She’d spent the week ignoring the difficult questions she knew still existed between them, pushing unpleasant thoughts to the back of her mind, but they were still there. And the realization made her feel uneasy, as though things were fragile and could fall apart at any moment. A wave of panic threatened to topple her perfect dream world. She didn’t want it to end. She didn’t want to go back to real life.
A life without Luc.
…
Luc was distracted, almost distant, and that night his lovemaking held a hint of desperation she had never noticed before. The next morning, she woke to the sound of a helicopter landing. Luc was fully dressed, sitting on the edge of the bed. He took her hand.
“I have to go to Rome,” he said.
“What?” She sat up, pulling the sheet against her naked breasts. Her brain was befuddled from sleep. “Why? Can I come?”
He shook his head. “I have some business I need to see to, and you would be bored. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
He kissed her, and Lia clung to him for a brief moment. She let him go and watched him walk away.
…
She spent the morning sunbathing. When she heard the helicopter landing, she pulled on a robe and went running, expecting Luc to step out from it. Instead, a tall, elegant woman strolled across the tarmac toward her. Two men in dark suits, who could only be bodyguards, flanked her.
Lia stopped abruptly. The woman was beautiful, obviously Italian, and she knew instantly that she must be Luc’s mother. She forced herself to move toward her. After all, Maggie had said she was nice, friendly. Lia told herself she had nothing to fear, but glancing into the other woman’s face, she realized she looked anything but friendly—her face was cold and closed as she inspected Lia as though she was something unpleasant.
Lia had been holding out her hand to shake; now she dropped it to her side.
“Ms. Brent?”
Lia nodded.
“My name is Isabella Vittori. I am Luc’s mother.”
“Luc’s not here at the moment,” Lia said.
“I know. It is you I have come to speak to.”
“Do you want to come to the house?”
“No, this will not take long. Ms. Brent, I want you to leave my son alone.”
“What?” Lia asked, bewildered.
“It’s quite simple. I want you to pack your things and be gone before Luc returns.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Of course you can. I could not believe it when Stephano said he saw you yesterday. We read about you in the papers but did not believe for a moment that you would flaunt yourself in our faces in this way. Have you no shame?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Luc’s mother frowned. “You must know what your father was.”
“Yes, of course I know. But so does Luc. If it doesn’t bother him, why should you care? What can it possibly mean to you?”
Isabella was staring at Lia curiously. “You really don’t know, do you?”
Lia was engulfed in a horrible feeling of misgiving. She had an almost overwhelming urge to run and hide, anything to avoid what was coming next. There was a look of compassion in the other woman’s eyes. Somehow, it made Lia feel worse.
“No, you don’t know,” Isabella said softly. “But really, it makes no difference. What do you know?”
Lia gathered her thoughts together. “Just that Luc wants to find my father. He knew him before he went to prison, but then when Luc got out, he disappeared.”
“You know that Luc was innocent?”
“Yes, but what does that have to do with my father?”
“Your father set him up. Luc only acted in self-defense, but your father paid people or terrorized them into lying in court.”
“But why?”
“Because Luc was determined to find out what happened to his own father, and he was getting too close. Jimmy Brent was responsible for Luc’s father’s death, and Luc was determined to expose the truth.”
Lia wanted to shake her head, deny the words, but they all made horrible sense.
“Your father is an evil man,” Isabella said. “That scar on Luc’s face—Jimmy Brent is responsible for that. He wasn’t content with having Luc locked away—he paid people to have him killed in prison. Luckily, Luc had friends.”
Lia couldn’t take it in. Why hadn’t Luc told her? The questions went over and over in her brain. Why? Was he still planning revenge? Still using Lia as bait? She couldn’t bear it.
She swallowed. “I love him.”
Isabella studied her almost sadly. “It’s not enough. I don’t know what Luc is doing with you, using you somehow to get to your father perhaps. But whatever his reasons, it cannot end well. Luc hates your father. At one point, his whole life revolved around revenge. He got past that, but if he ever finds him, I’m not sure what he would do. Would you have Luc back in prison?” Her face hardened again. “Go away, Ms. Brent. Go away before that happens.”
“I can’t, I have to wait for Luc. I have no way to go.”
“There’s a boat waiting for you at the dock. It will take you to the mainland. A car will meet you there and take you to the airport. Here—” She thrust something into Lia’s hand. “It’s a plane ticket back to London for tonight.” She looked about to say more, then shook her head. “Do us all a favor and go home. Just leave Luc alone. Your family has done him enough harm.”
Lia watched as the helicopter rose slowly into the air amid a swirl of rose-colored dust. Luc’s mother’s face was at the window, staring back at Lia with what could only be pity on her patrician features. She raised a hand in farewell, but Lia didn’t return the gesture.
Her mind was numb; she walked slowly back to the villa and into their bedroom. The maid hadn’t yet been in, and the bed was still rumpled. Lia collapsed onto the mattress and buried her face in Luc’s pillow. She could still smell the sharp exotic cologne he wore, and she breathed in deeply. For long minutes, she lay there, not wanting to think.
She had been living in a fantasy world, totally suspending reality, a world where it was possible to fall in love and live happily ever after, but she had always known that such a world didn’t exist. All those years of watching her mother fall apart should have been proof enough of that.
She’d always known her father was not a good man, but that he had been responsible for Luc’s father’s death was unbelievable. Not only that, but he had nearly ruined Luc’s whole life. Set him up and then tried to finish the job. How could Luc not hate the man responsible for that? How could he not hate her?