screwed up her mouth, digging her teeth into her full lower lip as she pushed her hair behind her ears. The motion drew attention to the plaster on the back of her hand; the sight of it was an unwelcome reminder of the events of yesterday.
The flash of exasperation that tautened his sculpted features gave way to something between panic and tenderness as he watched a tear trace its way down her pale, smooth cheek.
Lara brushed the moisture away angrily and yelled, ‘Don’t look at me like that. It’s my decision and if you go behind my back and tell them I’ll never ever forgive you!’ Her chest heaving with the strength of the emotions that were tearing her apart, she poked a finger at him and added a quivering postscript, ‘I mean it, Raoul!’
‘So I see.’
Anger she could have dealt with, but the half-quizzical smile that suggested he was pleased she was yelling at him drove a stake through her carefully crafted façade, cracking it wide open.
‘Lily won’t tell me who the father is, so she’s keeping secrets too.’ The hurt she hadn’t even admitted to herself quivered in Lara’s voice and she rubbed her hands up and down her upper arms.
Raoul pulled off the jacket he was wearing and laid it across her shoulders, not fighting the impulse that made him kiss the top of her glossy, burnished head.
Lara lifted her head and sniffed. Her beautiful eyes were red-rimmed and swimming, her full lips quivering. ‘I w-want to be happy for her.’ She swallowed hard and bit her lip. ‘But I’m not a nice person. I just keep thinking, why should she get a baby and not me...why my baby...?’ She bent her head again and covered her face with her hands, mumbling through her fingers, ‘I must be a bad person.’
Her muffled words threatened to break through his control. Holding her would make him feel one hell of a lot better, but was it what she needed at the moment?
‘Self-pity,’ he drawled, ‘doesn’t suit you, cara. That’s better,’ he approved warmly when her hands fell away and she shot him a teary but angry glare. ‘I’m sorry that things are not good between you and your sister,’ he added softly.
She sniffed and explained with husky, hard-won composure, ‘I miss... I mean, I don’t know what she’s thinking or anything but we never used to hide things from one another, we shared.’ She gave a loud sniff and made a pathetic attempt to smile that just about broke his heart. ‘You don’t want to hear this.’
It was true, he didn’t, because he didn’t enjoy feeling guilty. A major contributing factor in the situation that had led to the deterioration in the relationship between Lara and her twin must have been his insistence she not divulge the true circumstances behind their marriage. Hell, who was he kidding? This was his doing!
Since he’d walked into Lara’s life he’d done nothing but cause her heartbreak and pain.
‘If you like I could speak to her?’
‘You!’ Her incredulity at the casual offer was almost as great as Raoul’s own. ‘What would you say?’
He stayed silent because quite frankly he didn’t have a clue and he had no idea what had driven him to make such a pointless gesture.
How about guilt?
‘There’s been no falling out as such...it’ll be fine,’ she insisted dully. ‘I’m just feeling a bit fragile.’
‘You’re allowed.’ His jaw clenched.
The trouble with Lara was she didn’t cut herself any slack. Plus, she never asked for help, which, combined with her bloody-minded attitude, meant that if you did make a suggestion she was pretty much guaranteed to do the opposite. A ‘no comment’ policy was the safest bet—though not always the most fun.
A quiet life was overrated.
His half-smile faded as he realised what he was doing—remembering make-up sex when she was some place close to hell. You’re a shallow bastard, he thought.
Yes, she could be a total pain, outspoken, bolshie, opinionated...but he would have welcomed being on the receiving end of any or all of these undesirable qualities if it meant banishing the haunted look from her eyes.
Lara shook her head. ‘Look, I know it’s fashionable but I really don’t need talking therapy.’
She had already rejected the clinic’s offer to put her in contact with a grief counsellor. She really couldn’t see how talking about something so personal, exposing her innermost feelings to a total stranger, would make anything better. No, Lara thought, she would do what she always had done with painful emotions and memories—she was going to build a great wall, shut them behind it and get on with her life.
‘I just want to go home.’
LARA REMEMBERED THE first time she had walked into the entrance hall of the palazzo and got her first impression of the grandeur and history of the ancient building. Her voice had echoed around the vaulted ceiling while Raoul’s ancestors had looked down at her from the stone walls with varying degrees of disapproval.
She’d bumped into a suit of armour and tried to pretend she wasn’t daunted, but she had been, even though she had grown up in the shadow of a very different but equally impressive historic house where her parents had worked, and where her mum was still housekeeper.
Today as she walked in, the smell of the hospital still lingering on her clothes, the stone walls lined with priceless tapestries felt like a haven. They felt like home.
When had that happened?
‘What are these?’
‘I have no idea,’ Raoul admitted, walking across the room ahead of her to the items arranged on the heavily carved and inlaid table that took centre stage.
He turned and waved her to the table. ‘For you.’
‘Me?’
He watched the emotions on her face as she moved along the line, looking at one gift and then the next. She turned back to him holding the bouquet of prize roses grown by the palazzo’s head gardener, a surly, monosyllabic individual who grew them for the horticultural event he won every year—the blooms were normally off-limits to everyone.
She closed her eyes and inhaled the heady fragrance. ‘Marguerite has cooked me my favourite biscuits, those lovely little almond ones.’ Her throat closed over with emotion as she picked up an offering she had missed, a glossy magazine tied with a fluorescent bow.
‘Rosa,’ she said with a smile even before she glanced at the attached card.
‘Who is Rosa?’
‘One day she’ll be famous, but right now she helps in the kitchen. She’s halfway through a fine arts degree. I pass on my magazines to her.’
Small wonder she was so popular with the staff. In the comparatively short time she had been here Lara had come to know more about the people who lived and worked on the estate than he did.
