Dirty Lies Read online

  "And what else did you think of, Skylar?" He stared into my eyes, and I melted.

  "This. Your hands in my hair. You inside me. Loving me."

  "Loving you…"

  "You know what else I thought of, Luca?"

  "What, amore mio?"

  Every time he called me that, I felt positively adored. Tears welled in my eyes. "How I feel complete when I'm with you and lost when we're apart."

  Dammit. This was getting messy. It was more difficult than I'd thought, trying to separate emotion from sex, which had sort of been my plan. I didn't want to cry, not now, not in front of him, but… "And I cried every night when I realized I might never see you again."

  "I'm sorry. I never wanted to hurt you."

  He kissed me, and pure sexual craving overtook my tangled emotions. He knew exactly where to touch to send me over the edge. Long, throbbing contractions racked my body, and for the first time in my life, I felt completely out of control as the crashing waves of perfection and light passed through me.

  "Si. Si. Si. Exactly like that, amore mio," Luca whispered, trailing his nose and lips over my cheek. My entire body released all the need and tension I'd built up throughout the night. I held Luca tight, quivering, gasping and nearly in tears from the intensity.

  While keeping one hand on my skin, he twisted and grabbed a condom out of the nightstand drawer. He quickly sheathed himself, then climbed on top of me.

  "I have never seen anything or anyone more beautiful than you just now." He positioned himself so he was almost inside me. Almost, but not quite. He was a tease.

  "Now. I need you inside me now," I demanded. "Don't deny me that."

  Slowly, slowly, slowly, he pushed into me while whispering in my ear. "How could I ever deny you? How could I ever say no to you?"

  During our week apart, I'd ached from his absence. Now, my heart might explode with joy and pure lusty adrenaline. I rode a faint wave of intensity until my muscles fully relaxed around him.

  "You feel so, so good. I know you said primal, but is it okay if I go faster?" he asked, breathless. "I'm not hurting you, am I? You feel really tight." He panted a little.

  "Yes. No. Not hurting me. Faster. Just do…anything you want. I'm yours. Devour me."

  He laughed, a wicked and sexy laugh. "You're mine. I like that. You're mine, Skylar Shaw. All. Mine."

  He moved again, with furious strokes, while pinning my arms above my head with his hands and squeezing my wrists tight. Just as I'd fantasized. Our bodies were still hot-damp from the tub and slightly perspiring from the friction, slick with each other's scent. He was more primitive than I'd ever seen him. Feral, like an animal.

  "More," I whispered. "Harder and faster and more."

  Luca responded, something fierce and Italian, and my entire body shimmered.

  "Skylar." His voice cracked almost imperceptibly, letting go of my arms and pressing even closer. I slid my arms around him, and his energy enveloped me. That's when I knew for certain this was just as intense for him as it was for me. He was afraid to tell me how he felt, afraid to stay with me, afraid of being hurt. Just as he'd said.

  "You are so perfect, amore mio."

  In that moment, I had an epiphany. He needed me, although he probably didn't realize it. No man had ever needed me. Wanted me, yes. Not needed me.

  And I needed him. Luca was what made me happy. I'd try to protect him. Exactly how, I wasn't sure. But I needed to try. So I could nurture him. Please him.

  Love him.

  If he didn't leave, I could do all of that.

  I pulled his body toward mine and held on as if he would float away if I lost connection with his flesh. I knew he was close to orgasm by the way his body took on a sudden, sweaty sheen.

  "Luca, I love the way you feel when you're inside me. It's like nothing else in the world matters. Only you matter," I whispered softly in his ear.

  Out the corner of my eye, I saw the thick fingers of his hand gripping the sheet. He buried his face into my neck. With a loud, drawn out groan, he released inside me, his cock pulsing quickly, then slower. I fluttered tender kisses on his neck as he tried to catch his breath, his body heavy and boneless on top of mine.

  He propped himself up on his forearms. "Amore mio, are you crying?"

  I hadn't noticed there were tears streaming out the corners of my eyes.

  Shaking my head, all I could do was draw him tighter. Closer.

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  The Dirty Truth

  SKYLAR

  I awoke at dawn to Luca's kisses on the back of my neck. Maybe we hadn't even slept, because it seemed like we'd spent the entirety of the dark hours doing everything we'd both wanted over the last several weeks.

  It wasn't until I was fully awake and emerging from my sex fog that I remembered Luca's secret.

  I'd have to tell him I knew all about what he'd hidden.

  I couldn't let him exit my life without it. Maybe it was a point of pride as a reporter, or maybe I just wanted him to know I wasn't a stupid young American. Amazing sex had nothing to do with me confronting the truth—and tomorrow would take care of itself.

  I climbed out of bed and opened the curtains of the windows and doors leading to the terrace. Even though it was early morning, it was already so bright outside, the sky was a pale white-blue. I blinked several times into the light. It was as if I wanted to make sure everything was normal outside. Because in here, it sure wasn't.

  When I returned, Luca was still in bed, lying on his back. He looked a little too somber for a man who had just had a night of out-of-this-world sex. Then again, he was harboring all those secrets.

  Not for long…

  I slid under the sheets, and he rolled over to hug me.

  "Why are you really leaving, Luca?"

  He swallowed, clearly uncomfortable. "I told you, things are getting too complicated here. I don't want to deal with my uncle, and I have to focus on my—" He stopped abruptly.

  I searched his eyes, unblinking. "I don't think you should leave."

  "Sky. Don't. Please don't make this harder. It's what I worried about last night—"

  "No. You're the one making it harder, Luca. I'm not going to play games. I know who you are."

  "Who am I, Skylar?"

  Luca's voice was composed, but his eyes looked wide, the same as when we'd first kissed, like he was surprised and a little relieved.

  "Let's see." I ticked off each point with my fingers. "You're a journalist. You wrote a book about the Camorra. You had a blog. You worked at a newspaper in Naples. Your parents were killed in a suspicious fire. You went on the run because you thought the Mafia was going to kill you," I added, trying unsuccessfully to keep my voice steady.

  Luca went pale.

  "When you fell asleep last night, I looked at a book on your nightstand. Uomo di Sangue, is that how you pronounce it? I found a review of it in The Guardian. It pretty much described everything about you except your name. Also, the article about your parents in Il Mattino. Oh, and the fact that your tattoo matches the quote in the first chapter of your book."

  Luca sat up against the headboard and sighed deep, closing his eyes.

  I glanced at him, my heart thrashing around my chest. "You can't be mad at me. We're both reporters. We're both curious. What did you expect? You chose exactly the wrong woman. Neither of us will let go until we've found out the truth."

  He chewed on his cheek, and the silence was excruciating. "I'm not mad. Maybe I'm relieved? I don't know. I don't know anything anymore."

  I sat up and knelt, staring at his beautiful face with intensity, not caring I was naked. "You need to explain everything. You might be leaving soon—hell, today even—but you owe me an explanation. I'm not going to tell anyone. But I think we've become friends, right? You can trust me."

  "We are friends," he said softly. "You might be the best friend I've had in years, actually."

  He looked so sad in that moment that my heart broke in two.

&nbs
p; "Just stop staring at me like that. Come here." He pulled me close, so I was sitting next to him with my legs in his lap.

  "Do you want to hear the long version or the short version? This won't be easy for me. I've been wrestling for weeks with whether to tell you any of this."

  "It's okay. I want to hear it all. We've got all day."

  He nodded wearily. "I grew up watching my father prosecute organized crime figures. You know he was a lawyer. You read that in the article you found. Everyone was always surprised he took that route because our family is pretty well off, going back generations. My father could have just worked doing wills or real estate and lived an easy life. But my father had a sense of justice."

  "I thought you said your Uncle Federico is really your father."

  Luca grimaced. "Yeah. There's that. But let's not talk about that right now. I didn't even know Federico until I came here. I don't even know what to call him now."

  "Why did you come here?"

  "Let me get to that part. When I was at boarding school in Massachusetts, my family assumed I would be a lawyer. But I wasn't a great student and couldn't get into a law program in Italy, much less a prestigious program in America or the U.K. But I did admire my father's bravery, so I decided to be a journalist. I wanted to be like him. Wanted to make life in Italy better. You have no idea how screwed up it is there. When I got out of university, I worked at my hometown newspaper, Il Mattino. My first year in Naples was a lot like what you are doing now."

  I rolled my eyes. "You probably didn't have to cover golf cart parades and pet-of-the-week from the local animal shelter."

  Luca chuckled. "Oh, Sky, I did. I did. I wrote about all sorts of stupid things. And most of the time, I didn't even get bylines. Young reporters at papers in Italy generally don't."

  "Oh! That's why…"

  "Why what?"

  "Why I didn't find any of your articles online. Well, that and your old paper has a subscription firewall. I wasn't so obsessed with you that I was going to pay four Euros a month to get access to the newspaper archive."

  He kissed my cheek. "You did your homework. Anyway, I eventually wrote about Mafia murders, lots of them. Even those were so routine that I didn't get credit for writing the stories. But recognition or fame wasn't what I was after—I wanted to concentrate on the evil side of my city, so I decided to start my own blog. It was easier and safer to do it anonymously. I started out writing about murders and politics there. And political gossip. That led into writing about the Camorra and the Mafia in a similar way—they're all intertwined there, anyway—and readers loved it."

  Now I was even more curious. "I'll bet. How did you conceal your identity? Did you do it while working at the paper?"

  "I eventually quit the paper. I had a lot of police sources. A lot of my stories were from public records and tips people sent me. I allowed whistleblowers to email documents, to send information and photos and videos into an online drop-box. My father also helped leak some information out of the courthouse."

  "And so that information led to the book? You were so young." Really, he was so smart.

  "Yes. I was twenty-four when I started working on it, twenty-six when it was published. A lot of tips came in about Bruno Castiglione. He was one of the most powerful Camorra bosses in Naples. A publisher actually contacted me—well, contacted the blog—about writing an exposé."

  "But weren't you worried about your safety when you wrote it? Or the safety of your family?"

  Luca groaned. "I didn't think it through. I was reckless. I was a lot younger then. My father encouraged me because he thought I had a great platform for telling the truth. I tried to be just like him—fearless."

  "So, no one knew you were writing the book other than your parents? What about that girl you dated, Annalisa? The one you told me about. Did she know?"

  Luca was quiet for a moment.

  "No. I never told her. She was a features writer at the paper, and she wasn't really my girlfriend, we just sort of hung out. I ended it with her before my book came out. But, after the book was released, she disappeared."

  "What?" I wasn't sure why this shocked me after the news about his parents' deaths. "What do you mean?"

  "She abruptly left the paper and never returned. No one I knew ever saw her again. And I received a scary, anonymous email about her that said she ended up in the same place as my parents. It was right around that time that I left Italy."

  I sighed. "Wow. That's horrible. I can't even imagine."

  Luca said nothing.

  There was a long pause while I gathered my thoughts. "Do you regret writing the book?"

  "Of course. In many ways I do. My parents…" His voice trailed off, and from his tone I thought he was about to cry. He drew a long, shuddering breath before continuing, "My parents, they were aware of the risks. My father, or the man who I thought was my father, lived with risk most of his career, and my mom supported whatever he did career-wise. But I have enormous guilt over everything. I was away the night of the fire, doing an interview with the widow of a man who was killed by the Castiglione family. I got a call during the interview from a colleague of my father's. I lost everything in that moment, Sky. I miss them every minute of every day. My father was my best friend, and now he's gone."

  "Oh, Luca, baby, I am so sorry," I whispered. Everything I could possibly say seemed inadequate. I knew what he was going through. My mom had been my best friend. I stroked his face and hair, wanting to somehow take away his pain.

  We held each other for a long while. Then he spoke.

  "My parents are my biggest regret. I also feel guilty about Annalisa."

  I interrupted him, and pulled back from his embrace. "Annalisa. Were you in love with her?" I hated myself for asking, but I needed to know and trusted him to be honest.

  "No, Sky. Not even a little. I've never…well, I would have ended it with her even if I'd never written the book. I'm ashamed to admit this, but it was really only sex. And it wasn't even great sex. It was fun at first, but she was, um, kind of obsessed with me. It was like she idealized everything I did. It got kind of creepy. When I broke up with her, she climbed in my window to try to convince me to take her back."

  I grimaced. "Wow. Weird. How long were you together, again?"

  "Only a month. And, well, I've come to realize that I've kind of used a lot of women that way. For sex. It's not a good feeling."

  I stared at him. "Do you think you're using me? You can be honest. I can handle it."

  "No. Not at all. Not even a little. I don't even know if I was using Annalisa, exactly, because I liked her and enjoyed her company at first. And she seemed like she wanted the same thing, something casual. But it was never easy, or comfortable, not even in the beginning. She was really combative. It wasn't normal. Or fun. Or mature, like…like this. Like us."

  This made me grin like crazy, which made him laugh a little before turning serious.

  "You need to know this. I've spent the last ten years avoiding relationships, even before the book. My parents had a really screwed up marriage—though now I think I know why. Because of Federico…" He trailed off.

  "Your real father."

  Luca nodded weakly. "It explains why my parents were hostile and cold to each other. They stayed together for me. Regardless, I didn't want that in my life. So I settled for sex. I'm not an angel, Skylar, you need to know that."

  I shrugged. "I can't change your past. Or mine."

  "After the book…I didn't sleep around quite as much. I hated lying to people, but I sometimes did. Before, I hadn't. I didn't like it."

  "You lied to me, about working on your graduate degree."

  He stroked my hair. "I'm sorry. I told you more of the truth than any other woman. I didn't want to get involved. I didn't want to put anyone at risk. I didn't want to get close. Didn't want to befriend anyone and open myself up."

  "You weren't friends with the other women? You didn't get to know them?"

  "Friends? I have no fr
iends. Everyone who was my friend before, they're gone. They heard rumors about me and the book, and my parents, and now I represent danger. Although, Sky, it's weird. In many ways I feel proud of everything. Every time I read that my book has sold more copies, or I find another good review, I remember I'm blessed. I feel lucky. I've made a difference. Especially now that Bruno Castiglione is awaiting trial, people in Italy know I stand for the truth. They know I've tried to make things better. What did George Orwell say? 'In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.'"

  Upon hearing that, I pressed my face into his neck. I wanted to cry. I was so stupid for asking him about his sex life when he was talking about telling the truth, about writing books, about being brave…braver than I'd ever be.

  My heart broke for him, and I wanted to make his hurt and pain go away. The frustrating thing was, I didn't know how. Or if he even wanted that from me. All the warm fantasies I'd had while making love now seemed girlish and naïve.

  I lifted my head, and asked, "Where did you go when you left Italy?"

  "I backpacked through Southeast Asia. That's when I stayed at the Buddhist yoga ashram in India. Then I went to Argentina."

  "Ah. It makes sense now. How did you avoid the Mafia while traveling?"

  "Luck, I guess. Disguises. I grew a beard. I went to remote, sometimes dangerous places. There were a couple of close calls, I think. People seemed to follow me in Prague and in Warsaw. It was really stressful, and that's why I went to Asia. It was more remote."

  "You grew a beard." I traced his jaw with my finger and tried to imagine that. "How long?"

  Luca laughed. "Long. You wouldn't have recognized me."

  "But how did you pay for everything?" I was suddenly ravenously curious about all the details.

  "My agent's in London. He doesn't know me personally, but he makes sure my checks get deposited to a Swiss bank account that's not traceable. He also arranged to have the inheritance from my parents' estate transferred to that account."

  "So, why did you come to Palmira? Just because you were sick of traveling?"