by Various
The noise brought the child’s head round towards her. From the safety of his father’s arms, his head pillowed on the man’s strong shoulder, the little boy regarded her with wide-eyed curiosity, his soft brown gaze focused directly on her face.
‘Oh, Marco…’ It was just a whisper.
Did he recognise her? Was it possible? She longed to be able to believe it, prayed he might show some sign—however small…
But then those heavy eyelids drooped, his head lowered, the small cheek, flushed with the effects of teething and his crying jag, pressed against Ricardo’s shirt. A small thumb was pushed into his mouth and sucked on hard.
It was the last thing that Lucy saw with any clarity. The tension that had been all that had been holding her upright suddenly seemed to evaporate, leaving her whole body sagging weakly. Her vision blurred as the stinging tears filmed her eyes and all the fierce blinking in the world wouldn’t clear it for her. Her head was swimming, there was a buzzing sound in her ears and she had to put a hand to the wall for support.
‘Excuse me…’
She didn’t know if Ricardo heard her, but the truth was that she was past caring. If she stayed she would be a problem. She had to get out of the room, get some air. She didn’t dare to look back at Marco for fear that seeing him would finish her completely and she would collapse in an abject, miserable heap right at Ricardo’s feet.
She doubted if anyone saw her go.
At the far end of the corridor was a sliding glass door that she remembered led to a balcony that looked out over the lake. A place where on a fine day you could see the shore so clearly that it almost seemed as if there was no lake. As if you could simply step off the balcony and walk straight into the village without getting your feet wet. It was all in darkness now, of course, and as she leaned on the carved stone balustrade and gulped in much-needed breaths of the cool evening air the lights of the houses seemed to dance before her eyes.
The silence behind her told her that Marco was no longer crying, that he had calmed, perhaps even now was falling asleep.
Falling asleep in Ricardo’s arms.
A sobbing gasp escaped her as she wrapped her arms around her body, feeling the need to stop her heart from breaking apart. She had longed for this day, had dreamed of it for so many weeks. And yet, when it had happened, it had been almost more than she could bear.
She had so wanted to come back here, had so needed to see her baby. And yet now, when she was here, the only thing she could think was—did she really have the right to come back into her little boy’s world? Did she have the right to stay, to disturb the routine he had obviously settled into with his father?
Ricardo was so good with him. She couldn’t doubt the evidence of her eyes on that. It was so clear that this was not the first time he had comforted the baby through a disturbed night, soothed the little boy’s distress when something hurt or he didn’t feel well. Every movement, every touch, every caressing sound of his husky voice, carefully gentled to calm and reassure, made it clear that he had done this so many times before.
She didn’t have a place here. She had given it up when she had fled from the villa, abandoning her baby. And wouldn’t it be kinder, fairer…?
‘So this is where you’re hiding.’
Ricardo’s voice came from behind her, making her jump. Clenching her hands tightly over the edge of the stone balcony, she tried to suppress the betraying start, only managing it by continuing to stare fixedly out across the bay rather than turning to respond.
‘I’m not hiding! I just had to get out of the room.’
‘Couldn’t take it, hmm?’ The cynicism in his voice had deepened. ‘Who would have thought that such a small person could make so much noise? He has a strong pair of lungs.’
Lucy could only nod, not trusting her voice to say anything about Marco. A mist seemed to have descended over the lake and it was only when she blinked her eyes firmly that she realised her vision was again blurred by the film of tears that she was determined not to let fall.
‘Not quite your image of a pretty little baby lying sweetly in a crib?’
That brought Lucy swinging round, her eyes going to Ricardo’s face as he stood in the opening of the door out onto the balcony. The unwise movement made her head spin sickeningly and it was a moment or two before she could focus properly. When she did, her heart lurched to see his dark and shuttered expression, the tightness in his jaw that drew his beautiful mouth into a thin, hard line.
‘I knew he was not going to be totally quiet—you said he was unsettled. So I thought I’d better leave you to it. I’d have gone back to the boarding house but there isn’t any way I can get a boat.’
‘So you were running away again.’ Ricardo’s cynicism stung like a whip.
Moving suddenly, he strolled across the terrace to stand beside her, his back to the lake, lean hips propped against the stonework. Positioned like this, his face was in shadow and all she could see was the cold gleam of his eyes in the moonlight.
‘I was not running…’
‘Only because you could not find someone to take you over the lake.’
‘I didn’t know who to ask.’
‘And it would not have done you any good if you’d tried.’
He leaned even more negligently against the wall and folded his arms across his chest. Lucy supposed that the position was meant to make him look more relaxed, totally at his ease. Instead, it had exactly the opposite impression. A shiver ran down her spine at the feeling that he was watching her intently, waiting for her to take a false step, make some mistake that she had no idea would actually be a mistake.
Or perhaps she had already made it and didn’t even realise it. With Ricardo standing there in the darkness, looking like judge and jury all rolled into one, she had the terrible feeling that she had been tried and found guilty and she didn’t know quite what she had done.
‘No one would have taken you. My staff have been told not to take you anywhere. Not unless I give them specific instructions.’
Not just tried and found guilty, but tried, condemned—and imprisoned. The shiver at Lucy’s spine turned into a full blown shudder and she grabbed at the balcony as her legs felt suddenly unsteady beneath her.
‘Are you saying I can’t leave?’
‘That is exactly what I’m saying. Until I give permission for you to go, then you stay here.’
‘I thought you wanted me out of your life.’
She might be worried—definitely on the verge of nervous—but she was damned if she was going to let it show. So she put the note of challenge back into her voice, lifted her chin as high as it would go and made herself meet the cold darkness of his eyes.
‘After all, wasn’t that the reason why you came to find me in the first place? “Tell me what you really want—and you can have it.”’ She quoted his own words back at him. “‘Anything, so long as you get out of my life”.’
‘…and never come back,’ Ricardo completed, making her wince inwardly at the sound of the words. ‘Remember? That was the important bit. This time I want you gone—out of my life for good.’
He really must hate her, Lucy reflected miserably. And it was shockingly disturbing to find such revulsion directed at her, spiced with bitter venom.
‘Hate you?’ Ricardo echoed and, to her horror, she realised that she had actually spoken her thoughts out loud.
‘Hate you?’ he repeated. ‘No, cara, not hate. I don’t care enough about you to do that. But I do know a mistake when I see one and you—’
He unfolded his arms and one long finger came up, gesturing to indicate her slender form with a controlled savagery that made a nonsense of his denial of hatred.
‘You are one of the biggest mistakes of my life. If not my absolute worst.’
The shaking in Lucy’s legs was growing worse. Surreptitiously, she pressed her hand down harder on the rough stone of the balcony, needing the extra support to keep her upright. After a day of emotional shocks and
changes, it seemed that her strength had been drained away, leaving her fuzzy-headed and unsteady on her feet.
‘You know, that really doesn’t make any sense,’ she managed.
‘No?’ Ricardo scorned. ‘And why not?’
‘If I’m—’ she had to drag in a gasping breath in order to give herself the strength to speak the hurtful words. ‘—the biggest mistake of your life. One you want out of here for good. Then why—why—are you keeping me a prisoner here?’
‘Hardly a prisoner…’
‘But you’re making sure that I can’t leave! Which amounts to the same thing. And why would you do that if you feel I was such a mistake in your life?’
It was the question he’d been asking himself all day long, Ricardo acknowledged privately. And the fact that she was asking it now too didn’t make it any easier to answer.
He had never seen his relationship with Lucy as going anything beyond the hot, passionate nights they’d shared in his bed. But once he had found out she was pregnant then everything had changed. Their marriage had been for the baby and nothing more.
No, correction, their marriage had been for the baby and the hot blazing sex that had led them to create that baby. The hot, passionate sex that was the glue that had held them together in the place of anything else. And that he had thought would hold them together until they could put something else in its place.
Because, OK, they had rushed into marriage purely for convenience and to ensure that Marco was legitimate. But surely, when the baby was born, they could have taken some time to get to know each other properly. To find out if there was anything more than that blazing passion that had yoked them together from the start.
But Lucy hadn’t stayed around long enough to find out if that was the case. No sooner had Marco been safely delivered than she had launched herself into a lifestyle from which he—and the baby—were totally excluded. She had been out on the town every day, spending money like water, bringing home innumerable carrier bags of clothes, shoes, make-up. Most of which she had never worn or used. She had moved into a separate room, had had to be cajoled into seeing her son, was blatantly reluctant to care for him, leaving him instead to the care of his nanny almost twenty-four hours a day.
Then, within six weeks, she had simply walked out. Leaving a heartless note that made it plain just what she had wanted out of the marriage. It hadn’t been Marco—and it most definitely hadn’t been a life with Ricardo. All she had wanted was the lifestyle, the luxury, that his wealth had brought.
I gave you the son you wanted and almost a year of my life. Think that’s quite long enough. You can have Marco—after all, he’s the only reason we went through this farce of a marriage—and I’ll have my freedom. I’ll be in touch about the divorce.
And now here she was. Just as she had promised. She had come back into his life for the sole purpose of doing just that—talking about the divorce. And, of course, just how much she was going to get in her settlement.
He detested her. He hated who she was, what she’d done. So why in the devil’s name would he try to keep her with him any longer than he had to?
‘We haven’t talked about the divorce. About what you want out of it.’
Had he actually touched a nerve there? Was it possible that she could be affected by what he had said? Certainly it looked as if some sort of a light—the light of challenge and defiance had gone out of her eyes. Or was it merely some trick of the moon that had taken that from her gaze in the same way that it seemed to have drained the colour from her face?
‘When we have an agreement, then you can go. I’ll have Enzo bring the launch around and you can be back on the shore in less than fifteen minutes. I’ll even give you an advance on your settlement so that you can book yourself into a decent hotel—providing you get the first plane from Verona Airport tomorrow morning.’
Once again it seemed that he had caught her on the raw. She actually flinched, wincing away from his words. A frown creased the space between his brows but, just as he was leaning forward in some concern, her head came back up again, blue eyes flashing defiance.
‘No!’
Just for a moment she looked almost as if the force of her refusal had taken her by surprise as much as him. Those clear, bright eyes seemed to go out of focus for a second, then came back to clarity again as she blinked hard. She swayed suddenly as if buffeted by an unexpectedly strong wind that had blown up out of nowhere but then straightened again, fixing her furious gaze on his face once more.
‘That isn’t going to happen! I won’t go!’
‘Won’t?’
Ricardo frowned his deep confusion, trying to read just what sort of mood she was in.
‘Now you’re the one who’s not making sense. A moment ago you couldn’t wait to get away.’
‘Yes…but…I can’t go like this.’
‘Yes. you can. It’s quite simple—all you have to do is to tell me what you want and I’ll give…’
‘But you won’t!’ Lucy cut in, her voice sharp and shaking, her hands coming up in a wild gesture to emphasise her words. ‘You won’t give it to me.’
‘I gave my word.’
She was shaking her head violently, sending her hair flying out around her in a crazily flurried halo.
‘But you won’t keep it!’
‘I will—damn it, Lucia—I promise…’
‘Don’t promise what you can’t…won’t…’
It was as she shook her head again, clearly on the edge of losing things completely, that Ricardo felt his own control crack. That swirling hair had brushed against his face, the feel, the scent of it bringing so many memories rushing to the surface of his mind.
How could he ever forget the fresh, clean scent of it, perfumed by some herbal shampoo that tantalised his senses? Or how it had felt to know the silken slither of that long blonde hair over his skin as she knelt above him, his body sheathed in hers? As his groin tightened in instant response he almost felt again the slow, sensual movements that had driven him to the edge of his control, keeping him there in subtle torture until he could take no more.
‘Lucia—stop…’ he growled, reaching for her flailing hands. ‘Stop it, now! This isn’t doing you any good.’
The rough little shake was just meant to force her to rethink, to come back to herself. But when she threw back her head, drawing in a ragged breath, ready to speak again, he knew that touching her had been a mistake. A big mistake.
A mistake he had been heading towards all evening. Ever since that moment when she had touched his arm earlier in the shabby little room in the boarding house. No—earlier than that, when she had been about to fall and he had caught her, yanking her upright so that she had slammed hard against him. Her body pulled into close and intimate contact with his.
Just recalling that made his heart kick up a pace, his breath coming raw and uneven into his lungs. His hands tightened even more about her arms, moving upwards, towards her shoulder, stilling her, holding her…
And, in that moment, she looked up into his face, her soft pink mouth half open, her breath coming as unevenly as his. Their eyes caught and clashed, held and…
And all control left him as he saw her eyes widen, saw the shocked response and then the sensual awareness that clouded them. It clouded his mind too, leaving him no ability to think. He could only feel.
And hunger.
And that hunger drove him into mindless action, pushing him into hauling her hard up against him, wrenching her chin up towards him and clamping his mouth down hard on hers. Letting loose a rough grunt of satisfaction as he felt her lips give, opening instinctively under the hard, fierce pressure of his kiss.
A small murmur of distress got through to him, ripping apart the clouds of burning sensuality that clouded his mind, bringing a flash of rational clarity to his heated brain. Immediately he gentled his kiss, easing the pressure on her mouth, using softness, enticement, seduction to counter the brute force he had subjected her to just moments bef
ore.
It started out hard to silence her, control her. He had snatched at her lips, trying to crush back the cries of distress, stop them from pouring from her mouth. He didn’t understand why she should be so upset, why she was in such a state, but there would be no talking to her until she had calmed down.
‘Hush, Lucia, hush…There’s no need for this. Whatever you need—whatever you want—whatever trouble you’ve got yourself into—I’ll deal with it.’
That stopped her, froze her. She could only stare mutely into his face, her expression white and strained, huge eyes colourless in the moonlight. With a devastating sense of shock, Ricardo realised that the strange glitter on their surface was not the effect of the pale, cold moonlight but the glisten of unshed tears.
‘Lucia?’ It was a shocked whisper. And his next kiss was soft, gentle, wanting to wipe the upset from her lips. He took her mouth slowly, carefully, and his heart seemed to stop dead, then start up again in double-quick time, ragged and uneven as he felt the tiny, involuntary, almost automatic softening of her lips in response, the gentle pressure of her mouth against his.
The scent of her skin was all around him. The slide of her hair was against his hands. The softness of her body was in his arms, tight against him. And deep inside the hunger was waking, starting to grow.
But, even as he slid his hands down her back, he knew that something had changed. Lucy had hesitated, drawn back faintly, then a little more strongly, putting her hands on his chest to push him away from her.
‘You mustn’t do this. You shouldn’t.’
‘Why not?’ Trying to make light of it, he even tried a rough laugh deep down in his throat. ‘You were becoming hysterical. Something had to be done—and there are only two traditional ways to calm a hysterical woman. You surely wouldn’t have wanted me to slap you.’
Numbly she shook her head, her eyes glazed with something that looked close to despair. ‘You might wish you’d done that when I tell you.’
‘When you tell me what? Damnation, Lucia, what the hell are you talking about? What is it that you want? And why are you so sure that I won’t give it to you?’
