watched as Lara went forward, bending close to kiss the stiff cheek, something he had been unable to make himself do, before taking a chair and pulling it up beside the bed.
His grandfather spoke. The words perhaps had meaning in his head but they emerged slurred and garbled. Lara responded as though she understood what he was saying.
Raoul had no control over the emotion that broke free in his chest, and no cheque in the world, he decided, was big enough to repay the debt he owed her.
* * *
Half an hour later they walked side by side, not touching, to the car park.
‘Are you all right to drive home alone?’
She turned her head but the glistening sheen of tears in her eyes made his face a blur. ‘I could stay if you’d like?’
He stifled his instinctive response but the impulse disturbed him. There were times when he was aware that she gave more than he should expect and got very little in return. She played her part so well that often the ‘supportive wife’ act seemed real, not that he knew a lot about supportive wives, but he did know a lot about women who could act a part.
And that, after all, was what he had wanted. He had to remind himself that this was a job for Lara, not a life choice. And anyway, who in their right mind would choose to share their life with him?
Suddenly disgusted with his inability to face the truth and too tired to maintain the illusion, he accepted it. No relief came as he acknowledged that life with Lucy had broken him, he couldn’t give or receive love, and that was a disability as much as a lost limb.
The knowledge lay like a stone where his heart once was as he shook his head.
‘That isn’t necessary. What did you say that made him look so happy?’
She lifted her eyes to his face, took a deep breath, and admitted with a rush, ‘I told him I was pregnant.’
She watched as Raoul’s dark winged brows lifted and a shocked grunt vibrated in his chest. A series of emotions flickered across his normally guarded features, finally settling into an expression of warm approval that lit a responsive glow inside her.
Lara had never needed anyone’s approval in her life; even now with the glow inside her it was frightening to realise, to admit, how much she craved Raoul’s good opinion.
‘That 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
