hair or wear clothes that matched. No longer would he find these particular quirks endearing.

      He’d never met anyone like her before: someone who saw all the colour the world had to offer. Before Grace, the women he’d dated had always been perfectly turned out with opinions that were in line with his own. They could have been identikit. Until Grace appeared, as if by magic, casting him under her spell, he’d never realised how boring he found them all, or how predictable his life had been.

      He’d taken such pride in her talents and the freshness she’d brought to his life that the last thing he’d wanted to do was change her in any way.

      He’d loved her exactly as she was.

      Well, more fool him.

      Grace would learn to be a proper Sicilian wife.

      Sleep was not going to come any time soon. Throwing the sheets off, he climbed out of bed and pulled on his dressing gown, carefully navigating the sling.

      All the lights were off.

      Grace and Lily were nowhere to be found.

      He opened every door in the wing, his chest tightening with every empty room.

      He returned to Grace’s room. Her suitcases lay on the floor, seemingly unpacked. Her toothbrush and toothpaste had been laid on the sink of the en suite, a bulging bag of toiletries placed on the cabinet.

      Entering the adjoining room, he flipped on the light. His heart twisted at the empty cot. A pile of nappies and baby accessories he did not recognise had been neatly placed on the dresser.

      Where the hell had they gone?

      Just as he was debating waking the household and