Rumours: The One-Night Heirs

She glanced at her phone, which had remained silent.

Arabella hadn’t responded to her text.

Neither had she responded to Lydia’s last message.

And suddenly Lydia was back in Italy, hurting again.

‘What happened in Venice?’

Raul chose his moment to ask. He knew how to steer conversations, and yet he actually found himself wanting to know.

‘We went to Murano…to a glass factory.’ She shook her head and, as she had then, felt pained to reveal the truth.

It felt like a betrayal.

Money should never be discussed outside the home.

‘And…?’ Raul gently pushed.

Why lie? Lydia thought.

She would never see him again.

It wasn’t such a big deal.

Surely?

‘My father had died the year before.’

He didn’t say he was sorry—did not offer the automatic response to that statement.

It was oddly freeing.

Everyone had been so sorry.

If there’s anything I can do… The words had been tossed around like black confetti at his funeral.

Yet they had done nothing!

When it was clear the money had gone, so had they.

‘I’d told Arabella, my best friend, that my mother was struggling financially.’ Lydia was sweating, and that wasn’t flattering. She wanted to call the waiter to move the shade umbrella but knew she could be sitting in ice and the result would be the same.

It wasn’t sexy sweat.

Lydia wasn’t turned on now.

She felt sick.

‘I told Arabella that we might lose the castle.’

She offered more explanation.

‘The castle was in my mother’s family, but my father ran it. I thought he had run it well, but on his death I found out that my parents had been going under.’

Raul offered no comment, just let her speak.

‘He took his own life.’

She’d never said it out loud before.

Had never been allowed to say it.

‘I’m sorry you had to go through that.’

And because he hadn’t said sorry before, now—when he did—she felt he meant it.

‘I still can’t believe he left me.’

‘To deal with the fallout?’

He completed her sentence, even though Lydia thought she already had. She thought about it for a moment and nodded.

‘Things really were dire. My mother kept selling things off, to pay for my school fees. The trip to Italy was a compulsory one. I got a part-time job—saved up some spending money. Of course it didn’t come close to what my friends had. They were hitting all the boutiques and Arabella kept asking why I wasn’t buying anything. In the end I told her how bad things were. I swore her to secrecy.’

He gave a soft, mirthless laugh—one that told her he understood.

And then they were silent.

In that moment they met.

Not at a breakfast table in Rome but in a bleak, desolate space a world away from there.

They met and he reached across and took her hand, and together they walked it through.

‘At the factory, after a demonstration, everyone was buying things. I held back, of course. There was a table with damaged glassware and Belinda, another friend, held up a three-legged horse and suggested it was something that I might be able to afford. I realised then that Arabella had told everyone.’

She could still feel the betrayal.

Could still remember looking over to her best friend as everyone had laughed.

Arabella hadn’t so much as blushed at being caught.

‘She suggested that they all have a whip-round for me.’

‘So you walked off?’ Raul asked, impatient to know and understand her some more.

‘Oh, no!’ Lydia shook her head and then sighed. ‘I used up all my spending money, and the money I’d been given for my birthday, and bought a vase that I certainly couldn’t afford.’

It was that response in herself she had hated the most.

‘How shallow is that?’

‘People have been known to drown in shallow waters.’

‘Well, it’s certainly not easy to swim in them! Anyway, I didn’t see them much after that…’

‘You left school?’

‘I went to the local comprehensive for my final year. Far more sensible…but hell.’

Everything—not just the fact that she was a new girl for the last year, but every little thing, from her accent to her handwriting—had ensured she didn’t fit in from the very first day.

Raul knew it would have been hell.

He could imagine his schoolmates if an Italian version of Lydia had shown up in his old schoolyard. Raul could guess all she would have gone through.

‘I was a joke to them, of course.’

He squeezed her hand and it was the kindest touch, so contrary to that time.

‘Too posh to handle?’ Raul said, and she nodded, almost smiled.

But then the smile changed.

Lydia never cried.

Ever.

Not even when her father had died.

So why start now?

Lydia pulled her hand back.

She was done with introspection—done with musings.

They hurt too much.

Lydia was somewhat appalled at how much she had told him.

‘Raul, why am I here?’

‘Because…’ Raul shrugged, but when that did not appease her he elaborated. ‘Maurice was getting in the way.’

Lydia found herself laughing, and it surprised her that she could.

A second ago she had felt like crying.

It was nice being with him.

Not soothing.

Just liberating.

She had told another person some of the truth and he had remained.

‘Maurice is my stepfather,’ she explained.

‘Good,’ Raul said, but she missed the innuendo.

‘Not really.’

Lydia didn’t respond to his flirting as others usually did, so he adopted a more businesslike tone. The rest they could do later—he wanted information now.

‘Maurice wants you to be at some dinner tonight?’

Lydia nodded. ‘He’s got an important meeting with a potential investor and he wants me there.’

‘Why?’

Lydia gave a dismissive shake of her head.

She certainly wasn’t going to discuss that!

‘I probably shan’t go,’ Lydia said, instead of explaining things. ‘I’m supposed to be catching up with a friend—or rather,’ she added, remembering all he had heard, ‘an acquaintance.’

‘Who?’

‘Arabella.’ She was embarrassed to admit it after all she had told him. ‘She works in Rome now.’

‘I thought you fell out?’

‘That was all a very long time ago,’ Lydia said, but she didn’t actually like the point he had raised.

They hadn’t fallen out.

The incident had been buried—like everything else.

She conversed with Arabella only through social media and the odd text. It had been years since they had been face-to-face, and Lydia wasn’t sure she was relishing the prospect of seeing her, so, rather than admit that, she went back to his original question—why Maurice wanted her to be there tonight.

‘The family castle is now a wedding venue.’

‘Do you work there?’

Lydia nodded.

‘Doing what?’

‘I deal with the bookings and organise the catering…’ She gave a tight smile, because what she did for a living was so far away from her dreams. When her father had been alive she had loved the visitors that came to the castle. He would take them through it and pass on its rich history and Lydia would learn something new every time.

‘And you still live at home?’

‘Yes.’

She didn’t add that there was no choice. The business was failing so badly that they couldn’t afford much outside help, and she didn’t get a wage as such.

‘Bastiano—this man we’re supposed to meet tonight—has had a lot of success converting old buildings… He has several luxury retreats and my mother and Maurice are hoping to go that route with the castle. Still, it would take a massive cash injection…’

‘Castles need more than an injection—they require a permanent infusion,’ Raul corrected.

All old buildings did.

It galled him that Bastiano had been able to turn the convent into a successful business venture. On paper it should never have worked, and yet somehow he had ensured that it had.

‘Quite,’ Lydia agreed. ‘But more than money we need his wisdom…’ She misinterpreted the slight narrowing of Raul’s eyes as confusion. ‘A lot of these types of venture fail—somehow Bastiano’s succeed.’

‘So why would this successful businessman be interested in your castle?’

Lydia found she was holding her breath. His question was just a little bit insulting. After all, the castle was splendid indeed, and Raul could have no idea what a disaster in business Maurice had turned out to be.

‘I’m sure Bastiano recognises its potential.’

‘And he wants you there tonight so he can hear your vision for the castle?’

Lydia gave a small shake of her head. The truth was that she was actually opposed to the idea of turning it into a retreat—not that her objections held much weight.

‘Then why do you need to go?’

‘I’ve been invited.’

‘Lydia, I have had more business meetings than I’ve had dinners.’ Raul spoke when she did not. ‘But I can’t ever remember asking anyone—ever—to bring along their daughter, or rather their stepdaughter.’

She blushed.

Those creamy cheeks turned an unflattering red.

Lydia knew it—she could feel the fire, not just on her skin but building inside her at the inappropriateness he was alluding to.

‘Excuse me?’ she snapped.

‘Why?’ Raul said. ‘What did you do?’

‘I mean you’re rude to insinuate that there might be something else going on!’

‘I know that’s what you meant.’

He remained annoyingly calm, and more annoyingly he didn’t back down.

‘And I’m not insinuating anything—I’m telling you that unless you hold the deeds to the castle, or are to be a major player in the renovations, or some such, there is no reason for this Bastiano to insist on your company tonight. ‘

‘He isn’t insisting.’

‘Good.’ Raul shrugged. ‘Then don’t go.’

‘I don’t have any excuse not to.’

‘You don’t need one.’

It was Lydia who gave a shrug now.

A tense one.

She was still cross at his insinuation.

Or rather she was cross that Raul might be right—that he could see what she had spent weeks frantically trying not to.

‘Lydia, can I tell you something?’

She didn’t answer.

‘Some free advice.’

‘Why would I take advice from a stranger?’

‘I’m no longer a stranger.’

He wasn’t. She had told him more than she had told many people who were in her day-to-day life.

‘Can I?’ Raul checked.

She liked it that he did not give advice unrequested, and when she met his eyes they were patient and awaiting her answer.

‘Yes.’

‘You can walk away from anyone you choose to, and you don’t have to come up with a reason.’

‘I know that.’

She had walked off from breakfast with Maurice, after all.

It wasn’t enough, though—Lydia knew that. And though Raul’s words made perfect sense, they just did not apply to her world.

‘So why don’t you tell your stepfather that you can’t make it tonight because you’re catching up with a friend?’

‘I already have.’

‘But you don’t like Arabella,’ Raul pointed out. ‘So why don’t you meet me instead?’

She laughed a black laugh. ‘You’re not a friend.’

He wasn’t.

‘No,’ he answered honestly. ‘I’m not.’

She was about to take a sip of her coffee when he added something else.

‘I could be for tonight, though.’

‘I don’t think so.’ Lydia gave a small laugh, not really getting what he had just said—or rather not really thinking he meant it.

‘Do you have many friends?’ she asked, replacing her cup. Perhaps her question was a little invasive, but she’d told him rather a lot and was curious to know about him.

‘Some.’

‘Close friends?’ Lydia pushed.

‘No one whose birthday I need to remember.’

‘No one?’

He shook his head.

‘I guess it saves shopping for presents.’

‘Not really.’

Raul decided to take things to another level and tell her how things could be. In sex, at least, he was up front.

‘I like to give a present the morning after.’

Lydia got what he meant this time.

She didn’t blush. If anything Lydia felt a shiver, as if the sun had slipped behind a cloud.

It hadn’t.

He was dark, he was dangerous, and he was as sexy as hell. Absolutely she was out of her depth.

‘I’m here to sightsee, Raul.’

‘Then you need an expert.’

Lydia stared coolly back at this man who was certainly that. She wondered at his reaction if she told him just how inexperienced she was—that in fact he would be her first.

Not that it was going to happen!

But what a first, Lydia thought.

She went to reach for water but decided against it, unsure she could manage the simple feat when the air thrummed with an energy that was foreign to her.

He was potent, and Lydia was tempted in a way she had never been.

She glanced down to his hand, and that was beautiful too—olive-skinned and long-fingered with very neat nails. And it was happening again, because now she imagined them inside her.

Oh!

She was sitting at breakfast, imagining those very fingers in the filthiest of thoughts, and she dared not look up at him for she felt he could read her mind.

‘So what are your plans for today?’ Raul asked.

His voice seemed to be coming from a distance, and yet he was so prominent in her mind.

She could take his hand, Lydia was certain, and be led to his bed.

Oh, what was happening to her?

‘I told you—sightseeing, and then I’m shopping for a dress.’

‘I wish I could be there to see that.’

‘I thought men didn’t like shopping.’

‘I don’t, usually.’

His eyes flicked to the row of buttons at the front of her dress and then to the thick nipples that ached, just ached for his touch, for his mouth. And then they moved back to her face.

‘I have to go,’ Raul told her, and she sat still as he stood. With good reason: her legs simply refused to move. Standing would be difficult…walking back over to the hotel would prove a completely impossible feat.

Please go, Lydia thought, because she felt drunk on lust and was trying not to let him see.

He summoned the waiter, and though he spoke in Italian he spoke slowly enough that she could just make out what was being said.

Hold this table for tonight at six.

And then he turned to where she sat, now with her back to him, and lowered his head. For a moment she thought he was going to kiss her.

He did not.

His breath was warm on her cheek and his scent was like a delicious invasion. His glossy black hair was so close that she fought not to reach out and feel it, fought not to turn and lick his face.

And then he spoke.

‘Hold that thought till six.’

Lydia blinked and tried to pretend that she still felt normal, that this was simply breakfast and she was somehow in control.

‘I already told you—I can’t make it tonight.’

Then he offered but one word.

‘Choose.’

CHAPTER THREE

WHAT THE HELL was happening to her?

Lydia watched him walk across the street and then disappear inside the hotel.

He did not turn around. He didn’t walk with haste.

She wanted him to hurry, to disappear, just so that she could clear her mind—because in fact she wanted him to turn around.

One crook of his finger and she knew she would rise and run to him—and that was so not her. She kept her distance from people—not just physically but emotionally too.

Her father’s death had rocked every aspect of her world, and the aftermath had been hell. Watching her mother selling off heirlooms and precious memories one by one, in a permanent attempt to keep up appearances, and then marrying that frightful man. Finding her friends had all been fair-weather ones had also hurt Lydia to the core. And so she held back—from family, from friends and, yes, from men.

She was guarded, and possibly the assumption made by others that she was cold was a correct one.

But not now—not this morning.

She felt as if she had been scalded, as if every nerve was heated and raw, and all he had done was buy her breakfast.

She sat alone at the table. There was nothing to indicate romance—no candles or champagne—and no favourable dusk to soften the view. Just the brightness of morning.

There had been no romance.

Raul had offered her one night and a present the following morning. She should have damn well slapped him for the insult!

Yet he’d left her on a slightly giddy high that she couldn’t quite come down from.

Sightseeing as such didn’t happen.

When she should have been sorting out what to do about tonight she wandered around, thinking about this morning.

But finally she shopped, and accepted the assistant’s advice, and stood in the changing room with various options.

The black did not match her mood.

The caramel felt rather safe.

But as for the red!

The rich fabric caressed her skin and gave curves where she had few. It was ruched across her stomach and her hand went to smooth it before she realised that was the desired effect—it drew the eye lower.

Lydia slipped on the heels that stood in the corner and looked at her reflection from behind. And then she looked from the front.

She felt sexy, and for the first time beautiful and just a touch wild as she lifted her hair and imagined it piled up in curls. And his reaction.

It wasn’t Bastiano’s reaction she was envisaging—it was the reaction of the man who had invited her out this evening.

Only that wasn’t quite right.

He hadn’t asked her out on a date.

Raul had invited her to a night in his bed.

‘Bellisima…’

Lydia spun around as the assistant came in, and her cheeks matched the fabric as if she had been caught stealing.

‘That dress is perfect on you…’ the assistant said.

‘Well, I prefer this one.’

She could see the assistant’s confusion as she plucked the closest dress to hand and passed it to her.

Caramel—or rather a dark shade of beige.

Safe.

Bastiano was not a safe option.

Raul knew that as fact.

‘I trust you were comfortable last night?’ Sultan Alim asked when they met.

Raul had met the Sultan once before, but that had been in the Middle East and then Alim had been dressed in traditional robes. Today he wore a deep navy suit.

‘Extremely comfortable,’ Raul agreed. ‘Your staff are excellent.’

‘We have a rigorous recruiting process for all levels.’ Alim nodded. ‘Few make it through the interviews, and not many past the three-month trial. We retain only the best.’

Raul had seen that for himself.

Alim was unhurried as he took Raul behind the scenes of his iconic hotel. ‘I have had four serious expressions of interest,’ Alim went on to explain. ‘Two I know have the means—one I doubt. The other…’ He held his hand flat and waved it to indicate he was uncertain.

‘So I have one definite rival?’ Raul said, and watched as Alim gave a conceding smile.

Both knew Raul was a serious contender.

He didn’t have to try hard to guess who the other was—not that Alim let on.

Raul had done his homework, and he knew that Alim was not just an astute businessman but very discreet in all his dealings.

He would have to be.

Allegra, Raul’s long-suffering PA, had found out all she could on him.

Sultan Alim was a playboy, and his palace’s PR must be on overtime to keep his decadent ways out of the press.

Alim kissed but never told, and in return the silence of his aggrieved lovers was paid for in diamonds.

And in business he played his cards close to his chest.

The latter Raul could attest to, for Alim did not bend to any of Raul’s mercurial ways.

By the end of a very long day Raul was still no closer to finding out the real reason for the sale.

Alim had dismissed his team and was taking Raul for one final look around.

‘I haven’t seen Bastiano,’ Raul commented as the elevator arrived to take them down to the function rooms. When Alim did not respond, Raul pushed. ‘I see that his guests are already here.’

Still Alim gave nothing away. ‘I shall take you now to the ballroom.’

Raul had no choice but to accept his silence.

He knew that Alim and Bastiano were friends, and in turn Alim would know that Raul and Bastiano were business rivals and enemies.

So, instead of trying to find out more about Bastiano, Raul returned his mind to work.

‘Why?’ Raul asked Sultan Alim as they walked along the lush corridors. ‘Why are you selling?’

‘I’ve already answered that,’ Sultan Alim said. ‘I am to marry soon and I am moving my portfolio back to the Middle East.’

‘I want the real reason.’

Alim halted mid-stride and turned to face Raul as he spoke.

‘You have several hotels throughout Europe that you aren’t letting go, yet this jewel you are.’

‘You’re correct,’ Alim said. ‘Hotel Grande Lucia is a jewel.’

As Raul frowned, Alim gave a nod that told Raul he would explain some more.

‘Come and see this.’

They stepped into the grand ballroom, where a dark-haired woman, dressed in a dark suit that was rather too tight, was standing in the middle of the dance floor.

Just standing.

Her shoes must be a little tight too, for she was holding stilettos in one hand.

‘Is everything okay, Gabi?’ Alim asked her.

‘Oh!’ Clearly she hadn’t heard them come in, because she startled but then pushed out a smile. ‘Yes, everything is fine. I was just trying to work out the table plan for Saturday.’

‘We have a large wedding coming up,’ Alim explained to Raul.

‘And both sets of parents are twice divorced.’ Gabi gave a slight eye-roll and then chatted away as she bent to put on her shoes. ‘Trying to work out where everyone should be seated is proving—’

‘Gabi!’ Alim scolded, and then turned to Raul. ‘Gabi is not on my staff. They tend to be rather more discreet.’ He waved his hand, but this time it was to dismiss her. ‘Excuse us, please.’

Alim, who had until now been exceptionally pleasant with all his staff, was less than polite now. Raul watched as a very put-out Gabi flounced from the ballroom.

‘She is a wedding planner from an outside firm,’ Alim said, to explain the indiscretion. ‘My staff would never discuss clients that way in front of a visitor.’

‘Of course.’ Raul nodded as the huge entrance doors closed loudly, and he resisted raising his eyebrows as the crystals in the chandeliers responded to the pointed slam.

It was actually rather spectacular to watch.

The reflection of the low, late-afternoon sun was captured by several thousand crystals, and for a moment it was as if it was raining sunbeams as light danced across the walls and the ceiling and the floor—even over their suits.

‘It’s a beautiful ballroom,’ Raul commented as he looked around, though he was unsure exactly why Alim had brought him here instead of to a meeting room, when it was figures that Raul wanted to discuss.

‘When I bought the hotel those had not been cleaned in years,’ Alim said, gesturing to the magnificent lights. ‘Now they are taken down and cared for properly. It is a huge undertaking. The room has to be closed, so no functions can be held, and it is all too easy to put it off.’