without the perfect-dead-wife thing there was the fact that he was the sort of man who could have any woman he wanted. She pushed away the thought—trusting him to say no was not her problem.
‘Yes...but here, now, it is all about us...’ His voice was a throaty caress as he leaned in until their lips were almost touching, then with slow deliberation skimmed his tongue across her mouth, tracing the full outline.
Lara was breathless, capable of nothing but gazing at him, the longing that infiltrated every cell of her body shining in her eyes.
‘I’m going to be gone most of the week.’
She ignored the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. ‘What will your grandfather think?’ No honeymoon was one thing, but the groom leaving his bride alone the day after the wedding...?
‘No problem, he understands.’ He had understood better than Raoul the massive task it was going to be to bring his knowledge up to a level where he could take the helm of the family businesses.
That makes one of us, Lara thought, stifling a stab of irrational resentment.
‘Oh, that’s all right, then.’
Hard not to contrast her calm acceptance with the reaction of a real wife. Right now he’d be being made to feel as guilty as hell—a marriage based on sex and a contract definitely had its plus points.
‘Feel like being carried away?’
Lara curled her hand around his neck immediately, totally caught up again in the burning need of the moment. ‘Oh, yes, please.’
The next morning she woke at around six feeling groggy on the couple of hours’ sleep she’d snatched between lovemaking. The space beside her in the bed was empty, but on the bedside table stood a note, her name on it in bold, slanting lettering.
Unfolding it, she read it.
Meeting in Geneva at noon. Calling in on the old man on the way. Any problems arise let me know. If not should be back Fri p.m.
It was signed with a flourish—but no love.
Three months later
LARA GAVE HERSELF over completely to the explosion of sensation as it hit, savouring the sweet release from devouring hunger.
Still breathing hard, she forced her lids apart as Raoul rolled off her and lay next to her.
‘Oh, wow, that was—’
‘Just sex.’
The words had pretty much the same effect as a bucket of cold water; they usually did.
She hid her hurt in sarcasm. ‘And there was me thinking it was the start of something special, but I’m terribly grateful that you keep reminding me, because you’re so irresistible I might not be able to stop myself falling in love with you.’
Raoul didn’t react. He just levered himself out of bed in one fluid motion and began to collect the clothes he had dropped on the floor when he had not quite made it out of the door earlier.
‘As you’re a god among men...a—’
‘Cut it out, Lara.’
She smiled and added sourly, ‘Unfortunately no sense of humour, so that’s it, I’m afraid. I’d never fall in love with a man who can’t laugh at my jokes.’ Or for that matter a man she knew every woman he encountered imagined naked. To marry that sort of man you’d need either impregnable self-confidence or a lack of imagination.
‘I could never love a woman who—’ He looked into the clear green eyes laughing up at him and his half-smile vanished.
There was nothing else to add. He could never love a woman. Love had almost destroyed him once; love was never going to enter into this or any other relationship he had.
He had been uneasy about the sense of connection he sometimes felt until he realised this was down to the fact that, since Lucy, his time with women had been counted in nights whereas he had been sharing a bed and his body with Lara for three months. Another three and she would vanish from his life.
Lara sensed his withdrawal. He did that so often—the sudden mood change, the broody silences—she’d stopped reacting to it.
‘You’ve lost a button,’ she said, watching him fasten his shirt and thinking he’d need a sense of humour or a stiff drink when she finally told him her news.
He dragged back his dark hair with an impatient hand. ‘It doesn’t matter. I’m late.’
She smiled. Late was good; late was a legitimate excuse for not telling him.
‘So, Friday...?’ She managed to say it as if not seeing him for four days were no big deal, but the truth was she missed him—or, as Raoul would have no doubt explained, she missed the sex.
The first twenty-four hours of their married life had pretty much set the pattern of the days and nights to come: he would leave on Sunday evening or Monday morning and come back Thursday or Friday.
Lara recognised she was pretty much the classic mistress, just with a ring and the social recognition that went with that. Social recognition meant she got treated with respect, which in turn meant she could have lunched out every day, had she chosen to, and was regularly asked to lend her name to any number of charities and good causes.
At first she had refused, until she’d realised she was in danger of becoming the woman who only came to life when the man in her life deigned to share her bed. He shared nothing else though, which, as she frequently told herself when bitterness crept in, was a good thing.
She couldn’t let herself develop any feelings for him beyond lust; she could not allow herself to feel things that would make her hurt when the arrangement reached its inevitable and sad conclusion.
She’d grown fond of Sergio, which was fine because she was allowed to be fond of him.
‘No.’
Her eyes lifted to discover he was standing by the door. Lara shook her head. ‘No?’
‘I’m not going away this week.’
‘Why not?’
His eyes slid from hers. ‘I have a meeting with grandfather’s oncologist later in the week.’
‘Oh, right.’
‘I should be h—back early.’
Now she was familiar with Raoul’s work ethic and his relentless stamina, Lara was able to translate ‘early’ as somewhere between twelve and one a.m.
Too late to hit him with her bombshell.
Oh, she was delaying the inevitable, but why not? What was the hurry? Considering his attitude it was small wonder that she was dreading delivering the speech. She had tried a dozen versions, but nothing worked.
Maybe she should settle for a simple, ‘I’m sorry,’ because now it couldn’t be just sex.
There was a baby.
After he left, she went back to the bathroom and pulled out the pregnancy-testing kit she’d hidden under some toiletries. She’d bought six and this was the last one left.
Her last hope.
Only there was no hope—she knew that even before she saw the line appear on the strip.
She spent the morning with Sergio. Roberto joined them mid-morning and they spent time going through albums, looking at snapshots of Raoul and Jamie when they were boys. In all the photos she had seen, Raoul’s elder brother looked like a softer, fairer version of him—Raoul without the hard edges or dark outlook.
Though in the one that had got to her Raoul had had no