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Images of Ricardo, tall and dark and devastating as ever.
Ricardo walking down the stone steps, along the grass. His long lean body silhouetted against the distant lake, his voice carrying to her on the still air of the evening.
And then that other sound, the faint, whimpering cry…
Marco.
Her baby.
Pain lanced through her, cold and cruel. A choking sob escaped her as she wrapped her arms around her body, feeling that she had to hold herself together or she would fall apart completely.
‘Oh, Marco…’
The little boy’s name was a moan of despair. Lucy moved to the small, high window and leaned against the wall, staring out across the darkened lake.
‘So near and yet so far.’
Out there was her baby—her little son. Her arms felt empty and her heart ached with the longing to hold him. But if her visit to the island this evening had told her one thing it was that Ricardo was going to fight her every inch of the way.
You’d have to be sick to behave as you did. Sick to walk out and leave your baby behind.
Her husband’s voice echoed in the bleakness of her thoughts, black with cruel contempt. She would never get to see her baby again, not if he could help it. He clearly had no intention of ever forgiving her for what she had done.
And who could blame him?
Lucy swiped the back of her hand against her eye to wipe away the single tear that had welled up there, threatening to fall.
Why should Ricardo be able to forgive her when she couldn’t forgive herself? She had walked out on her baby. But she hadn’t known what she was doing. And she hadn’t left him alone. He had had his father and the trained nanny to care for him. The nanny that Ricardo had insisted on from the moment she had given birth, making her feel useless and inadequate in a way that must have contributed to her breakdown. In her thoughts, they had been so much better for her darling son than a mother who didn’t know her own mind well enough to know if she might be able to look after him—or if she would actually harm him.
She had hoped for a chance to tell Ricardo that. But he clearly wasn’t prepared to listen. He had sent her letter back to her and now he had had her escorted from the island without a chance to explain. He would never give her another opportunity. She had known that he must hate her, but until today she had never truly realised just how much.
A sudden sharp rap at the door broke into her thoughts, making her start, her head coming up and her eyes widening in surprise. No one knew she was here.
‘Who…?’ Her voice croaked, broke on the word. ‘Who’s there?’
‘Lucia…’
The husky male voice with its distinctive use of her name was too familiar, too disturbing. It was as if by thinking of Ricardo and their meeting earlier this evening she had conjured him up out of the air and brought him to her door. And that thought froze her in the middle of the room, unable to move forward, unable to think.
‘Lucia!’
It was louder now, more impatient, definitely Ricardo. So definitely Ricardo that, in spite of herself, it brought a wry, remembering smile to Lucy’s face as she recalled the times—the many times—that she had heard just that note in his voice.
‘We can’t have a conversation through the door. Everyone will hear us.’
Ricardo paused, obviously waiting, and in spite of the thickness of the wood between them Lucy felt that she could almost hear the irritated hiss of his breath in between clenched teeth as he waited for her answer.
‘Lucia!’
Once again his knuckles rapped hard on the door. Clearly he had no intention of leaving. Suddenly afraid that he would take his annoyance out on the door even further, or that he would disturb other guests in the boarding house, Lucy was pushed into action, hurrying to the door and unlocking it. Yanking it open, she glared at Ricardo as he stood in the corridor.
‘Are you determined to disturb everyone in the house?’ she flung at him. ‘Some of them may be sleeping.’
‘Not at this time,’ Ricardo dismissed with a swift glance at his watch.
‘There might be children asleep!’
‘And you care about that?’
‘Of course I do!’
Too late she saw his face change and knew the direction of his thoughts. How could she care about other people’s children, he was obviously implying, when she had walked out on her own son when he was barely a month and a half old? Didn’t he know that nothing he did or said could make her feel any worse than she already did?
‘I can’t afford to cause any trouble that might get me thrown out of here. I have nowhere else to go.’
‘So are you going to invite me in?’
‘Do I have any choice?’
Not if she wanted to keep this private and quiet, Ricardo’s burning glance said. And, knowing she had no other option, Lucy unwillingly stepped back, allowing Ricardo to stroll into her room. Those deep-set dark eyes subjected their surroundings to a swift, assessing scrutiny and his black brows drew together in a quick frown.
‘This is where you’re staying?’
‘It’s not so bad.’
It was pretty bad really, Lucy had to admit, suddenly seeing the room from his point of view. It was at least clean but it was definitely shabby, the flooring worn and the white covers dulled and thin from repeated washing.
‘Hardly what you’re used to.’
‘Not what you’re used to—or what you used to provide for me, you mean!’ Lucy snapped back. ‘I managed with worse before we met—how do you know what I’ve been used to while we’ve been apart? You stopped all my allowance, remember.’
Seeing the expression of dark satisfaction that crossed his face, she knew that she’d played right into his hands. He was thinking that the only reason she was here was because she was after his money. But then who could blame him? It was the impression she had set out to give in those few desperate moments on the island when she had been afraid to let him know her real reason for being there.
‘There is such a thing as work—paid employment.’
Ricardo’s scorn lashed at her like a cruel whip, the black contempt in his eyes seeming to flay her savagely.
‘Or have you decided that that’s beneath you?’
‘Why would I want to work when I have a filthy rich husband?’
Determined to give as good as she got, she laid a bitter emphasis on the word filthy, knowing that she’d stung him when she saw his mouth tighten into a thin hard line as if clamping down on some more violent expression that he didn’t want to let loose.
Just for a moment she feared—or was it hoped?—that he would actually turn on his heel and march away, walk out without another word. Instead, he pushed the door to with a bang, shutting them in the small room together.
A room that suddenly seemed so much smaller than ever before. Ricardo’s tall, strong form seemed to fill the confined space, his dark colouring in stark contrast to the white-painted walls. She had not been alone with him for over six months—and being here, like this, in the intimate surroundings of a bedroom made Lucy’s heart kick sharply, her pulse rate beating twice as fast.
In all her time apart from him she had never forgotten the sheer physical impact that Ricardo had on her. It was, after all, what had brought them together in the first place. That intense rush of burning awareness, the deep, hungry sexual attraction that had had her in Ricardo’s arms within an hour of meeting him, in his bed just a few short days later. Just being with him had seemed to lift her life on to another plane entirely. One in which every sense was heightened, every experience felt new and wonderful. And the months they had been apart had done nothing at all to diminish the way he made her feel.
Every nerve seemed to prickle with excitement. She was so sharply, stingingly aware of the height and strength of him, the burn of those deep, dark eyes, the golden tone of his skin and the gleam of his jet-black hair. In the confines of the room she could even catch the clean, totally personal scent of his skin that coiled around her like the most seductive of perfumes.
Feeling overwhelmed and unsettled, she wanted to move somewhere—anywhere—to put a bit of space between them but the size of the room made that impossible. The only place to sit was on the edge of the narrow, uncomfortable bed, and just the thought of that made her stomach twist and knot so painfully that she pushed the idea aside in a second.
‘I haven’t been able to work,’ she managed, keeping to the far side of the room while Ricardo paced restlessly around, making her think unnervingly of some big, sleek feline predator caged in a space that was too small for its size. ‘Even if I’d wanted to.’
‘No,’ Ricardo conceded unexpectedly. ‘You said you’d been ill.’
‘You believed me?’
After his response earlier, on the island, she’d assumed that he would think the story of her illness was just that—a story—with no truth behind it at all.
The look Ricardo slanted at her from those dark eyes said that he wished he didn’t have to believe her but he had no alternative.
‘You’ve changed since I saw you—lost weight. But you’re well now?’
‘Oh, yes.’
That, at least, she could say without fear of how he would judge her. She wouldn’t be here now, like this, if that wasn’t true. Having forced herself away from Marco once in her life, there was no way she was going to risk having to make that terrible decision ever again by coming back too early.
‘Yes, I’m fine.’
Fine didn’t really describe it, would never describe it. Not until she had her beloved baby boy back in her arms and could make reality of the assurances that the hospital had given her. But, before that could ever happen, she had to deal with his father. And, because she didn’t know why he was here, she didn’t know how to handle Ricardo.
But he was here—and he had accepted that she had been ill. So would she be a gullible fool to allow herself to hope for something from that?
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, slipping into careful politeness in the hope of steering the situation into calmer waters so that they could at least talk civilly. ‘I should offer you a drink…or something. But, as you can see, I’m afraid this room doesn’t even boast a kettle.’
Her hand gesture, used to indicate the lack of facilities in the room, was a little too wild, a little too expansive. It gave away too much of the uncomfortable way she was feeling inside, the struggle she was having against the need to demand to know just what he wanted from her.
‘I didn’t come here for a drink.’
‘No? So what did you…’ Abruptly the courage to ask the most important question deserted her and she rushed on instead to a different distracting topic. ‘I think I could do with one…’
There was a bottle of water and a glass on her bedside table across the other side of the room, just near to where Ricardo was standing. Without thinking, she moved to reach for it, stretching out her hand in the same moment that he did just the same. Their fingers clashed at the top of the bottle, tangling, pausing, snatched back, only to pause again, just touching, as they froze, barely inches apart, staring deep into each other’s faces.
‘Lucia…’
‘Rico…’
Their voices clashed too, just for a second, then died away into stillness as silence reached out to enclose them, hold them.
It was as if they had both been struck by lightning. An electrical response had sizzled up her arm, fizzing along every nerve at just the feel of the heat of his body, the burn of his skin against hers.
Now she really did need that drink of water. Her throat was drying out completely in the wave of heat that seared her body, shrivelling her thoughts in its fire and setting alight the senses that she had barely kept under control from the moment that Ricardo had walked through the door.
‘Rico…’ she croaked again, unable to drag her eyes away from the burn of his glittering gaze, unable to move, unable to think, only able to feel.
And what she felt was the rush of awareness, of need that she had known from the first moment this man had touched her. A need and a hunger that had grown with each kiss, each caress. A hunger that she had convinced herself she could learn to live without as long as she was far away from him, never seeing him, never speaking to him, never touching him…
And she had managed it until now.
But she had only to touch him, have him touch her, and it had all sparked off again in the space of a single heartbeat. Nothing had vanished; it was all still there.
He felt it too. She could read it in his eyes, sense it in the change in his breathing, the way that a muscle jerked at his jaw line. It was still there, as strong, as sharp and as primitively intense as ever. Body speaking to body, sense to sense. Whatever had burned between them in the eleven months of their marriage, it was all still smouldering just below the surface, needing only a touch to make it flare into life all over again.
‘Oh, Ricardo…’
Acting purely at the demand of her instincts, Lucy finally moved. Twisting her hand around, she let her fingers brush his palm, watching fascinated as his own fingers jerked just once, convulsively, as if about to close around her teasing touch, but then were abruptly forced still again. Those gleaming black eyes were suddenly hooded, hidden from her, concealing any trace of his thoughts. But Ricardo couldn’t hide the way that his breath caught sharply in his throat, the deep swallow that struggled to ease the dry discomfort that matched her own.
Lucy let a small smile curl the corners of her mouth, grow until her lips curved upwards, wide and soft at the thought that at least in this one way she could still affect this hard, distant man as she had once been able to.
‘It doesn’t have to be like this. It really doesn’t.’
‘No?’ Ricardo’s voice was thick and rough, seeming to come from a throat that was so clogged with something raw that he could barely speak.
‘No.’
Softly she let her fingertips drift over the palm of his hand, watching the strong hand quiver in uncontrolled response. Circling his thumb, she caressed her way over the powerful bones in his wrist, watching as the sinews tightened, the muscles clenched. It was impossible to control the need to touch him, impossible to fight back the urge to provoke him to react in a way that revealed that he was no more immune to her than she was to him.
To feel him close like this, scent his skin, feel the heat of him, made her mind respond as if she had slipped back to the days when she had been free to touch him, to caress him whenever she had wanted. She had loved those days, adored that freedom—adored him. And she wanted to go back there—wanted it, needed it so much…
‘It never used to be this way.’
She didn’t deliberately pitch her voice to sound so breathy, so husky. It just came out that way naturally. And right now she couldn’t regret the way it revealed how the tiny physical contact had shaken her. How aware, how aroused it had made her. With her eyes fixed on Ricardo’s taut face, she could see how, just for a moment, his tongue slid out to moisten suddenly dry lips.
Perhaps he too recalled the softer times in their relationship. The times before suspicion had changed him, darkening his opinion of her.
‘It could still be…’
Moving her hand again, this time she curled it around Ricardo’s, fingers lacing with his, palm pressing to palm, deepening the contact, making it more intimate.
And she knew her mistake as soon as she’d done it.
‘Inferno—no!’
The harsh mutter was harder, more biting than if he had shouted. And the way that he froze, before deliberately, coldly uncoiling his hand from her gentle grip, pulling away almost in slow motion, was so obviously a deliberate insult that it stung like a slap in the face. With a flick of his wrist, he seemed to shake off even the last traces of her touch as he swung away from her, putting as much distance between them as it was possible to do in the small bedroom.
‘It could not “still be” anything,’ he declared, every word pure ice. ‘There is nothing left between us, nothing I want to revive. Certainly not how it used to be. That is not what I came here for.’
‘So what did you come here for?’
Determined not to show how his rejection of her had hurt, Lucy brought her head up defiantly, turning what she hoped were cold eyes on him as she injected every ounce of control possible into her voice.
‘I take it it wasn’t just to pass the time of day—renew an old…’ she hesitated deliberately over the word ‘…friendship?’
‘Hardly. We were never friends.’
‘Husband and wife.’
‘Legally, perhaps.’ Ricardo dismissed her pointed comment with an indifferent shrug of his broad shoulders. ‘But I doubt if we were ever married in the true sense of the word.’
‘And just what, in your opinion, is the true sense of the word?’
‘For better, for worse, to love and to cherish,’ Ricardo quoted cynically, making her wince inside as the words stabbed at her.
‘For richer for poorer…’ she flung back, refusing to let herself think of the other words—the ones that said in sickness and in health.
If only she had been able to turn to Ricardo at a time when those words had meant so much, then how different things might have been. But she had known from the start that their marriage was never meant to be as long as we both shall live. If she had never become pregnant then he would never have married her at all. It was only because of his determination that his son would be legitimate that he had ever put a ring on her finger.
‘For richer, certainly, in your case. You played your virginity like a trump card, withholding it from the poor Italian fisherman you first thought I was but only too keen to lose it to the rich man you then discovered me to be.’
‘If that’s the way you want to read it.’
It was the only way he’d ever read what had happened. He had never understood the very real fear that had held her back at their first meeting, forcing her away from him even though she’d feared she would never see him again. He would understand even less the bitter regret that had eaten at her for days afterwards, so that when she had met him again, in the very different circumstances of an elegant society party, she had been unable to hold back and, buoyed up on an unwise glass of champagne, had practically thrown herself into his arms.
‘And I did not play…’
‘You sure as hell did,’ Ricardo tossed back at her. ‘You played with both our lives—and the life of the baby we unwisely created between us. You told me…’
The temptation to put her hands over her face and hide from his anger—his justifiable anger—was almost overwhelming but Lucy forced herself to brave it out. She knew what she’d said. That she’d given him the idea that she was protected. But the truth was that she had been so wildly, blindly lost in sensation, in the heat and hunger that his kisses, his touch had aroused, that when he had muttered, ‘Is this OK? Are you all right?’ in a voice so thick and rough it betrayed only too clearly how close to losing control he was, she had only thought that he was considering her inexperience. She couldn’t have said no if she’d tried. The only word in her head had been yes, the only need in her body, in her heart, had been to know the full reality of this man’s sensual possession. And so, ‘Yes, oh, yes!’ had been her only possible response.
She had thought she was safe. The time of her cycle should have made her safe. But in that she had been stupid and naïve too.
‘And richer is what you really want me to discuss. So OK, let’s get to the real point. You wanted to know why I came here. I came to ask you just one question.’
‘And that is?’
‘How much will it cost me to get rid of you?’
‘Get…’
In the scrambled muddle of her thoughts, Lucy couldn’t decide if it was shock, fury or just plain horror that kept her tongue from being able to form an answer to his question. She could only stare at him in disbelief, her eyes wide.
‘It’s a simple question, Lucia.’ Ricardo’s voice was tight with impatience and exasperation. ‘Surely you can have no problem in understanding it. What I want to know is how much will you take to leave now, get out of here—and stay out of my life for good?’
CHAPTER FOUR
COMING here had been a mistake, Ricardo told himself furiously. A big mistake. A bad mistake.
And a mistake that he should have seen coming if he had any sense. Which he obviously didn’t. At least not where Lucy was concerned.
But then sense had never been part of the way that he had reacted to this woman. His senses, yes.
Maledizione, he had always been at the mercy of his senses from the moment they had met. His mindless senses had rushed him into taking her to his bed, making her his—making her pregnant in the sort of stupid, irresponsible slipup that he hadn’t made even as a teenager.
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