‘I thought we were friends, Davina,’ she said in a choked voice.
Marco felt no surprise that the wedding planner was in his brother’s room. At the wedding rehearsal he had tried to suggest to Leah that she should postpone marriage until she’d had a chance to know James better, and this was why.
There was a sweetness about Leah that made Marco wish he could have saved her from the pain of disillusionment. But she would get over it with time, he thought. And if she had any sense she would learn that love was a lie put about by poets and dreamers.
He was about to return to his room, but Leah was speaking again, and Marco succumbed to curiosity and withdrew into an alcove in the passageway.
‘James, if you have never loved me, why did you ask me to marry you?’
‘Your inheritance,’ James muttered. ‘I owe a lot of money to some people who are likely to get nasty if I don’t repay them soon. I borrowed heavily, to invest in a business deal that promised amazing returns, but then the goldmine in Africa flooded and I lost my investment. I can’t ask my parents for help because my father advised me against the deal.’
Marco rolled his eyes. It wasn’t the first time James had sunk money into a get rich quick scheme that had failed. He’d bailed his half-brother out many times in the past and refused to do so again.
‘How on earth did you find out about my inheritance?’
Leah sounded shocked, and it struck Marco as odd that she had tried to keep something like that a secret from her future husband.
‘Amy mentioned it that night she introduced us at her party. She was drunk, and she told me that you had been left millions of pounds by a relative, but couldn’t claim the money until you were married. To be honest, you seemed like the perfect answer to my problems.’
‘I don’t think I ever told Amy the exact amount of my inheritance, but it isn’t millions. How disappointed you would have been after you had gone to all the trouble of pretending to be in love with me.’ Leah’s voice trembled. ‘All you wanted was my money. That’s despicable.’
‘Don’t act so righteous.’ James sounded sulky and defensive. ‘You’re not in love with me, either. Amy said you were desperate to get your hands on your inheritance. That’s why you were so eager to marry me, isn’t it? We were both willing to use each other.’
Leah did not deny James’s accusation.
Marco frowned. He’d been feeling sympathy for her—even a degree of guilt. If he had given his half-brother the loan he’d asked for James would not have tried to trick Leah into marriage. But now it sounded as though Leah had a strong incentive of her own, he thought as he made his way back to his bedroom.
He paused outside the nursery and opened the door, entering the room quietly. Nicky preferred to sleep with a nightlight, and the soft glow from the lamp danced across his black curls. His impossibly long eyelashes fanned on his cheeks.
Marco’s heart clenched. He would never forget the first time he’d held his son in his arms. His marriage had already been strained, but he had been instantly smitten with his baby boy and had vowed to do everything he could to create a happy family life for his son.
When Karin had disappeared with Nicky the pain Marco had felt was indescribable. It had been more than three years before he’d seen his son again, in Mexico, where Karin had been living with her lover, a low-life crook. Who knew what kind of life Nicky had led for those crucial years of his early development? The little boy had never spoken about what had happened to him, and Marco felt powerless to connect with this son who regarded him as a stranger.
He leaned over to tuck the bedcovers around Nicky, curious when he saw a piece of paper sticking out from beneath his pillow. Marco carefully slid the paper out and stared at the childish drawing of a person with long, curly hair drawn with an orange crayon. There was no doubt that the picture was meant to be of Leah, and the smaller black-haired figure holding her hand was Nicky’s attempt to draw himself.
Marco turned the paper over, wondering if his son had drawn him, but the other side was blank.
As he slipped the drawing back under Nicky’s pillow and returned to his own room he recalled the trusting expression on the little boy’s face when he’d clutched Leah’s hand after she had fished him out of the lake. It was nearly midnight, but he felt too wired to sleep.
Pulling back the curtains, he glanced up at the moon, suspended like a silver disc in the inky sky. He was puzzled when he saw a figure by the gate which led from the garden onto Bodmin Moor. She was silhouetted in the moonlight, but even from a distance Marco recognised Leah. He watched her walk a little way onto the moor and then hesitate where the path forked before turning in the direction of Hawk’s Tor.
What the hell was she doing out on the moors at night?
Leah was not his responsibility, he reminded himself, but he knew how easy it was to become lost in such a remote place. He swore as he pulled on jeans and a sweater then strode out of his room.
As a boy, Marco had spent many hours walking on the moors after his father’s death, but his absence from the house had mostly gone unnoticed. His mother had been widowed for just a year before she’d married Gordon Fletcher. Ten months later she’d given birth to James and Marco had been sent away to school. Olivia had paid little attention to her eldest son when he’d come home for the holidays.
Marco had always felt an outsider at Nancarrow Hall, and as soon as he’d become an adult he’d settled in Capri and made Villa Rosa, the house owned by three generations of the De Valle family before, his permanent home.
But he knew from those lonely hikes across the moors that the weather could change quickly, even in summer. He exited the house and garden, following the route he’d seen Leah take. A breeze had blown up, sending clouds scudding across the sky so that every now and then the moonlight was obliterated.
Earlier, Marco had called one of his security personnel, and within the hour had received confirmation of Leah’s academic and professional qualifications. Her experience in teaching children with special needs, and the bond she seemed to have formed with Nicky, meant that Leah might be the one person who could help his little boy.
CHAPTER FOUR
THIS COULDN’T BE the shortcut to the village. Leah peered through the darkness, hoping to see a light in a cottage window or some other sign of civilisation. But there was nothing apart from the outline of a stunted tree which had been bent and twisted by the wind that whipped across the moors.
She’d fled Nancarrow Hall because she hadn’t been able to bear to stay after she’d been so humiliated. She never wanted to see James again after his betrayal. But although she was bitterly angry with him, she was also furious with herself too, for making such an error of judgement. She had seen in James what she had wanted to see, Leah acknowledged. Her longing for security had made her ignore her doubts about their relationship.
As for Marco...
A shudder of embarrassment ran through her when she remembered her inexpert attempt to seduce him, believing he was James. It was all immaterial now, she thought grimly. She had accidentally gone to Marco’s room, but it had been no accident that the wedding planner had been in bed with James.
A sob rose in her throat, but she brushed her tears away. Crying wouldn’t help a situation that had gone from bad to disastrous.
After she had discovered James’s duplicity she’d rushed back to her bedroom. Her phone had been ringing, and Gloria, her mum’s neighbour in London, had explained that Tori had collapsed in the street and been taken by ambulance to hospital.
‘I think your mum had been drinking again,’ Gloria had said gently. ‘She was upset and kept asking where you were.’
‘Thanks for letting me know,’ Leah had said.
She’d felt a mixture of shame at Tori’s behaviour and guilt that she hadn’t been around to help her. She’d known she needed to return to London immediate
ly, but couldn’t ask James to drive her. So she’d left a note for Amy and left.
But she must have taken the wrong path to the village and now she was lost on the moors. Leah looked back over her shoulder and felt a ripple of fear when she could not see the Hall. She had walked further than she’d realised. The moon had disappeared and the darkness was thick around her.
That eerie noise was just the wind, she told herself. She froze when she heard another indistinguishable sound that seemed to be getting closer. Someone or something was following her. An animal, perhaps? But what sort of animal?
Her heart was thudding as she felt in her jacket pocket for her phone. The no signal icon flashed at the top of the screen. She switched on the phone’s torch and gasped when she saw a huge figure coming towards her. This night from hell was rapidly turning into a nightmare! Leah’s emotions were already in a fragile state and her imagination took over from her common sense.
‘What do you want? Get away from me!’ She started to run but stumbled on the uneven ground. The harsh, panting noise was her own breaths, she realised. ‘Leave me alone!’
‘Leah!’
The voice was shockingly familiar. She held up her phone so that the torchlight flickered over Marco’s chiselled features and revealed the scar carved into his cheek.
‘Oh, it’s you.’ She released a shaky breath as her fear evaporated. But her heartrate accelerated when he came closer and she caught the drift of his spicy cologne. ‘I thought...’ She shook her head. ‘Your housekeeper told me there are legends about evil spirits and other strange phenomena who roam the moors.’
‘Did you think I was the Beast of Bodmin?’ Marco asked drily, running his hand over his scar.
‘I don’t know what I thought.’ Leah couldn’t hold back a sob. Reaction to the night’s events was hitting her hard and she buried her face in her hands.
‘What are you doing, wandering around the moors in the dark?’
‘I was trying to get to the village, and from there to the station at Bodmin.’
‘At midnight?’
‘I couldn’t remain at the house and see the pitying expressions on everyone’s faces tomorrow. Did you know that James and Davina are lovers? I suppose you did as you warned me not to go to James’s room,’ she said dully. ‘Apparently they started an affair in London soon after I hired Davina to organise the wedding. For the past week James has been meeting Davina in secret at a hotel in Padstow, instead of playing golf, as he told me. And tonight I found them in bed together.’
Her voice cracked.
‘The wedding is off, in case you were wondering. Davina has just found out she is pregnant. That’s why she looked so upset at the wedding rehearsal. James says he is going to stand by her.’
Marco tugged her hands away from her face and stared at her, his eyes glittering hard and bright. ‘You have been crying.’ He sounded surprised.
‘What did you expect?’
Leah had not been able to hold back her tears. She was hurt that James had lied and her pride was dented. In addition, with the wedding called off she would not be able to claim her inheritance, and now worrying about her mum made her feel as if she was balanced on an emotional tightrope.
‘I feel such a fool for believing that James was in love with me. I thought he was different to other men I’d dated, and he didn’t put pressure on me to go to bed with him.’
‘Cara, if he didn’t want sex with you it was because his interests lay elsewhere,’ Marco said bluntly.
‘Sex is not the most important part of a relationship,’ she argued. ‘There’s love and trust.’ She gave another sob. ‘I trusted James.’
‘But you didn’t desire him or you would have wanted to sleep with him.’
Leah bit her lip. Marco’s assessment was too close to the truth. She hadn’t felt a burning desire to have sex with James—or any other man. Well, one other man, she thought shamefully, remembering how her body had ached for fulfilment when she’d stretched out on top of Marco and felt the hard proof of his arousal.
On a subconscious level she had realised that he wasn’t James, she acknowledged. Marco was the man of her fantasies—but she wasn’t about to admit to the effect he had on her.
He towered above her, darkly beautiful in black jeans and a matching fine wool sweater. He was inherently dangerous to her peace of mind and he evoked a longing in her that no other man had ever done.
For too long Leah had supressed her sensuality, but now it blazed, needy and desperate. She swayed towards him and her tongue darted across her lips, issuing an unconscious invitation.
He stared at her mouth and there was something primitive about the stark hunger in his gaze. She wished he would haul her against his muscular body and carry her away into the darkness. Out here on the ancient moors they were simply a man and a woman drawn together by a desire as old as mankind.
She could feel the urgent beat of her pulse, the sharp pull of her nipples and the flood of molten warmth between her legs. She heard the unevenness of his breath and felt the tension that emanated from him. A shaft of moonlight revealed his skin stretched tightly over his razor-edged cheekbones.
He slowly lowered his head and she held her breath, waiting, wanting...
Abruptly he stepped back from her and shoved a hand through his hair. ‘I’ll show you the way to the village.’
He took her holdall from her nerveless fingers and walked off in the opposite direction to the one she had taken when she’d left the house.
Reality kicked in, bringing memories of the phone call she had received from her mum’s neighbour. ‘I need to catch the train to London,’ she said as she hurried after Marco.
‘You’re too late. The last one has already left. But you can stay at the pub tonight.’
She struggled to keep pace with his long strides and was out of breath by the time they reached the village. There were no lights on at the Sailor’s Arms. The sign hanging on the post creaked. ‘Of course the pub is closed now,’ Leah muttered, feeling sick at the thought of returning to Nancarrow Hall and having to face James tomorrow.
Marco slipped his phone into his jeans pocket. ‘I sent a message to the landlord asking him to prepare a room for you.’
‘Won’t he mind that it’s so late?’
‘I own the pub,’ Marco said drily. ‘The whole village belongs to the Nancarrow estate.’
He led Leah round to the back door of the pub and ushered her into the tiny bar.
‘This is Bill.’ He introduced the man who had walked through from another room.
The landlord took Leah’s holdall. ‘I’ll carry your bag upstairs, Miss Ashbourne. Come up when you’re ready and I’ll show you to your room.’
Marco moved towards the door. ‘Try to get some sleep,’ he advised. ‘I’ll come back in the morning. I have a proposition that I want to discuss with you.’
Leah’s imagination went into overdrive. Those moments on the moors when Marco had looked at her with hunger in his eyes, as though he wanted to devour her, burned bright in her memory.
‘What sort of proposition?’
He laughed softly and his grey eyes gleamed with amusement and something else...an intentness that made Leah supremely conscious of her femininity.
‘Not the sexual kind,’ he drawled. ‘I’m afraid you will have to play out those fantasies with someone else. I don’t take wide-eyed virgins to bed.’
She ground her teeth as Marco’s grin widened. ‘You really are the most arrogant beast,’ she snapped.
Her insides squirmed. How could he know that she’d had erotic fantasies about him? Was her fascination with him so obvious? Leah wished that the trapdoor in the pub floor would open so that she could leap into the black void below.
Marco lifted a hand to his face and traced the line of his scar. ‘It’s true. A beast is what I am.’
/>
There was no laughter in his voice now, just a grimness that hurt Leah although she could not explain why.
He caught hold of her chin and tilted her face up to his. ‘You would do well to remember that, Beauty.’
She stared into his eyes—not cold as an arctic sky, but gleaming like molten silver, glinting with promise and a wicked intent that made her tremble.
‘Tell me the truth,’ he said softly. ‘Did you know that you had come to my bedroom instead of James’s?’
Leah bit her lip. She was innately truthful, but she did not dare admit to Marco that he was the man she had been thinking about when she’d left her room.
‘I was confused,’ she muttered.
He gave a harsh laugh. ‘You proved when you kissed me that you have passion and fire. How could you have contemplated a passionless marriage?’
‘I didn’t know that I could feel such strong desire,’ she whispered, ‘until...’
Marco’s eyes glittered. ‘Until?’ he prompted.
‘Until I came to your room and...and kissed you.’ The damning words left her lips on a sigh.
Her heart leapt when his head swooped down and he claimed her mouth with devastating authority. She was impatient for his kiss and pressed herself against him, tipping her head back, softening her lips and parting them beneath his.
He tasted divine, and the spicy tang of his aftershave mixed with the almost imperceptible scent of male pheromones was more intoxicating than any drug. Flames swept through her body, setting every nerve-ending alight. Marco was demolishing her barriers with terrifying ease, and she felt unmoored, scared of the firestorm he had unleashed inside her and yet compelled to burn in the conflagration.
He muttered something in Italian against her lips as he slid his hand along her jaw, commanding her with a flick of his tongue to open her mouth and allow him access. But then—shockingly—he wrenched his mouth from hers and captured her wrists, pulling her arms down from where she had wound them around his neck.
Her Wedding Night Negotiation (Mills & Boon Modern) Page 5