The Italian's Vengeful Seduction by Bella Frances

Author:Bella Frances [Frances, Bella]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarlequinUKLtd
Published: 2017-03-31T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

WIND WHIPPED AT Stacey’s hair and slipped icy fingers on her bare flesh as she cycled the last part of the road down to the beach. The memory of the stinging pain of the sea breeze was still fresh. Almost as fresh as the stinging pain of being back here at all.

The road narrowed to a path, which narrowed further to a sandy track, with tufts of grass on either side and pebbles that were big enough to knock her off balance if she wasn’t watching. But she knew what she was doing and steered carefully until she saw the wooden perimeter fence. It was even more lopsided and calcified than she remembered, but she settled the shiny Polo Club bike against it, tugged up her zipper and made her way down to the shore.

The waves roared her a welcome, but it was the shingly swish of the tide back and forth, back and forth, that most brought her home. She picked her way to her favourite spot and there it was—the same flat-topped rock that she’d sat on for so many hours, just staring out across the bay at the sprawling mansions and estates opposite.

She stepped out of her trainers, buried her toes in the sand and looked directly over at the biggest estate of all—the Meadows. Even from this distance she could make out the fence that had been erected along its boundaries since she’d been away. Different parts of it had been parcelled up and sold off for retirement homes, summer houses and—according to Marco, who had almost spat out the words at dinner last night—‘Goddamn crazy golf’.

It must really hurt, she thought. To know that what had once been your family home was now occupied by hundreds of strangers.

She’d never felt any sense of loss for the two-bed shack that she’d called home, though. It hadn’t felt like a home since her dad had gone. That was when it had all started to go wrong. She could see it so clearly now. Her mother’s whole world had been about pleasing her husband. Every decision she’d made had been run through a mental Will he like it? filter.

He hadn’t been a bad man so much as a disgustingly selfish one. He probably hadn’t set out to leave them devastated and torn apart—he’d just seen something he’d liked better and thought he’d have that instead. It wouldn’t surprise her to learn that he’d moved on to wife number three by now.

Stacey scooped up a handful of sand and let it trickle through her fingers. A few gritty lumps caught in her palm and she shook them, watching the glints of quartz catch the sun. She’d watched her mother too. Waiting. Just waiting. Her whole life on pause while she waited for him to come home. Losing her beauty, her figure, her health. Wasting her life, waiting for a loser.

Because that was what he was. She’d found that out the hard way. In a way she had Marco to thank for that.

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