he left, she went back to the bathroom and pulled out the pregnancy-testing kit she’d hidden under some toiletries. She’d bought six and this was the last one left.
Her last hope.
Only there was no hope—she knew that even before she saw the line appear on the strip.
She spent the morning with Sergio. Roberto joined them mid-morning and they spent time going through albums, looking at snapshots of Raoul and Jamie when they were boys. In all the photos she had seen, Raoul’s elder brother looked like a softer, fairer version of him—Raoul without the hard edges or dark outlook.
Though in the one that had got to her Raoul had had no edges. Nothing much more than a toddler, he had stood beside Jamie, staring not into the camera but up at his brother with an expression of childish adoration on his face.
The poignancy of it had filled her throat with tears that she couldn’t hold back. It was her hormones, she knew that, but the two men with her had tactfully pretended not to notice her emotional reaction as she’d excused herself and left the room, leaning against a wall in the hallway before she gave in to the gulping sobs that shook her body.
By lunchtime she felt so tired she couldn’t keep her eyes open so, after playing with the food laid out for her, she went to lie down.
She only intended to close her eyes but when she woke the clock told her she had slept for three hours. She’d missed her riding lesson.
She splashed some water on her face in the bathroom and, brushing back her hair, rubbed her pale cheeks to put some colour back into them before she went through to the bedroom.
Her heart stopped when she saw Raoul, who was hanging his jacket around the back of a chair. He looked up as she entered, his eyes darkening when he saw her.
‘You’re here...now... I thought...’
‘I thought you’d be out...you look...’ Raoul reached out, clamped an arm around her ribs, and pulled her into his arms. His kiss was bruising and hungry, driving the breath from her lungs. ‘Sorry about that, it’s just I’ve been thinking about it all day.’ He smoothed a copper strand from her cheek and kissed her again, more softly this time, his skilled lips gently moving across hers.
With a groan of reluctance he pushed her away from him and, heading towards the bathroom, growled, ‘Hold that thought,’ over his shoulder. ‘I’ve been shut in an office with broken air conditioning trying to soothe senior management fears that I’m about to sack everyone just for the hell of it.’
* * *
Lara sat on the bed listening to the shower, wondering how he was going to react to the news. Not well was a given. Feeling dizzy with anxiety, she walked across to the chair and picked up his jacket, intending to hang it up properly. Raoul’s phone slid onto the carpet and as she bent to pick it up she asked herself what she was scared of the most—becoming a mother or his reaction to the news he was to be a father.
For goodness’ sake, Lara, just deal with it, because it really isn’t going to go away.
A hint of defiance crept into her face as she looked at the phone, remembering all the times the shrill, teeth-clenching ringtone had proved there was always something more important than her in his life. With a determined little grimace she switched it off and guiltily slid it back into his pocket.
A moment later Raoul walked in, his dark hair slicked with water and his golden-toned skin gleaming like polished bronze against the dark towel he had looped low on his narrow hips.
Lara lurched from panic mode into weak-with-lust mode even before he reached her. The towel vanished as he laid her on the bed and slid a hand under her shirt over the warm skin of her narrow ribcage.
‘I want to talk, Raoul.’
He stopped nuzzling her neck long enough to smile his brilliant head-spinning smile and ran his tongue across her lips. ‘We can talk later.’
She had tried, she really had.
It was an hour later when she sat up in bed, pulling the sheet up to her chin.
‘We really need to talk, Raoul.’
‘I do not need to talk.’
She responded with a hissing sound of exasperation.
‘Now?’
She closed her eyes so she could ignore the invitation in his eyes.
‘Yes, now.’
‘Fine. I’m listening.’
‘Put on some clothes first.’
He looked bemused by the request and then smirked when she growled gruffly, ‘I can’t concentrate.’
‘Right, will this do?’
She nodded. She had used the time while he dragged on a pair of jeans and a sweater to retrieve her skirt and shirt from the crumpled heap.
When the silence stretched he arched an interrogative brow.
Lara nodded and began to clear her throat but before she could launch into speech there was an imperative hammering at the door.
Frowning, Raoul opened it, barking out a question in Italian to the member of his grandfather’s security team standing there.
The other man replied in the same language.
‘My grandfather collapsed and was taken to hospital two hours ago! Why,’ he responded in icily articulated English, ‘am I only hearing this now?’
‘It’s my fault.’
He swirled back to a miserable-looking Lara. ‘What?’
‘I turned off your phone,’ she admitted.
‘Why the hell did you do that?’
Lara shot a glance towards the staff member, who looked as uncomfortable as she felt. Raoul ignored the hint and raised a brow, intoning heavily, ‘I’m waiting.’
Resenting the fact that he was treating her like a naughty schoolgirl, she couldn’t deny how guilty she would feel if he didn’t get to say goodbye to his grandfather.
‘You looked so tired.’ This was one of those times when even part of the truth sounded lame.
‘I looked—!’ He bit off his incredulous rejoinder and grabbed his key. He spoke to the solemn-faced messenger in Italian too rapid for Lara to even begin to follow and waited until the man had gone before he turned back to her. ‘You’re in danger of taking your wifely duties a little too seriously. You’re here to look the part, not actually be it.’
She felt the heat of humiliation sting her cheeks. She’d crossed lines she hadn’t known were there before, and made inevitable social faux pas, but previously he’d never lashed out at her for it. ‘Fine. I’ll move into the guest room, shall I?’
‘That question might be academic.’ He gave her one last
