Ricardo dismissed her pointed comment with an indifferent shrug of his broad shoulders. ‘But I doubt if we were ever married in the true sense of the word.’
‘And just what, in your opinion, is the true sense of the word?’
‘For better, for worse, to love and to cherish,’ Ricardo quoted cynically, making her wince inside as the words stabbed at her.
‘For richer for poorer…’ she flung back, refusing to let herself think of the other words—the ones that said in sickness and in health.
If only she had been able to turn to Ricardo at a time when those words had meant so much, then how different things might have been. But she had known from the start that their marriage was never meant to be as long as we both shall live. If she had never become pregnant then he would never have married her at all. It was only because of his determination that his son would be legitimate that he had ever put a ring on her finger.
‘For richer, certainly, in your case. You played your virginity like a trump card, withholding it from the poor Italian fisherman you first thought I was but only too keen to lose it to the rich man you then discovered me to be.’
‘If that’s the way you want to read it.’
It was the only way he’d ever read what had happened. He had never understood the very real fear that had held her back at their first meeting, forcing her away from him even though she’d feared she would never see him again. He would understand even less the bitter regret that had eaten at her for days afterwards, so that when she had met him again, in the very different circumstances of an elegant society party, she had been unable to hold back and, buoyed up on an unwise glass of champagne, had practically thrown herself into his arms.
‘And I did not play…’
‘You sure as hell did,’ Ricardo tossed back at her. ‘You played with both our lives—and the life of the baby we unwisely created between us. You told me…’
The temptation to put her hands over her face and hide from his anger—his justifiable anger—was almost overwhelming but Lucy forced herself to brave it out. She knew what she’d said. That she’d given him the idea that she was protected. But the truth was that she had been so wildly, blindly lost in sensation, in the heat and hunger that his kisses, his touch had aroused, that when he had muttered, ‘Is this OK? Are you all right?’ in a voice so thick and rough it betrayed only too clearly how close to losing control he was, she had only thought that he was considering her inexperience. She couldn’t have said no if she’d tried. The only word in her head had been yes, the only need in her body, in her heart, had been to know the full reality of this man’s sensual possession. And so, ‘Yes, oh, yes!’ had been her only possible response.
She had thought she was safe. The time of her cycle should have made her safe. But in that she had been stupid and naïve too.
‘And richer is what you really want me to discuss. So OK, let’s get to the real point. You wanted to know why I came here. I came to ask you just one question.’
‘And that is?’
‘How much will it cost me to get rid of you?’
‘Get…’
In the scrambled muddle of her thoughts, Lucy couldn’t decide if it was shock, fury or just plain horror that kept her tongue from being able to form an answer to his question. She could only stare at him in disbelief, her eyes wide.
‘It’s a simple question, Lucia.’ Ricardo’s voice was tight with impatience and exasperation. ‘Surely you can have no problem in understanding it. What I want to know is how much will you take to leave now, get out of here—and stay out of my life for good?’
COMING here had been a mistake, Ricardo told himself furiously. A big mistake. A bad mistake.
And a mistake that he should have seen coming if he had any sense. Which he obviously didn’t. At least not where Lucy was concerned.
But then sense had never been part of the way that he had reacted to this woman. His senses, yes.
Maledizione, he had always been at the mercy of his senses from the moment they had met. His mindless senses had rushed him into taking her to his bed, making her his—making her pregnant in the sort of stupid, irresponsible slipup that he hadn’t made even as a teenager.
It was those damn senses that had trapped him into a marriage that had been a mistake from start to finish.
And those same damn senses had been on red alert ever since he had walked into this room.
‘How much will I take…?’
She was looking at him now as if he had suddenly sprouted horns and a tail. Those blue eyes were wide with what he would have described as shock if he hadn’t known better. But of course he did know better. He knew just what his precious, greedy little wife was after, and all the pretence of shock and disbelief in the world wasn’t going to make him think otherwise.
‘You want to know how much it will cost you to have me leave?’
‘That was the question.’
At least she had stopped the soft-voiced attempt at seductive persuasion. The it doesn’t have to be like this…that she’d tried earlier.
She’d damn nearly had him with that. With the breathy note on the words that had made it sound as if she was totally overwhelmed at being here with him like this. Never before had he been so aware of the slender, curving shape of her in the clinging, worn jeans, the faded T-shirt. The scent of her body had seemed to surround him as he had looked down into the wide, wide eyes that had seemed almost hazy with need. And the soft touch of her hand on his skin…
Dio santo, but he had found it hard to resist that. That gentle touch had raised so many memories in his mind. Erotic memories that had had his body hardening in spite of his furious attempts to divert his thoughts onto other, less dangerous pathways. She had touched him like that on their first night together. Tentative, almost hesitant. As if she was shy and nervous.
Well, that shyness had pretty soon disappeared. It had evaporated like the mist over the lake at the first touch of the summer sun. In his arms she’d turned into a wild and seductive temptress. In his bed she had been the fulfilment of every sensual dream he could ever have imagined.
But they couldn’t live out their lives in bed.
‘So you’re offering me a pay-off?’
‘A settlement,’ Ricardo amended. ‘A generous settlement in return for a quick and quiet divorce—I’ll even take the blame, provide you with grounds if you want it that way. And then you get out of my life for good. You go and you stay away. I never want to see you again.’
How could he ever want to see a woman who was capable of walking out on her own child, leaving behind just a frivolous, careless note that told him the marriage was over and the baby—Marco—was his responsibility now?
She was considering the proposition. Considering it seriously. That much was obvious from the way that her expression had changed, the softness vanishing from her eyes just before she let her pale eyelids drop down to cover them, concealing her thoughts from him.
‘You really must want to be rid of me.’ Her tone was flat, no emotion showing in it at all.
‘Oh, I do,’ he confirmed, his tone deep with harsh sincerity. ‘Believe me, I do.’
‘And you’d pay anything I asked?’
Her jaw had tightened so much that it drew in her cheeks, narrowing the whole look of her face and making the words come out as stiffly and as jerkily as if they had come from the carved wooden mouth of a painted marionette. Blue eyes lifted briefly to look into his face in