was kind.’
She paused. This was the moment, but was it the right moment? Did the right moment even exist...? Then right or wrong it was gone, and the correction stayed in her head.
‘Are you sure you’re all right to drive back alone?’ he asked again, noticing for the first time the pallor of her creamy skin and the faint shadows beneath her emerald eyes.
Had she lost weight recently? he wondered, his suspicions aroused as he took in the prominence of her delicate collarbones.
‘You’re not on some stupid diet, are you?’
Lara responded to his glowering disapproval with an odd little laugh and moved her head in a negative motion.
‘I’m fine.’ Pregnancy was not a disease, though she suspected the person who had said that had never suffered from morning sickness.
He made no comment but didn’t look entirely convinced as he pulled his eyes from the visible blue-veined pulse that beat at the base of her throat and directed a hard look at her face.
‘I thought I’d stay a while, sit with him.’ His dark eyes shifted to the low sprawling terracotta-tiled building behind them that looked more like a hotel resort than a private hospital. The one thing his grandfather had not wanted was to spend his last days in a hospital bed. But life was filled with things that a man wanted but could not have, he thought bleakly.
‘Let me stay, Raoul...?’
He shrugged. ‘What would be the point?’
She hid her hurt at the rejection under a smile and withdrew the hand she had extended towards him. ‘No point at all.’
* * *
The phone call she had been half expecting came just after midnight. Lara was sitting on the balcony of their bedroom breathing in the fragrance of the pines on the warm night breeze. It was the call she had been expecting, but not the caller.
‘Hello, Lara, I hope I didn’t disturb you.’
An image of the elegant, petite Italian brunette flashed into her head.
‘Not at all, Naomi,’ she said, wincing at the stiff formality of her response and wondering why she could never relax around the Italian woman.
‘Raoul asked me to ring you and let you know that Sergio passed away about an hour ago.’
Lara’s sadness was alleviated by the knowledge that the proud old man would not have to suffer any longer. ‘Thank you for letting me know. Raoul, is he at the hospital still? I’ll come—’
‘That’s fine, Lara, he asked me to tell you not to come. Don’t worry, I’ll look after him.’
* * *
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.
HOW WAS RAOUL?
‘I don’t know,’ Lara admitted. ‘It wasn’t really unexpected, but no one expected it to happen so soon. Raoul
