Dante's ultimate Gamble by Day Leclaire & Day Leclaire

Author:Day Leclaire & Day Leclaire
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Silhouette Desire
Published: 2010-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

“So, it has finally struck,” Primo said the instant the women had left.

Luc glanced up in confusion while his brother, Rafe, looked on with an amused expression on his too-handsome face. “Excuse me?”

“The Inferno.” His grandfather gestured toward his grandson’s hands. “Do not bother denying it, Luciano. The signs are all there.”

“What this?” He deliberately gave his palm a final scratch and forced a laugh. “Just an itch.”

Primo snorted. “What you feel is a fifty year itch, boy. Longer if you are very lucky.”

“Téa de Luca is an assignment, nothing more.”

Primo rolled his eyes heavenward. “Why are they always so stubborn? So reluctant to believe the truth even when it strikes as hard and dazzling as a lightning bolt?”

He crossed to one of the cabinets and pulled out a canister that read, Dried Manroot. Popping the lid, he extracted a cigar while Luc struggled to suppress a snort of laughter, thoroughly enjoying his grandfather’s sense of the absurd.

“Nonna will have a fit if she sees you with that,” Rafe warned, his jade-green eyes gleaming in shared amusement.

“Then we will make certain she does not see.” He took a moment to prep the cigar, then light it. “Luciano, you have witnessed The Inferno every day of your life. With my beloved Nonna. With your parents. One by one, with each of your cousins.” He lifted a snowy eyebrow. “Did you believe yourself immune?”

Luc set his jaw at a stubborn angle. “Yes.”

Primo blew a ring of smoke skyward and shrugged. “You were wrong.”

“I’m not interested in settling down,” Luc protested. “I’m sure as hell not interested in marriage and children.”

“Because of what happened?” his grandfather asked shrewdly.

There was no point in denying the truth. “Yes.”

Luc shied from the memories, knowing if he didn’t build a strong enough bulwark they’d consume him. One key lesson had come from the incident, an undeniable fact he’d learned about himself. He never wanted to give so much of himself to another person that he couldn’t live without her. To trust to that extent. To risk so much. Rafe had warned him when his own marriage had ended in disaster. But the accident that had ruined Luc’s knee had brought the fact home in spades.

Primo stabbed his cigar in Luc’s direction. “The Inferno is not something you can simply turn off. It has happened and you will have to deal with it. You can do as your uncle did—God rest my Dominic’s soul.” He crossed himself, grief still haunting his black eyes. “Like Dominic, you can turn from it and destroy your life. Or you can follow your parents’ excellent example. You can embrace it and discover a happiness unlike anything you could imagine.”

“And when it ends?” Luc demanded.

Primo regarded him in bewilderment. “Who says it must end? What is this ending?”

“All things end,” he insisted in a hard voice. “Love is a gamble, the ultimate gamble. When it ends, you don’t just lose. It can destroy you. I’ve seen it happen. That’s why I’ll never give into it, why I only bet when I know I can win.

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