The Italian's Final Redemption - Jackie Ashenden Page 0,56

the pool built right on the edge of the cliff, and beyond that the deeper blue of the sea dotted with white sails.

The past couple of days they’d done nothing but make love, eat, talk, swim, before starting back at the beginning again. He’d wanted to take her for a tour of the island, but the safety concerns were significant and he didn’t want her to feel hemmed in by his security staff, so he’d organised to take her out on his small yacht, which at least gave her the illusion of freedom and meant they could be by themselves, even if his staff followed along behind them in another launch at a discreet distance.

She’d loved that, sitting out on the deck in the sun with the wind in her hair. Then he’d got her to take the wheel while he stood behind her, his hands guiding hers as she steered the little yacht. She’d laughed with delight, leaning back against him as they guided the yacht through the waves. The wind had been up and they’d moved fast, which had thrilled her.

Afterwards, after they’d talked more, sharing pieces of their childhoods that weren’t too fraught as they’d eaten the lunch Martina had given them, he’d anchored in a sheltered, private bay and they’d gone swimming off the boat. Then, still wet and salty from the water, he’d taken her down onto the deck and made love to her under the sails as the boat rocked gently.

‘I’ve never been happy before,’ she’d told him the night she’d handed him her laptop, ‘but you’ve given me a taste of it...’

He’d given her a taste of that happiness. He, who’d only ever delivered justice, had made someone happy. And she’d wanted more of it, so she’d have something good to take with her when she went to jail...

The thought of that was unbearably painful for reasons he couldn’t describe even to himself. Because why should he care whether she was happy or not? And why did he want to be the one who gave her that happiness?

Why did he even think she deserved it? She’d hidden her father’s money and had enabled him to make more, helping him build the crime empire he now commanded whether she’d been aware of it or not. She’d helped him evade the law and she’d known that was wrong.

Yes, she did deserve a prison cell.

But she’d also watched her mother bleed to death. A death she held herself responsible for. And she’d lived in fear for years afterwards, threatened and terrorised, deprived of companionship and love and happiness, everything that made life worth living.

She’d been forced into doing things that went against her loving, loyal and honest nature, things that might have broken another person. But Lucy hadn’t broken. She’d made a promise to the mother who’d died to protect her and had survived any way she could. He couldn’t fault her for that. But it had left scars on her. The weight of a guilt she couldn’t escape, just as he couldn’t.

Lucy sighed and stretched on the sun lounger. She’d been wearing a swimsuit, but after their last swim, when he’d stripped it off her and had her up against the wall of the pool, she hadn’t bothered to put it on again, and so was lying there naked, her pale skin flushed in the sunlight.

His beautiful civetta...

She doesn’t deserve that cell and you know it.

His chest felt tight, as if his heart was pressing hard against his ribcage, a strong, steady ache. He felt as if he was looking through a window that had once been crystal clear, but had fogged up, rendering the view indistinct and out of focus. He couldn’t even work out what he was looking at now. A badly hurt innocent or a criminal who deserved prison?

She was both, and that was the issue. That was why he didn’t know what to do.

She is you, you realise that, don’t you?

Vincenzo abruptly shut the laptop he’d been working on, the constriction in his chest getting tighter. No, surely not. She wasn’t him.

She didn’t have a history of corruption of her own family and she hadn’t actually led people to their deaths as he had.

You think she should pay for her crimes while you escape having to pay for yours?

He was paying for his crimes. What he’d told her that night was the truth. He was serving a life sentence, using his contacts and his knowledge to help the police. Dedicating his