LITMIR.BIZ

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impressed. ‘It is a known fact that life clings to life in times of tragedy,’ she persisted stubbornly. ‘I can understand it—even sympathise with it. I cannot imagine another situation in which the two of you could be thrown together again so powerfully. But you now have Father Michael waiting to talk to you and Angelo’s lawyer awaiting his turn. I am concerned about what it is you are planning to do.’

      There was a lot he could say in reply to this, but Luca’s attention was already fixed elsewhere. Throughout his mother’s very sensible lecture his eyes had followed the glowing crown of Shannon’s head as she moved amongst the darker heads clustered at the other end of the hall. He’d watched her pause, listen, accept embraces of sympathy, watched her pretend to sip at the glass of brandy she still held in her hand. She seemed fine, composed, coping admirably—yet a niggling sensation was clawing at his instincts.

      ‘Luca, please listen to me,’ his mother urged anxiously. ‘I don’t want to see the two of you hurt each other again!’

      His eyelashes gave a reluctant flicker as he made himself look away from Shannon and into his mother’s worried face. Lifting his hands to cover his mother’s fingers where they rested against his chest, he drew them to his lips to kiss them gently, then firmly lowered them to her sides. ‘I love you,’ he told her gently. ‘It breaks my heart that you let yourself worry about me. But we are going to have to finish this later, mi amore …’

      Because something more urgent was tugging at him. And to lift his gaze back to the spot where he had last seen Shannon only to discover he couldn’t see that distinctive flame head of hers anywhere turned that tug into a roar that had him striding away, passing by the tall, slender figure of Father Michael and the more rotund Emilio Lorenzo without even seeing them.

      Where did she go—?

      Shannon had opened the door and slipped quietly inside the Salvatore library with its beautiful pale wood-panelled walls and light blue furnishings, and ornately corniced bookcases filled with rows of priceless books. It was quiet in here, and so free of other people that her shoulders dipped in relief. Luca had hustled her into thinking when she did not want to think. Now she had an ache building behind her eyes that was promising to develop into a blinding headache if she didn’t snatch a few minutes to herself.

      At first she walked across to the window to stare out at the gardens laid out with classical Italian formality and awash with the yellow and purple heads of the season’s first spring flowers. There was a moment when she was tempted to open one of the French doors and step out onto the terrace to breathe in some fresh air. But the greyness of the day warned her it was cold out there, and instead she turned to face the room again and was drawn towards the huge white marble fireplace where a burning log fire sent out flickering fingers of inviting warmth.

      She was about to sit down in one of the winged chairs flanking the fire when she saw the row of silver framed pictures standing on the mantel top. Her heart gave a pained little flutter as she put down her glass on a small table, then went to study each picture in turn.

      They were all there in their wedding finery and standing beneath the same stone archway to the same church they had visited today. Renata with Tazio, Sophia with Carlo—even Mrs Salvatore stood with her handsome husband whom Shannon had never been fortunate enough to meet, but she still knew that if he’d walked by her in the street she would have known who he was because Luca looked so much like him.

      And then there was the picture of Angelo and Keira. Reaching up with fingers that weren’t quite steady, she gently floated them over the faces of these two happy people she would never see smile like this again. It came then, breaking free on an anguished sob followed by another and another that sent her sinking to her knees where she knelt, hugging herself as she rocked to and fro, pouring out everything she had been so staunchly holding in.

      The door flew open and a cluster of people came to a stunned halt in its opening. She didn’t know, had no idea that Luca had been causing quite a scene out there because he couldn’t locate her. She didn’t know that he’d found her until he was dropping to his knees in front of her and was uttering something thick and uneven as he gathered her up against him.

      ‘I can’t bear it, I can’t bear it,’ she could hear herself sobbing as he lowered his dark head over hers, and she could feel the tremors shaking him.

      Someone else uttered a broken sob and a different hand arrived at the base of her spine. It was Luca’s mother’s hand. Despite her concerns Mrs Salvatore was no match for the depth of Shannon’s broken-hearted grief. Tears thickened her voice as she offered words of comfort. Over by the door several others struggled to keep their tears in check.

      But it was Luca who held her, Luca’s composure she could feel tearing apart at its seams.

      ‘Idiota,’ he muttered as she buried her face in his throat and washed him with the deep, gulping agony of her tears. ‘I take my eyes off you for two short seconds and you disappear to do this! Why are you so stubborn?’ he demanded unevenly. ‘Why do you insist on believing you can carry all of this grief without help from me? Don’t I know better? Don’t you always fall apart eventually? When we are married I am going to shackle you to my side, then I will not need to—’

      ‘I am not marrying you,’ Shannon sobbed into his throat as a chorus of shocked gasps ran around the room. She didn’t hear them.

      Luca ignored them, his fingers dislodging the clip holding up her hair so the thick, flaming mass uncoiled over his fingers as he pressed her closer. ‘Yes you are,’ he gritted. ‘It is your fate—my fate.’

      ‘What are you are saying?’ It was Renata who spoke so scandalously.

      ‘Nothing you would not have heard by the end of today,’ he supplied while Shannon sobbed all the harder, and he wondered how long he had left before he joined her in all of this agony.

      ‘Then you are a fool!’

      ‘Si,’ he acknowledged. ‘Tazio, have Fredo bring the car to the door, if you please,’ he requested. ‘I am taking Shannon home.’

      He climbed abruptly to his feet with Shannon still clamped to the front of him. ‘Can you stand or do I carry you?’ he asked her.

      ‘I am not going to marry you.’ Shannon found strength from Renata’s dismay to lift her tear-washed face and burn the words up at him. ‘Look at those pictures, Luca—look!’ she insisted with a wave towards the mantel top. ‘They’re all happy to be marrying each other. Are we happy? Are they happy that you’re even thinking of marriage to me?’

      Luca did not look at the row of pictures on the mantel top or the real versions of those people who were clustered around the door. He looked at Shannon; he looked into Shannon. ‘Angelo and Keira will be happy for us,’ he stated. ‘Their daughter will be happy for us when we adopt her into our new family. And you’re—’

      Shannon’s heart leapt to her throat, ‘Don’t you dare say it!’ she choked out. ‘I’m not—’

      ‘Already pregnant with our own precious child?’

      The next mass gasp was followed by a comprehensive silence. Mrs Salvatore’s hand still lay against Shannon’s back, but it was removed jerkily.

      ‘How could you?’ Shannon whispered.

      ‘It was surprisingly easy,’ Luca mocked her with a look. ‘Are you now going to make Renata’s wishes come true and make a fool of me again?’

      Well, are you? Shannon was forced to ask herself. She looked into the wry, slightly rueful face of this man she had loved for so long she couldn’t remember when she began loving him, and thought—No, I won’t do it again.

      Her tears cleared away, her shaky composure slipped quietly back into place. Moistening her trembling lips, she turned in the circle of his arms and faced this family she had once felt such a welcome part of but now—

      ‘Luca and I are getting married,’ she announced in a voice that refused not to shake.

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