by Penny Jordan
She mustn’t allow herself to feel hurt yet again, Lily warned herself. But it was too late. The pain was already flooding through her.
‘She’s a romantic,’ Marco continued. ‘She would simply think that I was trying to hide our relationship from her.’
‘We haven’t got a relationship,’ Lily told him. Tears were threatening to clog her throat.
‘The Duchess believes that we have. And not just a sexual relationship. She’s managed to convince herself that we’ve fallen in love with one another.’ The derision in Marco’s voice made Lily’s face burn. ‘If she knew you rather better, of course, she’d know that was impossible.’
Lily swallowed on the misery his caustic comment brought her.
‘No. We can’t say anything to her,’ Marco told her. ‘For her own sake. Were we to insist to her now that there isn’t a relationship it would result in either her not believing us or in her embarrassment for misjudging the situation if she does believe us. Neither of those situations is acceptable to me. It will make things easier all round if we simply accept the situation as it is. After all, we’re only here for two nights.’
‘Two nights!’ She couldn’t share a room and a bed with him for two nights, feeling the way she did about him. ‘What if sharing a room with you isn’t acceptable to me?‘ she demanded.
Marco turned round fully to look at her.
‘Do you really expect me to believe that after last night?’ he challenged her. ‘After all, you didn’t have any objection then—in fact it was what you wanted.’
Lily’s heart missed a beat. Was Marco hinting that he knew there had been a time last night when what she had wanted from him had been much more personal and intimate than merely the protection of his presence? She hoped not. It was humiliating enough that she knew how she felt about him, without the added humiliation of having to deal with the fact that he knew as well.
‘That was different,’ she defended herself, adding emotionally in her growing panic, ‘I don’t want to share a room with you.’
‘Do you think I want to share one with you?’ Marco asked her grimly. ‘You are the one who is primarily responsible for the situation we now find ourselves in, not me. I suppose I should have expected this kind of selfishness from you. After all, a woman who tries to use one man to make another jealous has to be innately selfish.’
She could tell him the truth. She could make him feel thoroughly ashamed of himself for the way he was misjudging her, Lily knew. But it was clear he only wanted to believe the worst of her, and she was not about to tell him her darkest, most painful secret only to have him coldly dismiss her as an accomplished liar.
How could she have allowed herself to become entangled—trapped—in this situation? She knew where her vulnerabilities lay. She knew where she was weak. If she’d thought more carefully and clinically about the way he had made her feel that first time she had seen him at the studio, she could have … She could have what? Walked away from the work she had been paid to come here and do when she’d recognised him at the reception? When she prided herself on her professionalism? Hardly.
‘I will not have the Duchess embarrassed or upset by you causing a dramatic fuss about something that, after all, means very little in this day and age,’ Marco warned her. ‘And who knows? If your ex gets to hear about it perhaps it will have the desired effect and bring him back—although as a man I’d have to caution you against encouraging a man to be jealous. It makes for a relationship based on distrust, and no man who values himself can or should compromise where trust is concerned. That can be very dangerous.’
‘You sound as though you’re speaking from experience.’ The words were out before Lily had time to think about what she was saying.
Their effect on Marco was immediate. What was it about her that led to him revealing things about himself to her—private, fiercely guarded things he would never normally dream of revealing to anyone. His face hardening, his voice chilling, he told her, ‘I’ve certainly got enough experience to know not to trust you.’
Lily flinched, stung by his icy words. She hadn’t lied to him, but he had made it plain that he had no intention of believing her. Had he in the past been hurt by someone—a woman he’d trusted who had lied to him—and now he refused to trust any woman? He must have cared a great deal for her, whoever she was. A very great deal. The man he was now wouldn’t let any woman close enough to do that to him. A horrible feeling of desolation sucked the strength from her. It was stupid, foolish, self-destructive of her to care because Marco had once loved someone so much.
Marco frowned. Why was Lily looking so stricken? She’d been perfectly happy to share a room—and a bed—with him when it had suited her. Now she was looking as though the very thought of doing so was destroying her, and she was obviously rejecting it—and him—in favour of another man. Any sympathy Marco might have been tempted to feel for her vanished.
‘Do you understand?’ he demanded.
Blindly Lily looked at him. He might not have any compassion for her, but obviously the Duchess’s feelings were important to him, so there must be some humanity within him somewhere—even if he seemed intent on concealing it from her.
‘Yes, I understand,’ she confirmed emotionlessly.
She understood that he loathed and despised her. She understood that there had been a woman in his life who had destroyed his ability to trust. But what she did not understand was why her silly heart persisted in aching with a need that could only destroy her. And tonight she was going to have to share a room with the cause of that need and somehow keep it hidden from him. If she could.
But what if she couldn’t?
What if, like the last time she had shared a bed with him, she let her feelings get out of control? Panic filled her.
‘We can’t share a room,’ she insisted. ‘I wouldn’t feel …’
‘What? Safe?’ Marco derided her.
Lily couldn’t look at him—dared not look at him just in case he could somehow see what she was really thinking. The truth was that she was indeed afraid that she wouldn’t feel safe. Not because she was afraid that she couldn’t trust Marco, but because she feared that she couldn’t trust herself. She certainly wasn’t prepared to admit that to him, though.
‘I’ve just told you we have no other option than to be thankful that it’s only for a couple of nights,’ Marco said, adding sardonically, ‘Allow me to play the gentleman and offer you the bed.’
He wasn’t going to be persuaded or argued into changing his mind about the suite, she could tell. And in reality what legitimacy did she actually have to keep on trying to insist that he did so? She liked the Duchess herself, and knew that Marco’s comment about her potential embarrassment was justified. She was going to have to accept the fact that, despite her misgivings and her fears they would be sharing the suite, she acknowledged.
‘You have the bed this time,’ Lily muttered. ‘I’d rather have the sofa in the sitting room.’
A brief knock on the door had Marco going over to open it to admit the housekeeper, escorting a young man who was carrying their luggage.
‘If there’s anything you require for the evening, just dial ten on the telephone on the desk,’ she told them.
It was Marco who tipped the young man, whilst Lily was still looking round for her handbag, his gesture winning him an approving look from the housekeeper before the two of them exited the room.
‘We’ve got just over an hour before we’re due downstairs for the Duchess’s reception. Since the suite seems only to have one bathroom, you can use it first if you wish,’ he offered distantly, without looking at her.
Lily nodded her head. She wanted to wash her hair, and although it was easy to dry and style it would take her longer to get ready than it would Marco, so it made sense for her to use the bathroom first.
Even so, she didn’t linger under the shower, washing her hair and herself as quickly as she could before pulling on one of the luxurious bathrobes provi
ded for their use. She’d taken her small case into the bathroom with her, hanging up her black jersey skirt to make sure it wasn’t creased, and was just straightening up, having removed clean underwear from her case, when there was a sharp knock on the door.
Still holding her undies, she opened the door.
‘I just wanted to check that you don’t need anything ironed,’ Marco told her.
‘No. My skirt is jersey,’ Lily replied, half gesturing towards the sliver of matt black fabric hanging on the glass door of the shower area, not realising until Marco bent down to retrieve them that her briefs had slipped out of her grasp.
Pink cheeked with embarrassment, Lily took them from him when he handed them to her, balling the nude fabric in her hand as she did so. Why, when she preferred and always wore plain, smooth underwear, was she suddenly now wishing that what Marco had retrieved for her had been something far more sensual? A pretty, feminine wisp of silk and lace, perhaps—the kind of underwear worn by the kind of women she imagined Marco preferred. Beautifully, sexually confident and alluring women for whom it was second nature to dress their bodies in provocative sexy undies.
‘I’ll be finished in here in five minutes,’ she told Marco, pointedly looking at the door.
Nodding his head, he stepped back so that she could close it.
Why had Lily been so embarrassed about him seeing her underwear, Marco wondered as he waited for the bathroom. It was illogical, given what he knew about her. Illogical and out of character for any woman of her age, never mind the kind of woman she was. Another act? If so, why? It wasn’t something she could use to bait her ex.
Against his will Marco recognised that something about her reaction, coupled with the plain neatness of that pair of nude briefs she had tried to conceal in her hand, had challenged his assessment of her. Why? And why should he care if it had? He cared because somehow she had activated a rebellion within him he hadn’t previously known could possibly exist—a dangerous, unwanted rebellion that wanted to overthrow the laws he had laid down about refusing to give people the benefit of the doubt, about distrusting them instead of trusting them. That rebellion was now allowing emotion to get a foothold within him. That rebellion was now constantly challenging his logic and experience. It was urging him to break his own rules. And, worse, it had joined forces with his natural male desire, and together they were trying to undermine the fortifications that protected him. Together they provoked and taunted his beliefs—beliefs he knew to be true. Together they whispered to him that it wouldn’t hurt to allow himself to enjoy the pleasure that intimacy with Lily would bring.
He must not allow them any freedom.
‘The bathroom’s free now. I’ll finish getting dressed in the sitting room.’ Lily took care not to look directly at Marco as she hurried past him with her case and her skirt, her body firmly wrapped up in its bathrobe. In a household as well organised as this one was she was pretty sure there would be a hairdryer in one of the dressing table drawers, but right now, whilst Marco was safely out of the way in the bathroom, the first thing she intended to do was get dressed.
The smooth line of her long skirt and the boat-necked top she was wearing with it proved the sartorial wisdom of her smooth nude underwear, Lily tried to comfort herself five minutes later, as she studied her reflection critically in the full-length bedroom mirror. With just this kind of event in mind she had brought with her two very definite pieces of statement jewellery—a wide collar of beaten silver that lay perfectly against her collarbone, and a silver cuff that went with it. She had come across them in Florence, when she had been there on business. She had fallen in love with the jewellery on sight, and she hadn’t been surprised when the young girl who had made it had told her that she had been inspired by an exhibition of Saxon jewellery she had seen in England.
Lily found a hairdryer, as she had expected, in one of the dressing table drawers, turning her head upside down so that she could blow her hair dry quickly from the roots. She had just finished doing so when Marco walked back into the bedroom, wearing a towelling robe.
Lily could feel her skin overheating again. Why? She was no stranger to the naked male body in all its artistic forms, and Marco was far from naked. The naked male body, perhaps, but not this male body. Not Marco’s male body. It was ridiculous for her to feel so oddly breathless and aware of him. She had spent last night in his bed, after all. This was different, though. This sharing of a room whilst they got ready together was a very specific intimacy that was doing things to her senses and her emotions that filled her with an aching emotional yearning. For intimacy with a man—any man? For the kind of relationship with a man that provided that intimacy? Or for that intimacy and that relationship only with Marco?
The hairdryer slipped out of her grasp and fell to the floor. As she reached for it so did Marco, their hands touching. For a second neither of them moved. If they were really a couple, and really intimate, instead of removing his hand from hers Marco might have removed the hairdryer instead, before going on to take her in his arms. A bolt of shocked delight jolted through her body, causing her hand to shake as she struggled to grip the hairdryer.
‘We’ve got fifteen minutes,’ Marco told her, his breath warm against her forehead as he bent towards her. His words caused her to jerk upright, her eyes widening, before logic warned her that he was simply reminding her of when they needed to be downstairs—not suggesting to her that they had fifteen minutes in which to attempt to quench the sensual desire that had started to pulse inside her, conjured up into life out of nowhere by her own thoughts.
It was discomfiting to realise that there could be so much hidden sensuality in even the most straightforward of comments for a person whose senses and body yearned for that sensuality.
‘I’m almost ready,’ Lily managed to tell him. Almost ready to go downstairs, but completely and utterly and eagerly ready to stay right here and be made love to by him.
Stop it at once, she warned herself. She was behaving as though. As though she had forgotten everything she had ever learned—as though she had no concern whatsoever for her own future emotional security and peace of mind.
Standing up, she swept her hair back off her face, securing it with a neat band before twisting it into a sleek knot from which she pulled a few soft loose tendrils, all without needing to look in the mirror. She only realised that Marco had been watching her when she turned to see him looking at her.
‘What’s wrong?’ she demanded anxiously.
Her father had always been very critical of her mother’s appearance. As a little girl Lily had often watched her mother getting ready to go to parties, and she could remember how her father’s comments had often resulted in a row that ended up with her mother refusing to go out. Criticising the woman they purported to love was a trick used by some men to control that woman’s self-confidence and make her all the more dependent on him, and she despised herself for allowing herself to be affected by Marco’s amusement now. It was too late, though, to retract her question ‘Nothing’s wrong,’ Marco answered her curtly. As though the admission was being dragged from him, he continued, ‘I was just thinking how easy you made that look.’ He paused, and then, as though the words were being spoken of their own volition rather than his, added, ‘And how very beautiful you look.’
Marco looked almost as shocked by the fact that he had paid her a compliment as she was herself. Lily swallowed hard, her own voice husky as she responded.
‘Thank you.’ His admission deserved an admission of her own from her. ‘My father would never have said that to my mother. I don’t think I ever heard him tell her she was beautiful, even though she was—’ She broke off, shaking her head.
‘Your father?’ Marco questioned, causing Lily to retreat back into her normal reticence about her background. She had said too much. She shook her head.
‘My mind was wandering, I’m afraid. Silly of me. And now we’ve only got ten minutes. I’ll leave the bedroom to you, so that you
can get dressed. I can finish getting ready in the sitting room.’
She was gone before Marco could stop her to pursue the matter further, and she had been right. They did only have ten minutes left.
He joined Lily in the sitting room with three minutes to spare, looking so formidably handsome and male in a dark suit worn with a dark blue shirt with a fine white line and a toning tie that Lilly felt herself flooded with conflicting emotions. He filled her with a desire she had never expected to feel, but at the same time he also filled her with anxiety and dread because of that desire.
Lily looked like a pagan princess, Marco thought, and a shocking of the surge of possessive wanting filled him, seized him, at the sight of her in her plain black outfit adorned with that almost barbarically splendid jewellery.
There would be women here this evening who would be wearing family heirloom jewellery worth a fortune, but it would be impossible for them to outshine the dramatic simplicity of Lily’s appearance. Any man would be proud to stand at her side. And any man would ache for the evening to be over so that he could have her all to himself. Was that how he felt? Possessive and bitterly jealous because she preferred someone else?
Lily’s, ‘We’re going to be late,’ had him nodding his head and then going to open the door for her.
They reached the main salon—a large double-aspect room, decorated very much in the French Empire style in shades of rich gold and French blue, with two enormous chandeliers throwing out brilliant prisms of light—only seconds ahead of the Duchess’s guests. There was no more time than to accept a glass of chilled champagne from one of the several formally attired waiters starting to circulate around the room.
Introduced by the Duchess to a dozen or more of her guests within as many minutes Lily was soon struggling to keep a mental note of their names. However, she wished that all she had to bear was that awkward confusion when the Duchess called Marco over to join them and then began introducing them virtually as a couple.