An Inheritance of Shame - By Kate Hewitt Page 0,33

streets of Palermo and then along the ocean road towards Messina until he found a deserted stretch of beach. He parked the car on a patch of dry grass along the road and tossed his loafers in the car.

He didn’t know how long he walked along the beach, his hands shoved in his pockets, his mind numb. He had meetings to attend, pressure to put on the different Corretti factions. Hell, he had a coup to stage and here he was beachcombing.

Yet still he walked.

I love you. I’ve always loved you.

How could she love him? Nobody loved him. Nobody had ever told him they loved him before. Not his stony-faced grandparents, not his absent mother and certainly not the father who would have preferred he’d never existed at all.

All you were meant to be was a stain on the sheets.

He’d stopped expecting or even hoping for love or anything close to it long ago. He might have suspected Lucia had had some kind of schoolgirl crush on him at one point, but that’s all it had been. It hadn’t been real; it hadn’t been love. It simply wasn’t possible.

And he didn’t love her. He didn’t know how to love, didn’t have it in him. He’d accepted that too, understood that about himself. He hadn’t loved anyone in his life, hadn’t let himself, and so his emotions had atrophied into nothing, an atrophy of the heart. Some might view his lack of love as a weakness or deficiency, but he’d turned it into a strength. If you didn’t love anyone it was easier to focus on work, to live for it. Easier to not care when no one loved you back, easier to walk away.

Except now he didn’t want to walk away. Lucia was the one walking, and the thought filled him with frustration, fury—and fear. Why couldn’t she accept what he’d offered? Why couldn’t it be enough for her? It was a hell of a lot more than he’d offered seven years ago, and yet she still wanted more? From him?

Didn’t she realise he didn’t have any more to give?

Angelo sank onto the sand, his head in his hands. Yes, he realised hollowly, she did, and that was why she’d gone.

He didn’t know how long he sat there, unmoving, his mind retreating into numbness once more. Eventually he stirred, saw the sun was high overhead and realised he’d missed at least one, probably two, important meetings.

Resolutely he rose from the sand. He’d spent enough time thinking about Lucia. She didn’t want to have an affair? Fine, no problem. There were plenty of other women who did, and in any case he’d gone before without women or sex. Work—revenge—had been his companion, his lover, and it would be again.

He didn’t need Lucia.

Seeing her again, he acknowledged, learning about Angelica, all of it had weakened his resolve. Made him want things he knew he couldn’t have. That kind of life wasn’t for him, could never be for him. It was better this way. It would have to be. An hour later he was in the corporate offices of the Corretti Hotel, dressed in a designer suit of grey pinstriped silk, about to confirm a meeting with the shareholders of Luca Corretti’s fashion company, Corretti Designs. He’d been buying up stock in the company for several months now, quietly, unnoticed by the other shareholders and, it seemed, by even Luca himself. He didn’t have enough to stage a takeover like he had with the hotel, but with Luca absent he was going to take the opportunity to put a little pressure on the other shareholders. Hell, maybe they’d even agree to unseat Luca and make him CEO. He already had the hotel after all. It would bring him one step closer to his ultimate revenge.

It was time to think about business—and stop thinking about Lucia, or love. This was why he’d returned to Sicily, what he’d always wanted. His face now set into familiar harsh lines of determination, Angelo reached for the phone.

CHAPTER EIGHT

SHE WAS DOING the right thing. Lucia repeated that to herself as she walked into the hotel on unsteady legs, everything around her a blur. She was doing the right thing. Leaving Angelo, refusing his offer, was the right choice. It had to be, because if one night had nearly felled her seven years ago, what would a week do now? A month? However long Angelo decided he wanted to be with her, all on his terms. I don’t want