The Italian's Love-Child: The Italian's Stolen Bride / The Marchese's Love-Child / The Italian's Marriage Demand

The television was still playing cartoons. She found the remote control panel and turned it off. The abrupt fall of silence prompted her to wryly imagine a drum-roll, heralding curtain up. The stage had definitely been set. The waft of warm bread was enough to tease an appetite. No doubt Luc would set the ball rolling on action. What she had to do was catch the ball and direct some action herself.

‘Ready, Skye?’ he called from the kitchen.

‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘Do you need a hand with anything?’

‘No. I’m serving now. Go on out to the table and I’ll be with you in a minute.’

She did as he directed since it suited her, as well. The table was round, big enough to seat six, not so wide that sitting opposite each other was an awkward distance but wide enough to prevent any easy physical touching. As long as she sat down, she was safe.

Skye sat.

The bread was being kept warm under a tea-cloth. Their glasses were filled with wine. The salad and potatoes were handy for self-serving. Luc came striding out with their steaks on a plate, placing it on the centre of the table with a flourish, inviting her to help herself.

He sat down, grinning from ear to ear. ‘Isn’t this nice?’ he said.

It was…if the circumstances had been anywhere near normal. ‘Yes. Thank you,’ Skye replied, feeling swamped by the power of the man.

The dinner was irrelevant.

His eyes said he wanted to eat her up.

And in her heart of hearts, Skye knew she wanted to be eaten by Luc Peretti.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

SILENCE was the enemy. The romantic setting, Luc smiling at her, the sense of sharing an intimate dinner…silence seeded the longing to forget the lost years, forget what had parted them, slide back into that time of innocence when their joy in each other overwhelmed everything else, making the differences between them irrelevant.

Skye forced herself to plunge into conversation, instinctively targeting his family connection, needing to keep in the forefront of her mind why she couldn’t allow herself to be tempted into setting it aside.

‘What does your work entail these days, Luc?’ she asked, forcing herself into normal action as well, piling some salad and a couple of potatoes onto her plate.

‘Still designing buildings, though I’m now head of that department,’ he answered easily, waiting for her to finish serving herself before doing the same.

‘A fast rise,’ she commented. He’d been a junior architect in the Peretti Corporation six years ago.

‘I could say I had the talent and the brain for it,’ he drawled with arrogant confidence.

‘Not to mention being Maurizio Peretti’s oldest son.’

The good humour instantly left his face, his expression hardening into cold pride, his dark eyes sharply challenging. ‘You don’t think I’ve earned my place?’

It pulled Skye back from the black judgement she had made. Because his family had not been fair to her, was no reason why she shouldn’t be fair to Luc. ‘I think you’re capable of doing whatever you set out to do,’ she said slowly. ‘I just meant…well, you are tied to your father. Weren’t both you and Roberto educated and groomed to fit into the places he planned for you to take?’

Architecture, engineering…perfect for a business centred on property development.

‘I can’t answer for Roberto who may well have pursued what pleased my father,’ he said sardonically, ‘but I was always interested in design, Skye, and chose my own career.’

Yes, he would, she realised, just as he had chosen to continue a relationship with her, despite his parents’ disapproval. Only damning evidence of the worst infidelity she could have committed had stopped him. Luc was not his father’s tool, yet being so strongly connected to the family business did leave him vulnerable to manipulation, and blood ties were not easily broken.

He felt he’d earned his place, was proud of filling it, probably with distinction—an important cog in the Peretti wheel. He wouldn’t want to walk away from it. Skye suspected he’d fight to keep it, which could mean deadly conflict with his father who would definitely be opposed to the marriage Luc wanted. And she and Matt would be the meat in the sandwich.

Not a happy prospect.

‘I report to my father at boardroom meetings but I don’t work under him,’ Luc tossed at her to elucidate the situation. ‘I have autonomy within my department.’

‘Autonomy…’ Skye seized on that word as though it was a lifeline out of the frightening problems that had been whirling through her brain.

It meant Luc was his own boss. He couldn’t be manipulated where business judgements were concerned. And it was probably faulty reasoning to attach what had happened with the damning photographs to what might develop in his work situation. Emotional judgements were in a far more volatile territory.

‘I’m sorry for implying…you could be pushed around,’ she rushed out, suddenly feeling very much on the wrong foot. ‘I guess your father is…something of a bogey-man to me.’

His face relaxed, his eyes softening to sympathetic understanding. ‘I don’t live in my father’s pocket, Skye. He can’t buy me away from you and Matt.’

Embarrassment—or was it something else? A deep treacherous pleasure?—sent a flood of heat to her cheeks. The commitment—conviction—in his voice, the possessive warmth in his eyes, the unswerving sense of purpose engulfing her… Skye teetered on the edge of giving him her trust, wanting him to take care of everything: her, Matt, the future…

She barely brought herself back from the brink, finding a brittle escape in focusing on the food on her plate, telling herself to keep talking.

Silence was the enemy.

Luc was filling it with temptations.

She was not even clear on why she had to fight them any more.

‘What are you working on at the moment?’ she asked, hoping his answer would be long and distracting.

He obligingly described his current project. The company had bought up old boatyards along the harbour shore at Balmain and Luc was designing a new apartment complex to be built on the site. She listened to the pleasure and satisfaction in his voice as he explained what he wanted constructed and how it would take advantage of the view, as well as catering for every modern aspect of living in the city.

Clearly he enjoyed his work and the opportunity to have such lavish projects to work on. He might not recognise how deeply he was tied to the Peretti Corporation since it had always been there for him to step into, but Skye did.

Big money at his fingertips.

Big money to invest how he saw fit.

Big money to spend how he pleased in his private life, as well.

As long as he stayed where he belonged.

Or was that being unfair, too? Luc had more than enough driving force to succeed in establishing himself anywhere, in any company, or on his own. Why couldn’t she just accept that he didn’t live in his father’s pocket?

Because she couldn’t make the fear go away.

It was too deeply rooted in past pain.

‘Do you still live at Cronulla?’ she asked, needing to know if he’d continued living with his family in the incredibly luxurious horseshoe compound facing the waterfront there.

He shook his head. ‘Dad sold that place five years ago.’

The timing made Skye wonder if Maurizio Peretti had decided to shift his family right away from the neighbouring suburb of Caringbah where Luc’s illegitimate child was possibly far too close for comfort.