Ricardo shook his head in total rejection of the appeal in her voice, in her eyes.
‘I don’t want to hear it. There is no explanation that would justify such behaviour—none at all.’
‘But Rico…’
Too late she realised the mistake she had made. In her fear and panic she had slipped into the shortened, softened form of his name that she had once been able to use. And the way that his face closed up told her that, if it was possible, he hated her for it even more than before.
‘Please…’
But he was already turning away. She was dismissed from his thoughts, and his mind was already on something else as he turned to head back to where the lights inside the house gleamed out through the Gothic windows, emphasising the way that dusk had fallen as they had talked.
‘I don’t want to hear it,’ was his callous declaration, followed by an imperious flick of his hand towards the two security guards, still standing as silent, stolid observers of the scene before them.
‘Giuseppe…Frederico…escort Signora Emiliani off the island. Take her to wherever she is staying—and make sure she doesn’t come back.’
He paused just long enough to let the words sink in before adding with extra emphasis, ‘And this time make sure that you do the job properly. If she sets foot on this island ever again then you will both lose your jobs.’
Then he strode away, climbing up the slope towards the lights of the house without so much as a single glance back to make sure that his orders were carried out. He obviously had no doubt that they would be and that he could dismiss his soon-to-be ex-wife from his mind without a second thought.
LUCY was back.
Ricardo paced restlessly around the elegant white and gold sitting room, the glass of wine he had poured and then forgotten about still untouched in his hand. His thoughts were too preoccupied to allow him to drink, or even to let go of the glass his hand was clenched around, almost as if it was the arm of his errant wife, which he had held so tightly a short time before.
Lucy was back and in just a short space of time she had managed to throw his life into chaos just by reappearing in it.
‘Dannazione!’
He slammed the glass down ferociously onto the nearby table, watching without a flicker of reaction as some of the ruby-coloured liquid slopped over the side and landed on the polished wood.
Lucy was back and he was damned if he knew what she wanted.
She had come looking for money, she had claimed.
Well, yes, of course she wanted money. What the hell else would bring her crawling back into his life when she had flounced out of it so carelessly and selfishly just over six months before?
She had to need money because she would be missing the more than generous allowance he had given her from the moment she had agreed to become his wife. The allowance that she had gone through with such speed and almost a compulsion in the weeks after Marco had been born. Then she had thrown money away on anything and everything that took her fancy, often buying half a dozen or more of the same item, in as many different colours as were available.
And then, more often than not, she’d discarded them when she’d grown tired of them, often without even wearing them, he recalled.
She must miss that allowance now that it was no longer hers. He’d cut off the supply of money as soon as he’d known that she’d left him—and the baby. At the time he’d foolishly thought that by cutting off her income he would bring her out of hiding more quickly, force her to come back to ask for more so that he could at least try to persuade her that her child needed her. But she had disappeared completely, vanished off the face of the earth, and even the extensive enquiries he had set in motion had been unable to track her down.
But she had to have lived somewhere and, with her bank account frozen, everything she had managed to stash away would soon have been used up so that she would have to come looking for more.
‘No.’
Speaking the word out loud in the silence of the empty room, Ricardo shook his head as he moved over to the huge, high window that looked out across the lake and over towards San Felice del Benaco.
No, she wanted more than money. She had declared that she wanted a divorce, that she was putting in a claim for a ‘decent settlement’. But, if that was what she wanted, why had she come creeping onto the island in secret, sneaking round to where he had been in the garden, watching him walking with Marco…
Marco!
Ricardo’s hands clenched into such tight fists that if he had still held the wineglass it would have shattered in his grip.
Was Marco the real reason that Lucy had come back? Was she in fact here to try to get her hands on the baby son she had abandoned so heartlessly?
He’d die rather than let her! And no court in the country would give her custody after the way she had walked out on her child before he was even old enough to know her.
I can explain!
Lucy’s voice sounded inside his head and in his thoughts he could see her face, pale in the gathering dusk, as she had turned to him. What explanation could justify her behaviour?
But what if there was some explanation—some justification that she could use against him? What if she had some story that she could take to court and try to claim custody of the baby—his son?
‘Dannazione, no!’
That was never going to happen. He’d make sure of that. There was one way he could ensure that his troublesome wife never got her hands on the baby she had abandoned so heartlessly. Lucy needed money and she would have as much as she wanted—more money than she could ever have imagined in her dreams…
…but at a price.
Snatching up the phone, Ricardo pressed a speed dial number and waited impatiently, long fingers tapping restlessly on the table top until someone answered.
‘Giuseppe…’ he snapped as soon as he heard the other man’s voice at the end of the line. ‘My wife—Signora Emiliani…’ His tongue curled in distaste as he made himself say the name. ‘When you escorted her home, where exactly did you take her?’
Lucy couldn’t sleep.
No, the truth was that she didn’t want to sleep or even try to. If she so much as lay down on the bed and closed her eyes then images of the evening floated in her mind.
Images of Ricardo, tall and dark and devastating as ever.
Ricardo walking down the stone steps, along the grass. His long lean body silhouetted against the distant lake, his voice carrying to her on the still air of the evening.
And then that other sound, the faint, whimpering cry…
Marco.
Her baby.
Pain lanced through her, cold and cruel. A choking sob escaped her as she wrapped her arms around her body, feeling that she had to hold herself together or she would fall apart completely.
‘Oh, Marco…’
The little boy’s name was a moan of despair. Lucy moved to the small, high window and leaned against the wall, staring out across the darkened lake.
‘So near and yet so far.’
Out there was her baby—her little son. Her arms felt empty and her heart ached with the longing to hold him. But if her visit to the island this evening had told her one thing it was that Ricardo was going to fight her every inch of the way.