His mouth ran dry. Wetting his lips with his tongue, he continued to scrutinise her.
She had changed so much. If he had crossed her in the street he would have likely not recognised her. This, undoubtedly, had been her intention.
He had almost disregarded the photo. It had been taken mere minutes after his men arrived and strategically placed themselves out of sight of her security cameras. She had left the house for a few moments to collect her post from the box at the bottom of her driveway, bundled up in a thick, shapeless coat. They had managed to fire off a couple of shots before she had gone back inside but only one had captured part of her face.
The angle of her head had caught his attention. As he’d studied it closely a flicker in his belly had ignited. It was Grace. It was the same angle she always tilted her head when thinking, the same angle she would strike when standing in front of a large canvas with a paintbrush in her mouth. Of course, in those days, her hair had been long. And blonde. Not the short, red pixie haircut she now sported. It was a style he should find abhorrent but on Grace he found strangely compelling. Sexy.
Very sexy.
‘How was I supposed to know you didn’t want to be found?’ he asked coolly. ‘You left without a word to me or anyone. You didn’t even have the courtesy to leave a note.’
‘I would have thought my silence made it clear.’
Her silence had spoken volumes. But how could he not search for her? He would have searched for ever.
This was the woman who had promised to love and honour him until death did they part, not until...
That was the precise problem. He had no idea why she had simply vanished from his life.
And he could hardly credit he was now standing less than ten feet from her.
‘You didn’t take any of your clothes.’ She hadn’t taken anything. She had gone for a walk on the estate, climbed over the fence that marked the perimeter and vanished.
‘Your goons would have been suspicious if I’d wandered through the vineyard with a ruddy great suitcase.’
Was that really sarcasm he detected in her voice? From Grace?
‘I knew you would try to find me. That’s why I have a gun—to stop you or your men from forcing me to return. Because I tell you now, I am not setting foot in Sicily again. So, unless you want to learn for yourself how good my aim is, I suggest you leave. And put your hands back up where I can see them.’
For a moment all he could do was stare in disbelief. ‘What the hell happened to you?’
This was not the happy-go-lucky artist he had known and loved, the woman who had always looked at him with such happiness. He had long been accustomed to women looking at him with lust—devotion even. No one could ever accuse Grace of something as insipid as devotion yet she was the only woman who had ever made him feel her world was a better, happier place just for him being in it. She was the only woman who had ever made his world a happier place for being in it.
By contrast, this woman’s eyes conveyed nothing but cold, hard contempt. It was like looking into the eyes of a stranger.
The wife he knew did not exist any more. Not for him. Maybe she was the same old Grace when in the company of friends. Maybe she could still warm a cold room with a smile.
But not for him.
Her icy voice broke through the sudden haze clouding his vision. ‘You know what they say: marry in haste, repent at leisure. Well, I have done nothing but repent since I left you.’
Long-ago uttered words floated back to him. ‘I love you more than anyone or anything. I belong to you, Luca. We belong to each other.’
His stomach heaved. He sucked in air through his nostrils, breathing deeply to quell the nausea lining his throat.
This was not his wife.
He should turn around and walk away but he deserved answers.
And he would have them. If he had to tie her to a chair for a month he would get the truth out of her.
‘I’ll ask you one more time—how did you find me?’ She repeated her earlier question through gritted teeth.
‘With the help of your friend’s phone.’
For the first time her composure dropped, her jaw slackening. ‘Cara?’
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t believe you. Cara would never betray me.’
‘She didn’t. Her phone did. You called her on it shortly after you left me.’
Her face whitened. ‘She would never have given it to you.’
‘No,’ he agreed, experiencing a surge of satisfaction at having broken through her cool façade. ‘I regret that underhand methods were used to obtain it from her, but once we had it in our possession it was simple enough to find your number and, from that, your location.’
He made it sound so straightforward. Instead, his initial jubilation at getting her number had been doused. Her network provider had no way of getting a fix on her—her phone was not being used, had likely been thrown away or destroyed. Another dead end. Or so it had seemed until a week ago when it had unexpectedly sprung back to life. Luckily, he’d paid someone from the network to keep a watch on the number in case a miracle occurred.
It seemed miracles did happen.
‘Does Cara know what you did?’
‘I don’t know.’ He didn’t care. What he did care about was the way Grace’s hands were shaking. Shaking hands and guns were not a good combination. ‘Give me the gun or put it down.’
‘No.’ She raised it higher, her eyes widening. ‘I’m not putting this down until you leave. Get out of my house.’
‘I’m not going anywhere, so you might as well put it down.’ He kept his tone calm and took a step towards her.
‘Get away from me,’ she said, stepping back, her voice rising. ‘Don’t come any closer.’
‘We both know you won’t shoot me.’ He lowered one of his raised hands and extended it towards her, the tips of his fingers closing in on the barrel of the gun.
‘I said get away from me!’ Her words came out as a screech and were immediately followed by the loud tone of his phone ringing out in his pocket.
Like a tightly coiled spring suddenly released, Grace jumped at the sound.
In the confines of the small cottage, the noise of the gun was deafening, loud enough to distract him from the bee sting on his right shoulder.
They stood in frozen silence until Grace’s chest shuddered and she dropped the gun to the stone floor. It landed with a loud clang, the only noise apart from the ringing in his ears.
He had only a snapshot of time to register her white-faced shock before the wet warmth on his shoulder demanded his attention. Pulling the top of his jacket aside, he winced as a burn of pain went through him. His disbelief at the red fluid seeping through his white shirt was nothing compared to his shock when he finally comprehended that the distant ringing in his ears was not an echo from the gunshot but the wails of a baby.
* * *
She had shot him.
Dear God, she had shot him.
Through her ringing ears she could hear Lily’s distant wails, a noise that seemed as far away as the moon.
She had shot him.
Her hand flew to her mouth and Grace could do nothing but stare at the blood seeping out of Luca’s right shoulder.
He stared back at her with a look that could only be described as stunned.
On legs