An Inheritance of Shame(3)

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, lowering her head just a little so her hair fell in front of her face. ‘I was just getting your room ready for the night. I’ll be out of your way.’

She started to move past him, her head still lowered, hating the ache this simple, terrible exchange opened up inside her. It was an ache she’d had for so long that she’d become numb to it, learned to live with it the way you might a missing limb or a permanent scar. Yet now, in Angelo’s uncaring presence, she felt it throb painfully to life and for a second, furious with herself, she had to blink back tears.

She was just about to slip past him when his hand curled around her arm, jolting her so hard and deep she almost stumbled.

‘Wait.’

She stilled, her heart hammering, her breath caught in her chest. Angelo let go of her arm and walked towards the bed.

‘I’m celebrating, you know,’ he said, but he didn’t sound like he was. He sounded as sardonic and cynical as he’d ever been. Lucia tensed, her back to him, her face angled away. He still didn’t recognise her, and that realisation gave her equal parts relief and deep disappointment.

‘Why don’t you celebrate with me,’ he continued, clearly a command, and she stiffened. Was this what he’d become? The kind of man who solicited the housekeeping? ‘Just a drink,’ he clarified, and now he sounded coolly amused as he popped the cork on the complimentary bottle of champagne that always came with the penthouse suite. ‘Since nobody else is here.’

Lucia turned around slowly, her whole body rigid. She had no idea how to act. What to say. This had gone on way too long for her to keep pretending she was a stranger, and yet—

Maybe that’s what she was to him now. A stranger.

He was pouring the champagne into two crystal flutes, his mouth twisted downwards, and something in the shuttered bleakness of his expression called to that ache deep inside her, the ache she’d been trying so hard and for so long to ignore. When he looked like that it reminded her of when he’d shown up on her doorstep seven years ago, when he’d stared at her so bleakly, so blankly, and his voice had broken as he’d confessed, ‘He’s dead, Lucia. And I don’t feel anything.’

She hadn’t thought then; she’d just drawn him inside by the hand, led him to the shabby little living room of the house she’d grown up in and where she then lived alone.

And started something—a single night—that had changed her life for ever.

She swallowed now, forced herself to lift her chin and look him in the eye. She saw him tense, felt it, one hand still outstretched, a flute of fizzing champagne clasped between his long, lean fingers.

‘All right, Angelo,’ she said, and thankfully her voice remained steady. ‘I’ll have a drink with you.’

Angelo stood completely motionless, his hand still outstretched. The only sound in the room was the gentle fizz of the champagne’s bubbles popping against the sides of the crystal flute and his own suddenly ragged breathing.

Lucia.

How could he not have recognised her? How could he have not known her from the moment he’d seen her in his suite? The first thought that seared his brain now was the completely irrelevant realisation of how blue her eyes were, so startling against her dark hair and olive skin. How wide and clear and open they’d always been, open to him.

Then chasing the heels of that poignant memory was a far more bitter realisation—and with it a dawning fury.

‘You work for them? Those sciacalli?’

Her chin tilted up a notch and those blue, blue eyes flashed even bluer. ‘If you mean am I employed at this hotel, then the answer is yes.’

Another thing he’d forgotten: the low, husky timbre of her voice, sounding sensual and smoky and still so tender and sweet. He had a sudden, painfully clear recollection of her asking him in that same low voice what he’d expected to feel that night, the night of his father’s funeral, what he’d wanted to feel. He’d answered in a ragged gulp that just stopped short of a sob, ‘Satisfaction. Happiness. Something. I just feel empty.’

She hadn’t replied, just put her arms around him, and he’d turned into her embrace, burying his head in the sweet curve of her neck before his lips had found hers, seeking and needing the total acceptance and understanding she’d always so freely given.

And now she worked for the Correttis? The family who had made his childhood a living hell? He shook his head slowly, his head throbbing so hard his vision blurred. ‘So what, you’re on your knees for them? Scrubbing their filth, bobbing a curtsey when they come by? What happened to your promise, Lucia?’