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

mouth.

      His sigh arrived with the gentle touch of a long finger as it brushed a stray lock of hair from her cheek. It was contact enough to make her want to throw her arms around his neck and sob her heart out.

      Someone appeared on the periphery of their vision. It was Renata; she took one look at the intimacy of their little one-to-one and tensed. Luca’s older sister was one the nicest people anyone would wish to meet, but she struggled to look at Shannon without showing her disapproval.

      ‘Mama has come down and is asking for you, Luca,’ she informed her brother stiffly.

      ‘I’ll be there in a minute,’ he said without taking his eyes from Shannon.

      ‘Mama said—’

      ‘A minute, Renata,’ he interrupted incisively.

      There was a pause that set the fine hairs on Shannon’s body tingling and kept her eyes firmly fixed on the black silk knot of Luca’s tie, then Renata spun away leaving an uncomfortable silence behind her.

      ‘That wasn’t very nice,’ she chided.

      ‘I don’t feel like being nice,’ he clipped in reply. ‘For the whole of this terrible day you have looked like a lonely piece of fragile porcelain someone put down and forgot to pick up again. I want to pick you up and never put you down.’

      It was Shannon’s turn to murmur an uneven, ‘Don’t.’ He had no right to be saying things like that to her—especially not after the way he’d used her last night.

      ‘We need to talk. Last night was a mess,’ he said abruptly, hooking right into her thoughts again. ‘It should not have ended the way that it did.’

      ‘I don’t want to discuss it.’ She made a move to follow in Renata’s footsteps.

      Luca blocked her exit from the alcove with a broad shoulder that effectively held her captive. ‘We have to talk about it,’ he insisted. ‘There are things I should have said last night that got lost in the war. But they are about to come up and hit us both in the face so I need you to listen.’

      ‘Listen to what—more insults?’

      ‘No,’ he denied on a rasp of impatience. ‘The marriage thing,’ he explained. ‘You said no to marrying me for our child’s sake but—’

      ‘There is no child!’ she inserted sharply.

      ‘Luca …’ It was the softer voice of Sophia that interrupted this time, sounding very cautious. ‘I am sorry to disturb you but Signor Lorenzo has arrived. He wants to …’

      A string of near-silent curses left Luca’s lips while Shannon closed her eyes and prayed to God that Sophia hadn’t heard what she’d said. ‘I’m coming,’ he bit out in grinding impatience.

      Sophia wasn’t up to pushing her point as her older sister had done, because she walked away without saying another word, leaving Shannon trapped in the alcove by a man who was literally pulsing with frustration and a burn in his eyes that made her think of—

      Stop it, she thought painfully. Don’t do this to me here! She dragged in a tense breath. ‘Go to your mother, or Mr—whoever,’ she said tautly.

      But Luca was not going anywhere. ‘Just listen,’ he instructed, ‘because I do not have time for this but I know it must be said!’ He took a deep breath, impatience fighting with something Shannon couldn’t quite put a name to but it set her trembling as he caught her eyes again and began feeding words to her in a quick, sharp rasp. ‘I want you to think about Rose. I want you to put your own feelings aside, and my feelings, for that matter, and think about her and what is best for her.’

      ‘Rose will come home with me. I mean to—’

      ‘No!’ he shot at her forcefully. His hands came up to grip her shoulders, the sudden angry shift of his body almost knocking the glass of brandy out of her hand. ‘I knew you were planning something like this,’ he bit out like a curse, ‘but it cannot be like that.’

      ‘Why not?’

      ‘Because—’

      ‘Luca …’ There was no dismissing the owner of this particular voice. It belonged to Mrs Salvatore herself. Shannon almost sagged with relief when he let go of her shoulders on a sigh of surrender and turned to his mother.

      ‘Father Michael has to leave now but he says you wanted a word with him before he—Oh, Shannon,’ Mrs Salvatore cut off to acknowledge. ‘I did not see you standing there.’

      Which was a blatant untruth because if this wasn’t part of a conspiracy to stop whatever it was the family believed they were doing in this alcove, then Shannon would eat her hat.

      Then she smashed that bit of untimely sarcasm when she saw the devastation written in the older woman’s face. Luca’s mother had every right to want her remaining son all to herself just now, she thought guiltily, and managed to squeeze past Luca to offer his mother a smile.

      ‘Luca brought me a drink,’ she explained.

      ‘So thoughtful of you, Luca,’ Mrs Salvatore nodded in approval. ‘It seems to have done the trick, Shannon, and put some of the colour back into your cheeks. You needed it, poor dear,’ she added on a husky quaver. ‘Today has been such an ordeal for all of us.’

      ‘Yes, such an ordeal,’ Shannon endorsed as the full power of it came clattering back down upon her head. To her surprise, Mrs Salvatore reached out to put her arms around her and brushed a kiss on both of her cheeks. ‘I will miss Keira so much,’ she confided thickly—and she said it in English.

      It was almost Shannon’s undoing. She had to swallow the tears and was able only to nod and return the two kisses because she knew she couldn’t speak. Luca’s mother seemed to understand that because she patted her gently before releasing her, then turned her attention to her son.

      ‘I don’t understand why you need to speak with Father Michael but I don’t think you should keep him waiting.’

      ‘No,’ her son agreed.

      Shannon took this as her cue to make good her escape, ‘Excuse me,’ she murmured, and was about to melt quietly away when Luca stopped her with the touch of long fingers to her arm. ‘OK?’ he asked huskily.

      She kept her eyes lowered, swallowed and nodded, but he didn’t appear impressed. She could feel his irritation, his frustrated desire to finish what he had begun. But he couldn’t and he knew that he couldn’t. ‘Think about what I said,’ he clipped out eventually.

      Not if I can stop myself, Shannon thought bleakly, but nodded because his mother was listening. Then she slipped her arm free of his fingers and walked away, aware of his eyes following her—aware that his mother’s eyes were doing the same.

      She looked so damn fragile he knew she was going to have to break soon, Luca was thinking grimly.

      ‘I hope you know what you’re doing,’ his mother said.

      He looked down into the pale, anxious face of this woman he loved without question and wished he could love Shannon that way again. ‘I know exactly what I’m doing,’ he assured her soberly.

      ‘Still …’ his mother heaved in a breath of air ‘… it is best not to make hasty decisions while you are feeling so vulnerable.’

      The comment amused him enough to have him tilt a mocking eyebrow. ‘I wish I knew what you were talking about,’

      ‘You and Shannon,’ he was informed. ‘It only takes a pair of eyes to know that you two are sleeping together.’

      ‘Madre!’ he admonished.

      ‘Why else would you insist that she stay at your apartment?’ She shrugged off the censure. ‘Why else would Shannon refuse my invitation to stay with me? The sparks fly between you like electricity and it took three—three—people to