LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER NINE

      ‘SO… WHAT DO you think? Does it meet with your approval?’ Renzo’s eyes didn’t leave Darcy’s profile as they stood in the grounds of the imposing manor house. A seagull heading for the nearby coast gave a squawk as it flew overhead and he could definitely detect the faint tang of salt in the air. A light breeze was ruffling his wife’s red curls, making them gleam brightly in the sunshine. How beautiful she looked, he thought—and how utterly unapproachable. And how ironic that the woman he’d spent more time with than anyone else should remain the most enigmatic woman of them all. ‘You haven’t changed your mind about living here now that it’s actually yours?’

      Slowly she turned her head and returned his gaze, those glittering emerald eyes filled with emotions he couldn’t begin to understand.

      ‘Ours, you mean?’ she said. ‘Our first marital home.’

      He shook his head. ‘No. Not mine. I’ve spoken with my lawyers and the deeds have been made over to you. This is yours, Darcy. Completely yours.’

      There was a moment of silence before she frowned and blinked at him. ‘But I don’t understand. We talked about it in Rome and I thought we’d agreed that a house in England was going to be the best thing for us.’ She touched the ever-increasing girth of her belly. ‘All of us.’

      Was she being deliberately naïve, he wondered—or just exceptionally clever? Did she know she had him twisted up in knots and he didn’t have a damned clue how to handle her? Because he was starting to realise that, despite his experience with women, he had no idea how to sustain a long-term relationship. He’d never had to try before. In the past he had always just walked away—usually because boredom had set in and he’d found the increasing demands tedious. But with Darcy he couldn’t do that. Furthermore, he didn’t want to. He wanted this baby so badly. It scared him just how badly. For a man who’d spent his life building things for other people—someone who considered himself urbane, sophisticated and cool—he hadn’t reckoned on the fierce and primitive pride he felt at having created the most precious thing of all.

      Life.

      But Darcy remained a mystery he couldn’t solve. She’d closed herself off to him since that night in Rome. She’d told him more about what he’d already known and the brutal facts had horrified him when he’d thought how tough her childhood must have been. He’d sat up for a long time that night after she’d rushed off to bed, drinking whisky until it had tasted stale in his mouth and gazing into space as he’d wondered how best to deal with the information. But he had dealt with it in the same way he dealt with anything emotional. He’d compartmentalised it. Filed it away, meaning to do something about it sometime but never getting round to it. She’d been asleep by the time he’d slid into bed beside her, her fecund body covered in one of his oversized T-shirts, sending out a silent signal to stay the hell away from her. He remembered waking up to a beautiful Roman morning with the air all clear and blue. They’d gone out for coffee and cornetti and he hadn’t said a word about her revelations and neither had she. She’d closed herself off from him again and he sensed that he could frighten her away if he didn’t let her take this thing at her own pace.

      But it hadn’t worked.

      Because now she looked at him so warily by day, while at night she still wore those infernal all-enveloping T-shirts and lay there quietly, holding her breath—as if daring him to come near. Had he handled it badly? If it had been any other woman he would have pulled her into his arms and kissed her until she was wet and horny—reaching for him eagerly, the way she used to.

      But she was not any other woman. She was his wife. His pregnant wife. How could he possibly ravish her when she was both bulky and yet impossibly fragile? Her skin looked so delicate—the blue tracery of her veins visible beneath its porcelain fragility—as if to even breathe on her might leave some kind of mark. And against her tiny frame, the baby looked huge—as if what her body had achieved was defying both gravity and logic, something which continued to amaze him. He’d even taken to working solely from home these past weeks, cancelling a trip to New York and another to Paris, terrified she was going to go into labour early even though there were still three weeks to go.

      ‘Let’s get inside,’ he said abruptly. He unlocked their new front door and stood back to let her pass and their footsteps sounded loud in a house which was still largely empty, save for the few pieces of furniture which had already been delivered. But at least it wasn’t cold. Despite the bite of early spring, the estate agent must have put on the heating—knowing that today was their first visit as official owners. The door swung closed behind them and he realised that she was still looking at him with confusion in her eyes.

      ‘Why have you put the house in my name, Renzo? I don’t understand.’

      ‘Because you need to have some kind of insurance policy. Somewhere to call home if—’

      ‘If the marriage doesn’t work out?’

      ‘That’s right.’

      She nodded as if she understood at last for her face had whitened, her eyes appearing darkly emerald against her pale skin.

      ‘But you said—’

      ‘I know what I said,’ he interrupted. ‘But I didn’t factor in that the situation might prove more difficult than I’d anticipated.’

      ‘You mean, my company?’

      ‘No, not your company,’ he negated impatiently, and then suddenly the words came bubbling out of nowhere, even though he hadn’t intended to say them. ‘I mean the fact that I want you so damned much and you don’t seem to want me any more. The fact that you’re always just out of reach.’

      Shocked, Darcy stared at him. So she hadn’t been imagining it. It had been lust she’d seen in his eyes and sexual hunger which made his body grow tense whenever she walked in the room. So why hadn’t he touched her? Why did he keep coming to bed later and later while keeping their days ultrabusy by whisking her from property to property until at last she’d fallen in love with this East Sussex house which was only eight miles from the

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