by Lynne Graham
‘Dream on!’
Confident eyes gleamed down into scorching green.
As Luca slowly lowered his lean, well-built body down onto hers, a jolt of sexual awareness as keen and sharp as an electric shock currented through Darcy. The sensation made her even more determined to break free.
Luca banded both arms more fully round her violently struggling figure. ‘Calm down...you’ll hurt yourself!’ he urged impatiently.
‘You are in the wrong position to tell me to do that!’ Darcy warned breathlessly.
‘Assault would be grounds for separation too,’ Luca informed her indolently.
Darcy’s knee tingled. She, who had never in her entire life hurt another human being, now longed to deliver a crippling blow. Luca contemplated her with almost scientific interest, making no attempt to protect himself. ‘I want to hurt you!’ she suddenly screeched at him in driven fury.
‘But this crumbling pile of bricks and mortar stands between you and that desire,’ Luca guessed with galling accuracy. ‘It will be interesting to see how much you will tolerate before you snap and surrender.’
Darcy’s blood ran cold at that unfeeling response.
‘You’ll play the whore in my bed for the sake of this house...but then what you’ve already done once should come even more easily a second time,’ Luca surmised icily.
‘You’re talking rubbish, because I’ll never sleep with you...I will never sleep with you again!’ In a wild movement of repudiation, Darcy garnered the strength to tear herself free. But Luca had frighteningly fast reflexes. With a rueful sigh over her obstinacy, he snapped long fingers round her shoulder before she could move out of reach, and simply tipped her back into his arms.
‘Of course you will,’ he countered levelly then, brilliant dark eyes locked to her furiously flushed face.
‘I won’t!’ Darcy swore.
As Luca slowly anchored her back to the mattress with his superior body weight, the all pervasive heat of his big, powerful frame engulfed her limbs in a drugging paralysis. Momentarily Darcy forgot to struggle. She also forgot to breathe.
Luca angled down his arrogant dark head and tasted her soft mouth with a devastatingly direct hunger that shot right down to her toes. Her lips burned; her thighs trembled. She looked up at him in complete shock, her mind wiped clean of thought. But her heart pounded as if she was fighting for her life, her pupils dilated, her breath coming in tiny frantic pants. She collided with the blaze of sexual challenge in his gaze and it was as if he had thrown the switch on her self-control. Dear heaven, she loved it when he looked at her like that...
Deep down inside, she melted with terrifying anticipation of the excitement to come. Her breasts stirred inside her cotton bra, nipples peaking with painful suddenness into taut, straining buds. Luca shifted and she felt the hard, masculine thrust of his erection against her pelvis. She quivered, her spine arching as her yielding body flooded with liquid heat and surrender. Neither one of them heard the soft rap on the bedroom door.
His dark eyes burned gold with fierce satisfaction. He rimmed her parted lips with the tip of his tongue, teasing, taunting, the warmth of his breath fanning her, locking her into breathless intimacy. Every atom of her being was desperate for his next move, the moist, sensitive interior of her mouth aching for his penetration.
‘Fight me...’ Luca instructed huskily. ‘After all the fun of the chase, an easy victory would be a real disappointment.’
Almost simultaneously, a loud knock thudded on the sturdy door. Darcy flinched and jerked up her knee in fright, accidentally connecting with Luca’s anatomy in an unfortunate place. As he wrenched back from her in stunned pain and incredulity Darcy cried, ‘Oh, no...gosh, I’m sorry!’ and she reeled off the bed like a drunk, frantically smoothing down her rumpled sweater and striving to walk in a straight line to the door.
‘Is Luca with you, signora?’ Benito enquired levelly. ‘The helicopter has arrived early.’
Hearing a muffled groan from somewhere behind her, Darcy coughed noisily to conceal the sound, and with crimson cheeks she muttered defensively, ‘I don’t know where he is...and we can’t leave yet anyway. I have hens to feed.’
‘Hens...’ Benito echoed, and nodded very slowly at that information.
Closing the door again, and tactfully not looking in Luca’s direction, Darcy whispered in considerable embarrassment, ‘Are you all right, Luca?’
Luca gritted something that didn’t sound terribly reassuring in his own language.
‘I’ll get you a glass of water,’ Darcy proffered, full of genuine remorse. ‘It was an accident... honestly, it was—’
‘Bitch...’ Luca ground out with agonised effort.
Darcy withdrew a step. The silence thundered.
‘I’ll see you later,’ she muttered curtly. ‘Right now, I’ve got work to do.’
‘We’re flying to Venice!’ Luca shot at her rawly.
Only then did Darcy also recall the appointment she had made at the bank. Checking her watch, she emitted a strangled groan and took flight.
Half an hour later, having mucked out Nero’s stable, Darcy mustered the courage to enter the poultry coop. Henrietta the hen, who regarded every human invasion as a hostile act, gave her a mean look of anticipation.
‘Please, Henrietta, not today,’ Darcy pleaded as she hurriedly filled a bowl with eggs, her thoughts straying helplessly back to Luca and the excruciating awareness that he could still rip away her defences and make her agonisingly vulnerable.
She was so desperately confused by the emotions flailing her. She knew now that prior to the revelation of Luca’s real identity she had grown to trust him, like him, even. She had revelled in his sophisticated cool at Margo’s party, his seeming protectiveness, even the envious looks of other women. Dear God, how pathetic she had been, and now she felt gutted, absolutely gutted by the most savage sense of loss and bewilderment, and quite incapable of comprehending what was going on inside her own head.
And as for her wretched body...? Recalling that kiss on the bed, reliving the shameless and eager anticipation which had flamed through her, Darcy hated herself. Luca had been taunting her, humiliating her with her own weakness. The tables had been turned with a vengeance, she acknowledged painfully. For hadn’t she foolishly believed for the space of one night three years ago that she, too, could treat sex as a casual experience for which pleasure would be the only price?
Hadn’t she been bitterly conscious that night in Venice that she was still a virgin? Hadn’t she been rebelling against her own image? Hadn’t she longed to taste the power of being a sexually aware and sexually appealing woman? And hadn’t the idea of throwing off her inhibitions far from home been tempting? And hadn’t she known the same moment Luca melted her bones with one passionate kiss that she wanted to go to bed with him and forever banish the demeaning memory of her sterile, sexless relationship with Richard?
And, worse, hadn’t she thrown herself at Luca at every opportunity, stubbornly evading his every attempt to slow the pace of their intimacy? All that champagne on top of her medication had left her bereft of every inhibition. For so long she had used the alcohol in her veins as an excuse. But the imagery that now assailed Darcy in split-second shattering Technicolor frames, the undeniably shocking memories of how she had treated Luca that night, now filled her with choking shame.
She had never once allowed herself to remember exactly what she had done to Luca in that bedroom. She had been in the grip of a wanton hunger, a hunger fanned to white-hot heat by the knowledge that this beautiful, gorgeous, sophisticated guy was weak with lust for her. She hadn’t wanted him to suspect that he was her first lover...and she had gone to indecent lengths not to give him the smallest grounds for that suspicion.
As a pained moan of mortification escaped Darcy under the assault of those memories, Henrietta jabbed a vicious beak into her extended hand.
With a startled yelp of pain, Darcy exited backwards from the coop, her dogs barking f
rantically at her heels.
‘Sta zitto!’ That command slashed through the air like a whip.
Darcy twisted round in dismay. In the light of her recent thoughts she was truly appalled to see Luca poised on the path several feet away. Her face flamed. There he was, six feet four inches of staggeringly attractive, sleek and powerful masculinity, luxuriant black hair smooth, charcoal-grey suit shrieking class and expensive tailoring. But, disconcertingly, Darcy’s defiant subconscious threw up a much more disturbing image of Luca. Luca sprawled gloriously naked across white sheets, a magnificent vision of golden-skinned male perfection, a life-sized fantasy toy entirely at her mercy.
Far, far too late had she learnt that Luca had inspired her with something infinitely more dangerous than desire. He would laugh longest and loudest if he ever realised that truth.
Suddenly sick with pain and regret at her own stupidity, Darcy twisted her bright head away under the onslaught of those fiercely intelligent dark eyes.
As Humpf and Bert grovelled ingratiatingly round his feet, Luca scanned Darcy’s bedraggled appearance. Her jeans were streaked with dirt, her sweater liberally adorned with pieces of straw. Dawning disbelief in his grim appraisal, he breathed with admirable restraint, ‘You have exactly ten minutes to change and board the helicopter.’
‘I can’t!’ Darcy protested, her evasive eyes whipping back in his general direction. ‘I have to go to the bank—’
‘Why? Are you planning to rob it?’ Luca enquired sardonically. ‘If I was your bank manager, nothing short of an armed assault would persuade me to advance you any further credit!’
Darcy compressed her lips in a mutinous line.
‘No bank,’ said Luca. ‘We have a take-off slot to make at the airport.’
‘I can’t miss this appointment—’
Luca caught her by the elbow as she attempted to stalk past him. ‘You’re bleeding...what have you done to yourself?’ he demanded.
Darcy flicked an irritable glance down at the angry scratch oozing blood on the back of her hand. ‘It’s nothing. Henrietta’s always attacking me.’
‘Henrietta?’
‘Queen of the coop—the hen with attitude. I ought to wring her manic neck, but she’d come back and haunt me. In a strange way, I’m sort of fond of her,’ Darcy admitted grudgingly. ‘She’s got personality.’
Luca’s intent dark eyes now held a slightly dazed aspect. He was no Einstein on the subject of hens, she registered.
Darcy took advantage of his abstraction to pull free. ‘I’ll be back before you know it...I promise!’ she slung over her shoulder as she sped off.
It took her ten minutes to change into the tweed skirt and tailored blouse she always wore to the bank. Studiously ignoring the helicopter sitting on the front lawn, and the pilot pacing up and down beside it, she jumped into the Land Rover and rattled off down the drive.
Two hours later, having been to the bank, and then arranged for a local farmer to pick up and stable Nero, Darcy walked into Karen’s kitchen to ask her to look after the dogs, feed the hens from a safe distance and keep an eye on the Folly.
Zia bounced up into her mother’s arms. Darcy studied her daughter’s clear dark eyes, smooth golden skin and ebony curls. A sinking sensation curdled her stomach. From her classic little nose to her feathery but dead level brows, Zia looked so like her father. Darcy buried her face in her daughter’s springy hair and breathed in the fresh, clean scent of her child while she fought to master emotions and fears that were dangerously near to the surface. In fact, all she wanted to do at that instant was collapse into floods of overwrought tears, and the knowledge appalled her.
‘Benito’s been down twice to see if you’re here...talk about fussing!’ Karen told her above the toddler’s animated chatter. ‘What’s all this about you going to Italy?’
‘Don’t ask,’ Darcy advised flatly. ‘I’ve just been to the bank. My bank manager says he’s not a betting man.’
‘I could’ve told you that without seeing him. He’s so miserable, he wouldn’t bet on the sun rising tomorrow!’
‘He said that in six months’ time, when I actually inherit, it’ll be different, but that it would be wrong to allow me to borrow more now on the strength of what are only expectations.’ That Luca had made the same forecast right off the top of his superior head infuriated Darcy.
‘I’m really sorry...’ Karen’s eyes, however, remained bright with curiosity. ‘But if you’ve got five minutes could you possibly tell me where the swanky limo and the helicopter have come from?’
‘They belong to Luca.’
‘So he was a dark horse. How very strange! People usually pretend to be more than they are rather than less than they are. Was Nina right, after all? Has he married you to gain a British passport?’ Karen pressed with a frown. ‘Why all the heavy secrecy? He’s not one of these high-flying international criminals, is he?’
If Luca had been a criminal, the police might just have been able to take him away, Darcy thought helplessly. But then that wouldn’t have suited her either. No matter how obnoxious he was, she needed to hang onto her husband for the next six months. What shook her even more at that moment was the sudden shattering awareness that in spite of the manner in which Luca was behaving, the threat of him disappearing altogether made her feel positively sick and shaky.
‘Darcy...?’ Karen prompted.
She averted her attention from her friend. ‘There was a confidentiality clause in our pre-nuptial contract. I’d like to tell you everything,’ she lied, because there was no way she wanted to tell a living soul about how stupid she had been, ‘but I can’t... Will you look after the Folly while I’m away?’
‘Of course I will. I’ll move in. Don’t look so glum, Darcy...six months won’t be that long in going by.’
But the Folly might well be repossessed long before that six months was up. Karen’s purchase of the gate lodge had bought some time, by paying off the most pressing debts against the estate, but Darcy was still a couple of months behind with the mortgage repayments.
She drove back up to the house and clambered out. Luca emerged from the entrance, strong, dark face rigid, dark eyes diamond-hard with exasperation.
‘Have you any idea what time it is?’ he launched at her.
Zia skipped forward. She was unconcerned by that greeting. She had grown up with a grandfather who bawled the length of the room at everybody, and volume bothered her not at all. She extended a foot with a carefully pointed toe for Luca’s inspection. ‘See...pretty,’ she told Luca chirpily.
‘Accidenti...’ Luca began, reluctantly tearing his attention from Darcy to focus with a frown on the tiny child in front of him.
‘If you want peace, admire her frilly socks.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ Luca breathed grittily.
‘Zia...’ Darcy urged, holding out her hand.
But her daughter was stubborn. Her bottom lip jutted out. She wasn’t used to being ignored. In fact, Darcy reflected, if Zia had a fault, it was a pronounced dislike of being ignored.
‘Has you dot pretty socks?’ Zia demanded somewhat aggressively of Luca.
‘No, I haven’t!’ Luca ground out in fierce exasperation.
There was no mistaking that tone of rejection. Zia’s eyes grew huge and then flooded with tears. A noisy sob burst from her instantaneously.
Darcy swept up her daughter to comfort her. ‘You really are a cruel swine,’ she condemned feverishly. ‘She’s only a baby...and if you think I’m travelling to Italy with someone who treats my child like that, you’re insane!’
Discovering that even the loyal Benito, who had come to an uneasy halt some feet away, was regarding him in shocked surprise, Luca felt his blunt cheekbones drench with dark colour. He strode back into the house in Darcy’s furious wake.
‘I’m sorry...I’m not used to young children,’ he admitted stiltedly.
‘That’s no excuse—’
‘Bad man!’ Zia sobbed accusingly from
the security of her mother’s arms.
‘Never mind, darling.’ Darcy smoothed her daughter’s tumbled curls.
‘You could try contradicting her—’
‘She’d know I was lying.’
But, mollified by the apology and the certain awareness that Luca had just enjoyed an uncomfortable learning experience, Darcy went back outside and climbed into the helicopter.
‘Is she asleep?’ Luca skimmed a deeply cautious glance into the sleeping compartment of his private jet to survey the slight immobile bump on the built-in divan, his voice a positive whisper in which prayer and hope were blatant and unashamed.
Darcy tiptoed out into the main cabin, her face grey with fatigue. In all her life she had never endured a more nightmare journey.
Zia had been sick all the way to London in the helicopter. The long wait in the VIP lounge until the jet could get another take-off slot had done nothing to improve the spirits of a distressed, over-tired and still nauseous little girl. Zia had whinged, cried, thrown hysterical tantrums on the carpet beneath Luca’s utterly stricken and appalled gaze, and generally conducted herself like the toddler from hell.
‘She’s never behaved like that before,’ Darcy muttered wearily for about the twentieth time.
By now impervious to such statements, Luca sank down with a shell-shocked aspect into a comfortable seat. Then he sat forward abruptly, an aghast set to his lean, dark features. ‘Will she wake up again when we land?’
‘Heaven knows...’ Darcy was afraid to make any more optimistic forecasts, but maternal protectiveness prompted her to speak up in further defence of her daughter. ‘Zia’s not used to being sick. She likes a secure routine, her own familiar things around her,’ she explained. ‘Everything’s been strange to her, and then when she was hungry and we could only offer her foreign food—’
‘That was definitely the last straw,’ Luca recalled with a shudder. ‘I can still hear those screams. Per meraviglia ...what a temper she has! And so stubborn, so demanding! I had no idea that one small child could be that disruptive. As for the embarrassment she caused me—’