Italian Bachelors: Irresistible Sicilians. Michelle Smart

reached out a hand, pausing before she could touch him.

      ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said dumbly, trying to clear her head of the drum banging loudly in it. ‘I’ll get something for the bleeding.’ Her stomach churning, Grace rushed to the tall cupboard. She pulled out the same basket in which she had stored that monstrous gun and grabbed some tea towels.

      Lily’s cries became more distressed, the piercing sound penetrating the thick walls of the cottage and striking through Grace’s heart.

      Dear God, what was she going to do?

      Could Luca even hear the cries? Or had the shock of being shot deafened him just as it had temporarily dulled her own senses?

      He had sat down at the table. His olive skin had paled considerably, the dark stubble across his jawline pronounced.

      This was the closest to vulnerable she had ever seen him.

      She leaned over to place a clean towel against the wound. His uninjured hand shot up and grabbed her wrist. ‘What do you think you are doing?’

      ‘Trying to stem the blood flow.’

      He ground his teeth together and leaned forward so their faces were just inches apart. ‘I am quite capable of tending to my own injury. Leave it with me and tend to the baby you are hiding upstairs.’

       CHAPTER TWO

      AT LUCA’S MENACINGLY delivered words, all the blood running through Grace’s veins plunged to her feet.

      White light flickered behind her eyes before she caught a waft of warm, minty breath and an enormous shudder ran through her.

      ‘Are you in immediate danger?’ She managed to drag the question out, jerking her wrist against his grip.

      ‘No.’ If anything, his hold tightened.

      ‘Then let go of me.’

      Those midnight eyes flashed before he sprang his fingers open like a remote-controlled robot.

      In a murky daze, she climbed the stairs and walked into the bedroom she shared with her twelve-week-old daughter.

      Lily lay flat on her back in her cot. Her thin arms were struck out like a starfish, her little legs kicking in all directions, her cute face scrunched up and bright red. Grace had no doubt that if her tear ducts had developed, Lily’s cheeks would be soaked.

      Scooping her out of the cot, she brought her to her chest and breathed in her daughter’s sweet, innocent scent. ‘Oh, Lily, I’m so sorry,’ she choked out, swaying gently as she tried to soothe her. ‘Your mummy has done a terrible, terrible thing.’

      The implications hit her with the force of a tsunami. As she patted Lily’s bottom and murmured words of comfort, her mind raced.

      She had shot Luca. She had actually shot someone; a living person. She had caused physical harm to the man she had once loved, the same man who now knew of the existence of her child.

      Inhaling Lily’s scent brought some control to her careering thoughts, and the fogginess clouding her brain began to abate.

      Under no circumstances could she let the shock of all that had just occurred control her actions. She needed to take control, now, before it was too late.

      Too late?

      Who was she trying to fool? Of course it was too late.

      What did she expect? That Luca would take her shooting him and hiding the existence of their child on the chin and walk away?

      And she’d so nearly got away with it.

      She’d managed to get hold of the gun only a couple of months ago, when she had been unable to sleep for fear of Luca’s men finding them and tearing Lily away from her. She had seen the evidence of what her husband was capable of, evidence that burned her retinas and flourished in her nightmares.

      The threat of prison if she were caught with an illegal firearm had not deterred her from purchasing it. She’d got it from the son of the farmer she rented the cottage from, a young man with a few unsavoury acquaintances. She hadn’t cared where it came from; she was safer with it. Lily was safer with it. Knowing it was in the house allowed her to sleep. Sometimes.

      Luca’s men were always armed. And they were dangerous. Prison had seemed preferable to falling into their clutches.

      They were also stupid. She had outwitted them before when she made her escape. She could outwit them again.

      Except Luca had come for her personally, something she had not anticipated. She had imagined him like a king in his castle, waiting for his soldiers to bring his erring queen home, so she could be locked in the tower for the rest of her days.

      Luca was not stupid. Luca was the sharpest person she had ever known, which made him infinitely more dangerous than his lackeys, and much harder to outwit.

      Some sixth sense had been nagging at her for weeks that it was time to move on. Why, oh, why had she not acted on it sooner?

      Prison did now loom dark. Not a traditional cell of iron bars and a tiny slot for a window, but a towering pink sandstone nightmare.

      Lily finally stopped whimpering. Soothed and snug, she fixed her trusting, night-blue eyes on her mummy.

      Her mummy, Grace reminded herself. This was not just about her—this was about her innocent, dependent child. The first time she had held her alone, away from the ears of midwives and obstetricians, Grace had made her daughter a promise. She had sworn she would keep her safe.

      She had sworn she would never let her fall into the hands of the dangerous gangster that was Lily’s father.

      * * *

      It was amazing how long Grace was able to drag out washing and dressing into a pair of faded jeans and a long, thick purple jumper. By the time she had changed Lily’s nappy and generally fussed over her, a whole hour had gone by. She would have dragged things out even longer if Lily hadn’t started to grizzle, no doubt hungry for her bottle.

      Mentally bracing herself, Grace straightened her spine and carried her daughter downstairs and into the kitchen.

      ‘You took your time,’ Luca said from his seat at the table. He had removed his shirt. A short, rotund man was tending his shoulder, his bald head bowed in concentration. With a snap she recognised him as Giancarlo Brescia, the Mastrangelo family doctor. His presence should not be a surprise. Luca rarely travelled anywhere without him. People who lived by the sword and all that.

      ‘I’m surprised you didn’t send one of your goons up to keep watch,’ she retorted, averting her eyes.

      She didn’t know what she found the most disturbing: his naked torso or the bloodstains marring his smooth skin. Some had matted into the swirls of black hair covering his chest. Dimly she recalled the many happy hours lying in his arms, breathing in his musky scent, splaying her fingers through the silky hair. Once upon a time, it would have taken a crowbar to prise her away from him.

      ‘Believe me, you are going nowhere,’ he said, his voice like ice.

      ‘That’s what you think.’

      He laughed. A more mirthless sound she did not think she had heard. ‘Do you really think I will let you disappear again, now, when I know you have had my child?’

      ‘Who said she was yours?’

      An animalistic snarl flittered across his handsome features but he remained still, the needle penetrating his flesh making any movement on his part risky. ‘Do you think I would not recognise my own blood?’

      She shrugged with deliberate nonchalance and sidled past him to the fridge, keeping a tight hold of Lily. She caught sight of the bloodied bullet laid oh-so-casually on the table and winced. She winced again to see the doctor expertly sew Luca’s olive skin back together.