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To feel him close like this, scent his skin, feel the heat of him, made her mind respond as if she had slipped back to the days when she had been free to touch him, to caress him whenever she had wanted. She had loved those days, adored that freedom—adored him. And she wanted to go back there—wanted it, needed it so much…
‘It never used to be this way.’
She didn’t deliberately pitch her voice to sound so breathy, so husky. It just came out that way naturally. And right now she couldn’t regret the way it revealed how the tiny physical contact had shaken her. How aware, how aroused it had made her. With her eyes fixed on Ricardo’s taut face, she could see how, just for a moment, his tongue slid out to moisten suddenly dry lips.
Perhaps he too recalled the softer times in their relationship. The times before suspicion had changed him, darkening his opinion of her.
‘It could still be…’
Moving her hand again, this time she curled it around Ricardo’s, fingers lacing with his, palm pressing to palm, deepening the contact, making it more intimate.
And she knew her mistake as soon as she’d done it.
‘Inferno—no!’
The harsh mutter was harder, more biting than if he had shouted. And the way that he froze, before deliberately, coldly uncoiling his hand from her gentle grip, pulling away almost in slow motion, was so obviously a deliberate insult that it stung like a slap in the face. With a flick of his wrist, he seemed to shake off even the last traces of her touch as he swung away from her, putting as much distance between them as it was possible to do in the small bedroom.
‘It could not “still be” anything,’ he declared, every word pure ice. ‘There is nothing left between us, nothing I want to revive. Certainly not how it used to be. That is not what I came here for.’
‘So what did you come here for?’
Determined not to show how his rejection of her had hurt, Lucy brought her head up defiantly, turning what she hoped were cold eyes on him as she injected every ounce of control possible into her voice.
‘I take it it wasn’t just to pass the time of day—renew an old…’ she hesitated deliberately over the word ‘…friendship?’
‘Hardly. We were never friends.’
‘Husband and wife.’
‘Legally, perhaps.’ Ricardo dismissed her pointed comment with an indifferent shrug of his broad shoulders. ‘But I doubt if we were ever married in the true sense of the word.’
‘And just what, in your opinion, is the true sense of the word?’
‘For better, for worse, to love and to cherish,’ Ricardo quoted cynically, making her wince inside as the words stabbed at her.
‘For richer for poorer…’ she flung back, refusing to let herself think of the other words—the ones that said in sickness and in health.
If only she had been able to turn to Ricardo at a time when those words had meant so much, then how different things might have been. But she had known from the start that their marriage was never meant to be as long as we both shall live. If she had never become pregnant then he would never have married her at all. It was only because of his determination that his son would be legitimate that he had ever put a ring on her finger.
‘For richer, certainly, in your case. You played your virginity like a trump card, withholding it from the poor Italian fisherman you first thought I was but only too keen to lose it to the rich man you then discovered me to be.’
‘If that’s the way you want to read it.’
It was the only way he’d ever read what had happened. He had never understood the very real fear that had held her back at their first meeting, forcing her away from him even though she’d feared she would never see him again. He would understand even less the bitter regret that had eaten at her for days afterwards, so that when she had met him again, in the very different circumstances of an elegant society party, she had been unable to hold back and, buoyed up on an unwise glass of champagne, had practically thrown herself into his arms.
‘And I did not play…’
‘You sure as hell did,’ Ricardo tossed back at her. ‘You played with both our lives—and the life of the baby we unwisely created between us. You told me…’
The temptation to put her hands over her face and hide from his anger—his justifiable anger—was almost overwhelming but Lucy forced herself to brave it out. She knew what she’d said. That she’d given him the idea that she was protected. But the truth was that she had been so wildly, blindly lost in sensation, in the heat and hunger that his kisses, his touch had aroused, that when he had muttered, ‘Is this OK? Are you all right?’ in a voice so thick and rough it betrayed only too clearly how close to losing control he was, she had only thought that he was considering her inexperience. She couldn’t have said no if she’d tried. The only word in her head had been yes, the only need in her body, in her heart, had been to know the full reality of this man’s sensual possession. And so, ‘Yes, oh, yes!’ had been her only possible response.
She had thought she was safe. The time of her cycle should have made her safe. But in that she had been stupid and naïve too.
‘And richer is what you really want me to discuss. So OK, let’s get to the real point. You wanted to know why I came here. I came to ask you just one question.’
‘And that is?’
‘How much will it cost me to get rid of you?’
‘Get…’
In the scrambled muddle of her thoughts, Lucy couldn’t decide if it was shock, fury or just plain horror that kept her tongue from being able to form an answer to his question. She could only stare at him in disbelief, her eyes wide.
‘It’s a simple question, Lucia.’ Ricardo’s voice was tight with impatience and exasperation. ‘Surely you can have no problem in understanding it. What I want to know is how much will you take to leave now, get out of here—and stay out of my life for good?’
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_12ef8d65-02a6-54b3-81c5-2fb3ce5871aa)
COMING here had been a mistake, Ricardo told himself furiously. A big mistake. A bad mistake.
And a mistake that he should have seen coming if he had any sense. Which he obviously didn’t. At least not where Lucy was concerned.
But then sense had never been part of the way that he had reacted to this woman. His senses, yes.
Maledizione, he had always been at the mercy of his senses from the moment they had met. His mindless senses had rushed him into taking her to his bed, making her his—making her pregnant in the sort of stupid, irresponsible slipup that he hadn’t made even as a teenager.
It was those damn senses that had trapped him into a marriage that had been a mistake from start to finish.
And those same damn senses had been on red alert ever since he had walked into this room.
‘How much will I take…?’
She was looking at him now as if he had suddenly sprouted horns and a tail. Those blue eyes were wide with what he would have described as shock if he hadn’t known better. But of course he did know better. He knew just what his precious, greedy little wife was after, and all the pretence of shock and disbelief in the world wasn’t going to make him think otherwise.
‘You want to know how much it will cost you to have me leave?’
‘That was the question.’
At least she had stopped the soft-voiced attempt at seductive persuasion. The it doesn’t have to be like this…that she’d tried earlier.
She’d damn nearly had him with that. With the breathy note on the words that had made it sound as if she was totally overwhelmed at being here with him like this. Never before had he been so aware of the slender, curving shape of her in the clinging, worn jeans, the faded T-shirt. The scent of her body had seemed to surround him as he had looked down into the wide, wide eyes that had seemed almost hazy with need. And the soft touch of her hand on his skin…
Dio santo, but he had found it hard to resist that. That gentle touch had raised so many memories in his mind. Erotic memories that had had his body hardening in spite of his furious attempts to divert his thoughts onto other, less dangerous pathways. She had touched him like that on their first night together. Tentative, almost hesitant. As if she was shy and nervous.
Well, that shyness had pretty soon disappeared. It had evaporated like the mist over the lake at the first touch of the summer sun. In his arms she’d turned into a wild and seductive temptress. In his bed she had been the fulfilment of every sensual dream he could ever have imagined.
But they couldn’t live out their lives in bed.
‘So you’re offering me a pay-off?’
‘A settlement,’ Ricardo amended. ‘A generous settlement in return for a quick and quiet divorce—I’ll even take the blame, provide you with grounds if you want it that way. And then you get out of my life for good. You go and you stay away. I never want to see you again.’
How could he ever want to see a woman who was capable of walking out on her own child, leaving behind just a frivolous, careless note that told him the marriage was over and the baby—Marco—was his responsibility now?
She was considering the proposition. Considering it seriously. That much was obvious from the way that her expression had changed, the softness vanishing from her eyes just before she let her pale eyelids drop down to cover them, concealing her thoughts from him.
‘You really must want to be rid of me.’ Her tone was flat, no emotion showing in it at all.
‘Oh, I do,’ he confirmed, his tone deep with harsh sincerity. ‘Believe me, I do.’
‘And you’d pay anything I asked?’
Her jaw had tightened so much that it drew in her cheeks, narrowing the whole look of her face and making the words come out as stiffly and as jerkily as if they had come from the carved wooden mouth of a painted marionette. Blue eyes lifted briefly to look into his face in a swift glance that was coolly assessing. ‘In English law I’d be entitled to half your fortune. You should have thought about getting me to sign a pre-nup.’
If he’d had any sense then he would have done just that. But at the time the only thing that he’d been thinking of was the child they had created between them. The child that had to be born in wedlock and with his name as the father on the birth certificate. No child of his was ever going to grow up illegitimate, with all the snubs and the social exclusion that he had endured. The barriers to belonging that had blighted his mother’s life as well as his own.
He had known that it was only his money that had convinced her to marry him in the end. But, if he was honest, then at that point he really hadn’t cared. All that had mattered was getting the ring on Lucy’s finger and ensuring that her name—and her child’s—were the same as his.
He had thought that he would have longer to see if the relationship between the two of them would grow into something so much stronger than the wild, fiery passion that had brought them together in the first place and had resulted in the creation of the tiny life that Lucy had carried within her.
‘And would you have signed one?’
At the time she would have done anything, Lucy acknowledged. Ricardo had only to ask and she would have said yes. She had been in so deep, so totally besotted so that she had been unable to think straight. She hadn’t even hesitated over his proposal, though common sense should have told her that he didn’t want her. All he had wanted was the child in her womb.
‘I don’t want marriage, Lucia,’ he’d said. ‘Never have. No woman has ever even made me think of it. But your news changes everything. We have a baby to consider and my child is not going to grow up illegitimate. That’s all that matters to me right now.’
‘It would have made sense—on your part, at least,’ Lucy answered now, covering the lacerations on her heart with an armour of control. ‘After all, neither of us was going into that marriage with any romantic stars in our eyes. We both knew it was just a business and legal arrangement.’
‘And now?’
‘Now? I wouldn’t sign anything you asked me to without having it thoroughly checked out first.’
‘Not even if it gave you everything you’d ever wanted—more than you ever dreamed of?’
‘I don’t think that’s possible.’
If she could have Marco in her life, then she would feel as if she had been given the world and would want nothing more. But, without her son, there was no amount of money or possessions that could compensate for the emptiness his loss would leave in her life. And she knew, deep in her soul, that Ricardo would never let her have Marco.
‘Try me.’
For the life of her, Lucy couldn’t bring her numbed, bruised brain to recognise whether there was pure challenge or invitation in the two words that Ricardo tossed at her. And she didn’t really dare to hope for the latter. Any invitation from Ricardo Emiliani came hung about with so many chains of doubt and risk, so many conditions, that it was like putting your head into a noose just to consider it. And a challenge was something she dreaded.
‘Tell me what you really want—and you can have it. Anything, so long as you get out of my life and never come back.’
‘You’ll never give me what I want so there’s no need to even ask.’
‘Why not? I—’ Ricardo broke off abruptly as a buzzing sound from his pocket drew his attention to his mobile phone. ‘Momento…’
Pulling it out, he checked the screen, frowning as he did so. ‘I have to take this.’
With the phone clamped to his ear, he swung away again, listening hard and then firing sharp, incisive questions into the receiver in rapid-fire Italian that was too fast for Lucy’s schoolgirl grasp of the language to allow her to keep up.
But she caught one word, clearly and distinctly, and that fastened onto her nerves, twisting and tugging with every second that passed.
‘Marco…’ he’d said. And, again, ‘Marco…’
Whoever was at the other end of the phone had rung him because of something that was happening with Marco and just to think of that pressed Lucy’s personal panic button, sending her thoughts into overdrive. Her heart was pounding, her breathing harsh and shallow. Something had happened to her little boy and she didn’t know what.
She couldn’t stand still, finding that only by pacing restlessly around the room could she keep herself from grabbing that phone from Ricardo and demanding to know what was happening. But the dimensions of the small space were restricted so that she found she had barely started before she was forced to turn and head back in the opposite direction. And still the conversation went on until she was ready to scream, only keeping a grip on herself by clenching her fists tight, digging her nails into the palms of her hands.
But then, at last, Ricardo thumbed off the phone and turned to her again.
‘What’s happened…?’
‘My apologies…’
Their voices clashed, froze, then, because Lucy couldn’t manage anything more, it was Ricardo who continued, his tone rough with impatience. ‘I have to go. My son…’
Catching the look she gave him, he at least had the grace to pause in faint acknowledgement but only for a second. Immediately he continued, emphasising that possessive claim once again. ‘My son has woken and is upset. I need to get back.’
‘Is he all right?’
The concern wouldn’t be held down. She didn’t care what Ricardo thought of her, how he might interpret her enquiry. She only knew that if Marco was distressed then she had to know more.
‘He will be when I can get to him.’
Once more the exclusion of her was deliberate, pointed. The words stung cruelly; as she was sure they were meant to.
‘You left him in that big house—out there on the island—on his own…’
‘Never on his own!’ Ricardo cut in furiously and Lucy flinched from the fire that flared in his eyes. ‘Of course he was well looked after. His nanny was with him.’
Of course, the nanny. How could she forget the nanny?
‘He was asleep when I left…but he woke and she thought he was too upset to settle. She felt he needed his papa.’
His papa. Another vicious put down, slapping her in the face with the fact that he was Marco’s father, the parent who cared for the little boy. While she was just an outsider. The woman who had given up her claim on her child when she had run out on him. For reasons she could explain if only she got the chance.
But now was not the time. Already Ricardo was turning towards the door.
‘I have to get back to him.’
‘Of course.’
But if she let him walk out of the door, let him walk away, would she ever get the chance to talk to him again? Would she ever even see his face again? And, much, much more important, how could she let him walk away when she knew that, back in the Villa San Felice, his baby son—their baby son—was awake and miserable and in need of comfort?
Not pausing to think, she snatched up the bag that was lying on the bed, stuffed her feet hastily into flat pumps and hurried after him. The speed and length of his strides had taken him out of the door and along the landing already and she had to push herself to follow him. She caught up just as Ricardo was about to let the main door swing to behind him.
‘What the…?’ The question was pushed from him as her hand clashed with his, catching the door before it slammed.
