CHAPTER TWO
Seven years later
‘SHE MIGHT NOT COME.’
Marco Ferranti turned from the window and his indifferent perusal of Palermo’s business district with a shrug. ‘She might not.’ He glanced at the lawyer seated behind the large mahogany desk and then strode from the window, every taut, controlled movement belying the restlessness inside him.
‘She didn’t come to her mother’s funeral,’ the lawyer, Roberto di Santis, reminded him cautiously.
Marco’s hands curled into fists and he unclenched them deliberately before shoving them into the pockets of his trousers and turning to face the man. ‘I know.’
Violet Rocci had died three years ago; cancer had stalked her and killed her in a handful of months. Sierra had not come back for her mother’s illness or funeral, despite Arturo’s beseeching requests. She had not even sent a letter or card, much to her father’s sorrow. The last time Marco had seen her had been the night before their wedding, when he’d kissed her and felt her trembling, passionate response.
The next morning he’d waited at the front of the church of Santa Caterina for his bride to process down the aisle. And waited. And waited. And waited.
Seven years later he was still waiting for Sierra Rocci to show up.
The lawyer shuffled some papers before clearing his throat noisily. He was nervous, impatient, wanting to get the ordeal of Arturo Rocci’s will over with. He’d assured Marco it was straightforward if uncomfortable; Marco had seen the document himself, before Arturo had died. He knew what it said. He didn’t think Sierra did, though, and he grimly looked forward to acquainting her with its details.
Surely she would come?
Marco had instructed the lawyer to contact her personally. Marco had known where Sierra was for a while; about five years ago, when the first tidal wave of rage had finally receded to a mist, he’d hired a private investigator to discover her whereabouts. He’d never contacted her, never wanted to. But he’d needed to know where she was, what had happened to her. The knowledge that she was living a seemingly quiet, unassuming life in London had not been satisfying in the least. Nothing was.
‘She said she would come, didn’t she?’ he demanded, although he already knew the answer.
When di Santis had called her at her home, she’d agreed to meet here, at the lawyer’s office, at ten o’clock on June fifteenth. It was now nearing half past.
‘Perhaps we should just begin...?’
‘No.’ Marco paced the room, back to the window where he gazed out at the snarl of traffic. ‘We’ll wait.’ He wanted to see Sierra’s face when the will was read. He wanted to see the expression in her eyes as realisation dawned of how much she’d lost, how much she’d sacrificed simply to get away from him.
‘If it pleases you, signor,’ di Santis murmured and Marco did not bother to answer.
Thirty seconds later the outer door to the building opened with a telling cautious creak; di Santis’s assistant murmured something, and then a knock sounded on the office door.
Every muscle in Marco’s body tensed; his nerves felt as if they were scraped raw, every sense on high alert. It had to be her.
‘Signor di Santis?’ the assistant murmured. ‘Signorina Rocci has arrived.’
Marco straightened, forcing himself to relax as Sierra came into the room. She looked exactly the same. The same long, dark blond hair, now pulled back into a sleek chignon, the same wide blue-grey eyes. The same lush mouth, the same tiny, kissable mole at its left corner. The same slender, willowy figure with gentle curves that even now he itched to touch.
Desire flared through him, a single, intense flame that he resolutely quenched.
Her gaze moved to him and then quickly away again, too fast for him to gauge her expression. She stood straight, her shoulders thrown back, her chin tilted at a proud, almost haughty angle. And then Marco realised that she was not the same.
She was seven years older, and he saw it in the faint lines by her eyes and mouth. He saw it in the clothing she wore, a charcoal-grey pencil skirt and a pale pink silk blouse. Sophisticated, elegant clothing for a woman, rather than the girlish dresses she’d worn seven years earlier.
But the inner sense of stillness he’d always admired she still possessed. The sense that no one could touch or affect her. He’d been drawn to that, after the tempest of his own childhood. He’d liked her almost unnatural sense of calm, her cool purpose. Even though she’d only been nineteen she’d seemed older, wiser. And yet so innocent.
‘Signorina Rocci. I’m so glad you could join us.’ Di Santis moved forward, hands outstretched. Sierra barely brushed her fingertips with his before she moved away, to one of the club chairs. She sat down, her back straight, her ankles crossed, ever the lady. She didn’t look at Marco.
He was looking at her, his stare burning. Marco jerked his gaze from Sierra and moved back to the window. Stared blindly out at the traffic that crawled down the Via Libertà.
‘Shall we begin?’ suggested di Santis, and Marco nodded. Sierra did not speak. ‘The will is, in point of fact, quite straightforward.’ Di Santis cleared his throat and Marco felt his body tense once more. He knew just how straightforward the will was. ‘Signor Rocci, that is, your father, signorina—’ he gave Sierra an abashed smile that Marco saw from the corner of his eye she did not return ‘—made his provisions quite clear.’ He paused, and Marco knew he was not relishing the task set before him.
Sierra sat with her hands folded in her lap, her chin held high, her gaze direct and yet giving nothing away. Her face looked like a perfect icy mask. ‘Could you please tell me what they are, Signor di Santis?’ she asked when di Santis seemed disinclined to continue.
The sound of her voice, after seven years’ silence, struck Marco like a fist to the gut. Suddenly he was breathless. Low, musical, clear. And yet without the innocent, childish hesitation of seven years ago. She spoke with an assurance she hadn’t possessed before, a confidence the years had given her, and somehow this knowledge felt like an insult, a slap in his face. She’d become someone else, someone stronger perhaps, without him.
‘Of course, Signorina Rocci.’ Di Santis gave another apologetic smile. ‘I can go through the particulars, but in essence your father left the bulk of his estate and business to Signor Ferranti.’
Marco swung his gaze to her pale face, waiting for her reaction. The shock, the regret, the acknowledgement of her own guilt, the realisation of how much she’d chosen to lose. Something.
He got nothing.
Sierra merely nodded, her face composed, expressionless. ‘The bulk?’ she clarified quietly. ‘But not all?’
At her question Marco felt a savage stab of rage, a fury he’d thought he’d put behind him years ago. So she was going to be mercenary? After abandoning her family and fiancé, offering no contact for seven long years despite her parents’ distress and grief and continued appeals, she still wanted to know how much she’d get.
‘No, not all, Signorina Rocci,’ di Santis said quietly. He looked embarrassed. ‘Your father left you some of your mother’s jewellery, some pieces passed down through her family.’
Sierra bowed her head, a strand of dark blond hair falling from her chignon to rest against her cheek. Marco couldn’t see her expression, couldn’t tell if she was overcome with remorse or rage at being left so little. Trinkets, Arturo had called them. A pearl necklace, a sapphire brooch. Nothing too valuable, but in his generosity Arturo had wanted his daughter to have her mother’s things.
Sierra raised her eyes and Marco saw that her eyes glistened with tears. ‘Thank you,’ she said quietly. ‘Do you have them here?’
‘I do...’ Di Santis fumbled for a velvet pouch on his desk. ‘Here they are. Your father left them into my safekeeping a while ago, when he realised...’ He trailed off, and Sierra made no response.
When he realised he was dying, Marco filled in silently. Had the woman no heart at all? She seemed utterly unmoved by the fact that both her parents had died in her absence, both their hearts broken by their daughter’s running away. The only thing that had brought her to tears was knowing she’d get nothing more than a handful of baubles.
‘They won’t be worth much, on the open market,’ Marco said. His voice came out loud and terse, each word bitten off. Sierra’s gaze moved to him and he felt a deep jolt in his chest at the way she looked at him, her gaze opaque and fathomless. As if she were looking at a complete stranger, and one she was utterly indifferent to.
‘Is there anything else I need to know?’ Sierra asked. She’d turned back to the lawyer, effectively dismissing Marco.
‘I can read the will in its entirety...’
‘That won’t be necessary.’ Her voice was low, soft. ‘Thank you for my mother’s jewels.’ She rose from the chair in one elegantly fluid movement, and Marco realised she was leaving. After seven years of waiting, wondering, wanting a moment where it all finally made sense, he got nothing.
Sierra didn’t even look at him as she left the room.
* * *
Sierra’s breath came out in a shudder as she left the lawyer’s office. Her legs trembled and her hands were clenched so tightly around the little velvet pouch that her knuckles ached.
It wasn’t until she was out on the street that her breathing started to return to normal, and it took another twenty minutes of driving out of Palermo, navigating the endless snarl of traffic and knowing she’d left Marco Ferranti far behind, before she felt the tension begin to unknot from her shoulders.
The busy city streets gave way to dusty roads that wound up to the hill towns high above Palermo, the Mediterranean glittering blue-green as she drove towards the Nebrodi mountains, and the villa where her mother was buried. When di Santis had rung her, she’d thought about not going to Sicily at all, and then she’d thought about simply going to his office and returning to London on the very same day. She had nothing left in Sicily now.
But then she’d reminded herself that her father couldn’t hurt her any longer, that Sicily was a place of ghosts and memories, and not of threats. She’d forgotten about Marco Ferranti.
A trembling laugh escaped her as she shook her head wryly. She hadn’t forgotten about Marco; she didn’t think she could ever do that. She’d simply underestimated the effect he’d have on her after seven years of thankfully numbing distance.
When she’d first caught sight of him in the office, wearing an expensive silk suit and reeking of power and privilege, looking as devastatingly attractive as he had seven years ago but colder now, so much colder, her whole body had trembled. Fortunately she’d got herself under control before Marco had swung that penetrating iron-grey gaze towards her. She had forced herself not to look at him.
She had no idea how he felt about her seven years on. Hatred or indifference, did it really matter? She’d made the right decision by running away the night before her wedding. She’d never regret it. Watching from afar as Marco Ferranti became more ingrained in Rocci Enterprises, always at her father’s side and groomed to be his next-in-line, told her all she needed to know about the man.
The road twisted and turned as it climbed higher into the mountains, the air sharper and colder, scented with pine. The hazy blue sky she’d left in Palermo was now dark with angry-looking clouds, and when Sierra parked the car in front of the villa’s locked gates she heard a distant rumble of thunder.
She shivered slightly even though the air was warm; the wind was picking up, the sirocco that blew from North Africa and promised a storm. The pine trees towered above her, the mountains seeming to crowd her in. She’d spent most of her childhood at this villa, and while she’d loved the beauty and peace of its isolated position high above the nearest hill town, the place held too many hard memories for her to have any real affection for it.
Standing by the window as dread seeped into her stomach when she saw her father’s car drive up the winding lane. Fear clenching her stomach hard as she heard his thunderous voice. Cringing as she heard her mother’s placating or pleading response. No, she definitely didn’t have good memories of here.
But she wouldn’t stay long now. She’d see her mother’s grave, pay her respects and then return to Palermo, where she’d booked into a budget hotel. By this time tomorrow she’d be back in London, and she’d never come to Sicily again.
Quickly, Sierra walked along the high stone wall that surrounded the estate. She knew the property like her own hand; she and her mother had always stayed here until Arturo called them into service, to play-act at being the perfect family for various engagements or openings of the Rocci hotels that now graced much of the globe. Her mother had lived for her husband’s summons; Sierra had dreaded them.
Away from the road she knew the wall had crumbled in places, creating a gap low enough for her to climb over. She doubted her father had seen to repairs in the last seven years; she wondered if he’d come to the villa at all. He’d preferred to live his own life in Palermo except when he needed his wife and daughter to play at happy families for the media.
She stepped into the shelter of a dense thicket of pine trees, the world falling to darkness as the trees overhead shut out any remnant of sunlight. Thunder rumbled again, and the branches snagged on her silk blouse and narrow skirt, neither a good choice for walking through woods or climbing walls.
After a few moments of walking she came to a crumbled section of wall and with effort, thanks to her pencil skirt, she managed to clamber over it. Sierra let out a breath of relief and started towards the far corner of the estate, where the family cemetery was located.
She skirted the villa, not wanting to attract attention to herself; she had no idea if anyone was in residence. Arturo had installed a housekeeper when she’d lived here with her mother, a beady-eyed old woman who had been her father’s henchman and spy. If she was still here, Sierra had no wish to attract her attention.
In the distance the ghostly white marble headstones of the Rocci family plot appeared through the stormy gloom like silent, still ghosts, and Sierra’s breath caught in her throat as she approached. She knew where her mother’s marker lay, in the far corner; it was the only one that hadn’t been there when she’d left.
Violet Rocci, Beloved Wife
She stared at the four words written starkly on the tombstone until they blurred and she blinked back tears. Beloved mother, yes, but wife? Had her father loved her mother at all? Sierra knew Violet believed so, but Sierra wanted to believe love was better and bigger than that. Love didn’t hurt, didn’t punish or belittle. She wanted to believe that, but she didn’t know if she could. She certainly had no intention of taking the risk of finding out for herself.
‘Ti amo, Mamma,’ she whispered, and rested her hand on top of the cool marble. She’d missed her mother so much over these past seven years. Although she’d written Violet a few letters over the years, her mother had discouraged contact, fearing for Sierra’s safety. The few letters she’d had were precious and all too rare, and had stopped completely well before Violet’s illness.
She drew a deep breath and willed the tears away. She wouldn’t cry now. There had been enough sadness already. Another deep breath and her composure was restored, as she needed it to be. Cloak herself in coolness, keep the feelings at bay. She turned away from the little cemetery plot and started walking back towards her car. She hoped Violet Rocci was at peace now, safe from her husband’s cruelty. It was the smallest comfort, but the only one she could cling to now.
Thunder rumbled and forked lightning split the sky as the first heavy raindrops fell. Sierra ducked her head and started hurrying back to the section of wall she’d climbed over. She didn’t want to be caught in a downpour, and neither did she relish the drive back down the steep mountain roads in this weather.
She climbed over the wall and hurried through the stand of pines, the branches snagging on her blouse and hair as the rain fell steadily, soaking her. Within seconds her pink silk blouse was plastered to her skin and her hair fell out of its chignon in wet rat’s tails.
She cursed under her breath, thankful to emerge from the trees, only to have her insides freeze as she caught sight of a second car, a dark SUV, parked behind her own. As she came onto the road the door to the car opened, and an all too familiar figure emerged.
Marco Ferranti strode towards her, his white dress shirt soon soaked under the downpour so every well-defined muscle was outlined in glorious detail. Sierra flicked her gaze upwards, but the anger she saw snapping in his eyes, the hard set of his mouth and jaw, made her insides quell and she looked away. The rain was sheeting down now and she stopped a few feet from him, sluicing rainwater from her face.
‘So.’ Marco’s voice was hard, without a shred of warmth. ‘What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing here?’