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

‘Luciano…’ his mother pleaded.

‘No, Mamma, I will not change my mind. I am sorry to bring you shame by not having a traditional wedding, but you and Dad have chosen to keep Skye alienated, and as long as she remains this woman or that woman to you, I won’t let you near her to plan a wedding or anything else.’

‘She has to do it for you or you will be an outcast, Luciano,’ came the fierce rejoinder. ‘If she loves you…’

‘Skye always loved me. And was put through hell for it. Because of any lack of caring from this family, she brought up our son alone. I need to prove my love for her, not the other way around, Mamma.’

‘There was caring,’ she argued. ‘Your father set up a trust fund.’

‘Which was not administered as it should have been.’ He swung a hard gaze to his father. ‘Right, Dad?’

‘The intention was there,’ he tersely countered.

‘The intention to keep Skye and my son at a distance. Which you’re still doing, regardless of how I feel about it.’

His father threw up his hands in exasperation. ‘You were in shock at learning what was done for your own good. Making rash judgements. But to persist in this folly…to turn your back on your family…’

‘A family that deceived me? Robbed me of five years of my son’s life?’

‘Stop!’ his mother cried vehemently. ‘You are like two bulls locking horns and I will not have it. There is the child to consider, Maurizio. He is our only grandchild.’

‘There is Skye to consider, as well, Mamma. I will not let Matt near anyone who doesn’t treat his mother with the respect she deserves. He’s a happy little boy, very much due to his mother’s caring, and I don’t want any shadow put on his life. He knows nothing but love…’

‘You think I won’t love him?’ his mother cried in obvious angst at the prospect of being kept from the only grandchild she had.

‘I doubt that ignoring and disapproving of his mother will seem like love to Matt. He’s a very bright, intelligent child.’ Luc couldn’t resist proudly adding, ‘He could read books, even before he went to school.’

‘You hear that, Maurizio? This child you thought would be no good? At five years of age he can read!’

‘And he shot more goals at soccer this year than any other boy on his team,’ Luc went on, deliberately rubbing in what his father was missing—the game of soccer being one of his passions, as it was with most Italians.

‘It is as well you find some joy in the boy because you will find none in this marriage,’ his father thundered, refusing to be moved from his stance.

‘You’re wrong, Dad,’ Luc said quietly. ‘I feel alive with Skye. She fills the emptiness I’ve known for far too long.’

‘There will be an even greater emptiness when you find yourself ostracised from all the Italian families.’

It would happen, too. His father would make it happen. A line would be drawn, with no crossing over from either side. He remembered the conversation with Skye when she’d said they were prisoners of their backgrounds and he’d expressed a wish to be free of the oppressive constriction of his. She hadn’t believed him—it wasn’t how he was acting—and he realised now why she’d hung back from committing herself to marrying him.

Because he’d been still hanging on, working for the Peretti Corporation, maintaining at least that professional link, hoping for a change of attitude, a change of heart from his parents, wanting an acceptance of his reality, thinking he could force an acceptance— blindly tied to bonds that had to be broken, proving to Skye he was truly free of them.

An act of love for an act of faith.

He looked at his father who’d ruled so much of his life, but would rule no more. ‘My resignation will be on your desk Monday morning, Dad. Effective immediately.’

‘You can’t do that!’ he blustered, clearly appalled by this decision and seizing on a cogent argument against it. ‘You’re under contract for the resort in Far North Queensland.’

‘Then I’m giving notice that this will be the last contract I’ll work on. As soon as it’s done…’

‘You’ll give up everything for this woman?’ he yelled, his face reddening with the intensity of his outrage.

Yes, he would.

He’d told Skye he would.

It was well past time he did it.

He shook his head over his father’s total lack of understanding of what Skye gave him. There was no point in trying to explain what wouldn’t be heard anyway. He simply said, ‘I just won’t be held by your expectations of me any longer. Your father emigrated to Australia on his own to build a new life for himself, Dad. I can make a new life elsewhere, too.’

‘No! No! You must stop this!’ his mother broke in again. ‘You men and your headstrong pride! You are breaking my heart! Both of you!’ She dropped back into her armchair, slumping over, her hands pressed to her chest.

‘See what you’ve done? Upsetting your mother?’ His father bellowed at him, striding over to the chair to put a comforting arm around her.

Emotional blackmail.

The weeping and wailing would start any second.

‘I’m sorry, Mamma, but this situation was not of my making,’ Luc said, softening his tone while still holding to his own determination. ‘We all have choices.’ He cast one last look at his father to state unequivocally, ‘I’ve made mine.’

Then he walked out.

Out of the drawing room.

Out of the multi-million dollar mansion.

Out of the lives of his parents.

He could start a new life elsewhere.

And he would.

His own family, making their own friends, completely free of the past.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

IT WAS there again!

Skye’s heart skipped a beat at the sight of the black limousine, parked directly across the street from her house, as it had been each afternoon for the past three days.

Her last client of the day noticed it, too—so totally out of place in this neighbourhood. As out of place as Luc’s red Ferrari! ‘Is there a wedding?’ she asked, trying to find an explanation for its presence.

‘I don’t know,’ Skye answered.

Her client shrugged, stepped off the front porch and headed towards the gate. The limousine had nothing to do with her. Skye couldn’t feel quite so dismissive of it. The tinted windows made it impossible to see if anyone was seated inside the car, but she felt as though she was being watched.

She quickly shut the door, wishing her anxious tension could be blocked out as easily as the limousine which she found increasingly disturbing. Luc was away this week, having flown up to Cairns in far north Queensland for on-site meetings about a new project. His father would know that. Was someone from the Peretti family behind those tinted windows, looking for ammunition that could be used against her?

There was none.