Page 6 of Marriage Made In Hate

It was like a nightmare—one impossible to cope with, impossible to believe. Shock was still blanking her thoughts.

How can this be happening? How?

But her appalled question was as useless as the hammering of her heart, each blow a pain assailing her. She knew she had to say something—anything. She opened her mouth to speak, to take the initiative, to take control. But she never got the chance.

Luca’s hand whipped out, fastened around her lower arm, steely like a vise.

He took a half-step towards her, and in the low light of the terrace, illuminated only by the lights of the saloni behind him and the dim starlight, she saw his face was stark.

The frozen expressionless mask that had settled over him when his eyes had first gone to her, seated by Matteo, had vanished. In its place—

In its place was fury. Cold, dark, condemning.

When he spoke his voice was the same.

‘I don’t give a damn what you’re doing here,’ he bit out, his hand like a vise still, his breath rasping in his throat. ‘Because you’ll be leaving first thing in the morning. Come up with any reason you like—but you’ll be gone. I’ll drive you to the airport myself.’

Bianca’s face contorted and she tried to pull her arm free.

His grip lessened not a jot.

‘Let me go !’ she ground out. ‘If you think I’m leaving tomorrow—forget it! And I don’t “give a damn” …’ she echoed his words deliberately ‘…whether that embarrasses you or not!’

He stared at her, his eyes like pits. His hand around her arm jerked.

‘ Embarrasses me?’ he shot back. ‘What the hell’s that got to do with it? All I care about is getting your grasping claws out of Matteo!’

He took a step back suddenly, releasing her. The place where his fingers had pressed burned like a brand on her, even through the material of her sleeve. His expression had changed. That black anger had been replaced by something that chilled her even more.

Revulsion. Disgust. Contempt.

‘How low have you sunk?’ His voice was twisted. ‘To batten on to a dying man—’

Bianca’s face worked. ‘I’m here because he wants me here! How could I refuse him— how ?’

Now it was Luca savagely echoing her. ‘ How could you refuse to accept what he’s so obviously, besottedly lavishing upon you?’ His hand reached out again, flicked at the pearl collar around her neck, then dropped away. ‘He’s draped you in his dead wife’s jewels…’

The disgust in his voice was matched only by his anger.

Bianca felt herself flush. ‘I didn’t know—he just said they were family heirlooms. He never said…never said they were Luisa’s.’

‘Don’t give me that! And don’t even say her name!’ His eyes narrowed to slits. ‘Or is that your ambition? Not just to batten onto him while you can, for what you can get out of him, but to aim for the ultimate prize? To get him to marry you? A deathbed marriage?’

A gasp broke from her. Shock ripped across her face.

‘Are you insane ?’ she said. Her voice was hollow.

A sound from behind them broke the moment. The French windows were being opened, and a discreet cough came from Giuseppe.

‘Dinner is served,’ he said in Italian.

Numbly, with shock still ripping through her, Bianca stepped past Luca, past Giuseppe. In the saloni , Matteo was on his feet, the nurse disappeared.

Matteo’s face was wreathed in smiles.

‘All done,’ he said. ‘And now, finally, we can enjoy the evening.’

His eyes went from Bianca, to Luca, and back again, apparently pleased at what he saw.

Luca had stepped through behind Bianca, and she could feel him like a demonic presence beside her—for what else could he be?

But words failed her—thoughts failed her.

All she could feel was that tearing shock still ripping right through her.

Shock upon shock. Shock at seeing Luca walk into the saloni— walk back into her life.

Shock twisting inside her nauseatingly at what he’d just thrown at her, what he thought she was doing here.

Desperately she strove to hide her reaction, school her expression. Matteo was walking towards them, carefully but steadily.

‘So,’ he said, his eyes bright upon them both as he came up to them, taking their hands in his as she stood stock still beside Luca, who was as still as she was.

‘You have been making a start on getting to know each other? That is good—very good. For of all things, my dear Luca,’ he went on, looking directly at his godson, ‘I most of all want you to come to know, and to value as I do, my very dear Bianca. My dearest treasure…the blessing bestowed upon me by heaven in this my time of trial.’

Matteo’s smile deepened, and his hold on her hand tightened, though hers was quite immobile still.

Emotion filled his voice as he spoke again.

‘Bianca… My brother’s long-lost daughter—my most precious, dearest niece.’

* * *

Luca heard the words but they did not compute, nor make sense in any way at all.

‘Non credo…’

He saw a wry expression cross Matteo’s face.

‘Nor did I believe it, at first,’ he concurred.

He let go both their hands, turning away, gesturing as he did so towards the double doors that led through to the dining room.

‘I will explain over dinner how it came to be, for I cannot believe there is not the hand of Providence in it. At the very time when my spirits were brought as low as a man’s can be, after receiving my own death sentence, the good Lord saw fit to lighten my final months.’

Luca could hear the emotion thick in Matteo’s voice. His godfather was speaking Italian, with emphasis and insistence. The depth of his emotion almost echoed Luca’s own—but his had an utterly different cause.

Disbelief—incredulity. Dismay.

Dismay that this long-lost niece, of whose existence Luca had never heard, should be Bianca.

Bianca, raised on an East London council estate, is Matteo’s niece? How can she be? It is impossible…surely impossible!

‘That is quite remarkable,’ he heard himself say, keeping his voice studiedly level with an effort as they went through into the dining room, took their places.

Giuseppe and one of the manservants went into the rituals of serving dinner—pouring water, then wine, and then serving the primo. Only when they had withdrawn could Luca bring himself to look at the woman sitting opposite him.

She was not looking at him, nor at anyone.

Her eyes were cast down and she was looking at her plate of artistically arranged scallops, lapped by a saffron sauce with herbes garnis and slivers of artichoke, apparently transfixed by the artistry of its presentation.

Luca was glad of it. He needed to be able to look at her—look in her direction in a way that as far as his godfather was concerned would seem normal for the situation Matteo assumed this to be.

When it was nothing like that in the least.

Because how could it be? How could there be anything ‘normal’ in what was happening?

He felt emotion threaten to spike up from the depths into which he’d ruthlessly crushed it. But Matteo was speaking, lifting his wine glass.

‘I wish, this evening, to drink to both of you,’ he announced. His voice was warm, and Luca could hear the note of satisfaction in it… The note of relief. Of achievement. ‘And I wish,’ he went on, ‘to drink to what this means to me.’

His smile went from one of them to the other and back again. Mechanically Luca reached for his glass of wine, seeing Bianca do the same.

Then Matteo spoke again, tilting his glass slightly to each of them.

‘To you, Luca, who has been so important a part of my life for so long. And to someone who, by the hand of Providence, has been granted to me in my hour of need. To my brother’s child—Bianca.’

Luca’s eyes went to her again as he took a mouthful of wine.

Can she really be Matteo’s niece?

It seemed too extraordinary for it to be true. Yet that was better, surely, than the conclusion he’d jumped to on seeing her here. Relief speared in him. Relief that Matteo, in his illness, had not succumbed to anything sordid. And nor had Bianca.

He went on letting his eyes rest on her as she took a careful sip from her own glass in response to Matteo’s imprecation to taste the wine. Two images collided in his mind. Bianca—then. Bianca—now.

So different, Bianca then. When he had known her she had been wearing tight-sheathed, low-cut outfits, designed to reveal her plentiful physical attractions.

Her face had been fully made up, with sculpted cheekbones, deep-shadowed eyes, her eyelashes heavy with mascara, her lips lush and rich.

Her glorious hair had been sleek and curved around her shoulders.

She’d worn gold-coloured faux gem earrings, necklaces and bracelets.

She had been packaged and presented to him for desire and seduction…

for the pleasures to come once she was in his arms, in his bed…

Bianca now—his godfather’s niece—was at home in his home in her beautifully cut, long-sleeved, elegantly draped designer number, with her hair drawn back into a low-set chignon, the soft glow of pearls around her throat and at the lobes of her ears, her make-up minimal for the evening’s formality. Elegant, sophisticated, soignée…

So very, very different…

Only her beauty is the same…

But he must not think of that. Must not think of anything, right now, except getting through this ordeal. He must not look at her any more than social necessity required. Must behave as though he’d never set eyes on her before.

She did not meet his gaze, lowering her glass again and making a start on her primo .

His godfather looked at him. ‘You must be wondering how it came to be,’ he started. ‘How Providence bestowed so precious a gift upon me. I will explain.’

He took another mouthful of his wine before continuing.

‘When one receives news such as mine, one is advised to put one’s affairs in order…’

His voice was edged a little. Luca could hear it, and he understood the reason for it,