by Penny Jordan
The light was soft in here, the ceilings lower than those in his homes, so he suddenly looked taller and bigger, his face not quite as pale as it had looked on the doorstep a moment ago with the autumn cool to help blanch the colour out of it. And—tired, Lizzy noticed for the first time, the grim lines of tension he’d worn on his face throughout the week before Bianca had turned up well and truly back in place.
‘You’ve lost weight,’ he said, making her aware that while she had been studying him he had been doing the same thing to her.
‘No, I’ve not,’ she denied, but wrapped her arms around her body all the same as if they were going to disguise the pounds she knew she had dropped.
‘And you look—tired.’ He ignored her denial. ‘Missing sleep over me, cara?’
‘Oh, isn’t that just typically arrogant of you to say that?’ she snapped back.
To her surprise he grimaced, ‘Sì, probably.’ Then with a sigh he lifted a hand up. ‘May I remove my coat? It is—warm in here.’
Lizzy wanted to tell him that he wouldn’t be staying long enough to bother, but in the end she pressed her lips together and nodded because—dear God, she didn’t want him to go.
His fingers worked free the buttons and she watched every one of them separate from its buttonhole until the coat eventually came off. He was wearing a suit beneath it, another sleek dark suit that shrieked Luc in business mode and—
‘Here, give it to me,’ she said, walking towards him when he looked around for somewhere to put the wet coat.
Their fingers brushed as the coat exchanged hands, and he closed his around hers for a second—until she froze up like a statue and on a sigh he let go of her again.
Refusing to look at him, she took the coat out into the hallway. By the time she came back he was standing in front of the fireplace—more or less where she had been standing, only he had his back to her and his wide shoulders were rod straight and tense.
And the crazy, weak tears started to threaten the back of her aching throat because he was staring at a framed photograph of her taken at the age of eighteen when she had graduated from school. She was smiling, shy for the camera, that errant curl flopping over her brow. Bianca, had taken it. There had used to be another similar picture of Bianca but Matthew had removed it, her father had told her.
‘How is she?’ she asked thickly. ‘Bianca, I m-mean.’
‘She is well.’ He turned to look at her. ‘She’s back in London with her parents. Elizabeth—’
‘M-Matthew is out of rehab,’ she quickly cut in.
‘Yes, I know. Elizabeth—’
‘He won’t come home. This is a small market town where everyone knows everything about everyone and he just can’t bring himself to face them all so he’s staying with an old school friend in Falmouth…They’re planning to take off round the world together—backpacking…He means to—find himself, and I suppose if anything good came out of w-what happened then it has to be that my father has accepted that he had been too tough on Matthew, so he’s—’
‘There is no baby, amore,’ Luc quietly interrupted.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
LIZZY JUST STARED at him, her eyes like twin grey pools of blank incomprehension that made Luc grimace. ‘I thought I would tell you before you ran out of innocuous things to say and resorted to telling me about the lousy weather,’ he explained. ‘Bianca lied, Elizabeth. She is not and never has been pregnant. She is just angry with everyone—you, me, your brother—angry with herself for making such a mess of her life…’
‘You mean she—came to your apartment and said all of that just to hurt me?’
‘And me.’ He nodded. ‘Though it has taken the full length of this miserable week to admit it.’ His golden eyes glinted. ‘She knows you well, amore mia,’ he said softly. ‘She knew just what to say to make you run from me. So now I am standing here wondering why it is you are still standing over there instead of throwing yourself at me in gratitude and relief!’
The sudden burst of his anger made Lizzy stiffen. ‘G-grateful for what—?’
‘That there is no child,’ Luc elaborated. ‘That I am not about to become involved in a heavy paternity suit and that you are still the woman I made my wife—and you should have stayed in Milan and supported me until this truth came out!’
And there it was, Lizzy realised, the reason why he had arrived here looking bad-tempered and tough. He was angry because she hadn’t hung around to be mocked by everyone for a second time. He’d expected her to fall on him now he had given her the good news that it wasn’t going to happen!
‘You have a twisted sense of self-belief, Luc, if you truly expected me to fall on your neck with relief!’ she informed him. ‘Or have you forgotten I was already planning to leave you before Bianca put in an appearance?’
‘I have forgotten nothing.’ He moved, beginning to close the gap between them. ‘I was merely giving you the opportunity to allow that small incident to fade quietly away.’
‘Well, I don’t want it to fade away,’ she said, backing as he kept on coming, ‘and don’t you dare touch me!’ she warned as she felt her spine hit the door. ‘You’ve lied to me, bullied me, squeezed every last drop of feeling out of me, but what did you ever give me back?’ she asked, a sudden onset of tears bringing him to an abrupt halt. ‘Your wonderful body and the pleasure of using it is all that you gave back to me, Luc,’ she informed him jerkily. ‘And you dare to believe that that should be enough to keep me loyal and supportive to you?’
‘No,’ he sighed out, turning away from her to grab the back of his neck with a hand. ‘You deserve better from me.’
And having him admit it did not make Lizzy feel better. ‘Well thank you for that small crumb,’ she said, wishing she were dead now because she just couldn’t stem the sudden urge she had to throw herself at him anyway.
Then she remembered the note, the brief throw-away ‘Ti amo,’ and she threw herself round to drag open the living room door. ‘That said, then I know you will understand that I w-would like you to leave now,’ she said, hating the telling tremor she heard in her voice. ‘My father will be home in a minute and I would prefer it if you—’
‘No, he won’t.’
Lizzy stilled in the doorway. ‘Won’t what?’ she demanded.
‘Be home soon,’ Luc extended. ‘He knows I am here,’ he explained huskily. ‘He thinks I am taking you out to dinner.’
‘Dinner?’ Her shoulders wrenched back. ‘I don’t want to have dinner with you.’
‘It is the only way you will get rid of me, cara,’ he said.
It was the cool way he relayed that that made her twist back to look at him. The moment she saw the way he was standing there looking as contained as hell, she knew he had turned back into the cool-headed Luc De Santis who did not play fair in a fight.
Tall, though, lean, sexily handsome. Lizzy found herself nervously moistening her lips. ‘Explain that,’ she instructed.
‘Dinner,’ he repeated. ‘That is all. I have already reserved a table. All you have to do is to sit down with me and eat.’
Never in a million years was that all he was expecting her to do.
‘Or I will call in your family debt…’
Ah, now he was talking, Lizzy thought. She understood this Luc so well! The unreadable expression, the arrogant tilt to his head that had once made her want to fly at him across the width of his desk.
‘Dinner…’ She folded her arms. The heavy sweep of his eyelashes dropped low as he watched her do it, and the tense quiver struck down her front. ‘Where?’
‘My hotel. I’m staying at Langwell Hall.’
Langwell Hall, Lizzy repeated silently. Only the best would ever be good enough for Luc. Langwell Hall was the finest hotel in the area—once a spectacular stately home left to go to ruin, now beautifully refurbished and transformed into a hotel.
And she knew exactly what he was doing with this oh, so polite, spiked-with-threat invitation; he was taking her out of he
r comfort zone here in her own home and putting them in the perfect place for him to feel comfortable in.
‘I don’t have anything fit to wear for dinner at Langwell Hall,’ she informed him coolly.
Those gold eyes made yet another sensual dip down the front of her plain linen shift dress with its limp, shapeless shape. ‘Come as you are,’ he responded carelessly. ‘We will be eating, not putting on a fashion show.’
And Lizzy was feeling angry enough to do it, resentful enough of his bullying tactics to just call his bluff and let him walk her into Langwell Hall’s fancy dining room wearing a dress she’d had on for two days because she’d been too upset and depressed to bother changing it, but…
‘Dinner,’ she said again, with a different emphasis. ‘That’s all, then you bring me home again and leave with no more threats?’
‘Sì.’ He nodded—and he had to switch to Italian to make his emphasis.
Without another word she turned and walked into the hallway, chin up, eyes sparkling as she strode up the stairs to her room. Maybe she should have looked back because she might have caught the telling way he ran his palm over his face as if to wipe away the tension in it.
When she came back down again she was wearing a full-length black raincoat over the only half-decent dress she had here in England, which was a very modest knee-length matt-black jersey thing with long sleeves and a high neck.
Luc was already waiting for her in the hall with his coat back on and a sublime patience strapped to his face. His hire car was a Bentley Continental. It was like floating in luxury as they drove through the pouring rain.
They didn’t speak. Like the dreadful calm before the violent storm, the static electricity played tunes on her nerves.
Langwell Hall lived up to all her expectations with its oak-lined and hushed great hall and grand oak staircase and its many reception rooms filled with beautiful old furniture, fine porcelain displayed in glass cases and its priceless works of original art.
They were shown to a table set into a corner of the elegant dining room. Someone invisible had taken their coats. Soft lamps instead of candles refined the atmosphere, sparkling crystal and polished silver and fine bone china graced the pure white tablecloths.
Luc waved the maître d’ away to personally attend to Lizzy’s chair. ‘You need diamonds,’ he murmured as he saw her seated.
‘Not a good way to soften me up,’ she drawled.
She was thinking of Bianca’s diamonds. By the time he sat down opposite her she knew he was thinking about them too by the grimace she saw on his lips.
‘Emeralds, then,’ he recovered smoothly, ‘to compete with your eyes.’
‘That was corny,’ she chided. ‘And my eyes are grey.’
‘Not right now, they are not,’ he drawled softly, and smiled as the heat of an angry blush warmed her cheeks because they both knew her eyes only turned green when she was lost in the throes of heated passion.
Seemingly it didn’t matter what kind of passion it was that was driving her.
The maître d’ returned to offer Luc the wine list, but he just waved it away and ordered what he wanted. And because Langwell Hall was that kind of place, the order was taken with barely a glimmer of uncertainty that they could provide it. Menus were set down in front of them instead.
Lizzy opened hers and pretended to study it cover to cover. Luc just sat back and studied her.
‘Stop it,’ she said, without glancing up at him.
‘I like looking at you,’ he responded levelly. ‘Sometimes you take my breath away.’
‘Sex.’ She named it dismissively.
‘You want more than sex from me?’
That focused her attention, though not her eyes, on him; she kept them carefully lowered. ‘My French isn’t good enough to read most of this,’ she murmured, indicating the menu. ‘You are going to have to translate.’
‘Ti amo,’ he said. ‘It means I love you.’
The way Lizzy jerked in response she almost knocked the glasses over. ‘That was Italian.’ Her eyes lifted, wide and wounded, to his. ‘And don’t make fun of me, Luc—’ even she could hear the pained shake in her voice ‘—or I walk.’
But his face didn’t wear a hint of mockery anywhere, neither did his sigh sound mocking as he reached into the inside pocket of his jacket, then leaned forward to place something down on her menu.
Needing to swallow the lump in her throat now because his eyes were so dark and intent on her, Lizzy looked down—and froze.
‘Tell me,’ he said quietly then, ‘which part of this note upset you so much that you screwed it into a tight ball and threw it to the kitchen floor.’
Lizzy shook her head, the tears gathering. ‘I—didn’t know I had dropped it there.’
‘This part?’ he persisted as if she hadn’t spoken, pointing with a finger at the bit where he’d written, ‘Dinner eight o’ clock.’ ‘This part upset you because you believed I was issuing one of my arrogant commands instead of a request? Or was it this part, cara,’ he went on gently, ‘where I was insensitive enough to point out it would be our first date?’
He knew which part it was that had upset her—he’d just teased her with it before he produced the evidence!
‘I’m not playing this game,’ she breathed and jerked to her feet.
He stood up also, catching hold of her wrist as she went to leave. ‘Ti amo,’ he said.
‘No,’ she whispered and tried to pull free.
But his fingers tightened. ‘Ti amo,’ he repeated yet again, tensely. ‘I will keep saying it until you listen to me.’
‘In the same way you made a joke of it in bed?’
It was out there in the dining room before she could stop it, her impulsive tongue throwing out the biggest hurt he had ever wounded her with. People stopped eating to look at them; the dining room fell deathly silent.
‘I tried to put it right in this note.’ He held her eyes with the burning intensity of his. ‘I wrote it there because I wanted you to know that I meant it, but you saw it as just another sign of my twisted humour and arrogance.’
‘You’re the most insensitive brute on this earth,’ Lizzy shook out at him.
‘Ti amo,’ he said again, deeply, doggedly. ‘You tell me I am too old for you and I agree, yet still I blackmailed you and I married you and I want to stay married to you.’
‘I’m the same age as Bianca—what’s the difference?’ She frowned irritably, picking out the only part of that she wanted to argue with.
The look on his face altered. He tugged until she landed in quivering shock against his chest. Opening her mouth to protest, she saw what was coming the quivering second before his mouth landed like a burning brand on hers. And it wasn’t a quick demonstration of male desire either, it was hot and it was hard and it probed and seduced every dark corner of her mouth until she knew she would have fallen down if he had not been holding her up.
She barely registered the gasp that rippled through their captive audience. People—refined people—drinking in the sight of Luc De Santis making passionate love to his wife!
‘That is the difference,’ he husked when he eventually set her mouth free.
But Lizzy shook her head. ‘You’re a taker, Luc,’ she whispered unsteadily. ‘If I let you you’ll just keep on taking and taking until there’s nothing of me left. You were cruel that night, you know?’ She threw her clenched, shaking fist at his chest. ‘And you did it deliberately. You believe a quick note left propped up against the kettle was going to put that right?’
Someone somewhere murmured something. Lizzy turned her head; she saw the sea of faces looking at them. Her mouth wobbled, lips burning and pulsing, she released out a small sob, then broke free of him and just ran.
And she actually made it as far as the grand hall before he caught up with her and scooped her right off her feet. ‘You can use your fists on me again in a minute,’ he gritted out and she fought him. And he turned and headed for the lift.
One brave hotel employer dared to try and stop him. ‘She’s my wife,’ he announced as if that meant everything. ‘You don’t come between a man and his wife!’
And he stepped into the lift.
The last image Lizzy carried with her as the doors closed on them was an unrestricted view across the great hall and into the dining room where everyone was on their feet and staring at them.
‘I hope you enjoyed causing that awful spectacle!’ she choked out. ‘Now put me down!’
‘Not in this life,’ Luc responded. ‘You refuse to listen. You are an unforgiving harridan. You don’t care what you make me feel. You love me but you don’t love me!’
It was a distinction that made Lizzy stop fighting him so she could try to work it out. The moment she relaxed in his arms he let her feet slither to the ground. The doors to the lift parted as if he’d planned it. And maybe he had, Lizzy wouldn’t put it beyond his capabilities. He dragged her out by the clamp of fingers he had around her wrist. The slide of a plastic key and she found herself standing in the most palatial suite of rooms she had ever seen.
The door closed, she heard the lock hit home. At last he let go of her and walked away. He was stiff with anger, she could see it pulsing from every part of him. He hooked up a bottle of something, poured some into a glass and downed it in one swallow, then finally turned.
‘What else do you want from me?’ he demanded, spreading his arms open wide. ‘I let Bianca go. I married you as soon as I could arrange it. I put my pride and my reputation on the line for you. How many hints do you need before you stop being blind and see why I did these things?’
Lizzy tried her best to make her dizzy head think clearly, but all it was doing was soaking up his tense posture, the streaks of dark colour across his cheeks. He was angry—yes. He was defensive—yes. He was tall and dark and unbelievably more gorgeous to her than ever because he was finally opening up—for her.
Her fingers made a fluttering gesture, then came together across her front beneath the point where her heart was rattling around in her chest like an overexcited pup.