getting you there, cara, that can be problematic.’
‘You arrogant—’ she gasped, her voice vanishing as they faced one another, panting, their mingled breaths crystallising into an electrical charge that vibrated in the air around them.
‘Lara, I’m—’
She was leaning into him, her luscious lips a breath away from his, when a loud tap on the door made her blink like someone waking.
‘Come in!’ she yelled, before adding a warning, ‘Hush!’ as Raoul swore.
‘Sorry to disturb you, but the caterers have a problem with the ice sculptures. They say they can’t work with—’
Raoul’s groan drowned out the rest of the woman’s words. He didn’t have a clue who she was but he’d seen her about the place the past week.
Lara shot him a cold glance. ‘Don’t worry, Sara, I’ll come and have a word, just give me a moment, would you?’ She waited until the door shut before she rounded on Raoul. ‘Do you have to be so rude?’
‘Me!’
‘Yes, you! Would it kill you to smile? You make her nervous.’
‘I don’t seem to make you nervous.’
‘You make me—!’ She gave a little gasp that drowned out whatever it was she was going to say.
He found his anger shifting, giving way to reluctant concern as he realised how fragile she was looking. Her make-up might hide the shadows underneath her incredible eyes but it didn’t disguise the sharpness of her delicately carved collarbones.
‘Have you ever heard of delegation?’
Her determination to be involved in every aspect of this charity ball meant that there had been times when he had made time to be with her, and, rather than appreciate the effort he was making, she’d stood him up, for a florist! Oh, and, how could he have forgotten? A bottled-water supplier!
He liked to think his ego was fairly resistant but rain check...?
It wasn’t that he felt neglected, it was not as though he expected her to be at his beck and call—the idea was laughable—but the dark shadows under her eyes were not. But as much as Raoul found the entire thing a pain, he couldn’t help but admire the way she’d thrown herself into it.
But then, that was Lara. She never did anything at less than full throttle, he brooded, floating a glance over her sleek, sexy outfit. His opinion that the outfit was not fit for public consumption did not stop his blood heating and his body hardening. He frowned, imagining that he wouldn’t be the only man she had this effect on tonight.
‘What are you going to do, serve the soup and conduct the orchestra?’
His disdain brought an angry flush to Lara’s cheeks. Not breaking eye contact, she lifted her chin to a determined angle. ‘I want everything to be perfect. Would it have been too much to expect a little support?’
She had no intention of admitting that there had been many times when she’d wished she’d never started it.
Even if the person she was doing it for wasn’t impressed... She blinked away the thought. This wasn’t about impressing anyone, this was about charity.
‘Why? What does it matter? People will get drunk and say things they regret the next morning. You’re not being judged. It’s all in your mind,’ he said, tapping his own head.
‘You just criticised the way I look.’ She took a step towards him and lifted her chin. ‘I’d call that judging, caro.’
She curled her fingers around the ornate handle of her mask and held it up. It covered the upper half of her face, leaving her lush, crimson-painted lips and rounded chin visible while through the slits her eyes sparkled like the green gems around her neck.
‘I may not be able to make a baby but I can damned well organise a party!’ Her defiance melted away as her words hung there in the air between them.
She was acting as though she’d just made some great reveal. But Lara was not telling Raoul anything he didn’t already know. The timing had said it all. She had picked up the masked-ball baton and hit the ground running a day after their last big fight about IVF.
With a sigh, Lara dropped her hand. What good was there in hiding behind a mask when she’d just volunteered all her insecurities? Thanks to her big mouth. It would take more than some papier mâché to hide them now.
The siren had vanished, her face stripped bare of provocation; it was impossible not to feel her pain.
‘Nobody has said you...we...can’t have a baby.’ He had humoured her with the tests but he might as well not have bothered. They had been given the all-clear, but every month her wild optimism gave way to dark depression. The cycle was relentless.
‘Then why hasn’t it happened?’
He closed his eyes at the constant cry. ‘Maybe,’ he ground out, ‘because you are constantly so uptight! Relax and forget about it for a minute, stop taking your temperature every five minutes. Stop obsessing about getting pregnant and it might happen.’
Lara compressed her lips. Easy for him to say. He wasn’t the one waiting for someone to call time on the marriage if she failed. It would be easy for him, he had no emotional investment in it, he could just shrug and walk away, find someone else to continue the genetic line. It was his line, not hers, that was important here.
She was not denying that he had put time and effort into their marriage, more than she had expected if she was honest, but he hadn’t put his heart into it.
But she couldn’t cry foul. She’d known what she was getting into, had agreed to it all with her eyes open, and he had never pretended he wanted anything other than a baby. The voice of reason in her head made her fling out bitterly, ‘I’m not even sure you have a heart!’
This seemingly disconnected and unreasonable accusation made his sympathy shrivel and his paper-thin patience come closer to vanishing totally as he drawled, ‘I didn’t think it was my heart you were interested in.’
The irony of complaining about being treated like a sex object by a gorgeous and desirable woman was not wasted on him. He was sure that most men would envy his position and while there were many plus points—he had no problem with the fact that she couldn’t seem to get enough of him, that she melted at his touch—he couldn’t quite rid himself of the suspicion that was nagging at the back of his mind: was her desire real, or was it just the right time of her cycle?
You’re just never satisfied, are you, Di Vittorio? What the hell do you want—love...? On that grounding mental observation he took a deep breath and decided to be reasonable. He might even wear the damned mask!
‘Anyone would think you’d like for me to fail!’
Reason forgotten, he’d chucked his mask out of the window and hadn’t responded to the accusation. To do so would have been to throw himself into an emotional minefield.
Instead, he had let her leave, her sweeping exit only spoiled by the fact that she’d had to come back for her shoes, which rather ruined the dramatic effect.
