Harlequin Presents January 2015 - Box Set 2 of 2: The Secret His Mistress CarriedTo Sin with the TycoonInherited by Her EnemyThe Last Heir of Monterrato

by Lynne Graham

  ‘Tell me about the accident.’

  She spoke softly and he swung round to look at her, his guarded expression melting her heart once again.

  ‘What did it feel like, Rafe?’

  ‘It is not an experience I would recommend.’ He scraped his chair back sharply, and immediately began to gather up the things on the table. ‘Shall I make some coffee?’

  He was trying to get away from her, and from any sort of discussion about the accident. But Lottie stopped him.

  ‘In a minute.’ Reaching forward, she rested her hand on his forearm, feeling the warmth of his skin, the way his muscles flexed beneath her touch. ‘There’s no rush.’

  As she increased the pressure on his arm she became acutely aware of their skin-on-skin contact, the feel of the dark hairs that were raised beneath her fingertips, before the arm was moved away and folded beneath his other, defensively in front of him.

  ‘What did you feel when you realised that the parachute wasn’t going to open?’

  Rafael glowered at her. ‘What do you think I felt?’

  ‘I don’t know—that’s why I’m asking you.’ Stubbornly, she refused to give up.

  ‘Disbelief, horror, panic. Take your pick. There wasn’t much time for the existential stuff.’

  Still the sarcastic flippancy.

  ‘Did you lose consciousness as soon as you hit the tree?’

  ‘Yes.’ He let out an exasperated sigh, seeing that she wasn’t going to let this drop. ‘I didn’t know anything about it until I woke up in a hospital bed, thinking what a bloody fool I was.’

  ‘A fool? I thought you would be feeling pretty darned lucky.’

  ‘Well, that as well. But realising what I had done to myself—the permanent damage, I mean. It could have all been avoided.’

  ‘But you weren’t to know—about the parachute, I mean.’

  ‘No. But if I hadn’t been jumping from aeroplanes in the first place...’ He stopped, as if realising he was giving too much away. ‘Anyway, I’m done with all that stuff now.’

  Lottie stared at him from beneath the sweep of her lowered lashes. ‘You say that now. I bet once you have completely recovered you will be throwing yourself into the path of danger again, every chance you get.’

  ‘Is that what you thought I did?’ He looked at her with cold surprise.

  Lottie felt herself weaken under his penetrating gaze. ‘Kind of. Let’s face it—you were always skiing down some mountain or scaling up it or flinging yourself from it. Especially...’ she paused ‘...especially after Seraphina died.’

  ‘You make it sound like some sort of death wish.’

  ‘That’s a bit extreme. A diversion tactic, maybe, a form of escapism.’

  ‘Escaping from what?’

  ‘I would have thought that was obvious. From me, from our marriage, from Seraphina’s death.’

  ‘Che assurdità!’ He turned away, muttering something furious in Italian under his breath. ‘As usual your amateur psychology has brought you to completely the wrong conclusion. Now, if you will excuse me, I’ve got some work to do.’

  Leaving the plates where they were, he gave her a curt nod before striding from the room, his pride and dignity hurrying to keep up with him.

  * * *

  Was she right? Of course she damned well was. Closing the door to his study, he leant back against it, screwing his eyes shut against the realisation. That was what riled him more than anything—why he hated getting into any so-called conversation with Lottie. The way she wheedled things out of him, picked at subjects that he wanted left alone, attempted to uncover truths that had to stay well and truly buried. Why had he even got into that stuff about giving up action sports?

  Even if it was true.

  He had spent more and more time doing extreme sports over the past few years, turning it from an escapist hobby into an obsession, a way of purging himself. He had told himself he needed something to ease the pressures of running the principality, and there was some truth in that. There had been plenty of times when the massive responsibility had weighed heavily on him and flinging himself off a mountain, as Lottie had so charmingly put it, had given him some release. Pushing himself harder and harder had felt good—addictive, even,—and he’d consoled himself that it was done in the name of a good cause as he had raised huge sums of money for charity.

  But there had, of course, been another reason. The one that Lottie had homed in on, jabbing at it like a dentist probing a bad tooth. He knew that the real reason he’d pushed himself harder, further, to take more and more extreme risks, had been because of the adrenalin rush it gave him. And the reason he’d needed that adrenalin was because it had been the only thing that had given him a temporary respite from his feeling of loss. The loss of his baby, his marriage, his wife.

  But no more. He’d been given a second chance. A second chance at life and a second chance of producing a life. And he wasn’t going to do anything to jeopardise that.

  CHAPTER SIX

  ‘COME IN.’

  At the soft tap on the door Rafael looked up from his laptop and saw Lottie juggling with a sliding tray, pushing the door open with her hip.

  ‘You mentioned coffee after dinner, so I thought I would bring you some—us some.’ She indicated the two mugs beside the cafetière.

  ‘Thanks.’

  He made no move to clear a space amongst the paperwork strewn around his desk, so Lottie pointedly gave the tray an extra rattle until he got the message.

  ‘There.’ She sat herself opposite him and they both watched as Lottie lowered the plunger on the coffee and poured them both a cup. ‘You’re still working, then?’ She held her mug in both hands, inhaling the steam.

  ‘It would certainly appear that way.’

  No one could do the arctic chill like Rafael.

  ‘What are you working on?’ She picked up a sheet of paper from the desk, feigning absorbed interest, but, sensing his scowl, silently replaced it.

  ‘Nothing you would be remotely interested in. Now, I really don’t have time for this, so if you would like to leave...’

  ‘I might be interested if you told me what it was.’

  ‘Why are you here, Lottie?’ His sharp words cut through the air between them.

  Lottie twisted a curl of hair around her finger. ‘I thought maybe we could carry on the conversation we were having earlier. The one you abruptly ended when you walked away.’

  ‘I hardly think you are in any position to criticise me for walking away.’ The sharp words came out of nowhere. ‘That was something you managed to do in a spectacular fashion.’

  Ouch! Lottie hadn’t seen that one coming. Now she deeply questioned the wisdom of seeking him out. Especially as he was closing his laptop, turning the full force of his dark eyes and even darker mood firmly in her direction.

  ‘That’s not what we were talking about.’

  ‘Well, we are now. Since you seem so determined to rake over the past, why don’t we examine your part in it?’

  ‘No, Rafe—stop this.’

  ‘How about we start with the night you walked out? Talk me through it, Lottie, the sequence of events, just so I have them clearly in my head.’

  ‘I don’t want to do this.’

  ‘Well, too bad—because I do. You wanted to talk, so let’s talk. How long had you been planning it, Lottie? Was it a sudden realisation? A spur-of-the-moment thing? Oh, no, it couldn’t have been.’

  His cruel laugh cut through Lottie like a knife.

  ‘Not when I bear in mind that you had never loved me. You must have been desperate to get away from me—plotting your escape for months.’

  He was wrong—so wrong about everything. But Lottie refused to go there, refused to face the coal-black intensity of his pierc
ing eyes and rake over that dreadful night. Even though every single minute of it was seared on her soul for ever.

  The hardest decision of her life had been made quickly. The negative result of their third IVF attempt had finally tipped her over the edge, driving the last nail into the coffin of their marriage.

  A phone call to the airport had seen her stuffing a small suitcase with clothes and creeping down the steps to a waiting taxi. It had been dark, and even though she’d known Rafael wasn’t in the palazzo she had winced at the noise of the idling engine, the slam of the doors before they’d finally driven off, Lottie wide-eyed and silent, hunched in the back of the car.

  Completely numb with the enormity of her decision, she had been waiting for her flight, gazing at her reflection in the wall of windows overlooking the twinkling lights of the runway, when Rafael’s dark shape had appeared behind her like an apparition of foreboding.

  His mood had been angry, forceful, as he had demanded to know what the hell she thought she was doing. Would it have been different if he had asked her to stay? Shown some compassion, vulnerability, even? She didn’t know. But his boorish attitude had only served to reinforce her decision that they were finished—she had to leave.

  She’d had to make him see that she wasn’t going to change her mind—that he had to go away, leave her alone with her misery. And there had been only one sure-fire way to do that.

  She could still see the look on Rafael’s face as she had said the words.

  With the Tannoy above their heads announcing the final call for her flight, she had dragged up every ounce of bravado and acting ability she had and blurted out the words. ‘I don’t love you, Rafael, and I never have.’ And they were words that had haunted her ever since.

  ‘I’m still waiting, Lottie.’

  ‘And I am going to bed.’

  She went to move, but Rafael leant forward to grasp her wrist.

  ‘Oh, no, you’re not. Not until we have had this out. I am waiting for you to explain to me what the hell went wrong with our marriage.’

  ‘Do I really need to explain?’ Shaking her wrist free, Lottie hid behind her defiant glare.

  ‘Yes, actually, you do. Because obviously I am lacking the power to be able to work it out for myself.’

  ‘Fine.’ If attack was the best form of defence she would face him, head-on. ‘You were working all the time, and when you weren’t you were off somewhere, doing some crazy activity by yourself, for yourself. After we lost Seraphina we never took the time to heal. Instead my life became a miserable round of IVF treatments and invasive procedures in your quest for a precious heir, and when they didn’t work you just became more distant and more cold. You never paid me any attention and you never wanted to talk to me. I was lost and lonely and miserable.’

  Swallowing down the racking sob that was building up inside her, she covered her face with her hands and felt it shudder through her body.

  There was silence.

  Through her parting fingers she saw Rafael’s face, so twisted with disgust that she had to look away.

  She sniff-sobbed loudly. ‘Well, you did ask.’

  ‘Indeed I did.’ His voice was laced with ice. ‘And you have certainly delivered. Have you finished now? Or is there more you would like to get off your chest?’

  ‘Yes. Actually, there is.’ His coldness and sarcasm only served to push the floodgates open further. She wanted to hurt him now, the way he was hurting her. ‘Our sex-life.’

  Rafael’s eyes narrowed dangerously. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well...’ Lottie gulped down another sniff. ‘How can you pretend you thought everything was fine with our marriage when you hadn’t even been near me for months?’ She paused, aware that she was ripping open her chest to expose her heart, but unable to stop now. ‘When you realised the IVF wasn’t going to work, when you realised I would never give you your precious heir, we didn’t even share the same bed any more. You never wanted to make love to me—in fact you never wanted to touch me at all. How do you think that made me feel?’

  Rafael looked as if he had been punched in the stomach, but Lottie felt no sense of triumph. The intense passion they had shared at the start of their relationship had been so completely overwhelming that Lottie could never have imagined Rafael turning away from her the way he had after Seraphina died. It had tortured her then and it still tortured her now. Especially as she knew, staring at him across the desk now, that those feelings for him were as strong as ever. That her body yearned for him to make love to her again.

  Swearing under his breath in Italian, Rafael raked a hand through his hair, what little patience he’d had obviously exhausted. ‘You are unbelievable—you know that, Lottie? You have the audacity to come out with this nonsense, pretend that somehow I am at fault for the failure of our marriage, when we both know full well the real reason.’

  They stared at one another. Lottie both waiting and dreading to hear what he was going to say next.

  ‘The real reason is because you just didn’t care enough. In fact, I don’t think you ever cared at all.’

  * * *

  Lottie shut the door of the villa and walked out on to the terrace. It was a beautiful night, still, star-lit and crisp, but she didn’t feel the chill against her skin. Her body was still burning from the heat of their clash, hurt and anguish pumping violently through her veins as she went over and over the things they had said. The ocean of misunderstanding and mistakes and mixed-up longing that lay between them.

  Staring out unseeing at the lake, she could feel the anxiety churning around inside her. The consequences of what they had done, the way this could change their lives for ever, were still being ignored by both of them. They had done nothing to sort out their problems, try and find a way through the shared agony of their past, put it right for the future. Instead they avoided the subject or, worse, let it explode between them, just as it had back then, showering them with bitterness and confusion.

  What sort of basis was that for bringing a child into the world?

  * * *

  ‘There you are.’

  Rafael was jangling his car keys in his hand when Lottie finally came downstairs. He wore casual jeans and a white tee shirt with a beautifully cut grey linen jacket over the top, a grey cashmere scarf draped around his neck. That unmistakable Italian style he epitomised so well.

  ‘I hope I haven’t kept you waiting.’

  She’d expected a growled reply but instead was startled to see that he was staring at her, his eyes moving over her in a most disconcerting way.

  ‘What?’ She shifted uncomfortably.

  Still he didn’t say anything, his mouth a tight line, his jaw firmly closed.

  Lottie looked down at herself. Why was he staring at her like that?

  When Rafael had announced at breakfast that he was taking them out for a meal that evening Lottie’s heart had sunk. Was this going to be another torturous evening together, only worse because there would be no escape?

  But, conceding that he was trying to make an effort, she’d decided she had to do the same. Maybe between them they could try and improve the brittle atmosphere that had pervaded the villa over the last few days. And, besides, it might be nice to get dressed up for once—swap her paint-splattered jeans for one of the dresses swinging in her wardrobe.

  She had been shocked, that first day in the villa, to find along with her own small suitcase, sent over from the palazzo, another much larger case, containing several cocktail dresses: vestiges of her previous life with Rafael. The life she had been thrown into so suddenly on the death of Rafael’s father and the role she had never been given time to adjust to: the role of Contessa di Monterrato.

  Somehow she had assumed Rafael would have got rid of all these clothes—given them away or tossed them into a pile and set light to them. She wouldn’t have
blamed him. Pulling them out of the rustling tissue paper one by one, she had held them up against herself, remembering the woman she had been when she had worn those dresses, standing beside Rafael at tedious functions, watching the way he could work the room, knowing that every event, no matter what it was called, was simply another public relations exercise—a business meeting in all but name.

  They weren’t happy memories, and Lottie had quickly selected one garment before pushing the rest, along with the memories, to the back of the closet again.

  The dress she had chosen was simple and elegant, made of a deep blue silk that had an iridescent quality that caught the light as she turned. And, despite its past, it made her feel good. At least it had done until she had been subjected to the full force of Rafael’s raking gaze.

  Now might have been a time for Rafael to say something complimentary—tell her how nice she looked. Even an appreciative nod would have done.

  ‘You’ll be cold.’

  So much for that. His deepening frown and the tight pull of his lips suggested nothing but irritation.

  ‘Don’t you have a stole or something?’

  A stole? What century was he living in? They were travelling to a restaurant in his luxury sports car, not a horse and carriage.

  ‘I’m fine.’

  She inhaled sharply, suddenly cross with herself. Why had she spent hours trying to make herself attractive to him? Fiddling about with her hair until she perfected the loose bun at the nape of her neck, carefully applying subtle make-up, slithering this dress over her scrubbed and moisturised body. Why the hell had she bothered?

  ‘Put this on, anyway’ Stepping towards her, he took off his scarf and, carefully looping it over her hairstyle, arranged it, still warm from his body, around her shoulders.

  ‘Thanks.’ Lottie had to move back from him before she could breathe.

  Something told her this evening was going to be awful.

  But she was wrong. The local restaurant was small and informal, and after the usual amount of fussing and flapping from the staff that always accompanied Rafael wherever he went they were soon seated in a quiet corner, with a single candle flickering on the table between them.