The Italian's Stolen Bride. Emma Darcy
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It wasn’t right.
Luc Peretti could only bring her more grief.
CHAPTER THREE
LUC barely controlled a burning rage as he drove up the grand carriage loop to the neo-Gothic mansion his father had bought at Bellevue Hill. Twenty million dollars he’d paid for it five years ago, and he could probably sell it for thirty now, given its heritage listing and commanding views of the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge.
Twenty million for a piece of personal property.
Next to nothing for a grandson!
Paid off, Roberto had said. That hadn’t added up to Luc when the private investigator had found Skye and her son living in a cheap rental at Brighton-Le-Sands. She hadn’t even completed her physiotherapy course, working as a masseur to make ends meet. No car. No credit rating. No evidence of a nest-egg account anywhere.
He’d wondered if she’d torn up his father’s cheque, scorning to take anything from a family who’d made her out to be little better than a whore. Her whole demeanour this afternoon had been stamped with steely pride, determined on rejecting anything he offered. Their child was her son. Hers alone. Sold to her for a thousand dollars—a measly thousand dollars!
Luc still could not bring himself to believe his father had paid her that sum for an abortion. Such an act was totally against Italian culture and Maurizio Peretti was nothing if not traditionally Italian. He might want an unwanted bastard child to disappear, especially if it could become a glitch in the Peretti-Luzzani master plan, but demanding its life be ended?
No.
Nevertheless, Luc was determined on confronting his father with the accusation, given Skye’s belief in it.
He’d lost her—lost five years of his son’s life—because he hadn’t believed her. He was not about to repeat that mistake. Let his father answer for what had been done. And not done. Maybe then the truth could be pieced together.
He brought the Ferrari to a crunching halt at the front entrance to the huge sandstone home. Forty-five rooms, he thought derisively, more than enough to house a large extended family in the grandeur his father’s ambition demanded. Roberto would have obliged with the desired grandchildren, but Roberto was dead and his childless widow had returned to the bosom of the Luzzani family for comfort. The nursery rooms were empty. So many rooms empty.
Luc felt the emptiness echoing all around him as he walked down the great hall to the sitting room his mother favoured. She was occupying her usual armchair, dressed in mourning black, drowning her sorrows with Bristol Cream Sherry as she watched the early evening news on television.
‘Where’s Dad, Mamma?’ he asked from the doorway.
She didn’t turn her head. In the dull flat tone that characterised her every utterance since Roberto’s death, she answered, ‘In the library.’
No interest in him. No interest in anything. Luc doubted she even heard or saw the news being reported. None of it impinged on her very protected life. But great wealth could not protect against miscarriages nor accidental death. Nor could it provide solace for the loss of her beloved younger son and all his life had promised.
He left her and moved on, bent on pursuing his own needs which were far more imperative right now. Besides, he remembered only too well his mother had not approved of Skye. If she had been in on the conspiracy, too…Luc gritted his teeth against the wave of violence that churned through him.
The machinations that had taken place behind his back were a dark ferment in his mind—a ferment he had to contain while he listened and observed, weighing whether he could even keep on being involved with his parents. Certainly, in Skye’s mind, his family was the enemy to any future he might forge with his son. And she had no reason to think otherwise.
He entered the library without giving a courtesy knock on the door. His father sat at a magnificent mahogany antique desk, tapping at a pocketbook computer he carried with him everywhere, probably checking up on any movement in his investments. His agile brain kept track of an incredible array of figures which he could rattle out at any pertinent moment.
Luc had always admired his father—a formidable go-getter who knew what he wanted and went after it, using every resource he could pull into play. Maurizio Peretti had friends in politics, friends in the church, friends in many high places, all of them impressed by what he could do for them, and, of course, the occasional favour was asked and given in return.
But it wasn’t just his accumulated wealth that impressed them. It was his business acumen and a charismatic presence that shouted leadership quality; the tall, powerful physique, the almost mesmerising intelligence in the commanding dark eyes, the thick thatch of wavy iron-grey hair, the hawkish nose, and the mouth that never spoke rubbish.
He looked up from his notebook, surprise and pleasure instantly lightening the air of deeply focused concentration. ‘Luciano! Glad you came by! Have you spoken to your mother?’
Family first…Luc’s mouth curled in black irony. He’d give his father family! He crossed the room in a few quick strides and tossed the large envelope he carried onto the desk. ‘Something requiring your immediate attention, Dad,’ he drawled.
His father frowned at the disrespect implicit in Luc’s manner. ‘What is this?’ he demanded curtly.
‘Photos. Remember the photos you presented to me six years ago?’
The frown deepened. ‘Why would you keep them?’
‘I didn’t. These are new photos, Dad.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘You will. Since you seem reluctant to look at them, let me help.’ Luc snatched back the envelope, ripped it open, removed its contents and slapped the photos one by one, face up, across his father’s desk. ‘Skye Sumner with my son,’ he declared in bitter fury. ‘My son who is now a schoolboy. My son whose first five years of life I have missed because I did not know of his existence. Look at him, Dad!’
The passionate outburst drew no more than a shuttered glance at the photos and a stoney-faced defence. ‘How do you know it is your son?’
Luc’s arm flew out in a fiercely dismissive gesture. ‘Don’t come at me with that.’ He drew himself up in towering contempt. ‘Roberto confessed to your indecent conspiracy against Skye on his deathbed. He told me about the pregnancy, told me you’d paid her off. Don’t even start denying it!’
His father’s mouth compressed into a thin line of distaste. He sat back in his antique studded leather chair and viewed Luc through narrowed eyes, eyes that were weighing options for dealing with this crisis. ‘Surely, in hindsight, you realise she was an unsuitable wife for you,’ he stated unequivocally.
‘Don’t go there, Dad,’ Luc warned, hard ruthless steel in his own eyes. ‘You’ve lost one son. You’re very close to losing another.’
‘I did what I thought was best for you, Luciano,’ he said, attempting a tone of appeasement. ‘You were blindly infatuated—’
‘I’m here to give you one chance—’ Luc held up his index finger for pointed emphasis ‘—one chance to answer Skye’s accusation that you paid her off with a thousand dollars to have an abortion.’
‘That’s a lie!’ He exploded up from his chair, hurling his hands out in furious counter-challenge. ‘You see what a scheming little bitch she is, trying to turn you against me? I paid out one hundred thousand dollars, with more to come when it was needed!’
‘Then why doesn’t she have any money?’ Luc bored in. ‘Why is she living in borderline poverty?’
‘She must be hiding it.’
‘No, she’s not. Trust me on this. A thorough investigation has been done. There is…no money! In fact, she has no support whatsoever. Her stepfather did a flit while she was