they came, it felt as if someone had ripped through that lazy contentment like a knife ripping through delicate silk.
‘So… Was that my reward, I wonder, cara mia?’ he questioned softly.
She pulled away from him, aware of the sudden pounding of her heart and the general indignity of turning to face a man when any kind of action was proving laborious. Especially when you were completely naked beneath the gaze of a pair of eyes which looked suddenly distant. She told herself not to read unnecessary stuff into his words—not to always imagine the worst. He told you he wanted you and that he’s been lusting after you…so go with that.
‘I’m afraid I’m not with you,’ she said lightly.
‘No?’ He turned onto his back and yawned. ‘You mean that wasn’t your way of thanking me for buying you a home of your own? For finally getting the independence you must have craved for all these years?’
Darcy froze as the meaning of his words sank in and suddenly all that vulnerability which was never far from the surface began to rise in a dark unwanted tide. Groping down over the side of the bed, she managed to retrieve her overcoat and slung it over herself to cover her nakedness.
‘Let’s just get this straight.’ Her voice was trembling. ‘You think I had sex with you because you made me an overgenerous offer I hadn’t actually asked for?’
‘I don’t know, Darcy.’ His tone had changed. It rang out, iron-hard—like the sound of a hammer hitting against a nail. And when he turned his head to look at her, his eyes were icy. Like the black ice you sometimes saw when you were out on the roads in winter. Or didn’t see until it was too late. ‘I just don’t get it with you. Sometimes I think I know you and other times I think I don’t know you at all.’
‘But aren’t all relationships like that?’ she questioned, swallowing down her fear. ‘Didn’t some songwriter say that if our thoughts could be seen, they’d probably put our heads in a guillotine?’
His eyes were narrowed as they studied her. ‘And if I promised to grant you leniency, would you give me access to your thoughts right now?’
Darcy didn’t react. She could tell him the rest of her story—and maybe if it had been any other man than Renzo she would have done so. But he had already insulted her by thinking she’d had sex with him just because he’d bought her this house. To him, it all boiled down to a transaction and he didn’t really trust himself to believe anything different. He thought of everything in terms of barter between the sexes because he didn’t really like women, did he? He’d told her that a long time ago. He might want her but he didn’t trust her and even though she could try to gain that trust by confessing her biggest secret, surely it was too big a gamble?
‘I’m just wondering why you seem determined to wreck what chance we have of happiness,’ she said, in a low voice. ‘We have a lovely new home and a baby on the way. We’re both healthy and we fancy each other like crazy. We’ve just had amazing sex—can’t we just enjoy that?’
Black eyes seared into her for a long moment until eventually he nodded, his hand snaking around her waist and pulling her closer so that she could feel the powerful beat of his heart.
‘Okay,’ he said as he stroked her hair. ‘Let’s do that. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. It’s just all very new to me and I don’t do trust very easily.’
Silently, she nodded, willing the guilt and the tears to go away. All she wanted was to live a decent life with her husband and child. She wanted what she’d never had—was that really too much to ask? She relaxed a little as his hand moved from her hair to her back, his fingertips skating a light path down her spine. Couldn’t she be the best kind of wife to him, to demonstrate her commitment through her actions rather than her words?
He leaned over her, black fire blazing as he bent his face close. ‘Are you tired?’
She shook her head. ‘Not a bit. Why?’
His thumb grazed the surface of her bottom lip and she could feel his body hardening against her as he gave a rueful smile. ‘Because I want you again,’ he said.
DARCY’S FIRST INKLING that something was wrong came on a Monday morning. At first she thought it was nothing—like looking up at the sky and thinking you’d imagined that first heavy drop of rain which heralded the storm.
Renzo was in London unveiling his design for the Tokyo art gallery at a press conference—having left the house at the crack of dawn. He’d asked if she’d wanted to accompany him but she’d opted to stay, and was in the garden pegging out washing when the call came from one of his assistants, asking if she was planning to be at home at lunchtime.
Darcy frowned. It struck her as a rather strange question. Even if she wasn’t home, Renzo knew she wouldn’t have strayed much further than the local village—or, at a pinch, the nearby seaside town of Brighton. All that stuff they said about pregnant women wanting to nest was completely true and she’d built a domestic idyll here while awaiting the birth of their baby. And hadn’t that nesting instinct made her feel as though life was good—or as good as it could be? Even if sometimes she felt guilt clench at her heart unexpectedly, knowing that her husband remained ignorant of her biggest, darkest secret. But why rock the boat by telling him? Why spoil something which was good by making him pity her and perhaps despise her?
Placing the palm of her hand over the tight drum of her belly, she considered his assistant’s question. ‘Yes, I’m going to be here at lunchtime. Why?’
‘Signor Sabatini just asked me to make sure.’
Darcy frowned. ‘Is something wrong? Is Renzo around—can I speak to him, please?’
The assistant’s voice was smooth but firm. ‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible. He’s in a meeting. He said to tell you he’ll be with you soon after noon.’
Darcy replaced the receiver, trying to lose the sudden feeling of apprehension which had crept over her, telling herself it was only because that fractured phone call felt a little like history repeating itself which had made her nervous. At least it hadn’t been the same assistant who had stonewalled her attempts to get through to Renzo to tell him she was pregnant. That assistant had suddenly been offered a higher position in a rival company, something which Darcy suspected Renzo had masterminded himself. He’d seemed to want to put the past behind them as much as she did. So stop imagining trouble where there isn’t any.
But it didn’t matter how much she tried to stay positive, she couldn’t seem to shake off the growing sense of dread which had taken root inside her. She went inside and put away the remaining clothes pegs—something her billionaire husband often teased her about. He told her that hanging out washing was suburban; she told him she didn’t care. She knew he wanted to employ a cleaner and a housekeeper, and to keep a driver on tap instead of driving herself—in the fairly ordinary family car she’d chosen, which wasn’t Renzo’s usual style at all. The private midwife who lived locally and could be called upon at any time had been her only concession to being married to a billionaire.
But she wanted to keep it real, because reality was her only anchor. Despite Renzo’s enormous power and wealth, she wanted theirs to be as normal a family as it was possible to be. And despite what she’d said when he’d railroaded her into the marriage, she badly wanted it to work. Not just because of their baby or because of their unhappy childhoods. She looked out the window, where her silk shirt was blowing wildly in the breeze. She wanted it to work because she had realised she loved him.
She swallowed.
She loved him.
It had dawned on her one morning when she’d woken to find him still sleeping beside her. In sleep he looked far less forbidding but no less beautiful. His shadowed features were softened; the sensual lips relaxed. Two dark