He nodded tersely. ‘Yes. Then.’
But she felt he wasn’t telling her the whole truth. ‘What happened to you after your mother’s death? Did you live with your father?’
‘No, he wasn’t around.’ Luca expelled a low breath. ‘I went into foster care, and managed to secure a scholarship to a boarding school in Rome. It saved me, lifted me up from the gutter, but not everyone liked that fact. I stayed on my own.’
It sounded like a terribly lonely childhood. Even though she’d lost her father, Hannah was grateful for the fifteen years of happy memories that he’d given her. ‘How did your mother die?’ she asked.
He let out a long, weary sigh and tilted his head towards the sky. ‘She killed herself.’
Startled, Hannah stared at him in horror. ‘Oh, but that’s terrible—’
‘Yes, but I could understand why she did it. Life had become unendurable.’
‘But you were only fourteen—’
‘I think,’ Luca said slowly, still staring at the starlit sky, ‘when you feel that trapped and desperate and sad, you stop thinking about anything else. You can’t reason your way out of it. You can only try to end the sadness.’
Tears stung Hannah’s eyes at the thought. ‘You have great compassion and understanding, to be able to think that.’
‘I’ve never been angry with her,’ Luca answered flatly. He lowered his head to gaze out at the sea, washed in darkness. ‘She was a victim.’
‘And were you a victim?’ Hannah asked. She felt as if she were feeling her way through the dark, groping with her words, trying to shape an understanding out of his reluctant half-answers.
‘No, I’ve never wanted to think of myself as victim. That ends only in defeat.’
‘I suppose I felt the same,’ Hannah offered cautiously. ‘My father’s death left my mother in a difficult situation, and I wanted to make sure I never ended up that way as an adult.’
He gave her a swift, searching glance. ‘Is that why you agreed with me that relationships aren’t worth it?’
‘I only said maybe,’ Hannah reminded him. ‘But yes, that has something to do with it.’ She thought of Jamie’s father and felt a lump form in her throat. She’d moved on from her grief years ago, but opening those old wounds still hurt, still made her wonder and regret. If she’d done something differently...if she’d handled their last argument better... ‘When you lose someone,’ she said, ‘you don’t feel like taking the chance again.’
‘But he was your father, not a boyfriend or husband.’
‘I lost one of those too,’ Hannah admitted. ‘A boyfriend, not a husband.’ They’d never got that far. They’d never had the chance. And she had to believe that they would have, if Ben hadn’t died. That he would have changed his mind, she would have had a second chance.
‘When?’
‘Almost six years ago.’
Luca turned to her, the moonlight washing half his face in lambent silver. ‘You bear your sorrows so well. You don’t look like someone haunted by grief.’
‘I’m not,’ Hannah answered staunchly. ‘I choose not to be.’ Even if it was hard, a choice she had to make every day not to wallow in grief and regret.
‘That’s a strong choice to make.’
‘It hasn’t always been easy,’ Hannah allowed. ‘And I can’t say I haven’t had my moments of self-pity or evenings alone with a tub of mint-chocolate-chip ice cream,’ she added. ‘But I try not to wallow.’
His mouth twisted wryly. ‘Is that what you think I’m doing? Wallowing?’
Horrified, Hannah clapped a hand to her mouth. ‘Luca, no—’
‘No, it is.’ He cut her off. ‘And I despise myself for it. I thought I could come here and stare Andrew Tyson in the face. I thought I could smile and shake the man’s hand and feel nothing, because I’d schooled myself to feel nothing for so long. But I can’t. I can’t.’ His voice broke on a ragged gasp and he dropped his head in his hands. ‘I don’t want to feel this,’ he muttered. ‘I don’t want to be enslaved by something that happened so long ago. I wanted this to be a clean slate, a second chance—’ He drew in a ragged breath, his head in his hands, and Hannah did the only thing she could, the only thing she felt she could do in that moment. She hugged him.
She wrapped her arms around him, pressing her cheek into his back, trying to imbue him with her comfort. ‘Oh, Luca,’ she whispered. ‘Luca.’
He went rigid underneath her touch but she hung on anyway. Luca could be as strong and stoic as he liked, but he still needed comfort, and in that moment she was determined to give it to him.
He reached up to grip her wrists that were locked across his chest as if he’d force her away from him, but he didn’t.
‘Why are you so kind?’ he demanded in a raw mutter.
‘Why are you so afraid of kindness?’ Hannah returned softly.
He turned, his hands still on her wrists, and for a second she thought he would reject her offer of comfort and push her away, but then his features twisted and with a muttered curse he reached for her instead.
Their mouths met and clashed and the fierce desire to comfort him turned into something far more primal and urgent. His hands were everywhere, clenching in her hair, stroking her back, cupping her breasts, and all the while his mouth didn’t leave hers.
They fell back on the sand in a tangle of limbs, and when Luca’s thumb brushed over the taut peak of her nipple Hannah arched into his hand, craving an even deeper caress.
She tore at his shirt, studs popping, desperate to feel his bare, glorious skin. She let out a gasp of pleasure and satisfaction when she finally parted the shirt and ran her palms along his hair-roughened chest, revelling in the feel of sculpted muscle and hot skin.
Luca’s breath came out in a hiss and then he was pulling at her dress, the gauzy folds tearing under his urgent touch, and Hannah didn’t even care.
‘Luca,’ she gasped, and it was both a demand and a plea. She needed to feel his hands on her body. She felt as if she’d explode if she didn’t. He pulled the tattered dress down to her waist, leaving her completely bare on top as she hadn’t worn a bra with the halter-style dress.
Then he bent his head to her breasts, his tongue now touching where his hands had been, and Hannah clutched his head to her, nearly sobbing in pleasure at the feel of him tasting her.
But even that wasn’t enough. She needed more from him, of him, and when his hand slipped under her bunched dress, his fingers deftly finding and stroking her centre, she thought she almost had it. The pleasure was so acute it was akin to pain, a sharp ache that left her gasping. She skimmed the length of his erection, sucking her breath in at the way his body throbbed in insistent response to her touch. She pulled at his trousers, fumbling with the ties of his cummerbund, and with a muttered oath Luca ripped it away from him and tossed it on the sand. Hannah let out a gurgle of laughter that he swallowed with his mouth as he kissed her again and she gave herself to him, offering everything as her hands clutched at his shoulders and her hips rocked against his.
‘Hannah,’ Luca muttered against her mouth. ‘Hannah, I need...’
‘Yes,’ she answered almost frantically. ‘Yes, please, Luca, now.’
She parted her legs as he fumbled with the zip on his trousers. She didn’t have a second to consider if this was a good idea, if she’d regret this afterwards. She couldn’t think past the haze of overwhelming need that consumed her.
Then Luca