Italian Deception: The Salvatore Marriage / A Sicilian Seduction / The Passion Bargain. Michelle Reid

to shout at him. Say something—anything! I’ve said I’m sorry. I’ve made the climb down. I don’t know what else to do!

      Maybe he tapped into her thought patterns—he’d always been able to do that. He turned, walked towards the table. The predicted rack of toast was set down in front of her.

      ‘I will organise a hotel suite for you,’ he announced curtly, then left her alone to swallow the unpalatable fact that her climb down had been a complete waste of time.

      An hour later and she was at her sister’s bedside, delivered there by Luca who, once he’d checked on Keira, left again, his lean face scored by the grim task that lay ahead of him, one that would to strip his self-control to the bone.

      Tears for them all flooded her eyes as she sat gently stroking Keira’s soft brown hair. She and her sister were so unalike in so many ways, she thought fondly. The colour of their hair, for instance, and the differences in character. Where she was bright and independent and naturally self-confident, Keira had always been shy and unsure of herself. Meeting and falling in love with Angelo had put stars in her eyes and an anxious pallor on her soft cheeks. She could never quite believe that a dashingly handsome man like Angelo could fall in love with a timid little mouse like her. So she’d worked hard all her marriage to make herself feel worthy of her man. It had infuriated Shannon to watch it sometimes. ‘You spoil him too much. He’ll start treating you like a doormat if you don’t watch out.’

      But Angelo had remained faithfully besotted to his Irish mouse. It was the mouse who’d taken Shannon by surprise by turning into a sly little fox. ‘Idiot,’ she whispered and was suddenly fighting a battle with fresh tears again.

      What followed was a long and hard nerve-flaying day in which Shannon divided her time between Keira and the nursery.

      By two o’clock she was beginning to feel drained of emotional energy and was actually glad to be given some respite from her bedside vigil when a team of medical staff appeared and she was ushered away.

      She needed some air that did not smell of the hospital. So she bought a sandwich in the downstairs cafeteria and took it with her to eat outside. The sun was bright and the air was cool, fresh—clean. Walking through the neatly laid gardens, she found a bench in the sunshine and sat down, unwrapped her sandwich and tried to empty all thoughts from her head so that she could attempt to eat at least.

      Luca tracked her down ten minutes later. Her hair was up scrunched into a twist of narrow black ribbon, and the curve of her slender neck looked disturbingly vulnerable to him. The thought made him grimace because he wasn’t thinking of vulnerable as in fragile, he was thinking vulnerable as in ripe for tasting. His tongue even moistened at the prospect, and he wished that he didn’t have to look at her through the eyes of a recent lover.

      But he did. Giving in to his baser instincts might have been a stupid mistake but he was now stuck with the results of it. Last night he had gone a little insane. He had lost control of himself. Two years ago she’d left him, taking his manhood with her when she went. Last night she gave it back to him. He should be pleased. He should be feeling the triumph of retribution and be able to walk away free and whole and ready to get on with the rest of his life, but all he felt was …

      Need, greed—it had many names but they all came wrapped up in the same package. He wanted more and no amount of self-aimed contempt was going to change that.

      Maybe he should go out and find himself a woman. There were certainly a lot out there more than willing to share his bed. Maybe now that Shannon had released him from his sexual prison he could even do both himself and these other woman some of his old macho justice.

      But he didn’t want them; he wanted this one. This red-haired, white-skinned, blue eyed betrayer who made his body sing.

      A wry smile played with the tired corners of his mouth as he started walking again. The slight tensing in Shannon’s shoulders as she’d sensed his approach gave that smile a different edge. Love each other or hate each other, they could still tune into the others presence like wild cats sniffing territorial scent.

      Stepping around the bench, he paused for a moment to study the strain in her face. Her hair might burn like fire in the sunlight but her cheeks were pale, her eyes too dark and there was a telling hint of hurt about the way she was holding her mouth.

      On a heavy sigh, he remembered why it was that he had come to find her. Slipping free the single button holding his jacket together, he sat down next to her with a long sigh.

      ‘I’m sorry there was no one here with you,’ he murmured quietly. ‘It has been a—tough morning for everyone, I’m afraid.’

      She turned to look at him, expression guarded as she looked into his face. He was beginning to look haggard, he knew, and did not bother to hide it. ‘I thought it was tough enough five years ago when we had to do this for my father but …’ He stopped, mouth tightening on words he didn’t want to say but knew in the end that he had no choice. ‘My mother collapsed and has had to be sedated. Renata is finding it difficult to cope. Sophia offered to come here to sit with you but she is needed by Mama.’

      ‘I understand,’ she returned.

      ‘Do you?’ Luca wished that he did. It felt as if the whole family had been involved in that car crash—himself and Shannon included. ‘It’s a mess,’ he muttered and leaned forward to rest his forearms on his knees, his throat working on the now-permanent lump stuck in it. ‘I’ve got people dropping like flies all around me. Formalities to deal with. A company that refuses to stop running just because I want it to. The phones keep on ringing. We are sinking beneath a wave of sympathy that, to be honest, I could do without right now.’ His voice was growing husky—he could hear it.

      Would she scream abuse at him if he also admitted that he wanted to pick her up and carry her off to the nearest bed to lose himself in her for an hour or two?

      ‘The thing is, Shannon, I need to ask a big favour …’

      She tensed. He grimaced as his mind made a connection with what he’d been thinking and what he’d just said. But, of course, Shannon didn’t know about that.

      ‘I need to be sure you are OK, you see,’ he went on. ‘Thinking of you alone in some faceless hotel room when you are not here does not make me feel OK.’ He turned his head to look at her. The sunlight was trying its best to put some colour onto her drawn cheeks but it wasn’t succeeding, and her mouth looked so vulnerable he wanted to—

      ‘So I would like to take back my offer to find you somewhere else to stay. I want you to go on living at my place. I will move out if you prefer,’ he offered, watching her carefully for some kind of reaction, but he wasn’t getting one. ‘But I would rather stay there too. That way I will know you will not be on your own if the—’

      ‘Don’t say it,’ she said.

      ‘No,’ he agreed, looking down at his long fingered hands hanging limp between his spread knees.

      While Shannon looked at the top of his dark head, watching the sun gloss it with a silken sheen. If the worst happens during the night, was what he had been going to say. Having shared her time between Keira and the baby, she was more than aware that the ‘worst’ wasn’t very far away. As she watched the baby grow stronger with every passing hour she watched the baby’s mama slowly fade.

      ‘About last night,’ he inserted suddenly.

      Shannon sucked in a sharp breath. His hands moved, flexing tensely before pleating together, and she saw a nerve at the edge of his jaw give a jerk.

      ‘I went a little crazy,’ he admitted. ‘I am ashamed of myself for taking my—feelings out on you.’

      ‘We both went a little crazy.’ She shifted tensely.

      ‘It won’t happen again,’ he promised.

      ‘No,’ she agreed.

      ‘So will you stay at my apartment?’

      She looked down at her lap