by Caro LaFever
She missed the boy who made her laugh. She missed his laugh as he teased her. She missed his silly jokes and the way his eyes blazed with unconcealed joy when he looked at her. She missed his crazy...
Crazy. His words came back to her.
Turn myself into a crazy man.
Lara leaned on the tree and stared blankly at the row of roses along the wall softly dancing in the wind. Was that what he had meant? That he wasn’t willing to be the spontaneous, enchanting boy she’d once known? The boy who dared to be crazy and take chances and risks. The boy who acted from the heart, not the head.
Isn’t that what she’d been doing when she poked and prodded him with her words? Hadn’t she admitted to herself, more than once, this was what she was doing?
Trying to drive him crazy.
What had he said? She leaned her head against the rough bark.
I’m not willing.
Not willing to be crazy. Not willing to lead with his heart and risk being spontaneous. Not willing to do anything except carefully court her under the surveillance of his family and hers until she eventually laid out her secrets for his distant inspection. Then he would marry her and put her in a box and she would end up with another husband who saw her as an object to dust off when needed.
“No. Never.”
Her words drifted in the air, filled with certainty.
She hated this, this man he’d become. Beyond the fact she wanted no man at all right now, Dante was the last man she would ever get involved with. Because he wouldn’t ever be crazy in love with her and give her the passion and the life she knew she wanted and needed and deserved.
“He’s never going to be the man for you,” she whispered to herself. “Not then. Not now.”
Another lone tear dribbled down to her chin. She didn’t wipe it away this time.
Then why did her body rebel against this sure knowledge her mind knew? For the first time in years, for the first time since her innocent crush on Dante, she came alive sexually around a man. There’d been an insatiable need inside her to nuzzle into his neck while they danced. Even the imprint of his hand on her thigh, as he pushed her down in her seat at the wedding dinner, still tingled with delight. The fact he was enforcing his will on her at the time had done little to stop the tightening of her nipples or the wash of wet between her thighs.
This was perilous, far too perilous. Because if she ever acted on her desire, if she ever let him go beyond kisses, he would find out another one of her secrets. A secret she didn’t want anyone to know, but above all, not Dante.
Because he would pity her. He would think, again, she wasn’t anything more than a child.
“You have to find something to drive him away for good,” she stated under her breath.
Before it was too late and he drew her in with his body and need.
“Ah,” he said from behind her. “I thought I might find you here.”
Jerking around, she stared in utter dismay at his enigmatic face. “Go away.”
He closed the stone door behind him and leaned against the ivy, his tux unbuttoned, hands in his pockets. “When I last checked, I owned this garden.”
“Then I’ll go.” She walked with a resolved air right up to his relaxed body. Still, she couldn’t make herself invade his personal space. Getting too close was a deadly trap.
She glared at him.
His mouth quirked.
“Move.”
His brows arched.
With a sound of disgust, she twirled and marched away from him. He couldn’t keep her here forever. He was the host of the party. He had to leave soon. She moved behind the tree, blocking him from her sight.
He would leave. Eventually.
She sensed him, sensed him, God help her, move to her side.
“You do not appreciate my dancing abilities?” His voice was laconic.
Ignore him.
“I cannot remember a time when a woman left me on the dance floor so abruptly. Or left me at all.” He strolled a few paces and turned to face her. “A remarkable experience.”
She would not meet his eyes.
“My family. My neighbors. My business acquaintances.” His voice wrapped an edge of hostility around each word. “Everyone looking at me. Then talking.”
Her tongue leapt to action. She tried to still the words, but they tumbled forth. “Poor Dante.”
His mouth turned down, a grim line. “Be careful. You are pushing me too far.”
“You don’t scare me.” She knew it as a lie, yet her pride demanded she keep going at him. She even managed a short laugh after the lie and noted with stupid satisfaction that he tensed. For a moment, she was sure he would pounce.
A thrill of pleasurable terror raced through her.
But then he turned, a sharp motion, and paced away from her to lean on the stone wall once more. “Time to cut to the chase,” he said, his tone mild.
How did the man do that? She’d sensed his sudden surge of frustration, an almost visible wave of aggravation. And then, nothing. How could he possibly think this would be attractive to her? That she would have any desire to spend the rest of her life with a man who stifled every emotion until all he exuded to the world was bland disinterest and haughty arrogance?
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“There is something between us.” His black stare was pinned to her face. “A spark.”
“A spark of dislike.”
“Keep telling yourself that. However, eventually you will see what it actually is.”
Folding her arms in front of her, she turned her back to him, avoiding his gaze.
“There is a bond between us no one can break. Not even us.”
His words arced between them, adamant and assertive. Alluring seduction slid through every consonant and vowel. He made no move toward her, and yet she could almost feel the silken tangle of his desire reach out and wrap around her.
“We have nothing between us but dislike.”
He stood silent, a shadowy form in the deepening dusk.
“All we do is argue.” She turned to look at him. “All we do is disagree.”
“Bella, how quickly you forget. That is not all we do.”
Lara was glad for the darkening night because it hid the blush sliding across her face. “We won’t be doing anything together anymore.”
“It is time you faced reality. Time you faced the truth.”
“Your take on reality. Your version of the truth.”
“Si.” The beginning glimmer of moonlight gilded his tight jaw. “But it is yours too, whether you acknowledge it or not.”
“My reality is I want to be left alone.”
His deep voice came from the shadows, brutal and hard. “I am not going to allow your dead husband to stand in the way of what we could have.”
“Back off,” she choked. This was too much. How could she explain to him that it wasn’t merely Gerry standing between them? There were other secrets, other wounds. And more than anything, what he’d become stood between them. “You have no right to keep coming at me when I’ve so plainly told you I’m not interested.”
“Merda.” He straightened from the wall and took one step toward her. “You are interested. You’re just using good old Gerry as a shield against what you feel for me.”
“I feel nothing for you—”
“You are hiding behind a dead man because you’re scared of what will happen between us. And it will happen. Let us be very clear about that.”
His words hit her like stones. Stones she didn’t deserve and didn’t want. Stones she couldn’t handle. With a shudder, she turned and headed for the door.
With a swift step, he followed. His arm wrapped around her from behind, bringing her to an abrupt stop. “No more running,” he breathed into her ear.
Stifling the shiver of response from the touch of his breath and the feel of his heat, she armored herself with resentment and turned in his arms. “What part of no don’t you understand?”
<
br /> “Then make me understand.” His ebony stare held hers, prying into her secrets.
Impossible. No one knew and no one would ever know. The years in England, from the moment she was told she was stupid until the moment she’d buried her abusive husband, all those years were frozen in her heart like old bones in ice. The thought of unfreezing even one for this man’s scrutiny—
“No,” she said softly. “No.”
Dante’s arm tightened around her and he growled in disagreement.
Those secrets were well hidden and she meant to keep them that way.
But his hold was tight and strong, and she had to find some way to get him to let her go. Once and for all. She’d told herself she would never tell him how much she knew of his betrayal. He didn’t deserve to know, didn’t have the right to know how devastating his actions had been for her. But if it was the only way—
“All right.” She forced herself to look him in the eye. “I’ll make you understand.”
His grasp went lax in apparent surprise at her unexpected acquiescence. His eyes flamed with immediate victory. Little did he know, this would be his ultimate defeat. “Tell me what he did to you.”
Stepping away from him, she folded her arms in front of her, tucking her shaking hands to her sides. “I’d rather tell you what you did to me.”
He stilled. “What?”
“Did you think I wouldn’t find out?” She chuckled, a hoarse, harsh noise. “Did you think I was that stupid?”
He didn’t move, only stood silently, waiting.
“My father has a terrible habit of leaving papers lying about.” The cool night air clung to her skin, sending goose bumps up her arms. “Sometimes those papers find themselves into letters. Old-fashioned letters sent by snail mail.”
“And?” His one word was cautious, hesitant. As if he were approaching a bomb.
He was. A bomb that would explode any of his hopes for their future together.
“About a year after I got to England.” She lit the fuse. “I received a letter from Papa.”
He said nothing.
“In it were some papers I don’t believe he wanted me to see. He must have shuffled them into the long letter he’d written me.” She chuckled again. “The information was very clear. The plane ticket paid for by you. The college entrance exams waived at your request. It wasn’t my father’s idea to send me to England, was it, Dante?”
The line of his shoulders went taut.
“No, it was your idea.” The bomb exploded inside her exactly as it had eleven long years ago.
A pungent, piercing silence descended, leaving only the whisper of the wind and the whooshing of the waves to fill the air between them.
“Si,” he finally admitted. “The idea was mine.”
The simple admission shocked her. She’d expected a denial, some attempt to shift the blame. “How could you? How could you have sent me away from my home?” The wail came from her broken heart, the heart that had never quite recovered from this blow.
“Lara.” He stepped forward, but came to a halt when she shrank from him. “Let me explain.”
“This should be good.” Before she wept in front of him, she walked past him and headed toward the sturdy oak. She stopped with her back to him, wiping her tears from her face in a quick jerky movement. “Go ahead,” she threw over her shoulder. “Try to explain.”
“After that night.” His voice was cool, yet a strand of desperation ran through his words. “The night of your birthday, I knew I had to do something.”
She gasped and turned to stare at his shadowed figure. “More than what you’d already done? More than brutally reject me?”
Moonlight traced his tight jaw. “I would not have been able to stay away from you.”
Another shock ricocheted through her, leaving her breathless and speechless.
“I went to your father the next day.” One large hand ruffled through his hair. “I told him about the educational opportunities England could give you. I suggested it might be good for you to stay with his English relations for a while.”
“You made him feel guilty for keeping me in Italy.” The memory of Papa’s face as he told her about his plans for her to visit her uncles and aunts came back with painful intensity. Hugo Derrick had been doggedly determined, even in the face of her anguished pleading to stay home.
“Si.” He paced away to lean on the wall as if trying to run from what he’d done. “That was the only way I could convince him to let you go.”
“You bastard.”
Her stark words blasted into the garden. The garden that had once been filled with their laughter and friendship.
“Perhaps.” He stared across at her. “I did it with the best intentions, though.”
“Really?” She wouldn’t let him get away with it. Even if it meant telling him of her painful years. “Your best intentions left me in a cold house in England with relatives who didn’t know me and couldn’t have cared less about me.”
“It was not my intent—”
“Your best intentions put me at Oxford where I wasn’t prepared enough to be anything else but a disgrace to my English relatives.” The old shame bubbled in her words, making it hard to catch her breath.
His big body flinched.
“Your best intentions,” she ruthlessly drove her spiked accusations into him, “had me marry a man because he was the only one who’d been nice to me in the year I’d been in the UK.”
“I thought,” the desperation in his voice was now palpable, “the experience of going to Oxford would be good for you. I thought going to England would allow you to spread your wings.”
“Spread my wings.” Her fingers tightened on her arms. “Well, thanks, Dante, for letting me spread my wings these past twelve years.”
Straightening from the wall, he moved his shoulders as if taking on a huge weight. “I will admit, it didn’t turn out the way I expected—”
Her laugh was hard, jarring.
“However, we cannot go back and change the past.” He obstinately pressed on. “We must face what happened and learn from it.”
“I learned a lot.” She’d learned never to trust a man. After Dante, and then Gerry, she had learned that lesson very well. “That’s why I’m sure you and I will never work.”
“Just as I’m sure we will.” He strode toward her. “You can’t let one bad relationship stop you from—”
“Two.” She stood her ground. “You and Gerry both taught me well.”
“We never had a relationship.” He came to a standstill, hovering over her. “Not in the male-female sense.”
“Dante.” She struggled to find the words, the final words between them. “I am not interested in having any kind of relationship with a man—”
“He’s not worth throwing yourself—”
“And even if I were,” she forced herself to keep her gaze on his dark visage so he would understand she meant what she said, “the last man I’d pick is you.”
He tensed. Then, with the swift move of a practiced hunter, he wrapped a warm hand around her neck and pulled her to within an inch of his face. Her focus dropped to his lips, firm and smooth. They moved, and she experienced the warmth of his exhalation and smelled the cleanness of his breath. “I hear the words coming out of your mouth.” His glittering gaze swept over her. “But the mouth itself—”
His touch was soft as a butterfly. He angled her head and moved his lips on hers with a measured, searching taste. Nipping at her, he took advantage of her gasp. His tongue slipped into her, sipping and sucking and pulling her into him.
Trying to keep herself from ceding everything to him, within moments she lost the battle, losing herself in his grasp.
He let her go, easing his lips off hers. “But the mouth itself,” he whispered. “Says yes.”
“No—”
“Someday soon, you will also say the words.” His voice rang with resolve. “Yes, Dante, yes.”
Jerking herself out of h
is arms, she pulled the rags of her pride and will around her. This man would not win. She was stronger, older, wiser than she’d been with Gerry. This time, she would protect herself. “Your ego amazes me.”
He gave her a slight bow. “Grazie.”
“That was not a compliment,” she bit out. “News flash. Not every woman wants your body.”
“You do though.”
Frustration whipped through her blood, giving her fresh fuel. “A few kisses mean nothing.”
“You kiss every man like you kiss me?” His tone brewed with irony.
“No, of course not.”
“Which is exactly my point.” He took a step toward her, but she backed away. Stopping, he put his hands in his pockets. “You’re not the kind of woman who gives so much of herself to a man if she doesn’t have feelings for him.”
Realizing the trap, she tried to break free. “How do you know what kind of woman I am? Maybe I’ve slept with dozens of men in the past eighteen months since Gerry’s death.”
A low grunt of disbelief was his response.
“Maybe I sleep with any man who catches my fancy.”
“If that is the case, then I am in luck. Since you clearly fancy me.”
“Again, the ego.” She strode away from him, hands clenched at her sides. “I’m astonished any woman can stand you for more than a moment.”
“Actually, that has never been a problem for me.”
A pang of jealousy slithered through her at the thought of him with another woman naked together…Lara pushed the vision back, pushed the emotion she wouldn’t accept down deep inside. Turning, she threw up her hands. “Then go find them. Go get the harem waiting for you in every room in Europe. They are welcome to you.”
“The problem is,” he stated, “I have chosen you.”
Her hands clutched her arms as her stomach did a somersault. Why hadn’t he admitted this twelve years ago when she’d been his for the taking? Her heart grieved. He’d waited until it was far too late for them. Her broken heart could never accept him now. “I’m not
avail—”
“Only you.” His words were like solid planks of steel. Rigid and inflexible and immovable.
Chapter 8
