He spoke to Luc in rapid Italian that Lia had no hope of following. Luc had been teaching her, but this was too fast. Luc snapped a curt answer, and the man replied with another torrent of Italian.
Luc’s eyes were blank, but she could sense that he was on the point of losing his own temper. He waited until the man had finished, then replied in clipped tones. He finally nodded, slipped his arm around Lia’s waist, and led her away.
“Who was that?” Lia peeked over her shoulder to see the man still watching them through narrowed eyes.
“My mother’s husband.”
“He’s your stepfather?”
“Yes.” He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “She married him after she returned to Italy, but we really don’t have that sort of relationship. He was the lawyer she hired to get me out of prison. He overturned the case, but he never approved of me.”
“He seemed angry. What was he saying?”
“Nothing.”
“It didn’t sound like nothing.”
“It was nothing important. Nothing that should bother you. Come on, we’re leaving.”
He smiled at her, but for Lia the day was spoiled. She didn’t understand what was going on, and the fact that Luc wouldn’t explain increased her misgivings. Why had Luc’s stepfather been so angry? She knew they had been talking about her.
She’d spent the week ignoring the difficult questions she knew still existed between them, pushing unpleasant thoughts to the back of her mind, but they were still there. And the realization made her feel uneasy, as though things were fragile and could fall apart at any moment. A wave of panic threatened to topple her perfect dream world. She didn’t want it to end. She didn’t want to go back to real life.
A life without Luc.
…
Luc was distracted, almost distant, and that night his lovemaking held a hint of desperation she had never noticed before. The next morning, she woke to the sound of a helicopter landing. Luc was fully dressed, sitting on the edge of the bed. He took her hand.
“I have to go to Rome,” he said.
“What?” She sat up, pulling the sheet against her naked breasts. Her brain was befuddled from sleep. “Why? Can I come?”
He shook his head. “I have some business I need to see to, and you would be bored. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
He kissed her, and Lia clung to him for a brief moment. She let him go and watched him walk away.
…
She spent the morning sunbathing. When she heard the helicopter landing, she pulled on a robe and went running, expecting Luc to step out from it. Instead, a tall, elegant woman strolled across the tarmac toward her. Two men in dark suits, who could only be bodyguards, flanked her.
Lia stopped abruptly. The woman was beautiful, obviously Italian, and she knew instantly that she must be Luc’s mother. She forced herself to move toward her. After all, Maggie had said she was nice, friendly. Lia told herself she had nothing to fear, but glancing into the other woman’s face, she realized she looked anything but friendly—her face was cold and closed as she inspected Lia as though she was something unpleasant.
Lia had been holding out her hand to shake; now she dropped it to her side.
“Ms. Brent?”
Lia nodded.
“My name is Isabella Vittori. I am Luc’s mother.”
“Luc’s not here at the moment,” Lia said.
“I know. It is you I have come to speak to.”
“Do you want to come to the house?”
“No, this will not take long. Ms. Brent, I want you to leave my son alone.”
“What?” Lia asked, bewildered.
“It’s quite simple. I want you to pack your things and be gone before Luc returns.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Of course you can. I could not believe it when Stephano said he saw you yesterday. We read about you in the papers but did not believe for a moment that you would flaunt yourself in our faces in this way. Have you no shame?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Luc’s mother frowned. “You must know what your father was.”
“Yes, of course I know. But so does Luc. If it doesn’t bother him, why should you care? What can it possibly mean to you?”
Isabella was staring at Lia curiously. “You really don’t know, do you?”
Lia was engulfed in a horrible feeling of misgiving. She had an almost overwhelming urge to run and hide, anything to avoid what was coming next. There was a look of compassion in the other woman’s eyes. Somehow, it made Lia feel worse.
“No, you don’t know,” Isabella said softly. “But really, it makes no difference. What do you know?”