Luc closed the drinks cabinet with a telling snap, then came to sit down himself. They didn’t look at each other as the plane began to make its descent and the silence between them was sharp enough to cut glass.
His hand still made that possessive anchor to her spine, though, when they left the plane, and the tense little quiver still made its strike down her front.
Formalities were swift and efficient. The night air was hot and heavy with the seductive aroma of spice. The car was a sturdy four-wheel drive with plenty of room to stack their luggage in the boot. And their driver, Santo, greeted them with a set of wonderful white teeth and the kind of warmth Lizzy didn’t think she was ever going to feel penetrate to her bones again.
‘I thought you said there would only be pelicans here,’ she said as they skirted above what looked like a pretty town clustered around a horseshoe-shaped harbour where she could see the yachts swaying gently in the moon-washed night.
Luc didn’t answer for a moment—long enough to inch up the tension between them some more. Then, ‘I was being sardonic.’
It was death to any vague hope Lizzy might have had that they could return to some kind of normality after the ugly scene on the plane. Pressing her lips together, she said nothing else, just stared at the shadowy shapes of an alien landscape sweeping past her window. It was only as they turned in through a pair of gates and she saw a beautiful sugar-pink plantation house standing in front of them that she suddenly wondered if this was where he’d meant to bring Bianca too.
Then—Don’t! she told herself angrily. Stop playing this pathetic torment with yourself. Aren’t things bad enough as they are?
A swarm of staff came out to meet the vehicle. Doors were opened for them, the still heat of the night became filled with warm smiles and even warmer congratulations that included hugs and happiness on their behalf until Luc gave the order for it to stop.
The house itself looked as if it had been transported here right off the set of a period movie. Lizzy could almost see the ladies in crinolines gliding out onto the front porch.
She could hear and smell the ocean though she couldn’t see it, and the heavy scent of tropical jasmine hung like a drug in the air.
‘Come,’ Luc said, making another one of those small hesitations, then rested an arm about her shoulders—for the comfort of the staff, Lizzy realised, and didn’t push him away.
But those hesitations were beginning to speak volumes. He didn’t want to touch her. Her silly confession about her lack of sexual experience had given him the biggest turn-off of his life. Now a wall was up and the detached cool was back, and it showed in the way he walked and the way he spoke so smoothly and quietly to the milling staff.
Inside the house was just as beautiful as his Lake Como villa, but decorated differently in cool pastel shades.
Lizzy stepped away from him as soon as she dared to, to glance around the huge open hallway with a white marble staircase sweeping upwards to a galleried first floor. A huge fan hung from the ceiling gently humming away and disturbing her hair as she spun slowly on the heels of her shoes.
‘We will do the proper introductions tomorrow, but this is Nina, cara …’
Swinging to face Luc, she found him standing with his eyes carefully hooded and his face like a blank golden space. Her own eyes flickered slightly as she moved them sideways to where a tiny creature with beautiful dark brown skin stood smiling shyly at her.
‘Nina manages the house and the staff,’ Luc’s carefully modulated voice explained, ‘so if you need anything go to her.’
Finding a smile from somewhere, Lizzy stepped up to say hello and to offer Nina her hand.
‘I am very happy to see you here, Signora De Santis,’ Nina returned with a smiling formality that made Lizzy feel like a fraud. ‘May I offer you both our delighted congratulations on behalf of all the staff here?’
Considering the rush of congratulations they’d just received outside, Nina’s carefully rehearsed speech kind of fell flat. Still Lizzy managed an adequate reply while sensing the tension that hit the man standing at her side.
‘My wife will want to go upstairs to—freshen up and change,’ he said calmly, with the ‘my wife’ sounding hollow to Lizzy’s sensitised ears.
‘I will show you, signora,’ Nina said. ‘Please,’ she invited, ‘this way …’
Lizzy walked in Nina’s wake, aware that Luc remained standing where he was watching her. She was halfway up the stairs when she heard his footsteps echo off the tiled floor, but refused to look down and check where he’d gone.
The bedroom suite was beautiful, a soothing melody of pale blues and ivory and soft eau-de-Nil. Two maids were busy unpacking their bags for them. Another fan spun quietly above a huge mahogany four-poster bed, and yet another one hummed across the room above the French windows in front of which a table and two chairs stood, already set for two.
‘There is a bathroom, signora, through here,’ Nina was saying, pulling Lizzy’s attention to the door she was holding open to reveal soft gold and cream tones of Italian marble. ‘Would you like one of the maids to draw you a bath?’
‘Oh, n-no—thank you,’ Lizzy murmured shyly. ‘I think I’ll just—explore first if that’s okay.’
‘Of course. You want to settle in.’ Nina nodded, let go of the bathroom door, then clapped her hands at the two hovering maids. ‘Come, both of you, we will leave the new signora to catch her breath.’
Well, that was one way of putting it, Lizzy supposed as she kept her smile fixed until all three had left the room.
Then she wilted like a dying flower into a chair, shoulders sinking, face paling, eyes feeling suddenly very empty as she stared at the huge four-poster bed with its drapes of fine white silk.
One huge bed, two large dark mahogany wardrobes—her gaze drifted over to them next—and two sets of fancy luggage standing half unpacked in front of each. One large very classy bathroom—from what she’d glimpsed through the gap when Nina had held the door open—and a table set for two by the window with a single red hibiscus flower standing in a tiny white vase, and two ivory-white candles floating in frosted glass bowls of water, just waiting to be lit.
Plus one wilting bride sitting here and a reluctant groom out there somewhere, probably downing brandy by the glassful while grimly ruing his lot.
The perfect honeymoon in paradise.
Getting up, she walked over to the suitcases to check which set belonged to her. She recognised nothing either in the cases or from what was hanging already in the wardrobe. She was a bought bride with just about every detail of her old life stripped away from her—except for the one thing he didn’t want to have and wished weren’t there at all.
Bending down, she flicked through a stack of soft designer lingerie. Sexy, every single set—purchased to seduce—plus bikinis in different styles and colours but no modest one-piece. Then there were the clothes that shrieked designer at her—bright, modern, chic and sassy to reflect current fashion trends.
Great.
Sighing, she turned and headed for the bathroom, then stood looking around it. One wickedly decadent deep plunge bath with optional whirlpool, two big shower cubicles, one toilet bowl and two white porcelain basins standing side by side above which hung mirrors and several glass shelves filled with bottles and tubes and jars of every beauty aid a woman could wish for.
And she refused—absolutely—to let herself question if all of this had been meant for Bianca.
Instead she stripped off, picked a shower cubicle and stepped into it.
Ten minutes later she walked back into the bedroom, wryly unsurprised to find that the maids had been in and finished the unpacking while she’d been showering.
Wrapped in one of the towelling bathrobes she’d found hanging behind the door, she rubbed at her wet hair with a towel as she wandered over to the window to look out. On impulse she tried the handle and found that the window was unlocked. Pushing it open showed her a bleach-boarded veranda with whit
e slatted rails. The wood was warm beneath her bare feet as she stepped onto it, the heat of the night kind of soothing, and she stood leaning lightly against the rail and rubbing her hair while she tried to make out what the view in front of her was like.
It was truly pitch-dark out there but she caught the frothing white roll of a wave as it came into shore. It wasn’t far away, perhaps a few hundred yards at most. And as her eyes grew more used to the darkness she managed to make out the shape of a white-painted gazebo not far from the beach.
It was then as she strained to focus on it that she captured a brief glimpse of Luc’s face. He was standing beside the gazebo, nothing more than a shadowy bulk.
‘You will get bitten by mosquitoes if you stay out here for much longer,’ his cool voice drifted up to her.
‘Don’t be such a spoilsport or I’ll go and find myself a large bottle of brandy and enjoy myself.’
He laughed; it was deep and sardonic. ‘I might join you.’
This was crazy. Lizzy sighed. ‘Is all of this macho sulking because I’ve spoiled your honeymoon plans?’ she demanded. ‘Because if it is I hope you are enjoying yourself!’
With that she turned and walked back into the bedroom closing the window with an angry click.
He arrived through the bedroom door as she was fastening her damp hair back with pins. Pushing a wide shoulder against the door frame, he slid his hands into his trouser pockets.
Tall, dark, handsome—sexy. Lizzy wanted to take her eyes off him but the flair that was happening in the pit of her stomach was stopping her from looking away.
‘Do we try to bring this crazy marriage back on track or do we crack open the brandy bottle?’ he asked in a cynical mocking kind of voice.
‘Crazy just about says it.’ Lizzy shrugged, turning away so she could put down her comb. ‘I think the only reason we made it this far was because we hardly made contact during last week.’
‘Hell of a week for me, cara. I was juggling weddings and brides and fathers-in-law and the media.’
‘Thank God for pre-prepared honeymoons in paradise, then.’
It was out before she could stop it, but it wasn’t just what she said but the way that she said it that made her go still with her shoulders slumping wearily, and made him as silent as the grave.
‘This isn’t going to work,’ she whispered shakily. ‘I think I want to go h-home.’
‘To your unforgiving father?’
Oh, that was just deliberately cruel! Lizzy winced. He released a heavy sigh.
‘Bianca wanted to visit her relatives in Australia so we were going to spend our honeymoon living out of a hotel that overlooked the opera house,’ he informed her flatly. ‘She would not have liked it here—too quiet, and there is nowhere for her to show off and shine. I’m surprised she didn’t tell you all about her Sydney plans, since she informed me that she tells you everything.’
‘As we both now know, Bianca didn’t always tell the truth,’ Lizzy murmured, referring to the huge act her friend had put on while planning to run away with Matthew. ‘I’m—sorry,’ she said then, ‘for constantly jumping to the wrong conclusions.’
Luc just grimaced, as sombre as hell now. ‘Nina has prepared us a light supper. Would you prefer to eat here or downstairs?’
End of subject, Lizzy recognised, her gaze drifting over to the romantic table set for two. ‘Downstairs I think,’ she said as she looked back at him.
He just nodded and straightened up from the door. ‘Five minutes, then,’ and he walked away—and if he glanced at the table by the window, Lizzy didn’t see him do it.
Five minutes later she walked down the stairs to find Nina waiting for her. ‘Signor Luc is in the small dining room, signora,’ she said. ‘I will show you the way.’
He was sitting at a round dining table idly pinching prawns from a steaming bowl of pasta while he waited for her to arrive. Another red hibiscus flower stood in a tiny white vase in the centre of the table and the candlelight came from several sources, flickering across the white tablecloth and against fine crystal wineglasses and his lean dark face.
He came to his feet when he saw her hovering in the doorway, his golden eyes shadowing over as he scanned them down the short dusky mauve empire-line dress she’d decided to wear. Nerve-ends fluttered in response to his sombre scrutiny, and Lizzy hated the self-conscious bloom she felt warm her cheeks.
It didn’t help that everything about him was so sense-crushingly elegant. Somehow in the last five minutes he’d managed to change into a white shirt left open at his throat and a pair of black silk trousers that accentuated the powerful length of his legs.
‘Pre-planning,’ he said, using her word from earlier with a dry cut to his voice.
‘I wish you would stop reading my mind,’ Lizzy complained as she walked forward.
‘Your face is—expressive.’
Oh, I really needed to know that, Lizzy thought helplessly and muttered a husky thanks when he politely held her chair for her.
‘I know you are probably not hungry,’ he said in a lighter voice as he returned to his own seat. ‘But try to eat some of this for Nina’s sake. I think she’s confused enough about what’s going on between us, without us offending her by rejecting her food.’
Lizzy nodded. She had seen the anxious expression on the housekeeper’s face when she’d come down the stairs. For a honeymoon couple supposedly so wildly in love with each other they’d been willing to take on the censure of the world just to be together, the way they were behaving had to look strange.
So, on a deep breath that pulled in a bit shaky, she reached out for the bowl of pasta and spooned a few helpings onto his plate, then did the same for her own. Luc produced a bottle of champagne from an ice bucket set by his chair and popped the cork.
‘More pre-planning?’ Lizzy mocked.
He just sent her a brief smile as he poured frothing foam into two crystal flutes. ‘You don’t touch this until you have eaten some pasta,’ he instructed.
Lizzy uttered a small laugh. ‘You sound like my father.’
He stiffened. ‘That was not my intention.’
Staring at the carved lines on his face, she realised that she’d touched that raw nerve again in this man with nerves made of steel.
He didn’t like to be compared with her father, she realized. It offended him. Nor did he always recognise a tease. And he didn’t like virgins.
The supper continued in near silence after that, his withdrawal from the sparring arena as obvious as the stern expression he wore on his face. And Lizzy had killed her own chances of managing light conversation when she’d let herself remember what was supposed to come next.
Her main problem being—she didn’t know what came next. She’d known on the flight over here. For the whole week before the flight over here she’d known exactly what was going to come next because Luc had spelt it out to her in cool, precise language.
Marriage, sex, babies—little De Santis cubs.
‘It’s late.’ She stood up, with no idea why she picked that precise moment to throw in the keeping-up-appearances towel. ‘I think I’ll—go to bed.’
She didn’t look at him, but she could feel his eyes on her, feel his sombre mood. And he didn’t say anything, just sat there lounging in his seat twisting a champagne flute between his fingers as he watched her make her retreat.
The pale blue curtains had been drawn across the window and the intimate table for two had been cleared. The bed had been turned down and the lights in the room had been reduced to a misty glow either side of the bed. As she stared at the bed Lizzy hugged herself and shivered as if she were standing in the coldest place on earth.
Slipping out of her clothes and into the smoothest white silk nightdress she’d ever run her fingers over, she tugged pins out of her hair until her scalp stung with the angry, frustrated violence she used.
She didn’t look in a mirror—she didn’t want to see what was written on her face. She just crawled betwe
en the cool linen sheets, punched the pillow with a clenched fist, then laid her head on it and willed herself to go to sleep.
It took hours—hours of lying there willing and wishing, and replaying the events of the day through a revolving door of spinning images and arguments and … waiting. At some point she must have accepted that her wedding night was going to be the same sterile event her wedding day had been because she finally managed to relax and drop into a deep, dark sleep.
She was warm and relaxed and beautifully comfortable dreaming about gentle waves rolling into a soft sandy shore, when the feel of a set of long fingers gently massaging the silk covering her stomach brought her awake.
She opened her eyes, felt the lazy moist warmth of a pair of lips taste the sensitive hollow by her ear—and tensed.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘NO, BE STILL,’ Luc’s dark husky voice commanded.
But the vibrating rush of sensual panic made Lizzy’s heart beat a fast tattoo against her ribs and on a soft breath she flipped onto her back, eyes wide and staring up at him through the darkness.
‘I thought you—’
He kissed the words away, sealing his lips to her lips and gently teasing the tiny tremor with his tongue. ‘We are going to rescue our wedding night, amore,’ he told her, ‘and we will take it very slowly, so slowly you will not remember to be scared.’
Lizzy wanted to say that she wasn’t scared but she couldn’t, the hand at her stomach awakening her senses to the message being relayed to them by the slow, sensual caress his fingers made across the slippery silk. And she could feel the heat of him as he leant over her, feel that the full length of his body pressing intimately against hers was naked and aroused.
She closed her eyes and parted her lips for him, felt his sigh as he took the invitation and sank his tongue into her mouth, gently at first, then with deepening passion as she responded, catching the increasingly erotic rhythm of his tongue stroking against hers. Her hands lifted up to clutch at him, her fingernails digging into the muscles braced like stretched satin in his arms, her body arching upwards in a compulsive need to press against that massaging hand.
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