Love Islands: Passionate Nights

Not for much longer. That was a very satisfying thought.

‘Unexpected announcements, revelations all round, time together without high society peering over our shoulders... Where does it end, I wonder? Oh, yes, I know. In bed.’

Lucy flushed. Those amazing pale eyes sent her nervous system into freefall and as soon as he mentioned the word ‘bed’ she couldn’t stop the tide of graphic images that pelted into her head at breakneck speed.

The principles she had held so dear became gossamer-thin under the impact of those images.

But for her, sex and love were entwined. They were!

‘You were out of order implying to John and Anita that you were willing to sink money in the place if I agreed to your demands.’

‘Was I?’ Dio shot her a perplexed frown. ‘I thought that I was only being honest. Nice people, by the way. They seem to have bought into the usefulness of having the after-school tutoring scheme there, but then I guess they would, considering they both have children who attend. Must be tough.’

Lucy was beginning to feel as though she had been stuck in a washing machine with the speed turned to full.

‘What must be tough?’ She knew what was tough. Tough was the way her carefully laid plans had unravelled at the speed of light in the space of twenty-four short hours. She had suspected that talk of divorce wouldn’t fall on completely fertile ground, because her husband was nothing if not proud, but she had not banked on the route he had taken which had now landed them both up here.

With talk of sex shimmering between them.

‘Tough being a working parent, trying to make ends meet while still attempting to find the spare time to sit and do homework with kids. I guess that’s the situation with your two...friends.’

‘They’re going to repeat what you told them to Mark.’

‘Oh dear. And would that be a problem?’

‘You always have to get your own way, don’t you?’ Lucy looked at him resentfully and then immediately diverted her eyes, because he was just too sexy and too good-looking to stare at for very long. Especially now that the dynamics between them had changed, subtly but dramatically.

‘Always,’ Dio confirmed readily. ‘What do you think your caring, sharing friend will think when he discovers that you’re the person standing between the success and failure of his little baby...? Because, from what you’ve told me, this has been more than just a flash in the pan, try-it-on-for-size experiment for him.’

Lucy bristled. ‘Are you implying that that’s what it’s been for me?’ she demanded, sinking her teeth into her sandwich and chewing angrily on it.

‘I never noticed just how cute you are when you’re angry,’ Dio murmured. ‘But then, anger didn’t score high on the list of required emotions in our marriage, did it?’

It surprised him just how much he was enjoying himself. Was it the bizarre novelty of the situation? He didn’t know and he wasn’t going to waste time with pointless questions. He was in very little doubt that as soon as he had had her, as soon as he had slept with her, he would regain healthy perspective on just the kind of woman she was, at which point he would bid farewell to his manipulative wife. But in the meantime...

Lucy lowered her eyes, reminded of just how hollow and empty their marriage had been, and then further reminded of all the high hopes and girlish dreams that had driven her to marry him in the first place.

‘I find working with these kids fulfilling,’ she told him, ignoring his barb. ‘Much, much more fulfilling than making stupid small talk to people I don’t like and barely know. Much more fulfilling than going to the opening of an art gallery or a society wedding.’

Privately, Dio couldn’t have agreed more. One of the more odious things he had to do in his steady, inexorable rise to the very top of the pecking order was attend events he couldn’t give a damn about. But it came with the job and he was too much of a realist to think otherwise.

Funnily enough, it had never occurred to him that his well-bred wife would ever have found that side of life a bore. In fact, he would have thought that that might have been one of the many things she enjoyed about the position into which she had cleverly manoeuvred herself.

Now he looked at her with a frown, trying to work out the little inconsistencies he was beginning to spot underneath the polished veneer he had always associated with her.

‘It’s going to be all round the neighbourhood that a big shot investor has taken an interest in our little local after-school club.’

‘Not just any old big shot investor, though.’

‘What am I supposed to say?’ she demanded, pushing her plate to one side, making sure to keep her voice low and calm because people were beginning to filter into the café now and curious looks were being directed at them.

‘You could tell them that you didn’t care for the terms your big shot investor demanded.’

‘You should never have followed me!’

‘You know you want me...’

‘I beg your pardon!’

‘Shocking, isn’t it?’ He leant back in the chair and was amused when she leaned forward, all the better to make sure that their conversation wasn’t overheard. ‘You don’t want to face up to it, but let’s cut to the chase. You’re hot for me.’

‘I am not!’

‘Would you like to put that to the test?’ He cast his eyes round the small café and the curious faces. ‘Why doesn’t the hot shot investor apply a little physical pressure...? Hmm...? How about I reach across this table and kiss you? Remember that kiss? How about we have a repeat performance right here? Right now? Then we could take a vote...find out how many people agree with me that you’re attracted to me...’

‘You took me by surprise when you kissed me!’ Patches of red had appeared on her cheeks. She knew that she didn’t look like the calm, composed teacher everyone around here expected her to be. She looked just like she felt. Hassled, overwhelmed, confused.

Excited...

‘So this time you’ll be prepared. We can both gauge just how much you can withstand what’s simmering between us.’

‘There’s nothing simmering between us!’ Desperation threaded her voice.

‘Of course there is.’ Dio dismissed her in a hard, inflexible voice. ‘And it’s been there all the way through our sexless marriage.’

‘Shh!’

He ignored her frantic interruption. ‘I’ve seen the way you’ve looked at me when you thought you weren’t being observed. You may have connived your way into marriage, and then pulled back once you’d got me hooked, but you still can’t quite help what you feel, can you?’

Lucy rested her head in her hand and wondered if she could just wish herself some place else.

‘Tell me...did you find it offensive to think of me in terms of being your lover?’

She looked at him, horrified. ‘How can you say that? What are you talking about?’

‘We couldn’t have come from more opposite sides of the tracks,’ Dio said drily. ‘Did you imagine you might catch a working class infection if you got too close to me?’

‘I’m not like that! We didn’t have a proper marriage and I wasn’t going to...to...’

He waved aside her half-baked, stammering explanation with an air of sudden boredom. ‘Not really interested in going down this road,’ he drawled. ‘The only thing I want is you, my beloved wife. I want to feel your naked body writhing under me. I want to hear you scream out my name and beg me to bring you to orgasm.’

‘That’ll never happen!’

‘Oh, it will. You just need to give the whole thing a little bit of thought and stop pretending that it’ll be any great hardship for you. It won’t be.’

‘And you know this because...?’ She was aiming for snappy and sarcastic; she got reedy and plaintive.

‘Because I know women. Trust me. It won’t be a hardship. And just think of the rewards... Fat alimony allowance...your little school shiny and well-equipped...grateful parents and happy little children... Could there be a better start to your wonderful bid for freedom...?’ He leaned forward so that they were both now resting their elbows on the table, their faces close together, locked in their own private world. ‘In fact, I have a splendid idea. Let’s take our honeymoon, Lucy. Two weeks. After that, I have to be in Hong Kong to close a deal on a company buyout. I’ll head there and you can... Well, you can begin your life of independence. How does that sound...?’

CHAPTER FIVE

PREY TO WARRING EMOTIONS, Lucy was left to consider her options for three days while Dio disappeared to Paris for an emergency meeting with the directors of one of his companies over there.

By her calculation, that left eleven days of honeymoon time before he vanished across the Atlantic to Hong Kong.

She knew that she had been cleverly but subtly outmanoeuvred.

For a start, the story of the brand new school spread like a raging wild fire. He had played the ‘hot shot investor’ to perfection. Now, as far as everyone in the neighbourhood was concerned, ordering computers, stationery and getting the builders in was just a little formality because everything was signed, sealed and delivered bar the shouting.

If the whole pipe dream collapsed, Lucy knew that she would have to dig deep to find an excuse that would work. The blame would fall squarely on her shoulders.

The day after she and Dio had lunched in the café, Mark had arrived at work clutching brochures for computers and printers. He had made noises about getting the national press involved to cover a ‘feel good’ story because ‘the world was a dark place and it was just so damn heart-warming to find that there were still one or two heroes left in it’...

Lucy had nearly died on the spot. In what world could Dio Ruiz be classed as a hero?

No one had actually asked what the mysterious conditions were that had been imposed on her, for which she was very grateful, because she had no idea what she would have said.

They had been dependent on various money-raising ventures and government help to cover the scant lease on the building; now two members of the local council descended, beaming, to tell her that there were plans afoot to buy the place outright. They delivered a rousing speech on how much it would benefit the community to have the place brought up to scratch and in permanent active use.

They dangled the carrot of helping to subsidise three full-time members of staff who could perhaps assist in teaching non-English-speaking students, of which there were countless in the borough.

And, twice daily, Dio had called her on her mobile, ostensibly to find out how she was—given their new relationship, which involved conversation—but really, she knew, to apply pressure.

Two weeks...

And then, after that, freedom was hers for the taking.

Was he right? Would sleeping with him be such a hardship? They were married and, when she had married him, she had been hot for him, had counted the hours, the minutes and the seconds till they could climb into bed together. Her virginity was something precious to be handed over to him and she hadn’t been able to wait to do it.

She was still a virgin but she was now considerably more cynical than she had once been. And how precious was it, really? So once upon a time she had had a dream of only marrying for love and losing her virginity to a guy she wanted to spend her life with. She had woken up. Big deal.

And she was still hot for him. It pained her to admit it, especially since he had gloatingly pointed it out to her and, worse, had proved it by kissing her, feeling her melt under his hands.

What was the point in denying reality? She’d been damned good at facing reality so far; she had not once shied away from the fact that she was trapped in a marriage and forced to play the part of the socialite she probably should have but never had been.

On day three she picked up her mobile to hear his dark, velvety voice down the line and, as usual, she felt the slow, thick stir of her heightened senses.

Once more or less able to withstand the drugging effect of his personality, Lucy had now discovered that her defences had been penetrated on all fronts. Even when he was on the opposite side of the world, she just had to hear his voice and every nerve inside her body quivered in response.

Overnight it seemed as though all the walls she had painstakingly built between them had been knocked down in a single stroke.

‘What are you up to?’

Lucy sat down. Was she really interested in launching into a conversation about the porridge she had just eaten?

‘Marie has handed in her notice. I knew she was going to at some point. She’s far too ambitious to be cleaning. She’s got a placement at a college. So I’m afraid you’re going to have to find someone else to do the cleaning in the Paris apartment.’

‘I’m going to have to find someone else?’

‘Well, I won’t be around, will I?’ Lucy pointed out bluntly. She projected to when she would shut the door of their grand, three-storey mansion in London for good and she felt her heart squeeze inside her.

Sitting in the first class lounge at JFK airport, Dio frowned. By the time he returned to London, he wanted an answer from her, and the only answer he was prepared to accept was the one he wanted to hear.

That was what he wanted to chat about now. He certainly didn’t want to have a tedious conversation about their apartment in Paris and finding a cleaner to replace the one who had quit. He didn’t want her to start the process of withdrawing from the marriage. No way. Nor had he contemplated the prospect of not getting what he wanted from her.

It occurred to him that there really was only one topic of conversation he was willing to hear.

‘I’ll cross the bridge of hiring a new cleaner when the time comes.’

‘Well, it’ll come in the space of two weeks, which is when Marie will be leaving.’

‘What are you wearing? It’s early over there...are you still in your pyjamas? Does it strike you as a little bizarre that we’ve never seen each other in the confines of a bedroom, wearing pyjamas?’

Lucy went bright red and cleared her throat. ‘I don’t know what my clothes have to do with anything...’ She automatically pulled her dressing gown tighter around her slender body and was suddenly conscious of her bra-less breasts and the skimpiness of her underwear.

‘I’m making small talk. If we’re to spend the next two weeks together—’

‘Eleven days,’ Lucy interrupted.

Dio relaxed and half-smiled to himself. He had made sure to phone her regularly while he had been away. Over the marriage, they had managed to establish a relationship in which she had been allowed to retreat. That retreat was not going to continue.

And now, without her having to say it, he could hear the capitulation in her voice. It generated the kick of an intense, slow burn of excitement.

‘If we’re to spend the next eleven days together, then we need to be able to converse.’

‘We know how to converse, Dio. We’ve done a great deal of that over the course of our marriage.’

‘Superficial conversation,’ Dio inserted smoothly. ‘No longer appropriate, given the fact that our relationship has changed.’

‘Our relationship hasn’t changed.’

‘No? I could swear you just told me how long we’re going to be spending on our long-overdue honeymoon...’

Lucy licked her lips nervously. The dressing gown had slipped open and, looking down, she could see the smooth lines of her stomach and her pert, pointed breasts.

She had made her mind up about his ultimatum and she hadn’t even really been aware of doing so.

Soon that flat stomach and those breasts would be laid bare for him to see and touch.

A little shiver raced through her. She slipped her finger beneath her lacy briefs and felt her own wetness. It shocked her. It was as if her body was already reacting to the knowledge that someone else would be touching it—that Dio would be touching it.

‘Okay,’ she said as loftily as she could manage. ‘So, you win, Dio. I hope it makes you feel proud.’

‘Right now, pride is the very least of the things I’m feeling.’ His voice lowered, sending a ripple of forbidden excitement through her.

Out of all the reasons she had privately given herself for yielding to his demands, she now acknowledged the only reason that really truly counted for anything.

It had nothing to do with the school, duty towards her students or, least of all, money.

She had yielded because she fancied him and because she knew, as he did, that to walk away from a dry marriage would be to wonder for ever what it might have been like to sleep with him.

Her head might not want to get into bed with Dio but her body certainly did and this was her window.

The fact that there were a lot of up sides and bonuses attached to her decision was just an added incentive.

‘I’d tell you what I’m feeling,’ he said roughly, ‘but I’m sitting in the lounge at JFK and I wouldn’t want anyone to start noticing the hefty bulge in my trousers...’

‘Dio! That’s...that’s...’

‘I know. Unfortunate, considering I’m going to have to wait a few more hours before I can be satisfied.’

‘That’s not what I meant!’

‘No?’

‘No,’ Lucy told him firmly. To add emphasis to her denial, she very firmly tightened the dressing gown so that she could cover up her treacherously over-heated, semi-naked body. ‘I... I’m happy to discuss the details of...er...our arrangement.’

‘Speak English,’ Dio said drily.

‘I’ll do this honeymoon business with you but only because I don’t have a choice.’

‘That’s not very enthusiastic,’ Dio admonished, hanging onto his temper. If he could put his feelings to one side, if he could forget her duplicitous take on their marriage, then he was damned if he was going to let her get away with dragging her feet and somehow blaming him for the fact that she wanted to sleep with him.

‘Everyone expects you to descend and start flinging money at the school.’

‘I find it doesn’t do to mould your life according to other people’s expectations.’

‘How do I know that once this so-called honeymoon of ours is over you’ll do what you say...?’

‘You don’t.’ Dio was affronted. He had always been a man of his word, which was saying something, in a world where very few men were. He might not have been born with a silver spoon in his mouth but he knew one thing for sure: in his business practices, and in fact in his whole approach to life, he was a damned sight more ethical than a lot of his counterparts whose climb up the ladder had been a great deal less precarious than his had been!

‘You’ll have to rely on that little thing called trust.’

Lucy didn’t say anything and Dio felt the significance of her silence like a disapproving slap on the face.

Rich, coming from the ice-maiden who had strung him along.

‘I’m not a man who breaks his word,’ he said coolly. ‘I know many who do.’

Lucy thought of her father, who had cheated so many people out of their pensions, and she flushed guiltily. Were Dio’s thoughts running along the same lines? He might have married her for all the wrong reasons but then he had never claimed to love her, had he? Even when they had been dating, he had never talked about love.

And something deep inside her knew that, if he had given his word, then he wasn’t going to break it.

‘Shall I book somewhere?’ she asked stiffly. ‘I expect you want to use one of the houses...’

‘I think you can climb out of “personal assistant” mode on this occasion,’ Dio said softly. ‘It somehow ruins the...sizzle.’

His husky voice was doing all sorts of peculiar things to her body and she squirmed on the chair, idly glancing round at all the top-notch, expensive equipment in the very expensive kitchen.

‘I surely need to book flights for us?’ Lucy intended to do her very best not to let either of them forget that their weird honeymoon was built on stuff that was very prosaic.

This wasn’t going to be one of those romantic affairs where they would spend their time whispering sweet nothings and staring longingly at one another over candlelit dinners before racing to their room so that they could rip the clothes off one another.

This was more getting something elemental out of their systems.

‘Don’t give it a thought,’ Dio said briskly. ‘I’ll get my secretary to do the necessary.’

‘But where will we be going? And when, exactly?’

‘I’m at JFK now. When I return to London, I’ll have a quick turnaround. Be prepared to be out of the country this time tomorrow.’

‘What? I can’t just leave here at a moment’s notice.’

‘Of course you can. My secretary will take care of everything. You just need to get ready for me...’

‘Get ready for you?’

Dio laughed at the outrage in her voice. He was so hard for her right now, he was finding it difficult to move.

Small, high breasts... He had glimpsed the shadow of her cleavage in some of the more daring dresses she had worn to social events over the course of the marriage. He wondered what colour her nipples were. She was a natural blonde and he imagined that they were rosy pink, kissable nipples. He wondered what she would taste like when he buried himself between her thighs.

He wondered who else she had shared her body with before she had met him.

It was a grimly unappealing thought and he ditched it before it had time to take root.

‘Use your imagination,’ he drawled. ‘Get into the head set...’

‘Yes, sir...’ Lucy muttered under her breath and she heard his soft laughter down the end of the line. Sexy laughter. The laughter of a man who’d got exactly what he wanted. She fidgeted a little more and forced herself to focus. ‘And what should I pack?’

‘Don’t. I’ll make sure that there are clothes waiting for you at the other end.’

‘I don’t want to be dressed up like a Barbie doll,’ she told him quickly. ‘That’s not part of this arrangement.’

‘I shall see you very soon, Lucy...’

‘But you still haven’t told me where we’ll be going!’

‘I know. Isn’t it exciting? I, for one, can’t wait.’

And he disconnected. Lucy was left holding a dead phone and feeling panicked because now there was no going back.

She tried to think of life after the next ten days but she found her mind getting stuck with images of Dio in bed with her. After she had discovered the truth behind their sham of a marriage, she had told herself that that was why he had not tried to get her into bed before they had tied the knot.

She had thought that he was being a gentleman, respecting her wish to wait until they were married before having sex. She had been too embarrassed to tell him that she was still a virgin, and anyway the subject had not arisen.

Instead, he had been stringing her along. She had stopped day dreaming about him but the day dreams were rearing their heads once again and she couldn’t stop them.

How was she supposed to travel to some unknown destination? They could be going to the Arctic, the Caribbean or a city somewhere. Had he even decided or was he going to let his assistant choose where they went?

And what was it going to be like when he returned to the house?

The knowledge that they would be cooped up together for the better part of a fortnight would lie between them like a lead weight...

Wouldn’t it?

She was a bundle of nerves as evening drew round. For the first time in as long as she could remember, she didn’t dress up for his arrival. Usually, she never dropped the role unless she was on her own. Usually he saw her formally attired, even when she was in casual clothing.

But things were different and she had defiantly chosen to wear a pair of jeans and a faded old tee-shirt from her university days. Nor was she plastered with make-up and she hadn’t curled her hair. Instead, she was a make-up-free zone and her hair hung heavily just past her shoulders, neatly tucked behind her ears.