LITMIR.BIZ

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baby was!

      * * *

      The day of the funeral was warm, thunder rumbled in the distance but the rain waited until after Sergio had been laid to rest in the family vault.

      The afternoon sun hit the study at the palazzo, and it was still uncomfortably warm as Raoul entered, putting his glass on the desk littered untidily with papers. He pulled open the French doors and stood there, eyes closed, breathing in the cool evening air before taking a seat in the padded leather chair beside the desk.

      The mourners who had come back to the house after the service were gone...and so was his grandfather. His eyes went to the open door. Even now, he half expected to see the old man framed in the doorway.

      But he wasn’t.

      Raoul had stood up and told the mourners that for Sergio Di Vittorio family came first.

      He could with equal honesty have added that the old fox had also been a master manipulator who could be utterly ruthless when it came to getting his own way.

      He had died thinking he had got his way one final time, Raoul thought as he lifted his glass in a silent salute.

      The twisted smile on his face vanished as he put down the glass, his thoughts sliding back to earlier when she had told him that they needed to talk. It was obvious what that would be about.

      Her future, the one she would have without him. It would be a good one. She had talent, though he doubted she recognised yet how much. She deserved good things, he told himself, ignoring the sinking feeling inside. If he analysed it he’d have to admit that he wanted her to stay—not for ever, obviously, because there was no for ever, but just for a while, just so that he could carry on enjoying her.

      When he’d met Lara his life had been disintegrating around him. He had lost or been losing everyone he’d ever cared for, but she had kept him afloat. Of course, having her around was going to make the next few weeks easier, but after that what...?

      After that, nothing, because Raoul knew he had nothing to give. He was disgusted with himself for it, but he knew that what he was good at was taking. He knew it would be easy to persuade Lara to stay longer; he knew he was good at manipulating her feelings. But for once he was not going to put his own selfish needs first.

      And then he could get back to life as usual.

      I thought you’d fallen off the planet, darling!

      At first he hadn’t even recognised the woman who had virtually collided with him in the street. Her name had continued to elude him as she’d pressed a kiss to his mouth. Just in time to save embarrassment it had come to him, along with the location of their fling a year or so ago.

      She’d looked at his wedding ring and aimed a speculative look at his face. ‘Married, but how married?’

      He’d made an excuse and left without responding to the question or the unspoken invitation in her carefully made-up eyes.

      That was his life, the one he had chosen, the one he would go back to, just as soon as he was done with Lara.

      Refusing to acknowledge the feeling that gathered strength inside him until it came perilously close to icy panic, he clenched his jaw and slowly rebuilt the barriers he had put up in order to survive his first marriage.

      He was better off alone.

      Not yet though; for the moment Lara was still here.

      Was she still asleep? It had been three when she had finally confessed to not feeling well and then only after a lot of prompting.

      Naomi had offered to help her to her bedroom and Raoul had looked in on her later, after the last of the mourners was gone. She had been fast asleep.

      A sound made him turn his head. Framed in the doorway where he had just imagined his grandfather was Lara, her hair long and loose, glowing against the black fabric of the simple shift dress she still wore. She didn’t move as their eyes connected.

      ‘Are you feeling better?’ he asked, refusing to acknowledge the tightening in his chest as anything other than a natural protectiveness. She nodded and walked into the study, her bare feet silent on the wood. Her eyes looked enormous in her pale face and the milky pallor of her smooth skin emphasised the delicate purity of her cleanly drawn features.

      ‘I’m fine,’ she lied, struggling to throw off the lethargy that seemed to weigh down her limbs. ‘I slept.’

      She had fallen into a deep sleep only to wake and find Naomi standing beside her bed, causing her to let out a startled squeal of alarm.

      ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you, but Raoul was worried and he asked me to look in.’

      If Raoul was so worried why couldn’t he look in himself? Even acknowledging the thought made her feel guilty; Raoul had buried his grandfather today and she was acting like an attention-seeking brat.

      ‘Thank you, I’m fine.’

      To her dismay the other woman sat down. ‘I hope you don’t mind,’ she began hesitantly, ‘but I’ve noticed... Well, I’ve got the impression,’ she corrected, ‘that you feel you’re living in Lucy’s shadow.’

      Lara was simply too astonished to respond.

      ‘You have nothing to live up to. Lucy was a bitch,’ she said simply.

      Lara thought she had misheard. ‘Pardon? I thought—’

      ‘She was a bitch.’

      ‘I thought she was your friend?’

      ‘She didn’t have friends, just people she used. She made Raoul’s life a misery, and she knew all along that he loved someone else, but they cannot be together. I am so happy to see that Raoul has someone to make him happy now. I’ll let you rest.’

      Lara watched her go, not knowing what to make of the one-sided conversation. It wasn’t just what she had said, it was the way she had said it...the secret little smile... She shivered, very much unsettled by the woman’s manner.

      Naomi hadn’t actually meant that she was the person Raoul couldn’t be with...had she? Lara thought about all the occasions she had seen them together or at least in the same room. There would have been signs, she’d have picked up the signals, wouldn’t she...?

      On the other hand, she had managed not to know she was in love with him for months. Maybe signals weren’t her thing. Did any of this even matter? She’d be out of his life soon...except that there would always be the baby... Would he even want to be part of the baby’s life?

      Just what she needed—another unanswered question to add to all the others!

      With a deep sigh she sat up and propped a pillow behind her head, running over Naomi’s words in her head again and again. The more she thought about it, the more it felt off somehow. As was the idea that Raoul’s marriage had not been happy, that his perfect wife had not been quite so, well, perfect.

      It seemed much more likely that Naomi had a thing for Raoul and was making up stories about a poor woman who couldn’t defend herself. The only way she’d know for sure was to ask him.

      ‘Now there’s a revolutionary thought, Lara,’ she whispered mockingly to herself, and made her way downstairs to find Raoul.

      * * *

      ‘Sorry I skipped out like that.’

      He shrugged, dismissing her apology as he dragged a hand across the dark stubble that already dusted his jaw and lean cheeks. He closed the laptop that had been sitting open on the desk. It was all for show—he hadn’t been able to focus on work or even read his emails or any of the messages of condolence.

      ‘I coped.’

      ‘It’s been a hard day for you.’ Her heart ached for him; he looked so tired, so sad.

      After a pause he acknowledged this with a tiny tip of his dark head, while privately acknowledging the fact

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