Page 14 of Marriage Made In Hate

L UCA NOSED HIS car through the gate controlling access to her uncle’s villa and turned on to the cypress-lined road that led between fields and vineyards towards Pavenza.

Bianca sat beside him in the passenger seat of the low-slung car, tension in every line of her body.

Was she really doing this? Setting out with Luca to get an engagement ring to convince her poor uncle that, yes, despite the entire absurdity of it all, his godson was going to marry his long-lost niece and make some kind of fairy tale happy-ever-after so Matteo could die in peace?

It seemed she was.

Bizarre was one word for it—though a lot of others crowded into her beleaguered mind.

She sought to quiet them…silence them. There was only one way to get through this ordeal—this exquisitely painful ordeal—and that was by trying not to think about it.

Trying not to feel anything. Trying not to remember anything. That was the only way she was coping.

That—and trying not to look at Luca.

It helped that both of them were wearing sunglasses against the glare of the day. What didn’t help—and she couldn’t deny it —was how Luca wearing a pair of designer sunglasses made him look. Which was—

She gave a silent gulp, feeling her head twisting without her volition, under an impulse so strong she could not quell it.

Drop-dead incredible—gorgeous—fabulous.

The litany of words could not do the impact justice.

Sexy as hell…

That was the only description that did. The description that had leapt in her head the very first moment she’d laid eyes on him, leaning casually against the bar, eyes on her.

It had kicked inside her, and she had felt her eyes lock to his.

Knowing she’d never, ever, seen a man who could stop her dead in her tracks like that.

But that was then—this was now. She forced her gaze back on to the road. Had he noticed her looking at him? She hoped to God not—that was the last thing she could cope with.

She’d got through the rest of dinner last night by clamping a rigid control over herself as they’d laboured through a conversation that focussed on Matteo’s illness and his course of treatment, what its limitations and side-effects were, and how they could be best managed and minimised.

She’d told Luca that his oncologist had mentioned a clinical trial, designed to stimulate an immunological response to attack the secondary tumours, which might, if it proved successful, offer a prolonging of life the current drugs could not.

However, Matteo would need to be strong to be included in such a trial, and that was the problem.

Another collapse like yesterday’s would rule him out.

She stared bleakly through the windscreen at the passing countryside. That was another reason for doing what she was doing now.

Keeping Matteo happy.

Whatever it cost her.

* * *

‘This way.’

Luca moved to take Bianca’s arm to guide her, then let his hand drop.

With any other female he would not have hesitated in making such a casual, courteous gesture, but Bianca was not any other female.

A jaundiced twist tightened his mouth. How the pagan god of malign humour must be laughing, having thrown together two people at daggers drawn with each other.

He frowned. Did he have a dagger drawn against Bianca? Why should he? If her vitriolic protestation was genuine—and she wasn’t after any kind of renewal of their former relationship, let alone wanting to exploit what Matteo yearned for—then no, he didn’t.

No, the only drawn dagger was Bianca’s. She was still, it seemed, six years on, holding a grudge for his ending his affair with her. Well, that was her problem, not his. He had other things to cope with.

Like this insane way of placating his godfather.

Starting with the charade of supplying Bianca with an engagement ring.

The twist of his mouth deepened. She should like that—an engagement ring. If he’d offered her one six years ago she’d have bitten his hand off to get it on her finger…

He pulled his mind away again from thoughts that were pointless and irrelevant. The past was gone. It was this absurd, pitiful present he had to deal with now.

The streets of the ancient town were busy and crowded.

It was still holiday season, and Pavenza was an established destination for art and history lovers, and those just wanting to hang out in pavement cafés and shop in the plentiful and upmarket boutiques.

He was heading for the latter right now, with a particular jeweller in mind.

It was small, but prestigious, specialising in antique jewellery and modern interpretations thereof.

Bianca wasn’t saying anything as they walked along the pavement, across the main piazza and into a narrow, cobbled street.

She’d said the minimum ever since they’d set out.

He’d breakfasted on the terrace, in the fresh morning air, but the table had been set only for one.

Bianca, he’d been informed, was taking breakfast in her room.

He had been glad of it—it minimised the amount of time they had to spend together.

After breakfast, Giuseppe had informed him that his godfather would like to see him, and so, dutifully, he’d attended the bedside.

He hadn’t been sure whether to be glad or dismayed that Matteo was looking distinctly better than he had yesterday—glad that he was, but dismayed that, as his godfather had made rapidly clear, the reason was the ‘good news’ Luca and Bianca had given him.

Luca realised he’d been hoping, somehow, that Matteo would have resurfaced realising just how insane his fantasy was, and absolving Luca of fulfilling it.

Instead, he’d been eager to discuss it. Luca’s heart had sunk even more when he’d seen how overjoyed he was to hear that Luca was intending to take Bianca to Pavenza to choose an engagement ring.

All he’d been able to achieve was saying, pointedly, that Bianca had told him she’d prefer a new purchase—not the traditional D’Alabruschi betrothal ring.

The family heirloom was out of the question. Bianca would have to make do with today’s acquisition.

They arrived outside the jeweller’s, nestled between a Milanese fashion designer’s boutique and an expensive leather goods shop.

Politely, Luca held the door open for her, following her in.

The interior was dim after the bright sunshine, and automatically he slid off his sunglasses.

Bianca was doing likewise. The proprietor looked up from examining a gemstone with a loupe under a desk lamp, greeting them courteously and awaiting their pleasure.

‘We should like to look at rings,’ Luca opened without preamble.

‘Certo,’ came the immediate reply. Followed by enquiries as to whether they’d prefer antique or modern style, and which stones.

Luca turned to Bianca. ‘What do you prefer?’ he asked, switching to English.

‘Does it matter?’ she returned indifferently. ‘You might as well choose something you like, since it will be yours when this is all over. Get something you can resell.’

She hadn’t spoken loudly, but Luca assumed the jeweller spoke English to accommodate his tourist trade.

‘Let’s stay in role, shall we?’ he murmured, tight-lipped. More loudly, he went on, ‘Emeralds for your eyes, mia cara ?’ His voice was caressing.

Even as he spoke, memory snapped in his head. Bianca had met him one evening at the restaurant he’d usually taken her to, just around the corner from his apartment. She had been sporting huge, dangling clip-on crystal earrings in a vivid green.

She’d flicked them with a crimson nail extension. ‘Like them?’ She’d grinned. ‘Under a fiver in Brick Lane Market!’

She’d been pleased by the acquisition, and he’d had to allow that they looked stunning on her, with her lush auburn hair. But then, everything about Bianca was stunning…

He pulled his thoughts away from his irrelevant memories, instructing the jeweller to show then some modern designs incorporating emeralds.

Absently he visualised the family betrothal ring with its emerald and pearls.

Then he pulled his thoughts away from that too.

It was as irrelevant as the memory of those garish crystal clip-ons.

The jeweller extracted a tray from a cabinet behind the illuminated desk. One row held emeralds, in various settings and designs.

Bianca stepped forward, looking down at them. ‘How about that one?’ She indicated one that had the smallest gemstone.

‘Oh, I think I can run to something a little more suitable,’ Luca murmured. He cast a rapid eye over the rings, selecting a design he didn’t care for, with a large cabochon cut stone.

‘No—too flash. And these are all too modern.’ Bianca looked at the jeweller. ‘I think you said you stock some antique rings?’ she asked.

‘Of course…of course,’ came the immediate reply, and the offending modern tray was whisked away to be replaced by another.

‘Oh, but these are beautiful!’

There was a warmth in Bianca’s voice Luca had only heard before when she was thanking Giuseppe or her uncle’s staff, or talking to Matteo.

She reached forward, letting her fingertip trace over the rings, pausing at one that had, of all things, Luca realised, an emerald nestled in a circle of pearls.

‘May I try?’ she asked the jeweller. She was holding out her hand. ‘Will it fit, do you think?’

‘I believe so, signorina ,’ the jeweller informed her.

He extracted the ring, but instead of sliding it over her extended finger himself, he handed it to Luca.

‘You may perhaps prefer…?’ He paused for a moment, then added, his tone both deferential, and curious, ‘So very similar…if you will permit me to say so?’

As he spoke, Luca did not miss the rapid, flickering glance at Luca’s own outstretched hand, and the signet ring he wore, its distinctive crest clearly visible. He cursed him for it. Damn—he would have preferred not to announce his identity.