Luca's Bad Girl - By Amy Andrews Page 0,39

family mess, even though she had no clue of the facts.

Another spurt of guilt made him uneasy. Would she be this passionate about it if she knew the background? Was she only being this vehement because she thought she knew him well enough to surmise that he’d been wronged by his family?

‘Don’t think I’m the injured party here, cara. They had every right to ostracise me. To be angry with me.’

His voice sounded far away in another time and Mia paused. She hadn’t expected any explanation but she had expected him to defend himself when offering one. They’d ostracised him and he just accepted it?

‘Still?’ she demanded, regrouping. ‘After all these years? Doesn’t that make you angry?’

Luca shook his head. He’d given up being angry about it a long time ago. Regret was a constant companion—if he could go back and change things he would—but he’d worked through his anger.

‘No. Not any more,’ he said.

Mia couldn’t believe how calm he was. She could feel a burning in her chest at his ostracism and hers. Her father leaving physically and her mother leaving emotionally had completely excluded her from the possibility of a normal life.

How could people who supposedly loved you act so callously? Even in grief? Her heart pounded, there was a ringing in her ears, her hands shook as she clasped them around the coffee cup.

It would be so easy to lose it. Just lose it. She hadn’t been this stirred up in years. Maybe not since the day she’d discovered her stillborn baby sister hadn’t been her father’s child and that’s why he’d left. That her mother had been lying to her for years.

She had a sudden insane urge to cry, which both scared and horrified her in equal measure. What the hell was wrong with her?

Mia McKenzie did not cry. Not in front of friends or colleagues and most certainly not lovers.

Not ever!

Luca was a man she’d had sex with a few times and slept with once. She shouldn’t care about any of this.

She pulled herself back from the edge. Just. ‘Well, I think you’re wrong, but …’ she shrugged with as much nonchalance as she could muster when her brain was melting down ‘… it’s none of my business.’

She stood. She had to get out of there. The intensity of her feelings was scaring the hell out of her. He plainly didn’t want her hanging around and she’d been trying to leave since the moment she’d woken with his hand on her breast.

Luca nodded, gripping the bench harder as the foolish urge to reach for her took hold. To put a hand on her shoulder, tug her into his arms. She looked a little wan and frankly he’d rather spend the day putting some colour back into her cheeks than thinking about his grandmother and the mess he’d left behind in Sicily.

But she’d turned away and was walking rapidly towards the door. Do not pass Go. Do not collect two hundred dollars.

‘Ciao, Mia,’ he called out.

Mia heard the finality in his voice and knew it was goodbye.

CHAPTER EIGHT

EVIE woke at ten-thirty feeling as if the New Year’s Eve fireworks, for which Sydney was famous, had been let off in her head. All at once. She groaned out loud and stuffed the pillow over her head to quell the racket.

Not that it helped, given that the noise was coming from inside her skull, not from the outside.

The previous momentous day with Finn and then the bitter disappointment of the night came back in a rush and she groaned again. Damn the man to hell. It was his fault she felt this way.

She could only hope he’d been blessed with a hangover of equal proportion. But, of course, he wouldn’t have. Because the man could drink whisky like water. And because little Miss Suzy Happy Ending had been draped all over him when he’d left.

She didn’t even want to think about why that bugged her so much. The man could sleep with whomever he liked. And quite often did. In the years they’d co-existed at The Harbour, he’d slept with a string of women.

It was no skin off her nose.

Just because Stuart’s devastating betrayal had made her more selective with men, it didn’t mean the entire world had to follow suit. If Finn wanted to sleep with every floozy Suzy that came along, more power to him.

Evie pulled the pillow off her head—damn it, now he’d made her think of Stuart. She’d been such a fool for that