LITMIR.BIZ

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      It was around three in the morning when Raoul arrived back at the palazzo. Lara heard him and called out from the library where she’d been awaiting his return.

      ‘I thought you might come.’ He struggled to keep the note of irrational accusation out of his voice. Naomi had relayed Lara’s message that she wouldn’t be coming.

      ‘I don’t blame Lara one bit. Who wouldn’t want to stay in their warm bed? The last section of that road would be any tourist’s nightmare, Raoul.’

      He felt a stab of guilt. Naomi had been really supportive and his response to her comment had been a lot sharper than he’d intended.

      ‘Lara isn’t a tourist, she’s my wife.’

      But for how much longer?

      Finally acknowledged, the question refused to go back to the dark corner he had consigned it to. Such avoidance was not like him. Raoul could only suppose that his behaviour had been influenced by his grandfather’s determination not to live his last days in fear of the future but instead extracting every last ounce of pleasure from the time he had left.

      Not that the future involved any fear for Raoul, not even any major inconvenience. He had left nothing to chance; the arrangements were in place to painlessly dissolve this marriage when it had served its purpose.

      Admittedly, knowing that the moment was passing made him realise just how much pleasure it had held. And though he had refused to acknowledge how risky this strategy was, he admitted now that this could have turned out very badly indeed. Marrying Lara to make his grandfather’s last days happy could have been a major crash and burn.

      But though living with a woman who threw herself at everything, be it a pasta dish, a walk on a beach or sex with uninhibited enthusiasm, might be at times exasperating, it was also exciting. She perfectly encapsulated living in the moment.

      Thinking about a future minus that excitement deepened the furrow between his strongly delineated brows but a woman like Lara demanded more time than a man like him could offer.

      Couldn’t, wouldn’t, won’t...?

      His comment and his accusing attitude bewildered Lara. ‘Naomi said you didn’t want me to.’

      The furrow between his dark brows deepened even more; she had obviously misunderstood. ‘I took her home.’

      Of course you did, she thought, standing motionless as the sick, angry jealousy grabbed her in a chokehold. ‘How come she was at the clinic?’

      ‘Her husband is there having some treatment.’

      The explanation immediately made Lara feel ashamed of her gut response; the woman had never been anything but kind to her and if Raoul had friendships with other women it was not her business. If it was more than friendship? It still wasn’t really her business.

      ‘You look tired.’

      He shrugged and walked across to the bureau. She watched as he poured brandy into the bottom of a heavy tumbler and raised it to his lips. ‘To you, you old bastard.’

      Her nostrils twitched as the aroma produced a wave of acid nausea in her stomach. ‘It might help to talk.’

      Catching her worried gaze, he emptied the glass in one swallow. ‘I don’t want to talk.’ He dragged a hand through his dark hair. ‘I don’t want to think... I just want—’ He reached out towards her, his eyes burning with unvarnished need.

      Then before she could react his hand fell. A spasm of self-loathing contorted his dark features as he slammed the glass down. He was using her and acting as if it were all right.

      ‘I’ll sleep in the study tonight.’

      Lara was utterly confused by his mixed signals but also by the morass of conflicting emotions. She put it down to crazy hormonal changes and cried herself to sleep in the bedroom alone.

       CHAPTER NINE

      HOW WAS RAOUL?

      ‘I don’t know,’ Lara admitted. ‘It wasn’t really unexpected, but no one expected it to happen so soon. Raoul has been busy with arrangements...with the funeral.’ The event, which was being attended by more than one state leader, required a lot of planning, yet another excuse for her to delay telling him about the pregnancy. And anyway it seemed to Lara that he was avoiding her.

      Maybe as far as he was concerned the contract between them was already over?

      ‘Ring me tomorrow when it’s over...?’

      It’s already over! ‘Sure,’ she managed dully, suddenly feeling more alone than ever before.

      ‘Look, you know I’d really like to come, to support you if I could, and so would Mum...’

      Lara closed her eyes and fought back tears. ‘It’s fine.’

      ‘It’s not. It’s just that I have a hospital appointment tomorrow and Mum is coming with me.’

      Lara’s stomach muscles tightened. ‘You’re ill?’

      ‘No, the thing is, I’m pregnant.’

      ‘Pregnant!’

      ‘Yep, and at the moment I’m as sick as hell.’

      Tell me about it!

      Lara just stopped herself, biting her tongue hard enough to make her wince. It was so tempting to offload, to share something she had in common with her twin, but she couldn’t tell Lily before she told Raoul. She would tell him...when the right time came.

      ‘I thought it was supposed to end after three months.’

      The implication of the comment hit Lara. ‘Three months...so how far along are you?’

      ‘Twenty weeks...it’s not just you I haven’t told, Lara. I’ve not told anyone. I think I was pretty much in denial, but now I’ve kind of exploded overnight.’

      Lara barely registered the forced humour in her sister’s voice. ‘You’re five months pregnant.’ She pressed a hand over her own still-flat stomach. ‘You were pregnant at the wedding?’ There had never been any psychic connection but shouldn’t she have sensed it? How could she have, when she’d been too busy keeping her own secrets to guess her twin might also have something to hide?

      ‘It was your day, Lara.’

      My day... She stared at her hands, feeling the tears that flowed too easily well hotly beneath her eyelids. She blinked them back and focused on the gold band that encircled her finger, suddenly aware her sister had been talking and she didn’t have a clue what she’d said.

      She lifted the gold band to her lips, remembering him sliding it on and how right it had felt. Without warning, the protective shield she had been hiding behind slid away, revealing a truth she could no longer run away from. She was staring at the truth...the glaringly obvious truth.

      She’d told herself she was acting, that it wasn’t real, but it was real. She was in love with Raoul—he had warned her not to but she had anyway.

      He was everything she’d been determined to avoid in a man and yet he was everything she needed, she craved... She closed her eyes, wishing herself back to a time when she had imagined you could control who you fell in love with, that you could choose safe love, when in reality you had no more control over love than the colour of your eyes.

      The level of her blind stupidity seemed incredible. Love had nothing to do with self-control or common sense; she had no choice whether to love Raoul and it didn’t matter if he wanted that love, if he rejected it and her.

      She loved him with a soul-deep passion and would carry on loving him even after he broke her heart.

      The rest of the phone conversation was stilted and awkward

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