An Inheritance of Shame(22)

Angelo nodded, his head lowered, his hands still shoved in his pockets. ‘I’d like to go there.’ He paused, stopping mid-stride, and reluctantly Lucia turned to him. His gaze moved searchingly over her as he asked, ‘Will you go with me?’ The request stopped her in her tracks, the grief she’d suppressed for so long like a leaden weight in her chest.

‘Lucia?’ Angelo prompted, and she couldn’t speak, couldn’t even shake her head. It was taking all of her strength, all of her will, simply to stand under that oppressive weight, a grief she’d carried with her yet never acknowledged or accepted. Never been able to let go of.

Now it threatened to bury her, and she could not stand the thought of kneeling in front of her baby’s grave with Angelo, acknowledging with him the death of their daughter, of all her dreams, the life she’d once hoped to have.…

‘Lucia.’ Angelo took her by the shoulders. ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’

What was wrong? Could he really ask that? Could he really not understand how this was killing her?

She made some small sound, the sound of an animal in pain. Angelo frowned and with the last of her strength Lucia wrenched away from him before he could see the agony on her face. She started running down the beach, back to the villa, anywhere away from him.

She heard Angelo give a muttered curse and then he was coming up behind her, his hands clamping down on her shoulders and turning her towards him. Still she resisted, twisting away from him as the tears streaked down her cheeks and the sobs gathered in her chest, an unbearable pressure finally demanding release.

Angelo wouldn’t let her go. His arms came around her, drawing her to him so she was pressed against his chest, his lips on her hair, her face hidden in the warm curve of his shoulder. ‘Oh, Lucia…mi cucciola… I’m sorry…I didn’t realise.…Of course it still hurts. It always hurts.’

The gentleness of his embrace and the tenderness of his words made it impossible for her to fight. Resist. In the safety of his arms she broke, and all the anguish she’d been holding back spilled out of her, so her body shook and tears streamed from her eyes. She couldn’t have even said what she was crying for. The loss of her daughter? The loss of Angelo? The loss of everything, all her unspoken hopes, the life she’d so desperately wanted yet had known she would never have.

Angelo drew her down to the sand, his hands stroking her hair as he murmured endearments and words of comfort, his voice low and ragged.

Lucia heard herself saying things and fragments of things she’d never meant to share, hadn’t even realised she remembered. ‘She had blue eyes, but they were dark. I think they would have been green, like yours.…They wrapped her in a blue blanket and it made me so angry, such a silly thing.…The doctor’s hands were so cold and the nurse took her away from me without even asking.…’

And then there were no more words, just sobs tearing from her chest and coming out of her mouth in ragged gulps as Angelo held and rocked her, offering her the kind of comfort she’d so often given him.

Her face was hidden in the curve of his shoulder, her lips brushing the warm skin just above the collar of his T-shirt, all of it just as he’d once been with her, and acting on instinct and out of need Lucia pressed her lips against his skin in a silent kiss, a mute appeal. She felt Angelo tense, his arms stiffening even as they held her, but she was past caring. Past asking.

The appeal became a demand as she kissed him again, her lips pressing harder against his warm skin. She heard his ragged draw of breath, his arms still around her.

‘Lucia…’

But she didn’t want words. She wanted this, only this—to take and not to give, to be comforted and not to comfort. Was it wrong? Was it selfish? She didn’t care. She needed this. Needed his caress, the only kind of comfort she craved now. She lifted her head from his shoulder and looked at him, but in the twilit darkness she couldn’t make out his expression.

She leaned forward and kissed him hard, and his mouth opened under hers even as his hands came up to her shoulders to brace her—or to push her away? She wrapped her arms around him and pressed herself against him. She heard him groan and he deepened the kiss, his tongue sweeping inside and claiming her for his own.

Lucia kissed him back, her hands in his hair and then on his shoulders, sliding beneath his shirt to feel the taut, warm skin underneath. She pushed him back onto the beach and his arms came up around her, their legs tangling together in the sand.