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‘And tell me just why it’s better to have you manhandle me…’
‘I did not manhandle you!’
She’d caught him on the raw there, sending sparks into the darkness of his eyes and making him bite out the words in a tone of barely controlled fury that had her flinching back against the pillows and pulling the duvet even more tightly around her in spite of the warmth of the sun that was coming in through the narrow arched window. Beyond that window she could hear the calm blue waters of the lake lapping lazily against the stony shore and then ebbing back again with a faint sucking sound as they pulled against the tiny pebbles. It seemed unnaturally loud in the dangerous silence that descended before Ricardo drew in a long harsh breath.
‘I have never ‘manhandled’ a woman in my life and I do not intend to start with my wife. Because surely that is the point here—that I—as your husband—performed this duty for you myself rather than leave it to a stranger.’
‘You are not my husband!’
Lucy wouldn’t have believed that it was possible for Ricardo’s expression to grow any more glacial or for the cold anger in his eyes to burn any more savagely but clearly her words had provoked him into darker fury as he flung a glance of bitter recrimination in her direction.
‘We took the vows,’ he declared icily. ‘We were married.’
‘But only to make sure that our son was born legitimate with two married parents to be named on his birth certificate. Beyond that, the whole thing meant nothing—and the vows less than nothing. I didn’t want to marry you and you…’
‘I wanted you as my wife.’
‘Because I was Marco’s mother. Oh, come on, Ricardo, are you telling me that if I hadn’t got pregnant you would still have asked me to marry you?’
‘No…’
‘No.’ She tried to make it sound as if his answer satisfied her, but the truth was that there was no satisfaction to be found in the single word. ‘I thought not.’
‘I wanted you…’
‘Oh, I know…’ She couldn’t keep the bleakness, the bitterness from her voice. ‘You made that only too plain. But you could have had me in your bed without tying yourself—without tying both of us—down to marriage. But I got pregnant and that trapped us, Ricardo. Trapped us in a marriage that neither of us wanted.’
It was weak, it was foolish—it was downright masochistic—but all the same she couldn’t stop herself from pausing, waiting just a second, just long enough for her stupidly vulnerable heart to give a couple of unsteady, jerky beats just in case Ricardo actually thought about denying that statement.
Well, if she’d hoped it might happen then she was destined for disappointment. He remained stubbornly silent, forcing her to go on.
‘And now I want to get out of it. We both want to get out of it. Which is why it’s not…appropriate…for you to…’
‘For me to do what?’ Ricardo cut in, satire burning in the words. ‘Not appropriate for me to help a woman who is evidently unwell and who has fainted at my feet? Not appropriate to pick her up and carry her inside, put her into a comfortable bed—and perhaps remove her outer clothing so that she may sleep more comfortably? I think that only you would assign some sort of sexual motive to that.’
His cynicism lashed at her, making her flinch inwardly. Her face was burning once more but this time with a very different sort of embarrassment. Hearing it like that, it did sound so perfectly innocent. Did she really think that she was so sexually irresistible that he was unable to keep his hands off her?
If she had been foolish enough to even consider any such thought then his tone and the blazing fury in his eyes would have very soon disillusioned her. Ricardo might have once been so determined and so hungry to get her into his bed that he had broken what he had told her was normally an indestructible rule and made love to her without using a condom, but it clearly was not the case any more. He had seen her as nothing more than some woman who needed help and he had acted accordingly.
‘You did that?’ Her whole body was burning with embarrassment so that the words quavered on her tongue. ‘Thank you—and I’m sorry.’
A swift, curt nod was Ricardo’s only acknowledgement of her response and almost immediately it seemed that his mind had moved on to something else.
‘Someone had to take care of you. You obviously weren’t taking care of yourself. Tell me, Lucia—when did you last eat?’
The question was unexpected, catching her off guard and forcing her to consider.
‘Yesterday…’ she said slowly, still thinking about it.
‘Are you sure?’
No, she wasn’t sure. Yesterday morning she had known that she was going to try to get onto the island. That she was going to try to see Marco. And that had left her nerves so tightly strung that her stomach had clenched painfully from the moment that she had woken up, and it had stayed like that all day. And the day before…
‘You told me that you had been ill.’
She’d told him but, if he was honest, he hadn’t considered that it was serious, Ricardo admitted to himself. But when she had collapsed at his feet then he had had to take notice. And picking her up to carry her indoors had sent a sensation like a brutal kick straight to his guts.
She had lost so much more weight than he had realised. In his arms she had felt as fragile and vulnerable as a lost bird, one that had fallen from the nest before it had quite learned how to fly. Beneath the protection of her clothing, she was skin and bone, and the way that stabbed at his conscience was uncomfortable and disturbing.
‘But you didn’t say what was wrong with you.’
He’d touched on a raw nerve there. Those concealing eyelids flickered up, fast but hesitant, and the blue eyes flashed one swift, wary and defensive look in his direction before she stared down again, focusing on where her hands were twisting in the protection of the quilt, revealing an uncertainty she didn’t want him to know about.
Yesterday he had wanted to hate her. It had been easy to hate her when she had come sneaking onto the island like a thief in the night, invading the world he had built around Marco since she had walked out on them. He hadn’t wanted to listen then.
And hatred—hatred and rejection—had been uppermost in his mind when she had declared to his face the truth of why she was here. That she had come to try to claim Marco. Then his rage had been like a red mist in front of his eyes and he had had to turn away from her rather than give in to the murderous fury that boiled inside him.
He wished he still felt like that. To stay feeling that way would have been so much simpler. It would have made things so much more easy and straightforward. This woman had walked out on their marriage, their child so carelessly and selfishly, without even a backward look. Now she was back, walking into the life he had made without her.
And demanding her son.
No!
Even now the roar of rejection was wild and savage inside his head. It obliterated every other consideration in a storm of savage feeling. It felt wonderful, simple, strong—and right.
But then she had fainted. She had turned white, all the blood draining from her face, had just seemed to shrivel up at his feet. She had lain there unconscious and he had had to kneel beside her, checking her pulse, her breathing, her temperature. Knowing that he had to take her somewhere more comfortable, he had had to bend to lift her up…
And that was when everything had changed.
‘No, I didn’t say,’ Lucy flung at him now. ‘Are you saying you want to know what happened? Do you really…’
She had to break off the question as a knock came at the door. Of course—Tonia with the food he had told her to prepare for Lucy. Food it was obvious she needed.
‘Eat your breakfast,’ he commanded gruffly. ‘Then we’ll talk.’
‘I want to talk now…’ Lucy protested, struggling to sit up enough to take the tray on her knees without letting the covers fall down at the same time.
The sudden pretence of modesty set his teeth on edge so that with a muttered imprecation under his breath, he strode to the wardrobe and wrenched open the door. Snatching a white robe from a hanger inside, he tossed it in Lucy’s direction, gesturing to the maid to leave at the same time.
‘You need to eat.’
Now she was trying to pull on the robe while still balancing the tray.
‘Dio santo!’
Clamping his jaw tight shut against the irritation that almost escaped him, he lifted the tray again, carrying it to the small table set in the bay window and dumping it down. Then he moved back to the bed, taking the robe from her while she still struggled with it and holding it open for her to get into it.
‘If it will speed up the process, I assure you I am not looking,’ he told her satirically when she still hesitated.
He didn’t have to look—the memory of every inch of her body was etched onto his brain. And not just from last night, when he had taken the shirt and jeans from her unconscious body. No, the memories he had were from the time when they had been together. When her warm, smooth skin and long slender limbs had been a source of endless delight. When he had known the scent of her, the taste of her, every intimate inch of her.
Six months had not been long enough to erase the memories that could still torment him. And last night just knowing that she was back in his life had badly disturbed his sleep, making him twist and turn in the grip of erotic dreams. Eventually he had woken in a tangle of bedclothes, soaked in sweat and breathing as hard as if he had run a marathon.
So now, even with his closed lids concealing his eyes, he could still see her in his thoughts, still feel the heat of her body as she slipped into the robe he held for her. And the soft slide of her hair over his fingers as she flicked it back, the clean, deeply personal scent of her skin, intensified by the warmth of the bed she had just left, was a sensual torment, hardening his body into tight and aching demand in an instant. He couldn’t stay in the room a moment longer and not give in to the hot demands of his body.
As soon as Lucy had shrugged the robe up over her shoulders and was reaching for the belt he seized the opportunity to head back to the table, pulling out the chair with an unnecessary flourish.
‘Eat,’ he commanded. ‘And then get dressed.’
He knew that he had stunned her, could feel the focus of her eyes on the back of his neck as he headed for the door.
‘But you said that we have to talk.’
‘Later,’ he tossed over his shoulder at her. ‘Get some food inside you and get dressed, then we’ll take things from there.’
‘Dressed?’
Her voice was sharp in a way that was disturbingly close to the edge on his own tongue, shaking him right to the core with the suspicion that she too might have felt the fiercely heated tug on her senses that he had experienced just a few moments before.
‘Dressed in what? At least have the courtesy to tell me where you’ve put my clothes.’
‘You’ll find all you need in there…’
A wave of his hand indicated the large, carved wooden wardrobe set against the far wall but he still did not let himself pause, didn’t even glance back to see if she had registered his response. He needed to get out of here, get himself back under control. Giving in to his most primitive male urges right now would be the worst possible mistake he could make.
But, madre di Dio, he was tempted…
‘I’ll be back in twenty minutes,’ he warned on his way out of the door. ‘Be ready.’
CHAPTER SEVEN (#ulink_9926142e-4a73-561a-870a-d51c11c92316)
I’LL be back in twenty minutes, Ricardo had said. Be ready.
And the be ready had been a command, one that his tone had told her that he expected to have obeyed without question.
A swift glance at the clock told Lucy that well over half of that time was already up and she was no nearer to obeying that autocratic command to be ready than she had been in the moment that Ricardo had strode from the room, obviously not wanting to spend a moment longer in her company than he had to.
At first she’d done as she was told and eaten her breakfast—rather mutinously perhaps, but she’d been really hungry and the savoury frittata had looked and smelled wonderful, as had the coffee and freshly baked bread. It had been too long since she had eaten and after just one bite even the concern over just what Ricardo had planned for her faded in the face of her appetite and she’d wolfed down everything that was on her plate.
She would have liked to have lingered over a second cup of coffee, but already the time was passing and she still had to shower and dress. Just the thought of Ricardo arriving while she was still in the shower was enough to send her rushing into the bathroom and switching on the water.
She felt so much better when she was washed and refreshed, her hair clean and combed clear of the knotty tangles that the wind on the lake yesterday had whipped it into.
She must have looked a real sight, she reflected as she fastened a towel around her and padded back into the bedroom, glaring at her reflection in the big mirror on the door of the wardrobe. With her tangled hair and too pale face without even a trace of make-up, it was no wonder that Ricardo had barely spared her a glance.
She looked nothing like the woman he had married. The woman who, well aware of the fact that she was not the sort of woman that Ricardo Emiliani was usually seen with in the gossip columns of the celebrity magazines, had made sure that she always looked her best for him.
And, if she had needed any extra push in that direction, then the conversation she had overheard in the Ladies at a party shortly after her wedding had made certain that she stuck to her resolve. Hidden in one of the cubicles, she had heard the sneering tones of one of the female guests.
‘Not his usual type, is she?’
‘Not at all,’ another woman had answered. ‘But she’s been clever. She trapped him by getting pregnant. He’d never have married her otherwise.’
‘Not clever enough. Everyone knows he’s just waiting till the baby’s born and then he’ll divorce her. I mean—what does she have to offer a man like Ricardo? She’s too plain, too unsophisticated, way too clingy. I give her a year max after she’s delivered before he’s back playing the field.’
Lucy had made a vow right then and there that she wouldn’t cling—ever. She had also vowed that she would always be as groomed and glamorous as the women Ricardo was usually seen with. She…
But that was where her thoughts stopped dead, dying in the moment that she flung open the wardrobe door. Her hands shook, her heart seemed to stop beating as she stared at the contents in horror, her whole body trembling in the rush of bitter memories.
‘You’ll find all you need in there…’ Ricardo had said, and all she had expected to find inside the wardrobe was the clothing he had taken off her. Just the cotton shirt and jeans, looking lost inside the vast space of the cupboard.
But nothing looked lost. On the contrary, the wardrobe was stuffed full of clothing—skirts, trousers, dresses, tops, even shoes, all crammed into the available space without an inch to spare. So many—most—of the items were still in their cellophane wrapping or the plastic bags that had protected them in the shop, the shoes in their boxes. And all still with the price labels attached, just as they had been brought home after a wild spending spree.
A wild, crazy, mindless speeding spree.
‘Oh, my—’
Lucy clamped her hands hard over her mouth to hold back the choking cry of despair that almost escaped her, stinging tears burning at the back of her eyes. But the truth was that she was beyond crying, beyond thinking. She could only stare in horror at the evidence of just how out of her mind she had been.
The shopping expeditions were a blur in her mind. She knew she’d been on them, of course; she hadn’t completely lost her memory of that appalling time—she only wished she could. But the details had been gently hazed by the passage of time until now, when she was confronted with the physical evidence of the truth.
Had she really bought all these clothes—hundreds, thousands of pounds’ worth of clothes? More clothing than she could ever wear in a year—a decade! Some of the items were almost identical—the same style, the same shape—except that they were in a wide variety of colours, one of each in the whole range the shop would have stocked. And not even everything had been unpacked. There were still bags and carriers stuffed in at the bottom of the cupboard, bearing the names of the exclusive stores in which they had been bought, brought home—and left unopened and untouched.
‘Oh, dear heaven…’
What had she really been like in those dark, desperate days? And what had it been like for Ricardo, living with her, watching her crazy behaviour? He had already thought she wanted his money—these wild spending sprees could only have confirmed his darkest suspicions.
She slumped against the door, shaking her head in despair.
If she needed any proof of the fact that she had been right to go, to leave when she had done, then it was here before her, with no room for doubt. She had been out of her mind, totally incapable of managing her own life, let alone taking care of her precious baby son.
And did she have any right to stay here now? To come back into Marco’s life and turn it upside down when he was so obviously settled and happy with Ricardo? She knew what it was like to be at the centre of a parental custody battle, to be torn and unsettled, tugged this way and that between her father and her mother like a bone between two dogs when they had been going through a bitter divorce. She couldn’t do that to her little boy.
Still half-blinded by tears, she reached out and grabbed the first clothes that came to hand, pulling on underwear, a deep pink skirt and a pink and white top without even noticing what she was wearing. If she could get out of here before Ricardo came back…
She was at the door when it swung open in her face, forcing her to step back hastily.
‘So you’re ready—good…’
Ricardo’s dark eyes swept over her assessingly, and she knew the moment that something of the truth hit him from the way that his black brows snapped together in an angry frown and his whole expression changed from approval to forbidding in the space of a single heartbeat.
‘Leaving, cara?’ he questioned sharply, the tone of his voice and the icy glare that accompanied it sending a shiver down her spine. ‘I think not.’
‘And why not?’ Lucy was determined not to let him see how much he was getting to her. ‘You can’t keep me here.’
‘I think you’ll find I can.’
‘So you’re still determined to keep me a prisoner?’
