my wife.’ The word had always carried with it negative connotations...yet there had been times when he had said it recently when he had felt...proud...?
The interruption didn’t stop her; she’d gone too far and she had to know. ‘You know what I mean.’
He turned his head and directed a flat stare at her face. ‘No.’
‘I was asking—’
‘I know what you were asking.’ He gave a twisted smile. ‘I was answering. No, I was not happy, well, for about five minutes, but once I woke up, or grew up, or both, I was not.’
‘If you were unhappy why didn’t you just get a divorce?’ And marry the woman you apparently love so much but can’t have?
His mouth twisted into a parody of a smile as he turned to face her, dragging off the tie that was still looped around his neck as he did so. ‘In a perfect world I would have, but the world...’ he let the tie slip through his fingers and fall to the floor ‘...and life,’ he continued harshly, ‘are not.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Of course you don’t.’
How could she? There were no dark depths to Lara—she was the diametric opposite to Lucy, who on the surface had seemed so wholesome and sweet but the moment she was crossed revealed herself to be spiteful and vindictive, a person who thought the world revolved around her.
‘Then explain.’
Well, he certainly hadn’t learnt from his mistakes with Lucy—he had taken Lara at face value, and ignored the sweet, vulnerable angel beneath the beautiful but hard shell.
He’d clung stubbornly to the image, but each day together had eaten away at it until he couldn’t pretend any more.
Understand... How could she? Lara had a conscience and empathy; she had no desire to see those who thwarted her suffer; she didn’t need a constant, exhausting supply of attention and admiration or react with vicious spite when she didn’t receive the praise she felt she was entitled to.
‘Please, Raoul, I want to understand.’
The court-enforced appointments with the therapist following the hushed-up ‘incident’ that had left Lucy’s hairdresser with a black eye had been illuminating but not in themselves helpful.
At the end he’d known all about borderline personality disorders and malignant narcissists, but as Lucy had refused to accept she had a problem it had meant little in reality.
* * *
‘When I was married Jamie was never officially out. When he was still a student Jamie fell for a man who was...in a position of power, a married man, and they had a long-term affair. If the truth had emerged this man’s career, his marriage, his life would have been over. One night Jamie started to talk. We’d been to dinner, had a few drinks... Lucy was very sympathetic.
‘So when I told her that it was over she told me that if I filed for divorce she would out Jamie and his lover, that she would give interviews to every scandal sheet and tabloid she could find.’
Lara was appalled. She simply couldn’t get her head around anyone who wanted to hurt other people. ‘Your brother...’
‘Didn’t know.’ He rubbed a hand across his forehead. ‘The irony was, a month after she was killed in the crash he and his lover broke up; the next month he met Roberto.
‘Lucy was the heroine in her own life story. Every story heroine needs a villain and for her that was me. To understand Lucy you have to realise that she did not just need to win, she needed to take everything away from everyone else, turn their friends against them, strip them of pride; her lust for revenge was utterly insatiable.’
Lara shook her head, finding it impossible to reconcile the angelic image in her head with the...evil he spoke of.
‘The deal,’ he explained in the same flat voice, ‘was that we stay together...the public act was part of her punishment; she liked to see me helpless. She enjoyed flaunting her affairs, telling me she had aborted my child...laughing...’
Lara had sat dry-eyed and composed through the remembrance service; even when Raoul had paid his moving tribute to his grandfather she had kept the tears at bay. But now they flowed. ‘Oh, God!’ she sobbed. ‘How could she, how could anyone...be so...? A baby...’
‘She sent me a scan photo for my birthday, inside a daddy card.’
Lara pressed a hand to her mouth to hold the cry of horror inside. Like everyone else, she had looked at Raoul and seen the aura of power that he wore like a second skin, the cynicism, the edge of ruthless determination.
Now she saw the idealistic young man he had been before his first wife, the man he had been before he had been subjected to emotional torture by the person he had thought he loved. Her heart ached for him, the man he was and the man he could have been, had the evil woman not torn away his belief in goodness and love.
Would he ever heal?
Raoul felt an unfamiliar helplessness as he watched the silent tears fall down her face.
‘It is in the past and gone,’ he said abruptly. ‘I am the man I am now, and it’s better that I stay alone. I know not every woman is like Lucy, but I can’t trust anyone, and even if I could I have nothing to give that sort of woman, not the things she needs.’ His dark eyes held hers for a long moment. ‘Do you understand what I’m saying, Lara?’
‘You want to be alone. Doesn’t that mean she has won?’ He said nothing and she gave an angry sniff, choking out another gruff, ‘I’m sorry,’ while wiping away the moisture from her face with the back of both hands. ‘I would like to tear her hair out... She’s dead, that probably sounds terrible, but I don’t care!’ she cried.
‘I know terrible, and, trust me, that is not.’ He studied her pale face. ‘You look like you could do with a drink,’ he said, losing the battle to hide his concern.
‘You should have told me.’
‘Why? You think I want to advertise the fact I was a fool? I’ve never told anyone before—the whole world but you swallows the party line.’
The contempt in his voice made her wince. It was clearly aimed at himself. She didn’t say anything because there was nothing she could say. Instead, she watched him pour brandy, wondering how she could refuse without it seeming odd.
‘No, thanks, I won’t. Actually I think Naomi knows.’
‘Naomi?’ He thought about it and nodded. ‘I suppose she might know some—she and Lucy were close at one time, though I think she dropped her before the end,’ he recalled with an uninterested shrug. ‘And Lucy liked to boast about her triumphs.’
‘I know now is not the right time, but I really don’t think there’s ever going to be a good time.’
‘You want to make arrangements to leave.’ Eyes dark and bleak turned her way but his shrug was casual. ‘There’s no hurry.’
‘Good, no, I mean...’ She took a deep breath and thought, It’s now or never.
