by Kim Lawrence
He arched a brow and looked at her, saying nothing, and Lucy thought, Help me out here, will you? ‘Would you like to come?’
There, she’d said it, after spending the last week wondering if she should, and now she had and why not? It was no big thing if he said no.
Who was she kidding? It was a massive thing if he said no! If he accepted, this would be the first time they had been seen in public together as a couple … Were they even a couple? Actually she didn’t know, that was the problem and, worse still, she had let the kernel of hope creep in. She had allowed herself to think of a future where they were together.
And you based that on what, Lucy? Sure, she stayed the night here sometimes, she even had a toothbrush in his bathroom and a drawer for her clothes, but it was all casual.
The intimacy, the luxury of not thinking before she acted or spoke, did not extend beyond the bedroom or wherever else they made love. Obviously the sex was incredible, sublime, and under his skilled tutelage she had discovered a passionate part of herself she had never dreamt existed, revelling in the world of sensory pleasures that had opened up to her.
But she was only different up to a point. She had never been able to separate the physical from the emotional and that hadn’t changed. For a short time she had, out of a sense of self-preservation, refused to recognise the obvious. She was only able to give herself without boundary or reservation because while she had fallen in lust with him that lust had fast turned to love.
Santiago was the love of her life and the knowledge made her feel more vulnerable than she ever had before. Even at the height of the scandal she had been able to retain an objectivity and respond with a cool restraint to the insults that came her way. With Santiago that was impossible; she felt as though she were stuck in the middle of an emotional quicksand with no way out.
‘You are inviting me to this wedding—today.’ Santiago’s veiled eyes fell from hers.
Well, you wanted to know, Lucy.
Only she hadn’t known it would feel this bad!
A look was worth a thousand words—was that a saying or had she just made it up? Well, if someone hadn’t said it they should have, she decided as she forced a smile.
It had been a calculated risk but she had always known that this might be his response. She had taken the risk and now she had to live with it.
‘Fine, no problem, don’t worry about it. It’s short notice, I know, and you’re busy.’ There, she had not made a scene, she had given him a get out. Which, Lucy thought, is very grown-up and civilised of me.
She didn’t feel grown-up.
‘I did not say no.’
She smiled and thought, But you’re going to.
Santiago flicked his cuff and glanced at the silver-banded watch that circled his hair-roughened wrist. ‘Give me fifteen minutes.’
Without waiting for her reply, he walked through the open door of his study and closed it behind him.
He had recovered quickly but she had seen the shock on his face. The humiliating memory of it was going to be difficult to erase. Presumably he needed fifteen minutes to polish the details of an excuse … She saw no reason to hang around to hear it and give marks out of ten.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
LUCY spotted a space on her third circuit of the overflowing airport car park. With a sigh of relief she drove forward, intending to back into the space when the guy in the car behind her zipped neatly into it.
Lucy, her temper fizzing, jumped out of the car just as the other driver got out. She opened her mouth, but her protest died as the man gave a shameless ‘all’s fair in love and parking spaces’ shrug.
‘Oh, what’s the point?’ she asked herself.
About to get back into the car, she registered that the line of vehicles that had followed her were now honking their horns. She thought, What the hell? And, grabbing the bag containing her wedding outfit off the front passenger seat, began to walk away from the car as fast as her legs would take her—Lucy had very long legs.
She had gone a few yards when she was hailed by a uniformed figure who came running up behind her, warning breathlessly that her vehicle would be towed if she left it illegally parked.
She paused, then turned and, with an expressive shrug of her own, tossed the car keys to the official.
His jaw dropped as he caught them.
Lucy waved cheerfully and shouted, ‘Feel free.’ Before, shoulders straight, her head held high, she walked confidently down past the rows of legally parked vehicles.
What was the worst they could do—arrest her? Actually they probably could, but only if they could catch her, Lucy thought, breaking into a jog as she reacted to the reckless buzz of angry defiance in her head.
She would get to this wedding if it killed her—or got her a criminal record. Despite her unease nobody stopped her and she reached the terminal with time to spare—not much, admittedly, but she had made it.
Now the pressure was off and she had reached her goal the adrenaline buzz and anger that had got her this far receded. The anticlimax left her feeling horribly flat, which was probably the reason that when she was one off the head of the line and the departure board showed the one thing that could stop her now she burst into loud sobs.
‘Sorry … sorry,’ she said to everyone who stared at her as she struggled to subdue the mortifying sobs. ‘It can’t be delayed,’ she said when she reached the head of the line.
The woman, unmoved by Lucy’s tear-stained face and wobbly voice, shook her head and, professional smile in place, recited, ‘I’m afraid that—’
‘No, you don’t understand,’ Lucy cut back, struggling to contain her frustration. ‘It can’t be delayed. I have to be there for this wedding …’ She stopped. The woman was not listening, she was already looking beyond her, but other people were still casting curious glances her way wondering, presumably, who that madwoman was, or maybe they recognised her?
Lucy blew out a breath, hitched her bag higher on her shoulder and shoved her hands deep into the pockets of her designer jeans. She struggled to control the paranoia … Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean someone isn’t following you, mocked the voice in her head, and the same premise was true of staring and judging.
Let them, she thought, lifting her chin. If she had learnt one thing over the last few weeks it was that she had spent the last four years hiding away under the pretence of embracing a simple life. Well, no more—Santiago might be ashamed to be seen in public with her, but she was not going to hide any more … No more skulking in corners—after all nobody could hurt her more than he had. The fact that she had laid herself open to such hurt did not make it any less painful.
Reacting with a brilliant smile and the approved level of meek obedience a person was expected to display in an airport, Lucy straightened her shoulders and, head high, moved away, mentally doing the arithmetic … How delayed could the flight be before she missed the wedding? The answer was not good news. Her window of opportunity was pretty narrow … an hour and a half, two at the most.
Lucy knew she should ring home and warn them she might be late, but that would be admitting defeat and she wasn’t ready to yet. What she needed was some coffee. A caffeine hit would make the world look a less unfriendly place.
She had almost reached the coffee outlet when she caught sight of her reflection in a full-length plate-glass window and stopped, a choking sigh of horror escaping her lips. If people were staring it had little to do with her notoriety and everything to do with the fact the mascara that hadn’t formed the comical panda circles around her eyes was smeared in streaks down her cheeks.
She pulled a tissue out of her pocket and began scrubbing at her face, tilting her head to see the results in the glass—not great. Coffee, she decided, scanning the area for the nearest ladies’ room, would have to wait until she had managed some urgent running repairs on her make-up.
She had just located the sign she was looking for when she saw them. They were a prosperous-lookin
g couple, the woman in pearls and Chanel-style suit, presenting a picture of understated elegance but very much the supporting act next to the thick-set silver-haired man looking distinguished in a double-breasted suit and dapper waistcoat.
Shock detonated inside Lucy’s head like a bomb, wiping out everything except panic. Her feet nailed to the spot, she stood there shaking as she fought off a wave of faintness, while a disembodied voice in her head screamed—Run!
She wanted to respond to the voice but she physically couldn’t. She just stood and waited, the awful sense of inevitability lying like a heavy cold stone in the pit of her stomach.
The woman saw her first … Barbara. Lucy had always wondered about her. Did she know the true nature of the man she lived with and simply chose to ignore it? Or was she genuinely ignorant? You read of cases where women lived with men who made a mere serial adulterer look pleasant and claimed they had had no clue, that the man they knew was kind and loving.
There was no question that the woman had recognised her. She coloured visibly through the smooth matt make-up and tugged at her husband’s sleeve. Speaking in a loud voice, he ignored her interruption at first, then when he did give her his attention there was impatience in his handsome face.
The woman spoke, stabbing a finger towards Lucy. Too far away to hear what she was saying or even see her face, Lucy could sense her agitation from where she stood. After a few seconds the man’s head lifted, his gaze following the direction of his wife’s pointing finger.
Then they were walking towards her, the wife trailing a little behind her husband, perhaps less eager for the confrontation.
The scene could have been lifted from one of Lucy’s recurrent nightmares except instead of wearing pyjamas and fluffy slippers she had mascara streaked all over her face like warpaint. To Lucy’s overheated imagination the crowds seemed to part for the swaggering, self-important figure.
Then as suddenly as a switch clicking Lucy was no longer nervous or ashamed. A weird sense of calm settled over her. She was still shaking but now it was with anger. She had allowed this man to steal part of her life, but no more.
Heart thudding, she took the initiative and strode towards them with purpose. Conscious of her mother’s advice of ‘it’s not what you wear, it’s the way you wear it,’ she lifted her head, and, hearing a photographer’s voice saying, ‘Work it, Lucy, give it some attitude, baby,’ she put an extra sway into her hips.
Control had been taken away from her once but she was about to take it back. Easier without mascara panda eyes, perhaps, but she was working with what she had, and she had a body. A body that until now she had appreciated on a purely ‘it works’ level, yet now thanks to Santiago she knew possessed a feminine power.
Panic was not a word or an emotion that he had time for, but when Santiago had come out of his study and found her gone he had experienced something that felt uncomfortably like it. Not that this was surprising … not a word, not a note, nothing. She had vanished.
Fifteen minutes, he had said—was fifteen minutes too much to ask for? His jaw clenched as his initial panic was rapidly replaced by a slow simmering fury. He had spent those requested fifteen minutes rearranging a high-powered meeting that had taken weeks to organise in the first place. Bankers had travelled from several continents to attend and he stood the risk of causing massive offence, not to mention a mountain of ill will, by cancelling.
But he had.
And why? Because he had recognised a turning point in their relationship. Santiago knew about turning points—he normally managed to walk before they occurred. He had seen this one coming but he had made no attempt to avoid it, although he’d assumed he would of course choose the fork marked ‘I don’t do relationships’.
Then she had asked him, not just for more, but to meet her family. It was almost in his mind a public declaration of intent and, instead of telling him to run away, his instinct had pushed him towards it.
In his experience things in life were generally simple, it was people who complicated things. However this situation, when you stripped away the detritus, amounted to one simple question, or at least the answer to that question: was he willing to lose her for ever? To push away the woman who had removed the wall of cynicism around his heart brick by brick? She was an infuriating, frustrating mixture of toughness and vulnerability and the idea of living a life she was not part of scared him more than anything in his life had. Just admitting it to himself gave him a sense of purpose, a feeling of liberation.
He had vowed never to put himself in a position where he was responsible for another person’s happiness but suddenly that responsibility no longer seemed like a burden, it seemed like a privilege.
No longer afraid to take that step off the cliff in the dark, which essentially was what love was, he had finally faced down his personal demons only to find that the woman who had inspired him to take that leap hadn’t bothered to hang around and wait for him.
Had she set out to anger him? What other conclusions was he meant to draw when he discovered that to top it all she had taken a car from the garage?
Her selection of vehicle was not wasted on him. It was the powerful new addition to his collection, a sports model he had made the mistake of describing as not a woman’s car … The comment had elicited an ‘anything you can do I can do better’ tirade, which he had endured with relative good humour because, as he’d admitted to Lucy, she was probably right.
He did not dispute her ability, but this did not alter the fact that he had no intention of providing the means for her to break her beautiful neck.
As he drove the route to the airport he tensed with each successive hairpin bend he negotiated, half expecting to come across the tangled, twisted remains of the car. He never did, so presumably she had managed to get to the airport in one piece. Once he got hold of her that might change, he thought grimly.
It turned out, when he reached the airport, that his car had also made it unscathed. There didn’t seem to be a scratch on it, though the fact it was clamped and sitting behind a tow truck made it hard to be positive about this.
For the first time since he had started this pursuit he smiled, then he laughed, making a passing group of tourists turn and stare curiously.
He pointed at the disappearing tow truck. ‘That’s mine!’
The explanation caused the group of tourists to quickly move on.
Inside the terminal building Santiago was deciding where to begin his search when he saw the couple, recognising the pair from the articles he had read. A split second later he saw Lucy herself. Her tall, blonde-headed figure was not one that got lost in a crowd. The relief he experienced in that moment was quickly followed by a rush of protective concern as he assessed the situation.
He was moving forward to intervene when he saw Lucy straighten her slender shoulders and advance towards the couple looking like a queen, head held high. Her hair swishing like a silver halo around her beautiful face, she radiated confidence and purpose, a sexy avenging angel. He experienced a wave of pride mingled with lust. Lucy Fitzgerald was many things but a coward was not one of them.
Santiago hesitated, torn between a desire to applaud and an equally strong need to rush in and protect her. He forced himself to stand back.
‘Well, well, this is a blast from the past … you’re looking good, Lucy.’ Feeling the lascivious eyes move over her body like grubby hands made Lucy shudder.
‘Denis, don’t … come away, she’s not worth … I don’t know how she has the cheek to be seen in public!’
Denis Mulville cast his wife a look of contempt before turning back to Lucy. ‘No hard feelings, Lucy.’
Lucy looked at the hand extended towards her and gave an incredulous laugh. ‘Go away, you pathetic little man. There is nothing you can say or do that could harm me.’
Denis looked utterly astonished by her response. His good humour vanished in the blink of an eye, replaced by an air of narrow-eyed menace. As he took a step towards her, pushi
ng his face up close to hers, Lucy grimaced with distaste. The man smelt like a distillery; he had clearly been drinking heavily … It took all her willpower to hold her ground and not retreat from the glittering malice aimed her way.
‘My, my, you really have come down in the world,’ he slurred. His eyes dropped, his sneer growing more pronounced as he took in her jeans, casual open-necked shirt and flat shoes. ‘Not so special now, are we, Miss I’m-better-than-everyone-else? Bitch … I showed you.’
‘Denis, please …’
The agonised plea from his wife fell on deaf ears, or at least very drunk ears.
He looked around the crowded terminal and raised his voice. ‘Stuck-up little bitch thinks she’s a cut above—’
‘That is because she is.’
The cool voice cut across the toxic bluster and caused Denis to stagger back drunkenly. He blinked, then seemed to Lucy to shrink as he took in the size and quality of the man who had come to stand beside her.
Lucy gave a sigh of relief and relaxed into the strong arms that came up behind her back. ‘And who might you be, friend?’
‘I am not your friend and I am the man you should be thanking. If one is going to be knocked out cold in a public place I think it is always far less humiliating if the person striking the blow is a man, not a woman …’ His austere expression melded into a tender smile that took Lucy’s breath away as it was directed at her.
‘Yes, I know, querida, that you can handle it, but I think possibly he does not. And a man likes to feel needed.’ He felt her tremble and pulled her in closer to his side, fitting her curves into his angles. His voice dropped to a low threatening rumble as he pitched the addition for the other man’s ears only. ‘If you do not close your filthy mouth I will close it for you.’
‘You can’t talk to me like that,’ he blustered. Pale except for the twin spots of colour on his fleshy cheeks, Denis’s face glistened unhealthily with a layer of sweat.
Santiago arched a sardonic brow. ‘But as you see I can. To clarify matters, because I have no wish to continue this conversation any longer than necessary, that is not a threat or even a promise, but simply a fact.’