LITMIR.BIZ

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on her to listen in grim silence to whatever it was Marco was asking him. The poor devil sounded harassed and bone weary. Luca knew both feelings. Shannon still hovered in the archway; he wondered what she wanted.

      ‘Just leave it for tonight, Marco,’ he commanded quietly. ‘The business is not going to go down the tubes if you go home and get some sleep.’

      He ended the call and dropped the phone onto his jacket, then had to flex his shoulders before he could bring himself to turn and face Shannon again.

      She blinked at the toughness hardening his features. ‘I’m sorry to intrude,’ she apologised stiffly. ‘But we left my shopping in the car and I need to hang up my suit …’

      He sighed at the stupid oversight and the pendulum swing of his emotions took yet another violent swerve. What kind of selfish bastard was he to be adding to her stress at a time like this?

      Misreading the reason for his sigh, she walked towards him with her hand outstretched. ‘If you let me have your car keys I’ll go and collect the bags myself.’

      Let her loose in a basement car park at this time of the night dressed like this? ‘Not while I still breathe,’ he hissed, making her frown because she didn’t understand.

      And he was not going to enlighten her.

      ‘I’ll go,’ was all he said, and turned to get his wallet and car keys from where he’d placed them on the table by the lift.

      She was waiting at her bedroom door when he came back with her shopping bags.

      ‘Thank you.’ She took them from him.

      ‘Prego,’ he replied.

      She took a step back, and closed the door in his face.

      A sudden blistering urge to push the damn door open again and have this out almost had him doing just that. Then common sense arrived and along with it a burst of frustration, which had him aiming a clenched fist that didn’t quite land on the oak panelling.

      Then he went back to his own room to fester in silence.

      While Shannon threw herself down on the bed to cry her eyes out again.

      She hated him but she loved him and that was her toughest problem—she loved, loved—loved the brute!

      The next day was a day Shannon hoped she would never have to endure again. From the moment she donned the black outfit the full weight of what she was about to face took her deep, deep inside herself.

      She met Luca in the foyer. A fleeting glance at him standing there in his sombre black suit, white shirt and black tie, his lean face drawn into a pale grey mask of steely composure, and she knew he was feeling the same way she did. He studied her briefly, taking in her own waxen composure before he enquired expressionlessly if she was ready to leave.

      Fredo drove them in a black limousine that made no attempt to disguise what it was. Even the day had decided to wear a grey cloud cast as if it knew that this was not a day to fill with warm sunlight.

      They didn’t talk; both had their faces half turned to the car’s side windows, preferring to remain sunk into their own bleak thoughts.

      They barely touched unless Luca was taking her arm to politely help her in or out of the car.

      They arrived at his mother’s house to find that the whole vast and scattered Salvatore family had congregated. Everyone was subdued, grave, but kind and sympathetic towards Shannon, which was nice of them given their knowledge of her past relationship with Luca—not that anyone but the closest family members knew what had happened, only that they’d parted under bitter circumstances. But still, Shannon appreciated their willingness to put all of that aside for today at least—though some could not help throwing curious glances at herself and Luca, who was never more than a step away from her side, though they did not acknowledge each other’s presence.

      From the moment they stepped out of the house everything took on a bleak, dreamlike quality that led them frame by agonising frame through the ensuing hours. Mrs Salvatore was bereft. Each time she broke down the whole sombre gathering felt its rippling effect. And it was heartrending to watch her cling to her surviving son as if she was afraid to let go in case he was lost to her too.

      Renata and Sophia clung to their husbands, Tazio and Carlo. One sister was older than her surviving brother, the other slotting in between Luca and Angelo. Both were stunningly beautiful, as were all the Salvatores, and their two men had been picked to complement their outstanding looks and great name.

      Shannon clung to no one, though she knew that Luca somehow always managed to keep himself within arm’s reach of her just in case she broke down, but she didn’t; she just kept her head lowered and did her grieving silently beneath her black lace veil.

      She almost cracked at her first sighting of the two flower-decked coffins. And again later when she stepped into the church and was shocked by how many more people there were packed into it. Friends and colleagues, she presumed, most of whom were strangers to her but not to Angelo and Keira. In her heart all these people represented life surrounding the tragic couple as they made their journey to their final resting place.

      She didn’t shed tears throughout the service. She didn’t do anything other than go where she was instructed to go, sit, stand, kneel, wait—follow. The waxen mask of her composure took its worst beating during the graveside ceremony. Mrs Salvatore almost collapsed and Luca had to support her in both his arms. Sophia wept, Renata wept, the whole flower-bedecked site seemed to rock beneath the rolling weight of everyone’s grief.

      Afterwards they made the journey to the Salvatore family villa set high above Florence on the outskirts of Fiesole. It was a beautiful place steeped in the fabulous trappings of wealth collected over centuries and surrounded by the most exquisite gardens big enough to lose yourself in. It was a place used by all factions of the Salvatore family for throwing extravagant parties. Today it became a place shrouded in sorrow, where the whole congregation gathered to pay their respects to the family.

      Mrs Salvatore was led away to her private apartments so she could have a few minutes to compose herself. Luca, his two sisters and their husbands took up the role of hosts as the many formal reception rooms began to fill with black-clad sombre people and sober-dressed serving staff that mingled amongst them carrying white-linen-covered silver trays holding a choice of refreshment.

      And Shannon had never felt so lost and alone in her entire life as she did as she wandered aimlessly from room to room, smiling politely at those who offered her their sympathy and murmuring all the right phrases in response, but she felt strange inside, oddly out of place as if she did not belong here and she knew why she felt that way.

      She had just buried her sister, yet she felt as if her right to grieve had been hijacked by this great, heaving wave of Salvatore grief. It was silly, selfish and unfair of her to think this way, but telling herself that did not remove the feeling. Everyone spoke in Italian and she wanted to speak English. She wanted to remember her sister in their own language and scream at the top of her voice—Let me have my sister back!

      Someone caught her arm as she was stepping out of one room into another and she was hustled into a quiet alcove set into the side of the grand staircase. Luca loomed over her like a dark shadow.

      ‘The British stiff upper lip is still in use, I see,’ he drawled sardonically.

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      IF HE only knew what was going on inside her head, Shannon thought. ‘I didn’t see you showing signs of letting your composure crack,’ she countered distantly.

      ‘It is cracked inside—bleeding, in fact.’ Luca surprised her with the gruff admission. ‘Here, drink some of this,’ he said and put a glass in her hand.

      ‘What is it?’ she asked suspiciously.

      ‘Brandy. It might help warm you up. You look in danger of turning into an ice sculpture.’

      She drank some of the brandy and was

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