by Abby Green
‘That would be nice, thank you. I’ll have a shower and join you.’
Ciro left and Lara took a deep breath. She regretted cooking now. Dominique had left a perfectly serviceable stew she could have heated up, but she’d needed the ritual of cooking to centre herself.
She guessed Ciro’s security guy would have been on the phone to him earlier, about her going to the charity shop, and she’d expected his suspicious mind to spin it into something nefarious.
She knew he expected her to be like some kind of ice princess, waiting obediently for his instructions, but since they’d begun sleeping together it was harder and harder to maintain that kind of façade. And any emotional distance.
So Ciro could just be perplexed and suspicious. He didn’t really care who she was, after all. So why not be herself?
* * *
The following morning Lara was surprised to see Ciro in the kitchen, chatting to Dominique over a cup of coffee. She felt exposed when she thought of the previous evening, and how Ciro had quickly and efficiently dispensed with dinner so that he could remind Lara of one of her primary functions in this marriage. Being in his bed.
He’d said it to her again as they’d finished eating. ‘I really don’t expect you to be in the kitchen, Lara.’
She shrugged. ‘I know I don’t have to do it, but I like it.’
He’d looked at her as if she’d spoken in some kind of riddle and then, when she’d been getting up to clear the plates, he’d pulled her down onto his lap. ‘I’m drawing the line here. You do not clear up.’
Lara was blushing now because she was thinking of Dominique finding their detritus. Again. But the woman was looking twinkly-eyed. The inevitable effect of Ciro on most people.
She wondered what Dominique thought of their separate beds...
Ciro looked at her then. ‘You need to pack. We’re leaving for New York this morning. Some business has been moved forward. We’ll be there a couple of weeks. Don’t worry too much about what to bring—a stylist will stock your wardrobe there. They’ve been given a list of the functions we’re due to attend.’
Ciro walked out the kitchen with his coffee cup and Dominique sighed volubly. ‘What I wouldn’t give to have my wardrobe stocked for me.’
Lara forced a smile and desisted from saying something trite. She knew she was incredibly lucky. Even if it did feel as though she were a bird in a gilded cage.
As she packed her modest suitcase a little later she told herself she was being ridiculous to suspect that Ciro had brought forward the New York trip to keep her in her place, because things were getting a little too domesticated in London.
* * *
Ciro seemed to be in a state of permanent frustration around Lara. He watched her broodingly from his side of the private plane as she did a crossword puzzle. A pen was between her teeth and her brow was furrowed. Why wasn’t she flicking through a magazine? Or drinking champagne? Or trying to seduce him?
He turned away, angry that he couldn’t seem to focus on his own work. And also angry because he’d acted impulsively, deciding to come to New York ahead of schedule purely because the previous night and that dinner had impacted on him somewhere he didn’t like to investigate.
He hadn’t married Lara so she could be of actual help in any aspect of his life other than in the social arena. And in his bed. Yet she was starting to inhabit more parts of his life than he liked to admit.
Apart from the dinner last night he’d noticed soft touches around the house in London. Flowers. Throws. Shoes left discarded. Unintentional little feminine touches. Not even anything concrete he could point to.
Ciro had never lived with a woman. Lara would have been the first and she was still the first. In spite of what had happened.
Because of what had happened.
He found that as much as it made him feel exposed and discombobulated he couldn’t say that he didn’t like it. He just hadn’t counted on Lara’s softness. Her ability to converse with the staff. Her...niceness.
She’d been nice before. And then she’d changed. So he wouldn’t believe it. He had to believe she was up to something. It was easier.
Lara could feel Ciro’s eyes on her. She could almost hear his brain whirring. She knew how he worked. He problem-solved. And she was a problem because she wasn’t behaving as he thought she should. As he thought the Lara who had rejected him should.
She felt something well up inside her. The urge to just turn around and let it all spill out. The full truth about her treacherous uncle. About what had happened. She even opened her mouth and turned to Ciro...and then promptly shut it again.
His head was thrown back and his eyes were closed. She’d never seen him asleep. He looked no less formidable.
The urge to talk drained and faded. It would be self-serving. She might want to be absolved of all her sins in his eyes, but was she really ready to face his disgust? He would get rid of her immediately, of that she had no doubt. As it was, the ties binding them were incredibly fragile.
Ciro was so proud. It would kill him to know that she knew the truth about the kidnapping. That it had been done to him by her family. He would blame her. No doubt. She blamed herself. Why wouldn’t he?
She got up from her chair and pulled a blanket over Ciro’s body. Immediately his eyes opened and he caught her, bringing her down onto his lap. She was instantly breathless.
She looked at him accusingly. ‘I thought you were asleep.’
‘Are you finished pretending to be uninterested?’
She saw something in his eyes then—very fleeting. It almost looked like vulnerability.
Lara might have made some trite comment or pushed herself away from Ciro, fought to keep the distance between them, but instead she said, ‘You’re not a person who would ever inspire a lack of interest, Ciro.’
‘That’s more like it.’
He pulled her head down and kissed her.
Lara fought to retain a little bit of resistance, but it was futile. Within minutes Ciro was carrying her through the cabin to the back of the plane, where the bed awaited.
* * *
New York felt different from London. Where London felt intimate, New York felt expansive and impersonal.
Ciro had a townhouse there too—which was some feat in a city full of soaring buildings and massive apartment blocks. It was nestled between two huge buildings by Central Park, on the Upper East Side.
His staff there were polite and impersonal. Lara couldn’t imagine getting to know them all that well. And from the day they arrived she was sucked into a dizzying round of events and functions.
The days took on a rhythm. Ciro would get up and go to his office downtown. Lara would get up, have breakfast and then go to the park for a run. Invariably she found herself sitting on a bench watching other people—couples, dog-walkers, children and their nannies.
She saw a family one day—father, mother and two children. A boy and a girl. It made her heart ache, and she cursed Ciro for making that pain real again even as she denied to herself that she was still in love with him.
Their evenings were spent either at banquet dinners or less formal functions. Lara had lost count of all the people she’d met. There was no time here for cooking cosy dinners in the kitchen. It was as if Ciro was purposely not letting her have the opportunity.
But even he hadn’t been able to complain when they’d been passing a famous pizza place a couple of nights ago and Lara had asked if they could stop. She’d been starving, and so, it turned out, had been Ciro, his driver and his security team. So they’d all stood around the high tables, eating slices of pizza. Ciro in his tuxedo with his bow tie undone and Lara in a glittering strapless silver sheath dress.
It had been a very private personal victory for Lara.
And then the nights...
Ciro would take her to bed in his room, sh
atter her into a million pieces over and over again and then deposit her back in her own bed. Sometimes Lara was glad, because the intimacy felt too raw. But other times she despised him for the way he seemed to find it so easy to despatch her.
His determination to keep her confined to the box in which he’d kept her since he’d married her was very apparent. She knew it wasn’t a real marriage, but their physical intimacy was wearing her down and making it harder and harder to keep her guard up. And she hated him for that. Because he seemed totally impervious to it.
That evening they had yet another function to attend and Ciro knocked on Lara’s door.
Feeling incredibly weary, she called out, ‘I’m ready.’
He opened the door and came in, his dark gaze sweeping her up and down. It turned hot as he took in her light blue silk evening gown. It was one-shouldered, and fell in soft fluid folds around her body—which came to humming life under Ciro’s assessing look. Damn him.
Her hair was up in a loose chignon and she’d chosen dangling diamond earrings. The only other jewellery she wore was her engagement and wedding rings.
‘Stunning,’ Ciro pronounced. And then, ‘Let’s go. The car is waiting.’
For a second Lara wanted to stamp her feet and refuse to follow him, but she swallowed the urge. This wasn’t a real marriage. Ciro didn’t care if she was feeling weary from the constant socialising. He didn’t care because this was all about work for him—a means to an end. And essentially she was just an employee. With benefits.
* * *
At the function that evening—there had been so many of them that even Ciro felt as if all the faces and places were blurring into one mass of people—he felt disgruntled. When he had no reason to do so.
Lara was at his side, conversing in Spanish with a diplomat. She was fulfilling her role as corporate wife with absolute perfection. She wasn’t behaving like a spoilt petulant princess, demanding attention, or moaning because her feet hurt from standing too long.
But he sensed it. Her discomfiture. He saw it when she moved her weight from foot to foot, or when she winced slightly as someone shook her hand too hard. He saw it when she quickly masked a look of boredom. The same boredom he was feeling.
He’d seen it in her eyes earlier—a kind of fatigue along with the slightest of shadows under her eyes. After all, they weren’t falling asleep until near dawn most nights.
Ciro had been feeling more and more reluctant to take Lara back to her own bed after making love to her, and was doing it out of sheer bloody-mindedness—so she didn’t get ideas and think that their mind-blowing sex was leading to any deeper kind of intimacy.
She’d asked if they could stop on their way home the other night. For pizza. The gratitude on his staff’s faces had made Ciro feel guilty about how hard he was working them. Not to mention the almost sexual look of pleasure on Lara’s face as she’d bitten into a slice. It had been the best damn pizza he’d ever tasted. And he’d eaten pizza in Naples.
It had been fun. Unexpected. And it had reminded him so much of when he’d known Lara before that past and present had blurred painfully.
There were too many of those moments now. Moments that made him doubt his sanity. His memory.
Maybe that was why he’d insisted on such a punishing pace. So as not to give himself a chance to stop and think for a second.
‘Do you think we could go now? I’m quite tired.’
Ciro looked around. He hadn’t even noticed most of the other guests leaving. Lara looked pale, the shadows under her eyes more pronounced.
A dart of guilt lanced Ciro before he could stop it. ‘Of course, let’s go.’
They got outside and even he was grateful for the fresh air. He wondered if all this endless networking was really worth it. That would have shocked him if he’d thought it before.
Suddenly his thoughts came to a standstill as Lara stopped beside him and then darted towards a dark alleyway nearby. All he could see was her light blue dress disappearing like an aquamarine jewel into the dark night.
‘What the...?’
Ciro flicked a hand to tell his security team that he would get her. As he walked towards the alleyway, though, he felt his insides curdle at the thought that she might be trying to run.
This was it. What she’d been up to.
He’d given her a credit card—maybe she’d just been biding her time. Maybe she’d met a man at one of these functions and devised a plan to escape with someone more charming than him. Someone who would offer her a lifetime of security and not just a year or six months. Someone who didn’t have their tangled history...
But at that moment Lara appeared again, in the mouth of the alleyway, and he came to a stop at the same time as his irrational circling thoughts.
He frowned at the sight before him.
She was holding something in her arms against her chest. Something that was moving. Shaking uncontrollably. She came forward, her eyes huge and filled with compassion. ‘It’s a puppy... I heard it crying. It needs help. It’s been attacked by someone, or another dog. It’s bleeding.’
Ciro could see it now—an indeterminate bundle of matted hair and big wounded-looking eyes. Dark blood was running down Lara’s dress along with muck and dirt. There was a streak of something dark along her cheek and he could smell the dog from here.
For a second he couldn’t compute the scene. Lara, dressed in a couture gown, uncaring of the fact that she was holding a mangy dog covered in blood and filth.
‘Please, Ciro, we need to take him to a vet. He’ll die.’
A memory blasted Ciro at that moment. He’d been very small. Tiny. Holding his mother’s hand as she’d walked along the street. Which had been odd, because generally she hadn’t taken him with her anywhere, not liking to take the risk that he would do something to show her up in public.
But on this day he’d been with her, and as they’d passed a side street he’d seen some older boys pelting a cowering dog with stones. He’d stopped dead, eyes wide on the awful scene. He could remember trying to call Mamma! but his mouth wouldn’t work. Eventually she’d stopped and demanded to know why he wouldn’t move.
He had pointed his finger, horrified at what he was witnessing. Such cruelty. He’d looked up at her, tears filling his eyes, willing her to do something. But she had taken one look, then gripped his hand so tightly it had hurt and dragged him away.
The piteous yelps of that dog had stayed with him for a long time. And he’d forgotten about it until this moment.
‘Ciro...?’
He moved. ‘Of course. Here—let me take him.’
She clutched the animal to her. ‘No, it’s fine. He’s not heavy. There’s no point two of us getting dirty.’
Ciro just looked at her. And then he said, ‘Fine. We’ll find the closest vet.’
Lara got into the back of the car carefully, cradling the bony body of the dog, which was still shaking pitifully. There was no way she could have ignored the distinctive crying once she’d heard it. She adored dogs.
She heard Ciro on the phone, asking someone to find them a vet and send directions immediately. She imagined a minion somewhere jumping to attention.
Ciro’s phone rang seconds later and he listened for a second before rattling off an address to the driver.
He said to Lara, ‘We’ll be at the vet’s in ten minutes—they’re expecting us.’
‘Thank you. I’m sorry, but I couldn’t just...’
‘It’s fine.’ Ciro’s voice was clipped.
Lara said, ‘If you want you can just leave me at the vet with the dog... I can call a taxi to get home.’
Ciro looked at her. She could see the dark pools of his eyes in the gloom of the back of the car.
‘Don’t be ridiculous. I’ll wait.’
After that Lara stayed silent, willing the dog to survive. When they g
ot to the vet Ciro insisted on taking the dog into his arms, and Lara was surprised to hear him crooning softly to it in Italian, evidently not minding about getting dirty himself.
There was a team waiting when they got inside—the power of Ciro’s wealth and influence—and the dog was whisked away to be assessed. Lara felt something warm settle around her shoulders and looked up. Ciro had given her his jacket. She realised that it was chilly inside, with the air-conditioning on, and she’d been shivering.
‘Coffee?’
She nodded, and watched as Ciro went to the machine provided for clients. He handed her a coffee and took a sip of his own. It was only then that Lara caught a glimpse of herself in the reflection of a window and winced inwardly. Her hair was coming down on one side and she had streaks of dirt all over her face and chest. And her dress was ruined.
She gestured with her free hand. ‘I’m sorry... I didn’t mean to ruin the dress.’
Ciro looked at her curiously. ‘It’s not as if you would have worn it again.’
She thought of how much a dress like this might have fetched in an online auction, like when she’d been reduced to selling her clothes while married to Henry Winterborne. She couldn’t ever imagine telling Ciro that story. He wouldn’t believe her.
She said, ‘Of course not,’ and sat down on a plastic chair, the adrenalin leaving her system. They were the only people at the vets. The harsh fluorescent lighting barely dented Ciro’s intensely gorgeous looks. He caught her eye and she looked away hastily, in case he saw something on her face. She felt exposed after her impetuous action. Less able to try and erect the emotional barriers between her and Ciro.
If she ever had been able to.
‘Lara...’
Reluctantly she looked at him.
He shook his head. ‘Sometimes you just...confound me. I think I know exactly who you are and then—’
At that moment there was a noise and Ciro stopped talking. Lara welcomed the distraction, not sure if she wanted to know what Ciro had been about to say.
