An Inheritance of Shame(59)

‘It could be.’

She shook her head. ‘What about—what about my life back in Sicily? Your life? What will happen when we return?’

‘We can decide what happens. You don’t have to return to work as a maid—if you don’t want to.’

She knew it cost him to say that, to not demand she quit. He’d never wanted her scrubbing floors, cleaning toilets. And frankly, it wasn’t a job she really liked, so why had she clung to it? Out of pride, perhaps, as well as fear. Quitting her job to await Angelo’s pleasure felt like the actions of a mistress or a whore, not an equal.

‘I don’t know what else I would do,’ she said after a moment.

‘I’ve been thinking about that. You enjoy helping women like Maria, don’t you? With their reading and writing?’

‘Yes…’

‘Why not start a literacy charity for women like her? Women who had to quit school at sixteen or even younger to work. You could be involved on the ground level, help teach them yourself. I could provide the initial funding—’

She felt an incredulous bubble of hope rise up inside her and she squeezed his hand. ‘You would do that for me?’

‘Of course I would. And for them, as well. I would have liked to keep at school. I know what it’s like to feel frustrated by your own lack of education.’

Softly she kissed his lips. ‘You’re a good man, Angelo.’

He slid his arms around her and they lay there in silence for a moment, thoughts tumbling through Lucia’s mind. Just leave it, she told herself. Leave it and be happy. This is so much more than you ever dreamt of, ever hoped for. Still she spoke.

‘And what about you? When we return to Sicily?’

‘What about me?’

She took a breath, prayed for courage to see this through. ‘What kind of man will you be, Angelo? Because it’s still in your power to decide.’

She felt his emotional withdrawal like a physical thing, as if the very air around them had cooled. He rolled onto his back, slipped his hand from hers. ‘I am who I am, Lucia.’

‘I know you are, and I love you. But you said yourself how returning to Sicily made you someone you didn’t want to be. I don’t want you to return and still find you’re acting like that person, not when I know who you really are. I know how much goodness you’re capable of.’

He stared up at the ceiling, not answering, and Lucia held her breath. He had to see what she meant. He had to give up this awful idea of revenge—

‘You’re right,’ he said at last. ‘I don’t want to be that boy with a bloody lip and broken dreams. The boy who’s always been rejected or reviled. And when I come back to Sicily that’s who I feel like, a beggar at the Correttis’ feast.’ He turned to face her, and determination blazed from his eyes. ‘That’s why I’m doing this, Lucia. You might see it as some kind of cold-blooded revenge, but it’s different than that. I’m showing them—and myself—that I’m not that boy any more. That I’m someone to be reckoned with—’ He stopped, his eyes narrowing. ‘What?’

Lucia swallowed past the thickening of tears in her throat. ‘But, Angelo,’ she whispered. ‘I fell in love with that boy.’

For a moment she thought he understood. His mouth twisted and she glimpsed that old bleakness in his eyes. Then his mouth firmed and his eyes shuttered. ‘Then the question is, do you love the man that boy has become?’

She swallowed again, her throat aching. Everything aching, because she hadn’t expected it to come to this so quickly, so terribly. Moments ago they’d been making love. ‘I love you, Angelo, but this revenge you’re desperate to pursue…it’s tearing you—and us—apart. You can’t see it, but it is. Why do you think you got that migraine—’

‘I’ve always suffered from headaches.’

‘And why do you think that is? Why do you think you still feel so restless and angry, even when you have all the power, all the wealth, you could possibly ever need or want? Why do still feel so empty?’

He stared at her hard, and she thought he might not answer. He might turn away, and then what would she do? How could she make him see how this was destroying him—and any chance their love had?

‘Why do you think that is?’ he finally asked evenly.

‘Because revenge doesn’t satisfy you, Angelo. Wealth, power, any of it—no matter how many companies you buy up, or how many Correttis you grind into the dust, you’ll still feel as empty as you did the night of your father’s funeral, when you came to me—’