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The Sicilian Surrender
Sandra Marton
When it comes to women, Stefano Lucchesi thinks he's known them all. But Fallon O'Connell is beautiful and wealthy in her own right and appears to need no one. Stefano's determined to have her, body and soul….Fallon is determined to resist! Until an accident threatens her beauty and ends her supermodel career. Now she needs Stefano's help, even if that means surrender. Because only the Sicilian's passion can heal her body and restore her soul….
“You can’t leave until we’ve had our dance.”
“I know, but here…?”
“Here. Right here. Right now.” His voice had taken on a note of command, and then it softened. “Please,” he said, and opened his arms.
He saw the little lift of her breasts and knew she’d caught her breath. Would she turn him down? If she did, he’d be a gentleman and let her go.
The hell with that. He hadn’t made a fortune by being a gentleman. If she said no he’d pull her into his arms, bring her soft body against his, stroke his hands over her until she sighed and said yes to dancing with him, yes to making love with him, yes, yes, yes….
“Yes,” Fallon whispered, and went into his arms.
Dear Reader,
The exciting, passion-filled story of the O’Connell family continues!
The Sicilian Surrender is the second book in my new family saga. Fallon O’Connell is a world-famous model. She doesn’t enjoy living her life in the spotlight, but she’s learned to accept it as part of her job. Stefano Lucchesi is the powerful CEO of a multinational corporation. He despises the paparazzi who stalk him and values his privacy above everything else. Fate brings these two people together in Sicily, an island simmering in the heat of the summer sun. But destiny has more planned for Fallon and Stefano than a simple chance encounter. A dark, rainy night. A narrow road. The squeal of tires, a car crash, and their lives are forever changed. Only love can heal Fallon, just as only love can reach Stefano’s closely guarded heart.
As you discovered in my last family saga, THE BARONS, you can enjoy The Sicilian Surrender even if you haven’t read the prior book, Keir O’Connell’s Mistress. Join me on an exciting journey through the lives of a dynamic family. The O’Connells and I welcome you.
With love,
You can visit Sandra at http://www.sandramarton.com or write to her at P.O. Box 295, Storrs, Connecticut 06268, U.S.A.
The Sicilian Surrender
Sandra Marton
Special thanks to Joni Jones
for sharing her love of Sicily and its people with me.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
EPILOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
THE sun was a blurred golden orb in a lowering sky as the sirocco blew in from the sea, howling through the ruins of the castello like the voices of the rebellious gladiators who had once defended this bit of Sicily against the power and might of ancient Rome.
Stefano Lucchesi thought of those men as he mounted the last stone steps and stood on the top of the cliff. To the west, Mount Etna slumbered in the humid air. Below, the stormy waters of the Mediterranean pounded the rocky shore.
How many times had a sentry stood in this same place, watching for the enemy? Romans, Greeks, Arabs and Normans had all spilled their blood here in the name of dominion. Pirates had hunted offshore, lying in wait for unwary ships like packs of hungry wolves.
Invader after invader had conquered this land of his ancestors, until, at last, it shook free of its shackles and created enemies of its own, an aristocracy that grew fat on the sweat of those who tilled this rocky soil.
Stefano turned his back to the sea, dug his hands into the pockets of his jeans and surveyed his kingdom. Time had not treated it kindly. All that remained of the castello were tumbled stone walls and a handful of pillars.
Perhaps that was as it should be. There was a certain ironic justice in the way time had evened the balance sheet. What his great grandfather three times removed had built here, what his grandfather had ultimately lost in a feud so bitter it had ended in bloodshed, had long-ago crumbled to dust.
Even the land had been sold. Stefano had ordered his attorney to buy it back, piece by piece, from gnarled old men in baggy black suits who reminded him of his grandfather. Stefano had named a price that was more than fair, but the attorney’s representatives had no success.
All the old men seemed eager to sell land that was basically dry and barren until they heard the buyer’s name.
“Lucchesi?” they said.
One even spat on the ground by way of punctuation.
Stefano was amazed that the name should still evoke violent emotion after more than seventy years. He’d said so to his lawyer, who grinned, shook his head and said that Stefano needed to rent the Godfather movies and watch them from start to finish.
“It’s the Mafia thing,” Jack said. “How can you have Sicilian blood running through your veins and not understand? Those old guys knew your grandpa. They hated him. Why should you expect a welcome from them?”
Why, indeed?
Stefano knew little about the Mafia. He’d grown up in America, where his grandfather had immigrated decades before his birth. His father died when he was a baby and his mother, a New Orleans homecoming queen, dragged him from city to city in a frenzied search for excitement. Stefano was twelve when she died.
His paternal grandparents, who he hardly knew, took him in.
Tough, street smart, hiding his fear behind a mask of arrogance, he couldn’t have been easy for them to handle. His grandmother fed him and clothed him and otherwise washed her hands of him. His grandfather tolerated him, disciplined him and finally loved him with all his heart.
Perhaps his grandfather’s advanced years, coupled with Stefano having come to know him so late in the old man’s life, explained why he didn’t have what Jack called “the Mafia thing” in his blood. His grandfather never told him tales of bloodshed and revenge. He told him, instead, of La Sicilia, of Castello Lucchesi, of the cliffs and the volcano and the sea.
Those were the things that beat in Stefano’s blood, the things he cherished without ever having seen them.
It was only on his deathbed that the old man motioned him close, whispered of honor and pride and famiglia, of how he’d had to abandon everything and come to America to save what he could: Stefano’s father and, by extension, Stefano.
“I will get it all back,” Stefano had vowed.
It took time. Years to work his way through college, though by his senior year, he was impatient. During summer internships, he’d learned to hate the falseness of the corporate life that had been his goal, to despise the “old boy” network that was already working to deny him entry, the handshake that often accompanied the knife in the back.
His college roommate felt the same way. TJ was into computers. In those days, billionaires were made overnight in Internet start-up companies. TJ was going to be one of those billionaires. He had a great idea, he had the skill, the vision…
All he needed was the money.
One winter day, his hard-earned next semester’s tuition in hand, Stefano climbed into his ancient VW, headed toward Yale—and kept on going north, to a casino where he bought into a game of high-stakes poker. It was the first unplanned thing he’d ever done since the day he’d promised his grandfather to win back the Lucchesi honor, but he didn’t let himself think about that.
He told himself he deserved a day off. He was a good poker player; he played for fun in school. In fact, he’d won his old VW at a poker table at a middle of the night game in his college dorm, when another guy thought he’d been bluffing with a flush showing on the table.
That day at the casino, Stefano won more than a VW.
He won thousands of dollars.
The casino gave him a free room. He staggered to it, showered, slept, ate and returned to the table. Three days later, he drove back to school, dumped a small fortune on his surprised roommate’s bed and watched TJ stare at the bills in disbelief.
“Whadja do, man, rob a bank?”
“There’s your start-up investment,” Stefano said. “I want fifty-one percent control.”
A muscle jerked in Stefano’s jaw. Fast-forward a dozen years.
The start-up had made him wealthy beyond his wildest dreams. Now, even though his money was invested in aerospace companies, in Texas oil, in luxury condos in Manhattan, he’d never forgotten the pledge he’d made his grandfather.
Two years ago, he’d set out to fulfill it, but it had taken the conversation with his attorney to remind him that there were places and people where ancient vendettas still made the blood hot with rage.
The hot sirocco wind beat at Stefano’s back, whipping his dark hair around his lean face. He pushed the strands back and again tucked his hands into the pockets of his jeans.
“Double our initial offer,” he’d instructed his attorney.
“That’s far too much money. The land isn’t worth—”
“No, but their pride is. Make the offer, and make it clear that I have my pride to consider, too. Tell them I’m making them an offer they can’t refuse.”
Jack had met the statement with a long silence. At last, he’d cleared his throat.
“You watched those movies, huh?”
Stefano had laughed. “Just make the offer and get back to me.”
Now it was done. All this—the land, the cliffs, what remained of the castello and the view that stretched on forever—was his. So was the house he’d built, just beyond the ruins. He’d had the architect blend it into the rugged scenery and use stones from the original castle. The result was a handsome home, high-ceilinged, with walls of glass that looked over the volcano and the sea.
Stefano smiled. His grandfather, he was certain, would have been pleased.
Tonight, just after moonrise, he’d come out here again with a bottle of moscato and a glass. He’d pour the wine, lift the glass to the sea and toast the spirit of all those who’d come and gone before him.
And he would try to keep this place invisible to the rest of the world.
If the tabloids got word, they’d have a field day with what he’d done. It would put a sexy spin on the gossip that already swirled around him. He was building an empire, they said. He was a man of mystery. He was uno lupo solo. A lone wolf.
They were right about that, at least. Lucchesi Enterprises had made Stefano a public figure. Because of it, he cherished seclusion in his day-to-day life.
He’d followed his usual practice in building his new house, hiring only those who agreed to sign contracts that contained confidentiality clauses, making it clear his lawyers would be merciless in enforcing those clauses. Word would get out eventually, he knew, but this would give him some breathing room.
A little while ago, a helicopter had buzzed overhead. There was nothing unusual in that; helicopters were part of the twenty-first century. Still, he’d looked up, wondering if somehow the paparazzi had already caught up with him.
“Stef-an-oh.”
Stefano caught his breath. Was it the wind? The sound of that voice, calling his name. No. It had to be the wind.
“Stef-annn-oh. Yoo-hoo. Don’t you hear me?”
He blinked. The wind couldn’t put words into sentences, couldn’t paint the slender figure of a woman looking up at him from the foot of the hill, one hand scooping back her blond hair, the other cupping her mouth.
Carla? His heart thudded. It couldn’t be. She was in New York. He’d left her there one morning last week, tears trailing down her perfectly made-up face, stopping when she realized he meant every word, her voice rising to a shriek as she told him what she thought of him.
The trouble had started when she burst into his apartment without warning and found him sitting at the dining room table, drinking coffee and looking at photos of the island: the windswept cliffs, the old ruins and the new house.
“Omygod,” she’d said breathlessly, “darling, what is this?”
There’d been no sense in saying he didn’t know. The architect had put together a handsome final portfolio, and each photo was neatly labeled.
Castello Lucchesi, Sicily.
“A house,” he’d said indifferently, as if that were all there was to it.
“Your house,” she’d said, in that breathless way he’d once found charming and now found irritating. “And it’s perfect for the cover of the premiere issue of Bridal Dreams.”
“No.”
“Now, Stefano,” she’d said, slipping into his lap, “you know I was hired to make Bridal Dreams the best magazine in the world. The first issue can make me or break me.”
No, he’d said again, and she’d changed tack, twisted around so she was straddling him, put her hot mouth to his.
He should have thrown her out right then. Their relationship had grown stale; it was over and he knew it. He’d lost interest in Carla—she was self-centered and superficial, and she wanted things he had no intention of giving her—a place in his life, a future with him.
He’d been with a dozen women who’d wanted the same things and he was no more interested in permanent commitment to Carla than he’d been with the others. Carla had known that, going in; she said her life was her career, but somewhere along the way, she’d decided to change her game plan.
So he’d lifted her from his lap, told her “No” again, and as she began to weep, his phone rang. It was his pilot, saying his Learjet had been serviced and was ready whenever he was.
“Where are you going?” Carla cried as he started for the door. “You have to do this for me, Stefano. You have to!”
When he didn’t answer, she’d gone from crying to cursing and screaming…
