Uncovering the Correttis (Sicily's Corretti Dynasty) by Carol Marinelli

stop off at the farmacia ?’ Emily asked. ‘How very thoughtful of you. Don’t worry, Anton, I’m on the pill. The condoms were only necessary in case I had an urge to shag a stranger the whole weekend.’ She just looked at him and couldn’t hide the hurt from her eyes. ‘It would seem that I did.’ She stared at his guarded, closed-off face and she saw the stranger he chose to be.
    ‘You’re right, it is time for me to leave.’
    ‘Then go.’
    She took off the ring, but she would have her say.
    ‘It’s not your love for your wife that’s holding you back, Anton. It’s your hate for them.’ He just lay there and she knew she was right. ‘I don’t want to be a part of it. I don’t want to be around a man who spends his time booking restaurants in advance and looking for vantage points, who’s no doubt got pole position booked for the Corretti Cup.’ Tears did not make her weak, Emily realised, though she fought them. ‘That kiss on the stairs...’ She could see it all now. ‘You were turned on by revenge, when you should have been turned on by me.’
    ‘I lost my family.’
    ‘So you think you have nothing more to lose.’ Emily could be tough when it was called for. ‘That’s a dangerous place to be, Anton.’
    She closed the door on him.
    He waited for relief.
    She was gone.
    He could get back to...
    To what?
    He did not want to think. He flicked on the television. He met Dianne’s cold eyes as she reported on the most recent findings, as she barely blinked as she read the latest news.
    Tough, jaded, bitter.
    No, Anton corrected, Dianne was focused, determined.
    And then his own words haunted him.
    A little naive , a little sweet .
    What would you choose?

CHAPTER TEN
    E MILY STEPPED into her hotel
room. One that she had been in for all of an hour. She changed quickly and threw
her clothes into the suitcase and was out of the hotel in moments.
    She jumped into a taxi ahead of a couple of tourists, and if
she was rude, if she wrong, it was better than relenting, way better than
charging back to his room.
    As if to taunt her, her phone bleeped and it was Gina.

    Thought you might like a little memento (and congratulations on the
scoop).

    How could her career seem not to matter?
    How could what had been so vital on Friday seem almost obsolete
now?
    Why did this have to be love?
    Attached were the pictures Gina had taken of her and Anton.
Emily saw her smiling face beside his closed one and she knew she could not let
his pain darken her soul, which it would if she stayed.
    He did not want her to stay, Emily reminded herself, but that
did not soothe. She wanted on the plane and in the air and away from him.
    Away from a dangerous love.
    ‘ Fai presto ! ’ Emily urged the
driver to go faster. She could see the airport, yet she felt as if the devil
itself were chasing her. And it was.
    She could hear the sirens, knew without turning that he had
changed his mind, knew before he had overtaken them that the car the flashing
lights belonged to was his.
    Emily thrust the money at the driver, dragged her case from the
car and just refused to look where he stood waiting.
    ‘I’m going.’
    ‘Emily.’
    He took her wrist and she shook him off.
    ‘Emily.’ He went for the top of her arm and she turned in fury
to him. ‘Unless you’ve got your cuffs with you, I’m...’
    It was not her poor choice of words that halted her speech; it
was the smile that met her gaze. It was an Anton she had never seen. A smile was
the first thing her mind had begged from him, and if she had thought she had
seen it in the restaurant that night, then she had been mistaken. For what she
had witnessed then did not even come close. All the stress had vanished. The
eyes hers met were no longer navy; they were the colour of a waking
Mediterranean. There were shimmers and specks she should choose not to see.
    ‘There is someone I do not want to
lose,’ Anton said.
    ‘Anton...’ Emily looked at him, saw the tenderness