An Inheritance of Shame - By Kate Hewitt Page 0,54

the motivation. The revenge. The hard core of bitterness and anger Angelo would never relinquish. How could love flourish in such a heart? How could it even survive?

They’d reached Caltarione, and Angelo pulled up in front of her apartment. Tinny music and raucous laughter spilled out from the bar beneath. Lucia opened her eyes and saw Angelo staring straight ahead, his jaw bunched, his body tense.

‘I don’t even see why any of it matters,’ he said flatly. ‘It has nothing to do with us.’ Lucia just shook her head. She didn’t know how even to begin to explain. ‘Why does it bother you?’ he demanded, his voice harsh now. ‘It’s not as if any of the Correttis have ever done you a good turn, Lucia. Or as if you cared about them—did you?’ His voice hardened in suspicion, and Lucia turned to him slowly.

‘What are you saying?’ she asked in a low voice.

‘Why are you so defensive of the Correttis?’ Angelo challenged. ‘Did one of my half-brothers offer some comfort while I was away—maybe you wanted to be with a real Corretti—’

Lucia didn’t think. She just reacted, reaching out and slapping Angelo hard across the face. He blinked, and she watched an angry red handprint bloom across his cheek.

He reached up with one hand and touched his cheek, his expression one of cold disbelief. Lucia held her breath. She didn’t regret slapping him, not one bit, but she regretted everything else. This whole evening. This argument. The man he’d become.

Angelo held his hand up to his cheek, his expression coldly remote, and Lucia stared back, her chest heaving. Then his face crumpled and he covered it with both his hands as he let out a shuddering breath.

‘Dio, I’m sorry,’ he said, the words coming out on a half-groan. ‘How could I say such a thing to you? I didn’t believe it for a moment.’ He dropped his hands and looked at her with such aching bleakness that Lucia suddenly felt near tears herself. ‘Forgive me, Lucia. Forgive me for everything. I’m such a bastard—a true bastard, and not just one by birth. I’ve treated you terribly. I always have.’ He drew in a ragged breath. ‘I can’t do this.’

She reached out and cupped his cheek, the one still red from her slap. ‘You are doing it, Angelo. Just saying that is more than you’ve ever done before.’

He grimaced. ‘That’s not saying very much.’

‘Still.’ She tried to smile. ‘It’s something.’

Angelo stared at her, his eyes glittering, his chest heaving with ragged breaths. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ he said suddenly. ‘Out of Sicily. Being back here—it makes me someone I don’t want to be. Let me take you somewhere, Lucia—somewhere you’ve never been, away from all of this. Just for a little while.’

‘But my—’ She stopped, because she could not mistake the desperation in Angelo’s voice. She knew, in her own way, she’d been as stubborn as he was, refusing his gifts, refusing to change or even give an inch of her life over to this man. But maybe now they both needed compromise. Escape.

‘Please, Lucia.’

She smiled again and slowly leaned forward to kiss his lips. ‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘Let’s escape.’

CHAPTER ELEVEN

ANGELO GAZED AT Lucia sitting across from him in his private jet and smiled. He’d made the right decision, leaving Sicily for a little while. Escaping, just as Lucia had said. He’d hated how he felt there, trapped as the boy he’d once been, determined to prove himself yet still dismissed.

He remembered how Gio Corretti had turned away from him, indifferent, dismissive, and his heart burned inside him. Perhaps Gio would think differently when he took over another chunk of Corretti Enterprises. Last night, after he’d left Lucia, he’d put several meetings into place with various shareholders in Corretti Enterprises’s different interests. He might have to wait on Corretti Designs, but other companies under the Corretti umbrella were ripe for the taking. And he intended to take.

‘You’re frowning,’ Lucia said quietly, and he returned his distant gaze to her, taking in the blueness of her eyes, shadowed grey by a moment’s worry. She didn’t understand, Angelo knew. Didn’t share his need to equal the Correttis, to rise above them.

‘Sorry, I was lost in thought.’ He leaned forward to brush his lips against hers, all his plans for meetings and takeovers momentarily forgotten as her mouth met his. She tasted so unbearably sweet, and he longed to take her in his arms, to lose himself in her generous warmth. They’d hadn’t