LITMIR.BIZ

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ever going to happen again. Never, damn it.

      ‘So now…’ his voice was rough with the effort of control ‘…I’ve waited long enough. I want an explanation and I want it fast.’

      For a couple of seconds Lucy’s mind hazed over as she struggled to find the words with which to answer him. Once again that warning voice sounded in her head and she acknowledged the fact that she couldn’t let Ricardo see into the real depths of her heart. To do so would be to make herself too vulnerable, too exposed and defenceless. And she knew that, hating her as he did, Ricardo would take great delight in using her deepest need against her. He would exploit the overwhelming longing to see her baby again like a weapon and he could hurt her terribly that way, wrenching her heart into so many little pieces that it would be impossible to put it back together again.

      ‘Lucia…’

      Her name was a warning, a command and a threat all rolled into one and simply hearing it made her mouth dry in panic so that she had to swallow long and hard in order to find the strength to answer him.

      ‘I…’ she began, but he had already started to speak again, too impatient, too angry to wait for her to find the words.

      ‘Just tell me why you are here and what you want!’ he snapped. ‘I’ve wasted too long on you when I have better things to do.’

      ‘Better things like what?’ Lucy challenged, stung by his dismissive tone. ‘Signing more contracts? Making more millions? Or perhaps you have some hot babe waiting for you…’

      The words shrivelled on her tongue as the image that they conjured up scorched her brain. She struggled to try to force away the memory of Ricardo in bed, as she had seen him so many times during their brief marriage, his jet-black hair ruffled and his bronzed skin dark against the whiteness of the sheets. She couldn’t allow herself to remember how it had been. To do so would destroy what little was left of her self control and she knew that if Ricardo spotted just the slightest chink in her carefully protective armour then he would pounce.

      But she had reacted too slowly. He’d already seen it and he had no hesitation in taking advantage of it.

      ‘What’s the matter, cara?’ he drawled cynically. ‘You’re not jealous, surely?’

      ‘What would I have to be jealous about?’

      ‘What, indeed? After all, you were the one who declared that our marriage was over, and then walked out.’

      Leaving your baby behind. He didn’t actually say the words but he didn’t have to. It was as if they hung there between them, big and dark and carved from ice.

      And she knew that she was being a coward by avoiding them but she didn’t dare bring the subject out into the open. Certainly not in front of the two muscular security men who were hovering just within hearing distance, obviously waiting for Ricardo to give a command so that they could take whatever action he demanded.

      ‘And now you’re back. And I’m wondering why.’

      ‘Why not?’

      Lucy aimed for bravado and missed it by a mile. She could only wince inside as she heard how sharp and brittle her voice sounded in the stillness of the evening, with just the faint lap of the lake water against the shore to break the almost total silence.

      ‘After all, this was my home…’

      No, blustering had been a mistake. She knew it immediately from the way that those brilliant black eyes narrowed sharply, always a danger sign in this man who had once been her husband. When his face changed like that, sensual mouth clamping tight shut, eyes seeming like gleaming slits above his carved cheekbones, then she knew he was at his most ruthless, his most coldly furious.

      ‘My home,’ Ricardo corrected coldly. ‘A home that you only had a place in as my wife. A home you said you hated—a home you couldn’t wait to turn your back on.’

      The coldly obdurate way that he had said my home seemed to sear across her skin, burning away all trace of caution and pushing her into a total change of mood. He couldn’t have made it plainer that she no longer had a place in his life, that he didn’t want her here. She had only been tolerated because she’d been pregnant with his child, the heir to his fortune. Once she had given birth to Marco, all the tenuous value she had possessed had vanished. After that Marco had become an Emiliani and she…she had become nobody—not needed, not wanted.

      Her fingers itched to slap that coldly ruthless look from his face but she knew that any such action would be a mistake—if only because of the still watchful, wary presence of the two security guards.

      But there was more than one way to skin this particular cat and a wicked imp of inspiration told her exactly what to say to have the same effect verbally if not physically.

      ‘Ah, but I’ve had a rethink since then and changed my mind. After all, I am still your wife, if only in name.’

      ‘And only in name is all you’ll ever be.’

      ‘Fine.’

      Lucy forced herself to give sort of a smile, knowing very well that it brought no light to her eyes and so made her look distant and disdainful.

      ‘And as soon as I can arrange a divorce then I’ll get rid of your name with relief. But there’s one thing that came out of our marriage that I do want.’

      ‘Of course…’ Ricardo’s arrogant gesture seemed to throw her words back at her in savage dismissal. ‘I should have known that you’d come looking for the money you think you’re entitled to.’

      The fact that he thought she had come for money—and only for money—incensed Lucy, making her want to lash out, hurt as she was hurting. She was glad that she hadn’t even mentioned Marco. Being the cold hearted man that he was, Ricardo was capable of flinging any request to see her son back in her face and walking away. But at least he had given her the opportunity to get in a few hits of her own before she revealed the truth.

      ‘Not think, Ricardo—know. As your wife, then legally I’m entitled to a decent settlement.’

      Could those dark eyes narrow any more? Half-closed though the lids might be, they still seemed to have the burn and force of a laser as they were directed at her face.

      ‘Didn’t you spend enough when you were here? As I recall, you damaged my bank balance pretty badly just before you left.’

      The cruel words slashed like a blade, slicing into her heart, into her control and destroying every bit of command she had over it.

      ‘I wasn’t myself then! I was ill!’

      To her shock and horror, Ricardo’s reaction to her desperate admission was to throw his proud head back and laugh out loud. The sound echoed across the open space, seeming to swirl around the small bay and come back at them, dark, eerie and frighteningly cold.

      ‘Of course you were ill.’

      Hearing the sudden quietness of his voice, the complete ebbing away of even the dark humour, Lucy felt her head spin as if someone had just slapped her hard in the face, knocking her for six.

      Was it possible that he believed her? That he actually understood?

      ‘Oh, yes, you were ill, all right—you’d have to be sick to behave as you did. Sick to walk out and leave your baby behind.’

      ‘It wasn’t like that!’

      She had to try to protest, even if she knew that he wasn’t listening. The deliberate way that he had changed the words around so that he had exchanged the word ‘sick’ for ‘ill’, with its very different emphasis and meaning, told her all that she needed to know.

      Ricardo’s mind was totally closed against her. She could try to explain all she liked. She could offer any possible explanation to exonerate herself and he wasn’t going to believe her. He wasn’t going to listen and that was that.

      But

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