by Lynne Graham
Luca contrived to ease up each small coiled finger during the interim, and gain a hold on both of her hands. ‘I promise to fulfil our agreement. No matter what happens, I will not let you down.’
Darcy snatched her hands back in a raw motion of repudiation. ‘I couldn’t stand it!’
‘I have tried to express my remorse—’
‘I don’t think you have it in you to feel remorse!’ Darcy condemned abruptly, her oval face flushing with a return of healthier colour as she got her teeth into that conviction. ‘You’re sneaky, devious...and I can’t abide sneakiness or dishonesty. The only two things in life that excite you are sex and money.’
A dark rise of blood had delineated the savagely taut slant of his cheekbones. ‘Once there was a third thing that excited me, far more than either of those.’
‘What?’ she gibed with a jagged laugh as she sprang upright, no longer able to stand being so close to him, terrified her fevered emotions would betray her. ‘The prospect of taking revenge? Gosh, I should be flattered! Was that stupid bloody ring really worth this much effort?’
Luca vaulted back to his full commanding height, but with something less than his habitual grace. ‘No...’ It was very quiet.
‘And do you want the biggest laugh of all?’ Darcy slung shakily at him, green eyes huge with pain, her slender body trembling with the force of her feelings. ‘I fell like a ton of bricks for you that night, only I didn’t realise until it was too late. I even tried to find my way back to your apartment but I couldn’t! What a lucky miss! You’d have had me arrested for theft before I’d cleared the front door!’
Luca looked poleaxed, as well he might have done. Darcy hadn’t meant to spill out such a private painful truth, but she flung her head back with defiant pride, meeting the sheer shock in his spectacular dark eyes without flinching.
‘You went to the Ponte della Guerra,’ he breathed with ragged abruptness, catching her by surprise. ‘No...please tell me you didn’t!’
‘While you were ferreting like a great stupid prat round your empty safe!’ Taking a bold stance, Darcy stalked to the door. ‘Don’t you dare show your face at the Folly for a few weeks!’
‘As we are supposed to be a newly married couple that might arouse suspicion,’ Luca pointed out flatly.
‘Luca...you’re not seeing the whole picture here!’ Darcy informed him with vigour. ‘A honeymoon that lasts less than three days has obviously been a wash-out! An absentee workaholic husband completes the right image for a marriage destined to fail. And when you do come to visit, and everyone sees how absolutely useless you are at being my strong right arm, nobody’s going to be one bit surprised when I dump you six months down the line!’
CHAPTER TEN
DARCY closed the glossy magazine with a barely restrained shudder, undyingly grateful that Luca would never read the interview she had given. At her request, the magazine had faxed the questions to her. After carefully studying some old magazines to see how other women had talked in similar interviews, Darcy had responded to those questions with a cringe-making amount of slush and gush.
Anyway, Luca was in Italy, and men didn’t read those sort of publications, did they? The sizeable cheque she had earned for that tissue of lies about her blissfully happy marriage and her even more wonderful new husband was more than sufficient compensation for a little embarrassment With the proceeds she would be able to bring the mortgage repayments up to date, settle some other outstanding bills and put the Land Rover in for a service.
It had been two weeks and three days since she had seen Luca. Every day, every hour had crawled. She felt haunted by Luca. Having him around to shout at or even ignore would have been infinitely more bearable. She ached for him. And she was angry and ashamed that she could feel such an overpowering need and hunger for a male who had entered her life only to harm her.
Impervious to all hints, and beautifully well-mannered to the last, Luca had seen them off at the airport. Zia had actually burst into tears when she realised that he wasn’t coming with them. Lifting the little girl for a farewell hug, Luca had looked strangely self-satisfied. But seeing those two dark heads so close together had had a very different effect on Darcy.
The physical resemblance between father and daughter was startling. The Raffacani straight nose and level brows, the black hair and dark eyes...Darcy was now confronting unwelcome realities. Zia had the right to know her father. And Luca had rights too—not that she thought he would have the slightest urge to exercise them.
But if she didn’t tell Luca that he had a daughter, some day Zia would demand that her mother justify that decision. And the unhappy truth was that her own wounded pride, her craven desire to avoid a traumatic confession and her pessimistic suppositions about how Luca might react, were not in themselves sufficient excuse for her to remain silent.
Richard had phoned in the week to say that he would come down for a night over the weekend with his current girlfriend. Darcy had been looking forward to some fresh company, but unfortunately Richard arrived on Friday afternoon, just as she was on her way out with Zia. He was alone.
Tall, loose-limbed, and with a shock of dark hair and brown eyes, Richard immediately made himself at home on the sagging sofa by the kitchen range. ‘If you’re going out, I intend to drown my sorrows,’ he warned, his mobile features radiating self-pity in waves. ‘I’ve been dumped.’
Darcy almost said, Not again, which would have been very tactless. Managing to bite the words back, she gave his slumped shoulder a consoling pat. He was like the brother she had never had, and utterly clueless about women. He had a fatal weakness for long-legged glamorous blondes, and the looks and the money to attract them if not to hold them. He didn’t like clubbing or parties. He lived for his horses. He was a man with a Porsche in search of a rare, horsy homebody hiding behind the façade of a long-legged glamorous blonde.
‘Zia’s been invited to a party and I offered to stay and help,’ Darcy told him. ‘I’ll be a while, so you’re on your own unless you care to ring Karen.’
‘Pity she’s not a blonde,’ Richard lamented, stuck like a record in a groove. He pulled a whisky bottle out of a capacious pocket. ‘None of the women I like are blonde...’
‘Doesn’t that tell you something?’
‘I wish I’d done the decent thing and married you. I probably would’ve been quite happy.’
‘Richard...’ Darcy drew in a deep, restraining breath, reminded that she had yet to tell Richard that she was currently in possession of a husband. ‘Why don’t you put the booze away and go down to the lodge and keep Karen company?’
‘I’m not telling her I’ve been dumped again...she’d laugh!’
Darcy called Karen before she went out. ‘Richard’s here,’ she announced. ‘He’s been dumped.’
Karen howled with laughter.
‘I thought I’d let you get that out of your system before you see him in the flesh.’
It was almost seven by the time Darcy arrived home. After all the excitement at the party, Zia was exhausted and ready only for bed. Richard was in a maudlin slump in the kitchen. Darcy surveyed the sunken level on the whisky bottle in dismay. ‘You’re feeling that bad?’
‘Worsh,’ Richard groaned, opening only one bloodshot eye.
Pity and irritation mingled inside Darcy. She, too, was miserable. Some decent conversation might have cheered her up, but Richard was drunk as a skunk. And, since he had never behaved like that before, she couldn’t even reasonably shout at him.
She took Zia upstairs, gave her a quick bath, tucked her into bed and started to read her a story, but Zia fell asleep in the middle of it. Her eyes filled with guilt and love, Darcy smoothed her daughter’s dark curls tenderly from her brow and sighed. She owed it to Zia to tell Luca the truth.
With a steely glint in her gaze, Darcy went back downstairs to sort out Richard. Since he’d chosen to get legless in her absence, he could jolly well go and sleep it off.
‘Time for be
d, Richard,’ she announced loudly. ‘Get up!’
He lumbered upright in slow and very shaky motion. ‘Ish still light...’ he muttered in bewilderment.
‘So?’ Darcy pushed him towards the stairs. ‘You’re lucky Karen’s not here...you know how she feels about alcohol after her experiences with her ex.’
Richard looked terrified. ‘Not coming, ish she?’
Reflecting on the awkwardness of having two close friends who occasionally mixed like oil and water, she guided him into the room beside her own, which she had once promised Luca. Richard lurched down onto the mattress like a falling tree.
‘Met your hushband...when did you get a hushband?’ Richard contrived to slur, with only academic interest.
In the act of throwing a blanket over his prone body Darcy stilled, not crediting what she was hearing. ‘My husband?’ she queried sharply.
Grabbing her hand, Richard tugged her closer and whispered confidentially, ‘Not a friendly chap...tried to hit me...would’ve punched my lights out if I hadn’t fallen over...’
He was rambling, out of his skull, hallucinating. He had to be.
‘Now isn’t this cosy?’ A dark sardonic drawl breathed at that exact same moment from the doorway.
Darcy got such a shock she almost leapt a foot in the air. An incredulous look on her face, she wrenched herself free of Richard and whipped round. ‘Where did you come from?’ she gasped, totally appalled and showing it ‘I’ve been home over an hour!’
‘Since you were out, I went for a drive,’ Luca divulged grimly.
And she looked awful, she reflected in anguish. Before bathing Zia she had sensibly changed into a faded summer dress. Had she known Luca was coming, she would have dressed up—not because she wished to attract him, but because she didn’t want him thinking, Gosh, what a mess she is. What did I ever see in her? She had her pride and now it was in the dust.
Luca, clad in yet another of his breathtakingly elegant suits, looked absolutely stupendous. Navy suit, white shirt with fine red stripes, red silk tie. Smart enough to stroll out in front of television cameras. Slowly, very slowly, she allowed her intimidated gaze to rise above his shirt collar. Jawline aggressive. Beautiful mouth grim. Spectacular cheekbones harshly prominent and flushed. Sensational eyes blazing like gold daggers locking into a target.
Her mouth ran dry, her heart skipping a beat.
The very image of masculine outrage, Luca continued to stare at her, the sheer force of his will beating down on her. ‘Carlton is not staying the night here!’
Richard opened his eyes. ‘Thash him,’ he said helpfully. ‘Speaksh Italian like a native...’
‘Oh, do shut up and go to sleep, Richard,’ Darcy muttered unevenly.
‘He stay...I go,’ Luca delivered in a charged undertone.
‘Don’t be daft...he’s not doing you any harm!’
Luca spun on his heel. Darcy unfroze and flew through the door after him. ‘Luca...where are you going?’
He shot her a scorching look of incredulous fury. ‘I’m leaving. Per amor di Dio... I will not stay beneath the same roof as your lover!’
‘Are you out of your mind?’ Darcy demanded, wide-eyed. ‘Richard is not my lover.’
His shimmering eyes murderous, Luca spread both hands in a slashing motion and shot something at her in wrathful Italian.
Darcy gulped, registering that she was dealing with a seethingly angry male, presently incapable of accepting reasoned argument or explanation and indeed at the very limit of his control. ‘OK...OK, I’ll get rid of him,’ she promised in desperation, because she knew at that moment that if she didn’t, it was the end of everything. Luca would depart never to return.
She lifted the phone by the bed and dialled the lodge. ‘Karen...I need a very big favour from you...in fact, it’s so big I don’t quite know how to ask. Richard is drunk, Luca’s here and he’s got this ridiculous idea that Richard and I are lovers. He’s really furious and he wants him out of the house, and I—’
‘Richard, drunk...?’ Karen interrupted that frantic flood. ‘Helpless, is he?’
‘Pretty much. Could you possibly give him a bed for the night?’ Darcy felt awful making such a request.
‘Oh, yes...’ Karen coughed suddenly, evidently clearing her throat, and added very stiffly, ‘Yes, I suppose I could.’
‘Thanks.’ Darcy sagged with relief.
‘We’re going to go for a little walk, Richard,’ she said winsomely as she yanked the blanket off him again.
Running through his pockets, she extracted his car keys and, anchoring a long arm round her shoulder, tried to haul him off the bed. ‘Richard...you weigh a ton!’ she groaned in frustration.
‘Allow me,’ Luca breathed savagely from behind her.
In dismay, Darcy released her hold on Richard. In a display of far from reassuring strength, Luca accomplished the feat of getting Richard upright again.
‘Where are you taking him?’ Luca demanded roughly.
‘Not far. Just get him down into his car. Don’t...don’t hurt him,’ she muttered anxiously on the stairs, as Richard. staggered and Luca anchored a hand as gentle as a meat hook into the back of his sweater.
Richard loaded up, Darcy swung into the driver’s seat of the Porsche and ignited the engine.
‘Where we goin’?’ Richard mumbled.
‘You’ll see.’ She didn’t have the heart to tell him. He had found himself at the withering end of Karen’s sharp and clever tongue too often. Handing him over drunk and incapable of self-defence was the equivalent of handing a baby to a cannibal.
Karen had heard the car. She walked out into the lane and had the passenger door open before Darcy had even alighted.
‘Karen...?’ Richard was moaning in horror.
‘Relax, Richard,’ Karen purred, sounding all maternal and caring. ‘I’m going to look after you.’
Darcy gaped at her friend over the car bonnet. ‘Karen...what’s going on?’
‘Have you any idea how long I’ve waited for a chance like this?’ Karen whispered back, her eyes gleaming as she reached up to smooth a soothing hand over Richard’s tousled dark hair. ‘Blondes are bad news for you, Richard,’ she told him in a mesmeric tone of immense compassion.
‘Yesh,’ Darcy heard Richard agree slavishly as Karen guided him slowly towards the lodge.
Karen was either planning to lull Richard into a false sense of security before she turned a hose on him in the back garden to sober him up, or she was planning to persuade Richard that his dream woman had finally arrived in the unexpected shape of a small but very attractive brunette.
Darcy walked back up to the Folly. Luca was waiting in the hall for her. He didn’t even stop to draw breath. ‘What was that drunken idiot doing here tonight?’ he demanded rawly.
‘For goodness’ sake, he often stays, and he doesn’t normally drink like that. He brings his girlfriends here too,’ Darcy proffered tautly. ‘I don’t know where you get the idea that we’re lovers—’
‘Three years ago, you almost married Carlton. He jilted you!’ Luca reminded her savagely. ‘Porca miseria... do you expect me to believe that he’s now only a platonic friend?’
‘Yes, I do expect you to believe that.’ Darcy met his burnished gaze levelly.
‘Even though he’s the father of your child?’ Luca framed with driven ferocity,
Darcy turned pale as milk. ‘I assure you that Zia is not Richard’s child.’
The tense silence simmered, but she saw some of the tension ease in Luca’s angry stance.
Desperate to know what Luca was thinking now that she had made that admission, Darcy murmured tautly, ‘Until Richard and I both fell for other people, neither of us realised what was missing in our relationship. We stayed friends. He’s a terrific guy, kind, caring...’
Luca’s mouth twisted as he listened, hooded eyes hard as stones as he followed her into the drawing room. ‘Mr Wonderful...Mr Perfect...’
‘No...he does tend to tel
l the same horsy stories and jokes over and over again.’
Darcy was surprised that he had made no further comment on the subject of Zia’s paternity. Heavens, did he still think there had been other men in her life, then?
‘And he’s thicker than a block of wood...don’t forget that minor imperfection,’ Luca slotted in drily. ‘But why didn’t you tell him that you’re married? Accidenti... so close a friend and he didn’t even know I existed!’
‘Tonight was the first time I’d seen him since our wedding, but I didn’t have time to talk to him because I had to go out. When did you arrive?’
‘After six. I did not expect to arrive here and find another man in residence!’
Darcy blinked, and thought about the last enervating half-hour. Luca had behaved like a jealous, possessive husband and instinctively she had reacted like a foolish and insecure new wife, eager to placate him. Luca, jealous? It was a stunning concept
‘Were you jealous when you thought Richard was my lover?’ Darcy asked baldly.
Luca stilled and sent her a gleaming glance from below inky black lashes. ‘I am naturally jealous of my dignity.’
‘Your dignity?’ Her hopeful face had fallen by a mile.
‘Is it unreasonable for me to expect you to behave like a normal wife?’ Luca countered levelly. ‘In the light of your previous relationship with him, inviting Carlton to stay here alone with you was most unwise—’
‘Unwise,’ Darcy parroted, thinking what a bloodless, passionless word that was.
‘As my wife, you are now in the public eye, and a potential target for damaging gossip. Surely you can’t want anyone to have cause to suspect at this early stage that there is anything seriously wrong with our marriage?’
Darcy slowly nodded. He wasn’t jealous. He was just an arrogant, macho male, determined to preserve his own public image. People might laugh if they suspected his wife was being unfaithful, and he wouldn’t like that
‘By the way, I settled your mortgage,’ Luca remarked with stupendous casualness.
Darcy’s lower lip parted company with her upper in shock.
